Recent happenings

It's a hive of activities here. Whenever I am not working on my dissertation, I'd either be doing sports, attending talks, applying for jobs (everywhere), attending functions or entertaining friends. The activities for the past two weeks....

Brian organised a BBQ at his place but it rained. So we had our food cooked at his home instead. One of the things Christine (Brian's wife) prepared was strawberry meringue (it's in season now, yay!) with cream. The photos made the strawberries looked so delicious. It really was!

Attended Effendi's graduation ceremony. I just found out students in Cambridge can attend the function without a ticket as long as they donned a gown. Effendi is Aeni's brother and Aeni's elder sister was formerly from Gamuda, where I worked. What a small world...

And then a punting trip to Grantchester. My 2nd attempt to punting.

Going right into the bushes was a normal occurence for amateurs like me. I've only clocked 0.09 punting-kilometers through my first attempt months ago. This is what happens when an amateur punts....

Others suffer as a result of my incompetence...and when the unexpected happens...The pole got stuck in the middle of the river and we had to turn back to get it! You can see our friend was obviously peeved...

New Toy

Finally, I have gotten myself a new camera- the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7. This time with a 12X Optical Zoom (it never stops to get any bigger!) and it's 6MP, double the resolution of my old one, but still not the highest available in the market. I guess the market's at 10.1MP but I'm fine with 6. After all, I'd most likely set to 2MP most of the time. Other things about the camera - runs on SD card, Leica lens, image stabiliser, new joystick control and weighs 310g only! More photos soon....

Terror Alert in London

I had planned to visit Poh today in London since it was his last day here before he takes on a job with Shell Malaysia. Unaware of what has happened over in London, I firmed up the plan and decided to meet him in the afternoon and stay over to help him pack his stuff.

Then I heard on the radio news that the police has sealed off Haymarket due to a car bomb threat. Haymarket is smacked in between Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square. You'd probably pass through Haymarket on your way to Charing Cross. What's in those places? Musical theatres, pubs, restaurants, Chinatown and shopping complexes like the Trocadero! So, you can imagine there'd be $H!T loads of people including tourists. I'd probably be there too if I had to meet Poh today. But why am I blogging about it? Even if I were there, the bomb has already been discovered and I'd be safe anyway. So what's the big deal?


Personally, thinking about it sends shivers to my spine. I mean, it could have gone off anytime if it weren't found! And if it weren't found, there'd be no news and if there were no news, I'd be there. Again if it weren't found, no one would know the time of detonation. So, anyone who were fated to pass by that place today and did not make it has their Gods to thank for..and yea the drunk driver who knocked on the Mercedes Benz!

There's a Chinese saying that "sometimes a small fortune in life is sacrificed unexpectedly so that the bad omen is ward off from befalling onto you". Call it superstition, but I did think about my camera for a moment. Hahaha....sorry if it was such an anti-climax reading it but it's true you know.

Just as I was writing this, I read that a second car bomb was found in Cockspur Street, a stone's throw from Haymarket (like Lot 10 to Plaza Imbi, maybe?).

When you put images of people, tourists, the crowds and all into those places, you just can't help but shudder when you think about the "what ifs" and the only colour you see is red...

**Hey Poh, sorry to have bundled a farewell wish to you with such an unkind subject**


P/S: All photos except the last from BBC's website.

No more camera

I lost my camera. No more photos for now until I get a new one, which will take some time. It's been with me since late 2005 and am feeling really bad about it. In fact, I just upgraded to a 1GB card! Sigh...

Paris and Disneyland

Semy who's studying in Paris lent a helping hand in locating the Halal shops around Paris. I met her for 3 minutes before she needed to leave for Lille.

I knew I had to start writing about my recent trip to Europe lest I would just let it go and write something else. This was what happened in my previous European trip posting. I stopped at Neuschwanstein and left the whole chunk of Austria and Germany (Salzburg, Vienna and Frankfurt) unwritten. So I'm sorry if you were waiting for postings on that. I have reached the point of no return! I told myself to write something..anything about the trip is still better than nothing. After all, it's only Paris and Amsterdam...and if you count Disneyland as another place. Oh, so you can see I found blogging a chore now!

I had a "triangular" tour doing London-Paris-Amsterdam. I took the Eurostar to Paris. It was a wonderful experience taking the European bullet train and crossing the Channel Tunnel. There's nothing I could see in the tunnel, so let's not shout about it. But the train, I must say was a much smoother and quieter ride than the shinkansen (bullet train) in Japan. Maybe the trains in Japan were much faster, hence the noise. I met Aeni, Fairuz, Rizal and Alia in Paris. They came from Glasgow by flight.

I really have no idea what to talk about Paris. I was so loaded with information and photos that my 1GB memory card was filled with photos and videos. Paris was a great place and a romantic city (I know this is so repetitive and said like millions of times already). Let me quote the Lonely Planet:

La Fayette Shopping Mall

"Everyone has an opinion on Paris, whether they have travelled there or not. Melbourne is affectionately referred to as the Paris of Yarra, Shanghai and Hanoi all lay claim to being the Paris of the East....but Paris is the Paris of the Parisians, the Paris of France, the one and only Paris. Nothing comes close."

It was a very bold but true statement.

The Louvre

As an engineer, I see Paris as an organised city. Some parts of the city are organised in circular order, like a ripple effect, some parts in grids. We started our walk from Louvre Museum, where the Da Vinci Code was filmed or where Mona Lisa was kept and all the way to the Champs Elysees. Champs Elysees was a straight and long boulevard with the Arc de Triomphe at the other end of the road. It was a pleasant walk and the weather was great except for the sporadic drizzles along the way.

Arc de Triomphe

It's not what you think!

Notre Dame Cathedral

Before Louvre, we went to the Notre Dame Cathedral. If you remember the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the gargoyles, that's the place where the animation was centered on.

Church of Sacred Heart

Eiffel Tower

Of course, we went to the icon that people associate the city with, the Eiffel Tower! I could never have thought I would be standing under the real thing one day. I could still remember the miniature tower seated on top of the TV in my living room in Malaysia . It was a souvenir that my mom bought when she was here, perhaps two decades ago or more. So, being able to see it was a breathtaking experience.

Night scene from Eiffel Tower

It was 8pm when we were there, the sky was still bright like Malaysia's 3. So, we took lots of photos and waited until 9pm when the sun was setting and queued to go up the tower. We went up to Platform 2, about mid-level of the tower. It cost us €7.80 to do that but the journey up there and being there, though scary if you're afraid of heights, were worth every penny of it. The tower overlooks River Seine and the entire city. The night scene made it even more special because of the lightings.

Things that people can do with the Eiffel Tower - Lift it? Wear it? Lean it?

Excuse me, I said I want 5 tickets, not billiards! Or did you mean billets?

The next day, we went to Disneyland. Disneyland is located at the outskirt of central Paris, Zone 5 if I remember, at the Marne-la-Vallee. This year they are celebrating their 15th year aniversary, so there were alot of limited edition peripherals. It was my second Disneyland trip though. The first was Tokyo. There were some new rides in Paris which were not found in Tokyo and some of the attractions in Tokyo were taken out and put in the Disney Studios instead, quite a big place when these two parks combine. But we were lucky to have visited the Disney on a weekday, so we were given a student discount. Two parks for €36.40. Very cheap! It would have cost us €43 for a single park entry on a weekend!




The Paris Disneyland allows visitors to take individual shots with the mascots

My past Disneyland experience worked to my advantage. We went in at the opening time and headed straight for the Fastpasses. It was a smarter way to beat the queues and get the ride within minutes rather than hours! I can't believe we managed to get in all the "highly recommended" rides in less than four hours! It was unfortunate I didn't get to ride the Space Mountain in Tokyo because the queue was 2 hours long! Paris has the Space Mountain Mission 2, and it was incredible. We were spun and turned and spun again like a seal playing with a ball in the circus. To make it scarier, the ride was in a totally dark area and you can't even see your hands!

It was such a terrifying ride! Watch this...

We finished most of the rides by 4pm and went to Disney Studios since we bought a double park ticket. We thought Space Mountain was the best so we didn't think Studios would offer anything spectacular. But not until we sat the Rock n Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith (what a name!). We thought, Aerosmith??? Ah, must be no more than a piggyback ride or so. To our surprise, it was "worse" than the Space Mountain! I can't even stand properly after getting out of the ride. My legs were wobbly and everyone was like..."Oh my God! That was crazy...hahahahhaa!!!". I probably can't describe in words what happened but this is as far as I could remember:

Started from rest to a speed like 80kph in a few seconds. You can imagine the G-force at your back. It was pitch dark and suddenly it made a sharp turn, and then it dropped like 2 seconds before it did 2 cockscrew turns facing downwards. Don't forget you can't see your hands so you can only pray that your head or spectacles doesn't fall off or hit the rail tracks or so. Suddenly there were flashes of lights, and then it went up real high and threw us back into free fall for another 3 to 4 seconds on an 80deg slope or something. Gosh, you prayed that the ride ended immediately because you can't take it anymore and just when you thought of doing that, it does another two more cockscrews to make sure those thoughts we swung out from your brains! When it finally ended, you check if you still had your head. Ermm, and how does one check if they still had their own heads?? O well, that's how you'd think or can't think when you just got out of the Aerosmith...