Cambridge --> Edinburgh

Nice sunny afternoon at Trinity College, Cambridge again. Very much like Harry Potter, which was filmed partly at Oxford, sister university to Cambrige.




Stansted Airport has pretty good shopping too.




Flight delayed for 1 hours plus due to strike by French air-traffic controllers.


Welcome to Edinburgh!

wake up london...

I drifted in and out of sleep throughout the entire flight. Only managed to fall asleep 4am sg time. Even so, sleep wasn't good. 4 hours before landing, I was already feeling grouchy and annoyed from the lack of sleep.










My first A380. I didn't managed to catch the registration number though.


This is the "Get out of jail free" card equivalent. Heathrow's immigration is notoriously known for its long queue. This card enables me to breeze through the customs using the Fast-Tracked Lane. There was no one at the fast tracked lane and I virtually cleared the customs within a minute. :)




Finally, after 3 hours of bus ride from Heathrow, CAMBRIDGE! Quaint quiet little place. The city centre has become more exciting since I visited 2 years ago. Now, there's a big mall smacked right in the middle of it. It's hard to imagine that this place is a university town. The concept of the NUS town according to Ted, is gonna follow the same one that Cambridge has.


So this is where i'll be putting up in cambridge. Nice little loft units.




Sunday market! Sea sponges. I've heard about them but this is the first time I'm seeing them. All natural sea sponges!

Superjumbo a380!

Finally after more than a year of waiting, UJJ boards the superjumbo A380.


His boarding pass.... 48D! Hah! The cattle class seat with the most leg-room sans those emergency exit seats.


Like most major airports in the world, T3 is configured such that each waiting lounge caters for more than 2 boarding gates.


As the plane is a superjumbo, boarding is done by rows. Flight is full, presumably cos the A380 craze is far from over. The B747 was very much dwarfed by this giant at the apron.


Sitting on 48D, the leg room is amazing. Not that I need it but still, for long haul flight I get a little grouchy sometimes.






As there are no economy seats in the A380, all economy class seats are classed Executive Economy. The seats are generally wider, more leg room and bigger LCD screen. The plane is equipped with LED lights that very gently changes colour to colour. This is very much different from the usual planes were the lights can jolt you out of sleep when they come on. Takeoff was exceptionally quiet for such a huge plane. Throughout the flight, the engine was very quiet. The B777-200 or A320 by comparison were very very much noisier.

And so it will be!

Finally this evening, UJJ goes on the A380 en route London Heathrow. I had chosen the most spacious seat in the economy section of A380, 48D. The missing seat in row 47 is due the presence of an escape hatch in the lower deck. So SQ322, 48D it will be! :)


I'll update with more pics onboard to show you guys when I arrive in Cambridge! :)

Myanmar hit by Cyclone Nargis

When last weekend's weather was unbearable and the air was not moving with the skies clear and almost cloudless most of the days, we should have known that in the region, a cyclone's gonna hit.

Now, the tropical cyclone has left more than 100 000 dead and many more missing. Myanmar, already one of the poorest nations in the world, has yet lost another generation of progress. As I watch the news unfold, I can't help but feel very sad for the them. These are the people who are so poor that they have nothing to fend for themselves. And the military government that seized power decades ago is just not willing to allow help in freely. As I blog, lives are lost. Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers all dead or missing. Possibly never to be found. Whole communities wiped out. Corpses lie rotting in the tropical heat. 100 000 is a frightening number. With sewage washed up during the storm, water-borne diseases will become a problem. Poor poor Burmese.

Here in Singapore, everything's normal. Students are still skipping classes, refuse to hand in homework, talk non-stop in class, refuse to study for exams. Think education is not important.

Life is just so unfair.

keep sports and politics separate. please.

The western media has for the past weeks portrayed a very biased report on the China, Tibet issue. The eurpoean leg of the Olympic torch relay has been fraught with much protests. With the media giving a very biased report, I wonder how many people actually knew that some protesters even attacked the wheelchair-bound torchbearer pushed by a blind athlete?

candycane, freedom. . .

The funfair came and left yesterday. Within a few hours, the hills were transformed into the fairground. Most of the day went off pretty quickly, with so many things to do and take note of. Driving home gives me the chance to be in deep thoughts.

Most of the things went on pretty well today. Although the buzzer died towards the evening, I was quite pleased with the creativity of clare to improvise and still make the best of the situation. I was equally pleased to see some whom I least expected to see. However, I flared up towards the end of the day when I saw how this generation so ever willingly accept free stuff but when these things are dirtied slightly, they just discard the entire product away. Maybe everything had been given to them on a silver-platter that they do not realise the value of things. It's not just the monetary value of things that i'm talking about. I'm talking about the larger value of things which I find hard to explain. Carpark's been pretty goos today and everyone's been very helpful and understanding.

I only realised how tired I was when I lay on my bed. Woke up this morning to the tune of Freedom etched in my mind. Freedom is a song written by Joyce Loke and performed by her band twice on the hills. Nice, catchy chord progression... I like it! Very talented group of people. Most importantly, these are the people who have a clear sense of direction in life. Talking about responsibilities, I was very glad that some 5MMers chipped in and helped with the picking of litter. Others, just walked by me pretending nothing is happening. I'm not sure about these people but I would feel very uncomfortable and guilty to see my teacher picking up MY rubbish in front of me. Was pretty disturbed by this but i decided to focus only on the good things that happened.

All in all, the candycaners, 5MMers etc... had made the day really memorable.