Sunday, January 24, 2010

The (EPIC?) Post

End of week 2.

Ok, I know my epic post is overdue. Big time overdue. And I also have to cancel it, due to many, many reasons. (Time constraints, time constraints and time constraints. Your choice) I’m sure you would be asking, “2 month overdue and you blame it on time constraint. How ironic, or the lack thereof.” Yes, yes, my apologies, for keeping you at the edge of your seat with the previous post, and then making you fall off when the post wouldn’t arrive until two months later.

But fear not, as I’ll replace the epic post with a less epic one, but is no less epic than the originally-planned epic one (Huh?). Due to time constraints, again, I’m unable to type the whole post from scratch. Instead, I’m dipping my toes into micro-blogging, in which I would make a compilation of blogs written on my Nokia in the past few weeks to tell you what has happened. (My Nokia keypad is 5mm wide, how micro is that!!). What I’ll do is just copy all the stuff from my QuickOffice over to Word, and see what would it turn out to be. So, let’s go!

12th December 2009. At Coventry train station, while waiting for my ride to London to arrive:

“So, I’m waiting at Coventry station. Can’t wait to get into my MH flight tomorrow, although I still have to get to London before I could start thinking of the flight back home. Didn’t know that some chocolates and t-shirts and notes can weigh this much. Think I better not put the laptop and the 1kg Cadbury together in the bag pack, or I’ll be 3 inches shorter by the end of the day. Not many people on this side of the platform. Long day ahead, I can foresee.”

Then I realised I got on the wrong platform. (Thanks Captain Platform, your info is so accurate you can start writing history text books. In Huttese). Got into the right train later on and left at 1pm. In the train:

“I wonder if all these horses and sheep and cows would be bothered by these trains passing by every few minutes. Will the noise stress out these animals, and make them skinnier and produce less milk? If so, please put them far away from these rail tracks. Prices of meat here is already expensive enough, the economy cannot afford anymore skinny and stressed animals.”

Got to London at about 3pm, and had to rush to my friend’s place, before rushing again to the shopping district in Sloan Square to collect something. While on my way back, in the Tube:

“Porsche, Porsche, Aston, Porsche, Jaguar, Bentley, Ferrari, Porsche, had never seen so many Porsches in a single night before. It’s as if the national car here is Porsche, like how we see Protons all over the place at home. I guess Rolls-Royces have some veto power or something around here, because only the Phantom can stop at the side of the road, while others cant. And there goes another Porsche.”

The next morning, had to rush for my 11am flight. At Heathrow, while waiting for boarding:

“No wi-fi in Terminal 4. But that’s not going to dampen my mood for the 13-hour flight home.”

After getting onto the plane, Mr Pilot said that some of the luggage was stuffed into the wrong plane, and the flight would be delayed. But don’t worry, because “a lighter plane can fly at a higher altitude, so this flight would only take 11 hours.”

It was touchdown 11 hours later, at 7am local time, and naturally, I wouldn’t have time to blog about anything. Heck, I didn’t even have time to meet up with my friends, only knocking on Kang’s door one evening when I happened to be around the area.

I spent a few days in Singapore, crashing Orchard Road, Ion and Zouk. Nothing much there, except that clubbing there seemed really safe, and a Visa can do wonders over there down south.

In KL, it was the usual: karaoke, movies, and eating. And spending more time at home.

2 and a half weeks later, and I’m back in London. My friend came late to pick me up in Paddington Station (I took the Heathrow express) and I was so worried that I would be spending the night there.

I went back to the home of the ducks the next day, only to return to London a week later when I was informed of a relative’s arrival there. Got there in no time, and had a great time walking around parts of London that I have not been too. But the more exciting part came the next day, when the worse-in-30-years snow fell upon London. Instincts told me to leave for Euston early, and fair enough, I suppose I caught the last train leaving the city that day, at 2pm. As the train slowly chucked northwards, the snow got thicker and thicker. And back at home, when I checked the weather forecast, 2 airports in London were totally closed, and most flights in Heathrow were cancelled. I was this close, this close to Facebook-ing in the train station throughout the night.

Then, the last micro blog came last week, when I met up with a friend in a restaurant in campus. While waiting for him:

“I’m now in one of the university’s most expensive restaurant. Yet I still have to self order. It does feel weird though, as I am paying more than RM50 per meal, and I still have to queue up to have my order taken. I mean, lets think of it, in a coffee shop back home, even if my order only costs RM1 (like what, 20 pence?) there will be a dude who comes over to take my order.

Apart from that, things had been going well so far. I spent the whole morning getting ready for a non-existant class, only to end up reading the newspaper in the library. Lecture was good too, the lecturer interesting and nonetheless keen to lecture(?)”

So, that was it. 2 months. 3 countries. And some micro blogging, which I don’t even know whether I’m using the right term. Anyway, apologies for the epic thing, and this somewhat lower-than-usual quality of blog, and as I’m still not used to uploading photos, will have to wait for that. Until then, take your time reading this post, while waiting for the next one to arrive.