Module Review

One of the more boring post that I will be doing:

A module review of the classes that I am taking in University of Aberdeen

PX2512 : Quantum Physics and Special Relativity
We had 2 teachers for this module and the first one, Prof Ross is simply hilarious, and the most vulgar and insulting teaching I have ever seen. Everybody loves him. See the email that he send for instance:

"Since the dawn of time, for the dinosaurs until their civilization fell, now for humans, in the brief period we have left before the penguins rise to conquer us for the hubris of naming a fairly poor biscuit after the most natty animal, all life has striven toward one goal. It has brought madness to many, riches to none, destroyed cities and continents, broken hearts and soured the most pure of love, annealed the souls of the truly great and left broken those too fearful to crest the highest peaks of knowledge and gaze upon the epiphany there waiting. I refer, of course, to delivering a perfect set of lectures on Special Relativity. (Like the vengeful ghost of that coward Einstein never could.) I've unquestionably done that now, and it's time to admit that there is nothing left for me here in Aberdeen. Finally I am free to pursue more financially rewarding employment (by selling my origami outside bus and train stations, vaccuuming money out drains and sewers, and setting fire to actual money and selling the ash to ash-collectors) and return to my true calling - my detective work. I assure you: from now on in this world, no matter how dark the night there will be no hiding place for evil.

I.e. There is no class this Friday. Ekke will be taking over PX2510 to teach you Quantum Mechanics. Lectures will start on Monday and be given by a man that my own mum described as "quite literally better than you in every possible way, Ross. Why did I even bother giving birth to you? You're rubbish."

Ross"

Having said that, I think he is great teacher and someone I would aspire to be like if I'm a teacher haha.

With 3 one hours lesson a week, and 3 CAs where the questions are given out one week in advance to prepare, its quite a relaxing module.

EG3593: Reservoir Engineering 1: Fundamentals
Taught by a really boring teacher. Overlap 2 hours of lecture with physics so I just went for physics instead. :P

There is also a lab and tutorial lesson in addition to the 3 hr lecture weekly. Bummer.

GL3524: Petroleum Geology and Reservoir Characterization
One of the more interesting course with 2 days of field trips!
Stuff taught was also more interesting!

GL4524: Petroleum Systems
6 Lectures + 1 3000word essay + 2 one day courses
So much for a lvl 4000 module. Seem quite easy to wing it. Even if I don't know a lot of the course materials.

EG3537: Dynamics 1A
Another Engineering module which gives a lot of problem. 6hr of lab! with assignments that is required to submit online fortnightly and notes that you have to copy in! sianxxx

Overall its pretty slack compared to NUS. But I'm on exchange after all. What do you expect haha!

Post-Shetland

Returned from Shetland this morning at 7:00am and went to class straightaway and what an adventure it was!


It all started with a ferry ride from Aberdeen Harbour at 7pm.
A freaking long 12 hour journey to Shetland it was.
The boat was rocky and it took some nice fudge to keep the motion from getting to me.

Northlink ferry that took us to Shetland.

There was a restaurant, a bar, a shop, cinema, cabins on board the ferry.

In the morning we woke up to see Shetland approaching us and soon got off the boat to reach Lerwick, the capital of Shetland. We wandered around for a bit to find some makan as it was too darn early (7am!) and no shop was open yet. Finally we found a nice cafe called Harbour cafe to have a nice breakfast!

Dawn came and we woke to see Shetland! At last!

Like a small toy but its actually a normal size boat

Its a beautiful day in the town of Lerwick!

A hearty breakfast before our journey at the Harbour Cafe!

Opens the earliest and save good breakfast at a good deal!

First time driving in a while! Edwin needs to 'warm up' he says.

First time driving also in a while but I'm calm and cool as always. 

We rented a car that turn out to cost 100 pound (wow!) for two days....after we added in petrol money.
Well I am kind of glad the car came back in one piece given how we were driving it haha. Edwin and I (mainly me) didn't treat it very kindly haha as we were so out of practice. Incidents like stepping on the gas pedal too hard when starting, hitting a wooden pole while reversing, driving with handbrake on, stalling on a roundabout during peak hour...etc.

Shetland was a good place to practice our driving a bit as the roads didn't had too many people. Mind you when there were people they mostly just zoom past us! (I was travelling at 50 miles per hour only which I feel was quite fast already!)

Other firsts was driving into a ferry which brought you to another island to continue the journey and defrosting the car in the morning. We definitely gain a lot of valuable experience driving on our own. Just don't tell our moms! haha!!!

Had to defrost the car in the morning! 

Reaching the next town!

Shetland ponies were plenty!

We saw many lochs and islands like these as we drove around!

The ferry to bring our car across to the next island!

Alas, most of the place that we went to were closed as it was winter and most people were slacking/sleeping/holidaying which is just as well as it seems me and Edwin are the only 2 tourist on the island LOL!

Foords Chocolate - CLOSED!

Give me some Valhalla Beer which the bottled version you can find only on Shetland - CLOSED!

During the summer, another thing that you can find on Shetland is many wildlife abound. Especially birds, like puffins can be found! You can kayak or hike around to see them! In winter you will just see the ponies, countless sheeps that leave droppings or what Edwin call 'mines' everywhere and also seagulls hanging around the cliffs.

An example of a puffin! (which i certainly didn't see)

All I saw were some seagulls!

The reason why we wanted to go to Shetland was because there were huge fire festivals around Shetland around these periods of time. Called Up Helly Aa, they are the biggest fire festivals in Europe! Especially the biggest one in Lerwick with like thousands of torch barrels as they march in their viking armour and burn their galley (viking longboat) at the end of it before the party of all parties begins and lasts till dawn.

See why I wanted to go!

Biggest Fire Festival in Europe!

The one that we wanted to go to was much smaller and at most a hundred people and it is at Norwick which is as far north as you can go in Shetland.

The most northern of places, Norwick.

However due to some misleading information from the internet, we were ONE WEEK EARLY!

I really felt like crying at the moment! Luckily something happened to save the day!

We met with the people of Norwick and they were really welcoming and really sorry that we came too early. I guess most people don't come to visit them and they were surprise to find that we travelled all the way to see them.

They gave (YES GAVE) us a set of their old costume from a previous Up Helly Aa and let us pose for pictures with the galley. They also lit up a torch for us as well! 

We were so grateful for their hospitality or maybe it was the beer and whisky that they plied us with haha.

Lighting up the torch!

Our very own Up Helly Aa!

The kid was scared haha!

Nice blokes!

YARRGGGHH!!!!

Oooops! Almost forgot to mention another person who made our trip really worthwhile!
Willie! Our housekeeper at the Bed and Breakfast place that we stayed at in Shetland. He was really nice and made a really good breakfast that probably counted as our lunch as well given the portion that we ate.
The previous night we couldn't find a place to get dinner as the place was too ulu and he made some lasagne for us with NO extra charge! I was really touched by that effort as he could just f*** care and leave us to starve on our own. Bed and Breakfast and Dinner for 30 pounds! Worth it!

Here's Willie!

Just a simple dinner with some lasagne and bread and tea!

Awesome breakfast with Black Pudding, Fried Egg, Fried Tomatoes, Mushrooms, Sausages, Bacons and Toast!

Our cosy room!

Wanted to see some northern lights too but all we saw was a full moon!

On our way back on the second morning, we had to wait a while for the ferry to arrive and I started goofing around in the new costume that I had haha!

Viking Stowaway! SHHH!

Never see viking drive car ar!

I have come to conquer thy land!

We also drop by a place called Brae where there is this Frankie's fish and chips shop that is the top 3 fish and chip shop in  Scotland so naturally as Singaporeans, we have to get the best things! And it was good!!!

The fish was fresh and like 鱼片 instead of one huge fillet!

Fish Cake!?? Really good too! Fried Potatoes with fish!

I drove back all the way from Hermaness the most north of Shetland where you can only see the north sea back to Lerwick and saw more scenery along the way...

Before long it was time to say goodbye to Shetland...

No idea why this galley is over here...

During summer, you would see lots of wildlife here!

Viking Ruins like these were aplenty everywhere!

One of the two castles in Shetland! You could call it the most northerly castle!

We manage to get some valhalla beer which were really good! 

Well it has been an adventure! Far vel! Hjaltland!

Shetlands, Up Up here we go!

Spent the past week planning most of the easter trip. But before that.....

Gonna head to the most northern part of Britain tonight for the weekend.
Shetland here we go! Viking Fire Festivals!!!!!!!!! YARGGHHH! (the viking warcry)

Lerwick is the capital of the shetland islands.

Probably the most ulu place in Britain.
Gotta run! Have a 12 hour ferry to catch!
Ciao!

Enough!

Enough with all this wasting time!
Searching slowly for the bus/train/flight for our easter trips.

Time to man up and chop chop finish the job!!!!!

Gotta spend time on exchange more wisely!
Get to know more people, interact more, learn more stuff, etc...
No more wishy washy and being lazy!!!!!
ARRGHH!

Free weekends...only for this week!

Gonna spend this weekend studying and resting after the sickness episode...

Had a really cultural enriching night yesterday after I went to the Celtic (pronounced with a K) Society's jamming session at a bar near city centre.

We followed my flatmate Isaac to the place on a whim and found this group of 10+ people squeezed in this small room in a bar. One by one everyone took a lead in playing or singing a song. The musical instruments that I saw in the room include guitar, harmonica, violin, viola (slightly bigger than violin but lower in pitch), bagpipe, recorder, accordion. Everyone seems so confident of their playing skills and could just pick up and follow the lead in accompaniment of the music piece. Definitely an experience hard to come by in Singapore where at most I see people jamming in a room. Over here we get to perform in a cosy setting with beer as well! Awesome!

I decided to cook tonight my favourite dish. Luncheon meat and potatoes in tomato sauce!!! Ma pride and joy!!!

Ski and whiSki

Had a little food poisoning scare yesterday after eating some bad soft boil eggs. x.x
Had to spent the entire day and night tuck in bed willing myself to recover asap and it worked!
Though I thought alot of my mom and home and how she would sayang me whenever I fell sick T_T.

Managed to rustle enough strength to travel to the Aberdeen Snowsports Centre the next day for my first ever skiing class!!! and Oh boy the weather conditions were terrible with this snow like rain and crazy wind! I learnt that my windbreaker wasn't waterproof but it was still great fun!!!

Our Skis! no poles yet!

Edwin going down the slope!

And back up again for another round!

Although it was a small beginner slope, it was great for learning the basics and we had a good teacher Eloise from the ABDN SNOW club from where we had a discounted price! One hour a week for 6 weeks for 36pounds. Cheap compared to going to the mountain to learn! We are intending to learn a bit first before going there haha.

After a hot shower after the ski lesson, we had a small dinner by my flatmate who made some veg stew and then went for our first malt whisky tasting! Apparently the malt whisky society was voted the best society last year. WOW!

For 4pounds (non-member price), we get to try 4 drams (25ml) of different types whisky but i donated some to Edwin so that my stomach wun complain too much

We could take these nice glasses home for 4 pounds! but we didn't haha

More whisky?

Tomorrow's valentine's day! so probably just gonna continue my bromance with Edwin planning for our next journey haha!

XOXO
Roy Coo (that's how the people at the ski centre spell my name LOL)

Edinburgh: Capital City of Scotland

IT IS CHINESE NEW YEAR!!!!

Its my first time celebrating away from my family. Luckily I have no lack of activities to do so in Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

On friday which was 2 days before cny, all the singaporeans and malaysians in Aberdeen and some other friends were invited to the Manchurian which was an authentic chinese restaurant for cny dinner. We had Lao Yusheng (brought in by the singapore society ppl:) and lots of yummy chinese food. 

Lao Yusheng! Yum!

The next day (Saturday) in the early morning, we (me Edwin and some of the SingSoc Ppl) walked (Yes walk) to the train station and embark on our trip to Edinburgh: the capital of Scotland.

Our purpose there was to join the Singapore Food Fest organised by the Edinburgh Singapore Society. At 7pound only, we got to eat a portion each of Chicken Rice, Chee Kueh, Tau Huay, Hoon Kueh, Popiah, Muah Chee, Kaya Toast, Laksa and drink some Milo. All were made by the Singaporean Students over there, so that was really impressive! The event had about estimated 400 ppl attending in 2 sessions and has been a tradition every year in Edinburgh! Wow!

Laksa!!!

Tauhuay that can fight with Laoban!

More Food at the Singapore Food Fest!

Anyway me and Edwin decided to stay one more day in Edinburgh so as to explore more of the city as one day wasn't enough (Of Course not enough!) Hence we went to book a bed in a 20 bed bunk dorm at the Caledonian Backpackers for 15 pound. Ha talk about being spontaneous after finding out that our ticket was open return!

We also booked for the night after the food fest a 'ghost' tour at The Real Mary King Close which was described as one of the better ones of the many ghost tour in Edinburgh. Edinburgh is supposedly one of the most haunted cities ever as many criminals were executed during the medieval times. 

Well the tour guide roleplayed as a maid from 500 years ago and brought us into the underground of Mary King's Close which was a real place that was used for living and working purposes in the past and has now been built over. She told us some of the stories of the incidents that happened like the plagued and murders. Haha I guessed as an Asian we have been accustomed to greater scares than some spooky telling of stories. I was constantly on the guard waiting for something to jump up to scare me but atlast none did. It was nonetheless an interesting tour to see what the old Edinburgh was like.

Then.....Happy Chinese New Year! What a drastic change in mood haha!!!!

The next morning at 6am we rose early and left for Arthur's Seat. The highest peak in Edinburgh I think at 250m (about bukit timah hill's height) we had a nice panoramic view of the city. Initially we wanted to get there for the sunrise but it was too cloudy :( It was really exhilarating (and windy) when I reached the top and saw the amazing scenery. Despite feeling cold, I felt really accomplished to reach the top of the world (in Edinburgh).

Early in the morning at 7am

Lonesome figure (me!) at the top of one of the hills.

Where King Arthur sat....or so they say 

Great view of Edinburgh!

Back at the bottom of Arthur's Seat! Can't believe we climbed so much in the early morning!

Then we went back to check out and then to join the Free Walking Tour by the same company in London. We walked for 3 hours around Edinburgh and heard more stories about how the buildings are built on a hill and can have 5 stories on one side and 12 stories on the other (kinda like NUS), stories about philosophers like David Hume, literary greats like Sir Walter Scott and  Robert Burns, as well as stories about the monarchy, freedom fighters, criminals, etc. It was a good tour and this time we tip her haha (even though it was 3 pound only for both of us!)

Edinburgh Castle! Too expensive to go in!

The guy in the centre looks like Jeremy Renner!!!

Walking around the Royal Mile from the Edinburgh Castle! Tourists everywhere!!!

Statue of David Hume. Do you see his right big toe? Its a good luck charm apparently and people rub it all the time!!!

The story of  the loyal Greyfriar Bobby who guarded his master's grave after he died.

After that we had a nice lunch of haggis with neeps and tatties and Fish & Chips.

Haggis!! with neeps and tatties!!!

<3 

We coincidentally saw Zhexi who came over from Dublin to visit Scotland during the weekend. Haha apparently my Singlish alerted them to our presence.

Before we went back to the train station we spent the remaining of our time finding Thomas Riddell's grave ( who inspired He-who-must-not-be-named real name) and exploring the huge and excellent National Museum of Scotland.

You Know Who!!!

Even the journey back was eventful as the train was overcrowded and we were standing initially before we found some seats and had to alight midway to change to a replacement bus as the track was undergoing some engineering work (DUN BLAME MY PROFESSION LOL)

We had shared some kebab near union street before sharing a cab with some strangers who lived in Hillhead also to get back home.(cheaper than bus!)

What an eventful weekend! :D