My first video!!!!!

Always wanted to try to make a nice video like what my very awesome and lovely friend Amanda Moey always do when she travel overseas!

My first video ever! Virgin effort! Let me know how I can improve haha!

Geography and bicycle!

Sometimes I wonder how do these huge caucasians grew to be so big despite eating only so little at dinner? I have seen them just eating a sandwich or a small bowl of pasta while me and edwin spent like an hour cooking and eating. LOL

Anyway had my first lesson at Petroleum Geology and Reservoir Characterization lesson today and it was the most fun lesson I ever had! We went out of class within the first half hour to visualize the immense scale of drilling by using a string to represent the drill string and how far and wide the range that the oil/gas reservoir can be and the difficulties geologist face in placing specifics in their findings. While it was HAILING! We looked at rocks (quite fun compared to just listening to the lecturer droning away like in Engineering) and there are gonna be 2 field trips! YAY!

Testing the porosity of the rocks by putting a drip of water on it!

Anyway after that, I went to this BECYCLE (Bicycle and Recycle get it?) place in school and got a BIKE! For Free!!!!! Well I had to pay a 40 pound deposit that I will get back when I returned it and also had to spent like a few hours oiling the chain to make it work again AND ride back to my place in the cold rain. (my fingers were so frozen x___x) But now i have a bicycle of my own for the next 6 months!!!!

In my toilet haha!

Well thats all folks! for now....

Laundry, Holiday Plans, Study

Laundry is freaking expensive over here at 2 pounds per wash and 1 pound to dry (3 times more than tembusu!) I guess im just gonna use them once in a while and handwash more often!


Have been making lots of holiday plans on Sunday for the Easter trip and weekend trips! There's so much to do to plan trips, accomodation, travel, booking of tours, weather, route, sightseeing destinations, etc. and I still have to study LOL

Finally cooked something decent tonight haha. Potato, carrot, tomato, onion and chicken soup with fried rice! First time dared to post some photos haha :P normally its like just hurry up and gobble it down before its cold.

My flatmates always amaze at how these 2 asians always eat so much. How did they grow so big anyway by eating so little?

EGGGGs!!!! everyday eat!

The first meal we dared to post hhaaha!

Decided to tie my room key around my neck so that I will never get locked out again!

In the middle of the night at 3am, I was locked out of my room again when I went to drink some water. Decided to test the security of my room by attempting to break in.....and it was a success! Which is a good and bad thing coz I got back in and also it proved my room wasn't secured enough. At least I was the one who broke in not someone else haha....kk gotta go for class!

Beach, Thai food and Stonehaven

After class on Friday, I had some extra time on my own as Edwin had another class, so I went wandering about Seaton Park which is quite big apparently and normally we just cut through it to reach our school. Apparently Seaton Park has this story which I just found out. Its about the Seaton Park Rapist(s) (who likes girls....and boys!) Once upon a time there were a group of drunk friends who were walking along Seaton Park at night. They decided to tie one of their friends at the tree. The next morning they found him there naked and shouting for help. Well I guess you all know what happened X_X

There is a path that follows the River Don just beside my hall of residences and it leads to the beach! Took me an hour to walk all the way there though haha....luckily its so cold over there so I hardly broke a sweat.

Utilizing my camwhoring abilities!

So many shoes on the tree!

Rainbow by the beach!

The beach board walk that leads all the way to the city centre

Seems like these seagulls have nested here!

Afterwards we went to union street for dinner with the Singapore Society people again at this Thai Restaurant. Recall that I just went to Bangkok where the food was SUPER CHEAP. Well we spent 20 pounds here for this meal which was good but really expensive! Took a couple of photos but forgot to take the rest after I started eating :P

Union Street at night!

Clockwise from bottom left: fried chicken, tomyum, king prawn (which was tiny but gd) and phad thai

The next day which is today, we went to a nearby town, STONEHAVEN by train! (It was just one stop!)

Stonehaven is famous for being the birthplace of fried mars bars, and Dunnottar Castle. The coastal walk was amazing but was actually closed due to some fear of landslide because of the weather. BUT it was quite sunny that day after a little snow the previous night and this morning, so like many fellow tourist we just climbed over the fences and went ahead. And wow what a view it was!

At Dunnottar Castle we met up with some fellow NUS exchange students from Glasgow who was there for a school organized trip and then saw them back in Aberdeen again!

Unfortunately, we didn't get to eat the fried mars bar as we wanted to hitch a ride from an Indian couple we met at the castle back to the train station at stonehaven but they misunderstood it for the city centre at Aberdeen. Oh wells we got to travel for the first time in Aberdeen by car! (and also prevent ourselves from gaining unwanted calories)

Damn sinful!

The boats at the harbour were all marooned due to the low tide!

The city of Stonehaven! (What is edwin trying to do?)

Reach out for the sky~

Dunnottar Castle!

With our fellow NUS engineering friends from glasgow!

Camwhoring skills again!

f***ing beautiful!

Well tomorrow will be Laundry day plus notes reading day, so probably gonna take a short break from blogging! Looking forward to more adventures next week!

Gaelic rumblings

Another cooking session with Creative Cookery today and we made naan that accompanied a potato and veg stew and some toffee pudding.

Naan bread that I made!

Vegetable all the way!!!

Caramelized sensations!!!

After which I went to this introduction to Gaelic session held by the school's Celtic Society that introduce to us this ancient and national language of the Scottish. Apparently its still being spoken today and in certain places in Scotland like Aberdeen you can use Gaelic as a method of instruction in schools. It uses this sort of nasal sound like German to speak and makes u feel like an elf.

Legolas?

Anyway we sang some songs in Gaelic (or tried to) and we learnt about the efforts they are making to bring back the language to the Scots. And of course we learnt some basic greetings in Gaelic. ( I probably will not remember anything haha) It was great to know more about the culture and how it developed in Scotland. At least now I know what the other language on the signs in Scotland is.

TGIF tomorrow! :)

Week 1 of School

Half of Week 1 of School has just whizzed by. We went for our lectures (max one hour per lecture only) and tutorials. It was a pretty slack week as the labs/practicals have not started yet and 2 modules hasn't started lessons yet too. We were quite frantic about our Engineering modules as they kind of clashed with other modules and we didn't know if it would be possible to work it out and also they was also some issues about taking year 3 engineering modules as there was very limited slots in the class. But oh wells I'm sure we will be able to work something out in the end :)

Me and edwin tried to join as many refresher events (what they call their events on the first week of the second sem while first week of sem 1 is fresher week)

Our favourite was definitely the CREATIVE COOKERY class that we joined on Tuesday (and will certainly be joining more in the future). Basically you just had to help out in the kitchen and you get to share the food that everyone cooked! and its FREE!

My bloody hands from skinning and grating these beetroots!

We had salad of apple, carrot and beetroot together with Leek and butternut squash cannelloni and finished it off with a cherry cheesecake!

Today was a free day and we went to the Union Street to get some stuff. I realise that there are not much luxury products over at union street and more of shops like Poundland, Poundstretcher, Poundshop, Primarks, and other cheaper clothing or groceries shops and banks around. I love these shops especially when I see lots of cheap stuff!

I spotted the sign pointing to the maritime museum in Aberdeen which has a strong history in maritime industry and went in to have a look! Its FREE! (I think i shall have a contest to guess how many times I will say 'free' in the blog by the time I return to Singapore.) Anyway it was a really nice museum that shows how the harbour developed over the years with a focus of fishing initially and then oil and gas in more recent years. It was really nice to see the detailed model of ships and also other exhibits.

Newt Suit which doesn't face decompression problems

A 2 storey tall model of a rig!

There were many models of ships like this!

For the rest of the time we spent our days either grocery shopping, cooking, and researching for places to travel to in our weekends and easter breaks! We are going to Stonehaven to see the Dunnottar Castle! More pictures soon!

Orientation to University of Aberdeen!

Here is a brief of what happened as I reached Aberdeen that I missed out in the previous post!

Day 1: Arrival

Lidl (pronounced lidle) - We went to this nearest supermarket that is a 15 min walk from my room to buy some groceries for breakfast the next day and also in the future we also bought all our groceries from cooking there as it is cheap! For example the bread here cost 40 pence whereas the convenience store nearer our place cost 1.60 pounds. 4 times cheaper!!!

Union Street - We went to this place which is the practically the only street for shopping or as some people exclaim the only street in Aberdeen that you can go to. But it is a mile long so that makes quite a good shopping area! It was really hard to build this place as they had to level a hill to build it! I bought 2 pair of shoes (10 pound and 17 pound) that fits my feet better than yongjun's Timbaland (note to self: never wear a shoe that does not belong to you for the first time as you travel overseas) and 2 pairs of gloves (2 pound) and a slipper (3pound)

The beginning of Union Street! 

1 + 2 more shoes on my first day! How am I gonna bring them home????

Dinner at TGIF at Union Square and Movie at the Vue - We met the Singapore Society people in Aberdeen which is made up year 1 and year 3 medical students studying in University of Aberdeen and had a dinner at TGIF. There was an offer for students (the second meal at 2.50 pounds which is practically nothing compared to the other meals at TGIF). Then we had desserts at another TGIF again which was opposite the one we ate dinner at. They played a birthday joke on Edwin and Me and got us to stand up on our chair like in Fish & Co in Singapore even though it wasn't our birthday....we got a huge slice of cake though haha. Then we went to watch DJANGO at the Vue (3.90 pounds CHEAP!) where I almost fell asleep in the beginning. Good movie though! The action was excellent! Then me and edwin returned back to Hector Boece.

Cheapest movie in town at 3.90 pound!

There was a party at my flat as the exams had just finished (and the new sem starts immediately the next week) and the exchange students were also leaving the next day. But I was really pooped and went to sleep straightaway. Bummer....

Day 2: Orientation

I luv Aberdeen!!!

We went for the orientation talk in the morning and then to meet our advisor for module registration and to get our timetable. Me and edwin then walked super far to another supermarket to buy our pillows (2 for 6 pounds SUPER CHEAP!!!) and some sandwiches. 

We cooked our first dinner that night and it was a disaster! haha thats why no pictures :P 

Burnt brocoli and tasteless fusilli. But it was our first time and it is a time to experiment and learn haha.

That night after edwin went back, I went with my flatmates that I have just met, Isaac (an American majoring in English and Music) and Victor (a Slovakian who studies law), to the Union Bar that is in my residence where we had a couple of drinks and participated in some games like BINGO and the game where u have to constantly bend lower to cross the line and the other game where you had to pick up a box on the floor with your mouth. It was great fun!

Day 3: Taste of Scotland and Ceilidh

We went on the free Aberdeen bus tour in the afternoon then at 7pm we went to the main event of the day which was Taste of Scotland and the Burns Supper Céilidh.

Taste of Scotland was to let us taste the most famous food of Scotland which are: 

1)Whisky, the national drink and 

2)Haggis, the national dish (which according to wikipedia is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally encased in the animal's stomach and simmered for approximately three hours.) It was quite nice and tasted like minced meat.

Haggis with neeps(turnips) and tatties(potatos)!

Burns Supper Ceilidh or any other Ceilidh is a social gathering where they play traditional Gaelic music and dance scottish folk dance. I remember dancing them during PE in Secondary School and liked it abit even though  I would have rather played basketball then. Now it felt more fun to dance these folk dances that they teaches us on the spot and we just try to wing it haha. And I swear this german girl I was dancing with (Edna) looks like Robin Scherbatsky from How I Met Your Mother.

(not the whisky talking!)

Everyone joining in the fun!!!

And School started the next day and you know school... nothing much to blog about haha :P