eat, drink, travel

Friday, January 26, 2007

ah well, it’s the 25th January, Thursday, Newcastle time 7.48am. this means that it’s probably around 3.45pm in Singapore. i’m up so early due to the jetlag. taking jilyn’s advice, i didn’t nap or sleep at all after I touched down at Newcastle around 9.30am but i fell asleep around 8 or 9pm last night, waking up at around 6am this morning. i unpacked my luggage (unpacking is so much easier than packing) and tried tidying up my room without making too much noise (the walls are pretty thin here). still no internet connection, so i’m going to attempt to post this as soon as i register with the university.

how has it been so far? i miss Singapore already, i miss my mommy’s cooking. the temperature, oh the temperature. nothing prepared me for the damn winds of Newcastle. the minute we stepped out of the airport i started cursing and swearing and regretting every complaint that i made about Singapore’s tropical weather.

the people. generally really friendly and helpful.

culture shock? ya, definitely.

let me try to go into detail, i’m sure my parents and my sister would like to know more.

Departure from Changi Airport 23rd January
the minute they weighed my luggage my heart dropped. 10kg overweight, 20 euros for every extra kg. freak, hectic repacking, transferring my stuff to dawen’s luggage, thousands of voices telling me what to do. yipes. but a big thank you to all my uncle and aunties, my parents, my sister and brother-in-law who did their best to help me.

the girls were there pretty early – yingdan, wenrong, huiyu & yanjoo. ven arrived a little later. really appreciate you girls sending me off! wenrong gave me a notebook to record my experiences (girl, blogging is easier, but i’ll use it for lectures or when backpacking) and ven presented me with a cute beaded heart-shaped pouch.

angie’s call came, she said that they were rushing down after the badminton game and asked me to wait. however, the last call for our flight came on unexpectedly early. apologies to songyun, veron and jianhui as well! but it was still great to talk to you all through the phone! :)

at this moment dawen realized that he forgot to check his toiletries in (shaving blades included). given the stricter rules at customs, he had to take out his shaving blades and take a gamble on the rest of his liquid toiletries.

and i cried just as i was about to leave. my mom laughed and said that i was useless. but i swear i saw tears other than mine! haha.

dalun gave dawen a call just before we boarded the plane, i talked to him a bit and he asked if i cried, because ‘you’re a crybaby ma’. bah. chinbin called just before i switched off my phone, thanks dude, sorry we got cut off.

To Amsterdam Airport, 13 hours flight

the flight was uneventful, the sleep was of course not as good, but dawen managed to sleep like a pig. Jie, the air stewardess were better than you described. Haha.

Amsterdam Airport, hrm. nothing compared to Changi Airport, but we shopped around and had our first meal in Europe – MacDonald’s. because everything else was too freaking expensive.

this breakfast set cost us around SGD10. damnnnn.

charmaine, Twix twice as large as the ones in Singapore! it was 1euro, around SGD2. hoho.

To Newcastle Airport, 1 hour flight
The plane was much more spacious this time, we sat next to this well-dressed old gentleman who was really friendly – he borrowed us a pen when we couldn’t find one to fill in our arrival card and chatted to us a bit about Newcastle.

looking really terrible after the 19 hours. bah.

We arrived at Newcastle Airport, really well-maintained and clean, the Welcome Team found us after a while but dawen and i had to wait an extra hour for transport because of we couldn’t fit into the first ride. and to our horror, we realized that the NTU people’s connection flight from Heathrow was cancelled!

To St Mary’s College (Accommodation)
I met up with Michelle (she was going to bunk in with Michelia) who arrived from Paris and we were on our way to St Mary’s! My room is pretty small (as compared to Michelia’s) but it is pretty much of the same size as my room in Sheares. The wardrobe’s pretty small but there are tons of drawers. Because Michelia’s flight was cancelled, Michelle dumped her stuff in my room first and we were off to explore the city – Dawen & I planned to go to the bank while Michelle went to the supermarket to buy some groceries.

We met a really friendly and helpful old lady at the bus stop who practically brought us all the way to the bank! My hostel is pretty far from the school, I have to take the bus (and pay, no shuttle buses, ☹ ) everyday. At HSBC, I managed to get my debit card, and the banks operate pretty much differently in terms of reception from those in Singapore, there’s a lot of standing around and what not.

Then we explored Eldon Square (the shopping area).

This is the original Marks&Spencer!

We were suffering from jetlag, and missed Chinese food terribly so we had dinner at Chinatown – 5 pounds for soup, rice and chicken, not too bad.

I was so tired that I fell asleep at 7pm, hence explaining the insane hour that I am up at.

8:41 PM

profile

leaving the sunny island of Singapore for exchange at Newcastle for six months, to explore what life has to offer on the other side of the world and excite the senses.

ITINERARY

23 Jan Singapore-Amsterdam KL838
24 Jan Amsterdam-Newcastle KL957

01 Feb Southampton
02 Feb London
02 Feb London
03 Feb London/Newcastle

09 Feb Oxford
10 Feb Oxford
11 Feb Oxford/Newcastle

22 Feb Newcastle/Southampton
23 Feb Bath
24 Feb Stonehenge
25 Feb Southampton/Newcastle

02 Mar York

08 Mar Newcastle/London/Sweden
09 Mar Sweden
10 Mar Sweden
11 Mar Sweden
12 Mar Sweden/London/Newcastle

Easter Break
22 Mar Newcastle/London/Granada (Spain)
23 Mar Granada(Spain)
24 Mar Granada(Spain)
25 Mar Granada/Valencia (Spain)
26 Mar Valencia (Spain)
27 Mar Valencia (Spain)
28 Mar Valencia/Barcelona (Spain)
29 Mar Barcelona (Spain)
30 Mar Barcelona (Spain)
31 Mar Barcelona (Spain)/Nice (France)

01 Apr Nice (France)
02 Apr Nice/Lyon (France)
03 Apr Lyon (France)
04 Apr Lyon/Paris (France)
05 Apr Paris (France)
06 Apr Paris (France)
07 Apr Paris (France)
08 Apr Paris (France)/Brussels (Belgium)

09 Apr Brussels (Belgium)
10 Apr Brussels (Belgium)
11 Apr Brussels (Belgium)/Amsterdam (Netherlands)

12 Apr Amsterdam (Netherlands)
13 Apr Amsterdam (Netherlands)/Munich (Germany)

14 Apr Munich (Germany)
15 Apr Munich (Germany)
16 Apr Munich/Berlin (Germany)
17 Apr Berlin (Germany)
18 Apr Berlin (Germany)
19 Apr Berlin (Germany)/London

04 May Newcastle/Edinburgh
05 May Edinburgh/Newcastle

11 May Newcastle/Brighton
12 May Brighton/Newcastle

10 Jun Newcastle/Krakow (Poland)

21 Jul Milan (Italy)/Newcastle

22 Jul Newcastle-Amsterdam KL964
23 Jul Amsterdam-Singapore KL837

links

multiply

jinzhan@ucla
paulene@texasaustin michelia@newcastleupontyne
sheunming@newcastleupontyne

erik@newcastleupontyne
justicia@york

datoucun@shortwing
amy
huiyu
nic
songyun

past

December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
September 2007

credits

Brushes:1
Designer:1 2
Host:1

ramblings