My UK updates!

I have arrived at Liverpool UK, and I am quite excited in sharing my experiences in Liverpool.

The reason why I am so late in posting the blog is because the wifi isn't ready yet. Yes, I am dying after days without Internet.

Because of Daylight Savings Time (DST), The UK is only 7 hours behind Malaysia instead of 8.

27th May

Took Air Asia flight which supposed to take off at 9.40pm, but severely delayed until 10.20pm. What's worse, I seemed to have lost my IC card (ID). Reached LCCT at 11.20pm, and dismayed to found out that the bus to the KLIA has gone.

Managed to hook up with a lady who is also going to Dubai on the same flight, although she is heading for Newcastle. We shared a taxi and managed to reach and check in at KLIA at around 12.30am.

Worse of the worse? My laptop's throwing tantrums with me. It wouldn't start. It is the second most important stuff next to my passport. Will fix it later in UK.

Will first go to Dubai at 0200 hrs, then connect to another flight that flies to Manchester Airport. From there, it will be expected that the campus will arranged busses for all of us. Both flights are Emirates.

28th May

Worse day on my journey so far. Lost my boarding pass without a single fucking reason. I remembered it was tucked safely inside my shirt pocket. I walked from one end to another and it was gone.

Reprinted ther boarding pass as well as my return air ticket receipt. I still got my bank drafts so all is still well for me.

Took off from Dubai International airport at 0755 hrs dubai time (1155 Malaysian time). Excellent service provided by the air crew members. Suffered from jet ags because my body is tired, eyes are burning and my mind is slightly wobbling. Managed to sleep a little.

Reached Manchester Airport at 1230 UK Time (Malaysian Time 1930).

Surprisingly, the airport's trolleys need a pound sterling coin to disconnect their reins, to the shock of many, I merely used a 20 Malaysian cents coin to do the job.

(From now on, the time depicted will be UK time)

Reached our dormitory which is called Atlantic Place. Bought a lot of groceries as I didn't bring too much for fear of offending the flight baggage limits.

Didn't sleep much for the past 36 hours. When I woke up since my sleep at 1900hrs, it was already 2230 hrs, and here's the fun part, the exploration of Liverpool uptown area with two of my friends.

We left our dormitories at around 0030hrs (29th May) and the cold winds stab our bones unmercifully. Estimated that the temperature was only 8~12 degrees Celcius.

We walked down south and happen to see a lot of couples, some drunk, walking around the place. They were quite open, that at least one of them actually doing PDA in front of us! The security officer was kind and helpful to show us directions when I asked him where is the nearest bar, although we expressed no intent of visiting, just passing by.

It was quite a thrill, as you yourself and your two friends walked down the streets of a strange country in the early morning. People were free getting themselves drunk. Girls dressed in lavish or semi-scantily clad manner walking around, chatting and laughing loudly with their beau or companions. We even have people asking directions from us and offered to pay a pound for a spare cigarette, which we declined because we were not smokers. The police were virtually everywhere. We even caught a glimpse of two horse-riding police officers.


Then the unthinkable happenned, we were at Church street when we witnessed witnessed a man in our opposite direction, assaulted a lady, pushed her down and kicked her repeatedly before taking off and he ran towards us, and took a left turn of his direction and went into the alley after spotting an unmarked police patrol car behind us. I even showed the police car the direction, but we didn't know whether the police car did catch the guy. The police officers in the area got alerted and scaned the area though. Talking about hyper-efficiency.

It is way different in KL. You must be considering yourself lucky if the police arrive in 30 minutes. The Malaysian police presense give you goosebumps and worries, UK police's presense give you a safe feeling. This is the difference when the police is run between political parties and independent body.

One weird thing is that the Liverpool police officer wear bullet-proof vests but is unarmed, and the Malaysian police has virtually a 9mm semi-automatics and MP5 submachine guns yet without personal protection. One can observe the safety level in Liverpool. I can only say nothing but praise their professionalism.

We went back to our hostel and feeling thrilled. What a day to spend it all.


29th May

Liverpool is a small town, according to my friend, Elaine, who has been living here for the past 3 years, that it has only 800,000 residents here, which is even smaller than Ipoh!

At around 1500 hrs we went to St John's, and met Ish, a Pakistani immigrant that sells phones and reloading services (They call it top-up). I thrown in a hefty 10 pounds, which I plan to use it for the next three months, the call rates were dirt cheap and He asked me where I came from. I answered Malaysia.

"How's life in Malaysia?" He asked.

"Oh, we have three seasons." I said.

"Uh-huh?"

"Hot, hotter and hottest." I said with a laugh, "The lowest temperature is about 25 degrees at night, but at 3pm it can go up to 39 degrees, everyday. It rains heavily every month. and the best part is..."

"What?"

"The humidity level is 85%." I said with a smile.

His expression was priceless. In fact every Britons I have met were terrified upon hearing the humidity level. It will be killing you, but it ain't fatal, get over it!

I seperated from my friends to pay Elaine, my long lost friend a visit who has been living in Liverpool to my much, much surprise and besides of renting very lovely and cosy house, she loves cats! She got like 6 big, fat cute cats and each year she gave their litters away to her friends for adoption.

I sayed for a few hours, letting Steven, Elaine's boyfriend fixing my computer and then we chat about Christian faith. I revealed that I am an atheist and Steven wasn't bothered, instead of pushing his Christianity ideas to me in an single-way-manner, I was pleasantly shared with his own experiences with God. That moved me a lot because I felt respected and more welcoming myself to the ideas of Christianity.

We went to a bar at around 7pm, near Renshaw Street, called Hannah's, and we drank ourselves with Alan and Pete, two young UK blokes and we chatted about almost everything under the not-so-hot sun.

I had a large sandwich, Beef with lettuce and mustard (Western wasabi, which is not spicy at all, at least not in my taste)

Then we moved to a Chinese restaurant that serves Malaysian Chinese "modified" cuisine because its just "Britainised"
Malaysian Food. I had chicken rice. The portion was so big that I had to take away the Chicken meat, and drank the veggie soup and well as my rice (Gosh they were so big, UK people sure can eat!)

Oh and by the way, Steven gave me his old windbreaker for free! Thanks so much! My roomates were so envy of me because I know seniors that really did help me! Muahahahahaha


30th May

It's Sunday, I woke up at 5am automatically and I went out for the very first time in UK, alone and without a map. I was keen to explore the entire city. And It was quite small I must say. I can walk to the docks, then come back to St Johns Shopping center. It was cold in the morning. The places will not get busy until 11am. And everything dies down at 5pm.

One thing that I was fascinated about was around 9am where I was walking down Hanover street and saw a lady walking on her nylon stockings. Poor she, somehow she has lost her shoes when she was out drinking the saturday night and was glancing around for taxis. Her frinds were at the side of the bar, don't know doing what... sigh.

She looked at me and smiled sheepishly.

"Good morning miss," I looked at her feet. "What's wrong?"

"Oh Good morning, I was looking for a taxi..." I can see that she is really embaressed about this.

"Okay..." There was nothing really I can do, One thing in UK is that you never offer to help a lady if she is obviously with a company because that is considered rivalry to her male companions, or if she is asking for your help. So I can only walk away.

Met up with my roommates, who said they wanted to take a boat ride at the docks but cancelled the idea for some reason.

We bought some food at Tesco and bumped into more friends. Then we walked back, cooked ourselves some meals and eat and chat.

Elaine passed me my laptop back at around 8pm and Dorcus teased me for being an old lady.

I was freezing in the dusk and couldn't talk back. So Elaine said I owe a big big dinner to them. Oh Gosh!


31st May

It's Monday and also the Bank's Holiday in UK and I woke up aain in 5am, which translates to noon in Malaysia. I think my bio clock is still baying for adjustment.

Didn't do much except purchasing more food at Tesco.

1st June

It was a wet, cloudy morning, with only 11 degrees celcius, and we walked to Britannia Adelphi Hotel to kick off our induction.

After several lengthy speeches given by various officials including a police officer and a Chinese Fire Safety Council Member that we rather her speak Chinese instead of English, we were then ushered to a hall to have our lunch.

The lunch was delicious, but poorly planned as there were only 2 types of meal to choose from. Liverpool Scotch, a type of broth cooked by stewed mutton, large thin slices of potatoes, sea weed, and onion. And Bland scotch, the vegetarian version of it, where I didn;t get any chance at all to taste it. I just got one helping and the minute i returned o it, it was gone.

Things got off a little bit hot when Iqbal, our programme supervisor officially announce me as the Leader of Group 2. He also complained of me didn't hand up work to him on time. Don't blame me, blame on my pc.

Will type a short intro about myself and then post it on the e-mailist, as per ordered by Iqbal.

Filed a request to the office for a RJ45 cable, hopefully they can send it in by tomorrow. Before that I will have to borrow my roomate's pc for any Internet reference.

two days ago I have told my roomates that the chicken drumsticks that they have bought will get expire by 2nd of June, and they happenned to purchased a pot to cook these chicken drumsticks.