Bremen

Britfest!

Halfway hall


Snow day!

Fjords


April

-Wordalive!

May

-decided to specialise in Zoology. major decision.
-Varsity. we trashed oxford. neh-neh-ni-poo-poo.
-My birthday!
-Start of Tripos :(

Team performance for Varsity.

Birthday formal

June

-end of Tripos. yay!
-Spain: Barcelona, Granada, Seville.
-Magdalene May Ball

Parc Guell in Barcelona. i love spain! must go back again.

May ball! so fun. we must must go again!


July

-lab work in bio polis
-chilling out in singapore

singapore river by night

me and a little girl, whom i miss quite a bit. she is quite violent, so no wearing of spectacles when carrying her. but when she laughs my heart melts.

belated post. again!

23 December 07

It was a frosty and foggy day.

view from my window.

on the way to church.

took a train to london after church.
had some time to kill so i went to harrods to have a soak in the christmassy atmosphere.
there were some anti-fur ppl outside urging shoppers to boycott harrods until they adopt an anti-fur policy. like that will ever happen. people continued to stream into harrods and i doubt the store will stop stocking the luxury item.

london cabs on the street in front of harrods. foggy london! all the descriptions i've read of london in storybooks include fog. (and murder and detectives)

met xiaoen and jianen at Covent Garden.
cos there was a Christmas market there.
we weren't that impressed with the market, really. but the roadside entertainment was pretty special.

artistes balancing on tall poles while conveying some story through miming and dancing to the music and swaying on those elastic poles. we were more interested to know how they got up there in the first place and how they were going to come down. but we didn't stay to find out.



the inside of the Market was transformed into a winter wonderland with pretty icy-blue fairy lights and white chandeliers




a lady attached to a hot air balloon hovered over the crowd, performing acrobatic acts to ochestra music and flashing lights, the movement of the balloon controlled by 2 men by means of ropes linking the balloon to their waists. we could see them visibly straining at times to coax the balloon to change its direction of movement. or perhaps they were trying not to get carried away. we wondered what would happen if there were a sudden strong gust of wind.

we went for dinner at a belgian restaurant, then i met joyce and harry to salsa at SOS.
we don't have a photo together!!! BOO.

most of my dances were on2.
primarily cos the better dancers were dancing on2. so no choice.

it was a star-studded night.
leon rose was there (duh), then irene miguel and niko came, followed by super mario and susana montero. wah..

spent the night at harry's place, where we watched "50 most annoying ppl of 2007" till 3 am. was great fun haha.

24 december 07

joyce and i made pancakes for breakfast.
yum!

then uncle ian came and drove me to his house.

where i got to see the rest of the family again :)

went to church for the christmas eve service, complete with a nativity play by the children. so cute :)

25 december 07


woke up to a filled stocking and coffee spiked with bailey's :)
spent most part of the morning opening the presents in the stocking together.
received many thoughtful gifts :)

helped to prepare the christmas lunch, a massive affair over a few hours.

roast turkey! yorkshire pudding, italian red wine and the works.

homemade christmas cake! so pro right :)

then we opened the Presents Under The Tree.
i received a most adorable bear :)
he (its a he) has been named "John Mince-pie Lewis" mince-pie being his middle name in the light of christmas. much better than "sergio pedro antonio" my cousin dreamed up.

26 december 07

rested at home instead of jostling with the crowds at boxing day sales.
watched the film adaptation of The Old Curiosity Shop by charles dickens. so brit!



27 december 07

visited a family friend in St. Ive's for lunch, then drove to houghton for a walk by the river.
the village is home to many pretty tatched-roof houses :)

we crossed the river and were greeted by a field of cows, with no fence separating the cows from the footpath.

pretty cottage!

we had to walk through the cow field again to get back. was a bit scary.

then i was driven back to camb.
significantly fatter and laden with even more goodies to tide me over the cold winter days ahead. i'm most grateful :)

4 -10 December 2007


We spent the first few days by the mountains.

went to Everland, an amusement park. i was suitably impressed. it couldn't compare to Disneyland, but it was close enough- much better than a lot of other amusement parks.

korean BBQ

the koreans are crazy about Winter Sonata- they mark every filming location with bronze statues/ life-size cardboard cut-outs of the stars/ giant posters.

we visited Namiseom Island where some bits of the show were shot.
so obviously they had to have a photo gallery dedicated to the show, with a replica of the bench on which the stars sat to make snowmen before sharing their first kiss. sth like that. this bench comes complete with fake snow and plastic snowmen so young korean couples can sit there and have their photos taken. right.

but it really is quite a pretty island.

ice fountain!

then we went to a ski resort. where surprise surprise, winter sonata was filmed.

the leads in the film, immortalised at the highest peak of the resort.


me and mummy!

my brothers. don't they look pro :) look.


jump!



and at the ski slopes they had this huge screen showing clips of winter sonata containing scenes where the film was shot..


En route to Seoul after bathing in some hot spring, we chanced upon lots of snow.







Mt. Sorak


Then we visited Lotte World!!
I love Lotte World. we went to korea 10 years ago and all i could remember was this fantastic lotte world.
so i was really looking forward to it this trip.

lotte world is this huge indoor amusement park (with an outdoor bit). the pretty lights, amazing decor and wintery Christmas atmosphere just make the place as magical as it was 10 years ago.
we didn't have enough time, so i didn't get to sit any of the rides, but walking around and enjoying the atmosphere was good enough for me :)
would definitely love to visit again!

shopping in seoul.




we spent 2 days and a night in hongkong before returning to s'pore.
but we were so busy eating and shopping that we didn't take many photos.
for the record: argyle centre/plaza/watever is an amazing shopping centre. like far east plaza only a lot funkier.