tHiS iS My HoUsE!!!....: August 2007

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Week 2 (19 Aug ~ 25Aug)

19 Aug
Wet weather spoils everything. Today was a day of sightseeing. First destination. The British Airways London Eye. I know we are building one back home but i’m in London, so went up for a ride. The view was magnificient. Almost catching a good view of the whole of London city. There was Wembley Stadium, the House of Parliament, etc etc. Whole ride took about 45mins. It was a waste because of the rain else it would really be great. Oh ya, the ticket cost about 15pounds. Expensive??? Next destination, Buckingham Palace. WTF is that? Go to http://www.google.com/ and type in Buckingham palace. The result will tell you what is that. Nah, i’m kidding. This is the place where the Queen entertains her guests or hold functions, the place where she works, etc. Or in another words, something like the Istana in Singapore.

I don’t how to describe it, but it is so F****** GRAND. There were at least 5-10 chandeliers, countless paintings from the 18 centuries that is kept up to today. I cannot remember how any rooms were there but there East Gallery, the Ballroom, the Marble Room, etc, etc. Oh and i saw those Royal Guards that United Kingdom are famous for (Those guards in red with black furry headgears). They have a ceremory for changing Guards which occur everyday at 11am, too bad i missed it. As the Palace does not allow photo taking inside, all you can see are the outside shoots of the Palace.

Well, there are still alot of destinations which i did not have time for it. Which hopefully next time i get the chances to visit them.

House of Parliament

The London Eye

A bird eye view from the London Eye

Nearer shot of the House of Parliament

Lunch of the Day, Roasted Bacon with salad.

The Bromsgrove Guild

Outside the Buckingham Palace

Another outside shoot of the Palace from the Garden

A view from far from the Palace garden

Dinner of the day. Thai Green Curry with Rice. (Don't look green to me)

20 Aug
Last week here in London. Training sessions are all over. Now I probably be taking calls or tagging onto someone here who can guide me along. Today is much much better, no rain but it is still windy. I hope this will be the case for the rest of the week. Starting to feel home sick already. I’m just sick of eating bread, eating cold sandwiches. As i’m sitting here at a cafe, suddenly there was this very long limo. Full of ladies in the limo and it is PINK!!!!!

That’s all for today. I’m going back to the hotel. Cya soon Singapore.

The Pink Limo

21 Aug
Nothing exciting happened today. Same old stuffs at work, full of learning, full of questions to ask everyone, how to do this, how to do that but if i don’t ask, i will never know how to do them. I rather be a nuisane for a day than be a nuisane forever. :P Had a informal lunch meeting with my boss and 2 other heads. Gave some feedbacks on how i wish my team can improve better and they advised me how to improve things better and some of the expectations and requirements they have for me.

Went to Four Season Chinese Resturant at Bayswater for dinner. Had the usual stuffs that i can get them easily in Singapore and I realised i never appreciate such food until I came here. The roast duck was as good as Singapore, the roast pork was good but not great. My mom’s roast porks are better. Hmm... I miss my mom cooking. The kailan was alright, nothing spectacular so was the Kung Po Diced Chicken but the TangHoon Beef was excellent. I was really full, very full. After dinner was drinking again. The area in Bayswater is rather full of activities, it was crowded. There was quite a number of chinese restaurants too. Most of them sell the same stuffs as the Four Season Chinese Restaurant i went.

Their version of Electronic Road Pricing (The London version)

22 Aug
A very windy and cold morning greeted me. It was really really cold. Especially after the rain last night. After that it was off to work again, today was more challenging. Start to work on more work requests and more challenging calls. Had a bagel for lunch, it was good. Hardly get hot meals here, either they are expensive or they tasted awful. :P

Again I went for a drink again. Didn’t know where to go for dinner, just got a chicken burger from a Kebah stall and got a salad from Mark & Spencers. Yes, the Mark & Spencers sell food here. Big difference from the Mark & Spencers in Singapore where its sell clothings and snacks.
Remember i told you that the weather was cranky here. Suddenly it was raining heavily, so cold and so wet. So far this was the heaviest I have ever seen.

I feel kind of weird now. Because there is a game between England and Germany. Under normal circumstances, i would wake up in the middle of the night to catch these games but no, they are showing on TV at 8pm at night. Devaju......

Mr Pineapple at work

23 Aug
A normal day at work again with more to learn. Gav promised to bring me out for Curry, so after work, went down to south London with Scotty and Gav at some Indian restaurant but before having curry, they must drink first. End up having 2 pimms of Stella and head down to the curry place. I'm impressed that they have very delicious curry dishes.

24 Aug
Last working day at Pats London, last night at London. Nothing much to do. Had a relative busy day, following up work requests, checking on production issues. Particular pissed of with someone in the Singapore office. Farking stupid.... anyway, i almost forgotten about getting things for my families and friends.

Last night was spent in the office talking to Beng and Hanny on the MSN. Haha.... particular right.... but still alright, Scotty wanted pizza for dinner, so end up with a Hawaiian pizza again. Not the particular way i want spent my last night in a foreign land but most of them already had plans for the evening and I shall not disturb their weekend any further.

Hawaiian Pizza

25Aug,
Had my last breakfast at the hotel and waited for the cab to come pick me up. Surprisingly, the cab driver kind of take me to see the places i visited previously. Lovely and full of histories is the way to describe them. :)

The airport was full of passengers leaving the country. I guess either Changi Airport is huge, or Heathrow Terminal 3 is too small, it is really crowded though as compared to Changi Airport.

My daily breakfast at the hotel. (I'm staying away from breads, bacon, beans and sausages)

Week 1 (11Aug ~ 18 Aug)

11 Aug

Things didn’t departed as per normal. My flight was delayed for an hour for a stupid part that need to be replaced. So my flight that supposed to reach London @ 1910 turned out to reached @ 2010. However, when we reached there, the traffic was high so we have to stay in the holding area for about 10mins before we are allowed to land. Lan Lan.... That is not all. Since we are late, the original parking that the plane supposed to park got taken by another plane. Lan Lan.... waited for 10mins again. This was really not my day..... , I have to wait for freaking 30mins for my lugguage before i can finally depart the custom immigration.
Met up with my driver and the driver is kind of blur and slow.... So i left the airport at about 2130, i reach the hotel and finally settled down @ 2300. Time to go to sleep already. Not a good start......

12 Aug
Quite a good start. The breakfast was pretty nice, there was bacon, eggs, sausages, etc etc etc. The usual stuffs where you can find. Since I have the whole day, so I decided to check out the Abercombie & Fitch outlet. I remember clearly I know where the place was, but I guess i was early, that’s why I couldn’t find the place, since most of the shop open @ 12noon on a Sunday. So after lunch, i finally asked my gf to text me the exact address and finally I found it. The clothings are farking expensive. They are of the same prices as the US stores but the prices are in pounds.

For the whole day, I went to the following places. The Tower Bridge and London Bridge. The 2 places are full of tourists and I’m one of them. Decided to check out the route to office too. Had McDonald for lunch since I didn’t know what was good. After that, I went down to Stamford Bridge, yes the House of the Chelski FC. Hoping to get the ticket for the opening match but guess what, the match was already played halfway. The stadium is nice, very nice. Haha.... and guess what, I was outside the stadium when Michael Essien score the winning goal. Haha.... cheap trill ya.

So since i couldn’t go into the stadium, i just took a few pictures and left the place. It was still early, so took the train to visit St Paul Cathedral. Grand. Very Grand is all i can describe the cathedral. Stay there for a while and left the place and head back for the hotel.

Pics for the day....

Tower Bridge

Chelsea Football Club @ Stamford Bridge

My office location

St Paul Cathedral

The Entrance of St Paul

Tower of London

13 Aug
Left for work at 0740, reached office at 0800. Guess I was supposed to report to work at 0900. Haha... anyway, training wasn’t that bad. Got an introduction of the company, got a overview of the different components of the architecture of the system. There was another 3 GSD members that started on the same day. So i guess things are not that bad afterall.

Crapz.... Look like the rain is here. Look like it is going to be a wet week. Got to get my umbrella soon. The weather is very nice, cool and sunny, just nice the kinda weather that I love but hopefully not the rain.

I will try to post the pictures as much as possible. As i have to pay the internet access at my hotel, the nearby coffee place has free Wi-Fi access, so i might head down there after work to get myself hook up to the network.

14 Aug
I realised something about the people here. Everyone is so polite and everyone is so enthusitic about work. Everyday my boss’s boss greet me good morning, in fact he greet everyone on his team good morning. He seem to make an effort to do so. I’m amazed..... very amazed by the culture here. This time here gave me new insight and new learning about the way treating the subordinates.

The wet weather is here. It’ve really rain. Had no choice but to buy my umbrella. The day ended with a session of drinks with the new guys and the old staffs.... It was really great.

15 Aug
The day started off with the wet weather again. Mid day it was sunny again. The day ended with wet weather again. Cranky weather and please be reminded that it is summer now. It sure doesn’t feel like summer to me when everyday it is around 20’C.

Met Scott, the Team Leader here. He was excellent. Seem to me they are really positive about my appointment of Team Leader in Singapore. I really hope that I can do a good job.

End up going drinking again with Ben Smith, James Rob and Scott. It was really fun hanging out with them. Gave me a good insight of Gavin (My direct boss) and Paul (My boss’s boss)

The thing i realised in London is the buildings. There is a good mixture of old buildings and modernise ones. They seem to be able to mix the new ones with the old ones which I quite like them. Full of cultures and histories.

16 Aug
It was another day of drinks again. Cos one of the GSD guy was leaving and he was quite well liked by the rest. Everyone kinda turned up for his farewell drinks. Oh, btw he is from HongKong so I kinda feel much at home hanging out with him. He was really friendly too, well all of them are friendly.

Had a few drinks and he brought me down to Chinatown at Leicester Sq for dinner. Yes, rice with vegetables, pork chop, toufu and chicken. The first time that i ate something that resembles home. The food was great although not as good as Singapore but it was still close enough. By the time i reach back at the hotel it was already 2330. Realised it was pretty dangerous to be walking around at that time.

Something i kinda of lose track of time as it seem like everyday is a working day. Finally it is Friday and it is the weekend again.

Leicester Square

17 Aug

It is the last day of training. Next week I will be working together with the guys here. Probably won’t be answering calls but will try to help out.

Today was Yee’s last day. The HongKong guy that who was leaving. Ended up having dinner with him and another Hongkong down at Chinatown again. This time was Japanese food. Nice but expensive. It was 60pounds (180SGD) for 3 person, in Singapore, that would easily be 180SGD would get you a very very decent japanese food.

Thinking of where to go this weekend. Probably will do some shopping over at Covent Garden, Pacadilly Circus on Sat and if possible head down to Craven Cottage, to catch the game between Fulham and Boro.

Some drinking crowds outside a pub nearby my office

The National Gallery

18 Aug

As decided the day before, I did went to Pacadilly Circus and Convent Garden for shopping and trust me, they are not cheap to begin with, especially Convent Garden. The place has more things in terms of clothings, shoes, etc, etc but they are really expensive. For example, I saw a pair of shoes from the Onitsuka Tiger range. It was really nice and i really liked it but the price kinda put me off. It was 60pounds, that works out to be 180SGD. I suspect i can get them cheaper back home. Next, i was at Picadilly Circus, there was this store shop that sells alot of sport apparals. Some were cheap, some were not. Managed to get a t-shirt which is on SALE and it still cost me 30SGD. Crapz right.

Lastly, I did head down to Craven Cottage. Home of Fulham FC. They were playing against Middleborough. The stadium was shabbly than I expected. Even our Geylang United Stadium looks better expected Craven Cottage can take in more spectators than Geylang United. Anyway, Fulham lost 2-1 to Boro, they were kind of unlucky as they had a number of referreeing errors. The fans were full of passion, especially the Boro’s fan. I believe there were just 2000 – 3000 of them but their voices were louder than the home fans. Way way louder.
After the match, didn’t head out much, just some simple sightseeing and i head back to my hotel. Although one of my colleagues was holding a party at his place, i didn’t print out his address. So too bad, back in the hotel watching tv.