Continuing...
We went to the smallest sovereign state in the world: Vaticano City which is like about 0.4kmsquare. i thinks. i know i shld put a pic of st peter's basilica - it's most notable landmark but i don't feel inclined to so. HAH. i liked the bridge of angels =)
and i posted a postcard to my mommy =) MOMMY! ee.
and how can we miss the all-famous sistina capella, housed inside the vaticano museo along with a ZILLION pieces of great art!! omggg. haha.
now. isn't this a much nicer post.. and after rome we took several trains back to edinburgh and plane la. duh. i think we travelled for more than 12h!!
AND I FINISHED EXAMSSSS. DID I MENTION THAT =) WOOHOOOO~

xin's last post was dreary and wordy and boring - meant for either reallyboredpeoplewithnothingbettertodothantoreadxinyi'sinaccurateversionofitalyratherthanreadingwikipedia's *gasps for breath* or me (who seem to fit into the previous category anw)

so this post will be a little more colourful =) i hopes. (and everyone else fervently hopess.)

soo after siena we truly explored firenze.to the ponte vecchio amongst other things.
we went to fiesole as welll =) a hillside town? to view firenze from the top...



we went to pompeii via napoli (though we did nth at napoli except run to buy some tasty pastry at the pasticeria).
we had a gorgeous lunch at this famous restaurant. it was so posh! and the food was goood! and they had a live band which played TICOTICO!
then we went into the ancient city of pompeii!
spent many hrs walking around and then left for roma termini agains.
did i mention i arrived in rome on my birthday, a drizzly, gloomy day, a day i tried so hard to stay cheerful, and almost spent it quite uneventfully, despite the coldrain, despite the restaurants that were all closed during dinner... and i had to catch the wrong train, ending up 22km away from my accom, and having to take a 60euro taxi ride home =(

we went to the colosseum
and to the trevis fountain which was so beautifull!!

firstly thanks to alllLL the lovely people who wished me happy birthday.
imagine my surprise. it seems as though being stuck in scotland all by myself (not exactly) but like without all of you.. makes me feel a little forgotten. sometimes when i hear about batch outings i'm no longer invited to, just cos it's pointless inviting me. haha! and about sunny singapore thingss. and then on my birthday, facebook gets spammed. xinyi has facebook can u believe it! erps. and my hotmail gets spammed. faces, words and little wishes from bits and pieces of my history re-emerges.. thanks everyonee =) love u alll.. very muchhhies.

xin has vanished for an eternally long time. due to pre-easter-stress in handing up ESSAYSSSS i still HATE essayss. ew.EW.EWWWW. and then pre-easter-vacation-preparationss. endless nights of researching about italy, about train passes, about accomodations, of peering at maps and wondering how far the little red point where my accomm is is from the little green triangle where the station is and the dotted square where the city centre is. hasty packing. is italy cold? don't know, don't want to pack my fat jacket. brings 2 thin jackets. whee. camera. handphone. nothing much else. and we flyyyyyy.

unlike kenny who has decided to write in elaborate detail about the trip, xin is kinda lazy (and hasn't even uploaded her photos so her memory card is bursting full of stratford and italy photoss) so i'll just describe what i feel like. HAHA.

as usual. i like to fly. but the little prestwick airport, which smells of farm and cow dung and grass (trust me, it was a familiar smell, bringing back memories of pony riding), doesn't seem like the departure point of great magnificent aircrafts as we have gotten used to. nothing like the glory of the changi airport, with a few meagre shops just awakening, and a most comforting WH Smith and Starbucks (that all airports seem to have). ok basically we fleww. and landed in bergamo orio sth sth airport at midnight (but it was 1am there o_O) i'm 1h further away from home and my family and my friendss. we spent the night with rowdy!swearing!singing!and notoriously DRUNK scots! again!!! cos scots was playing italy the day after o_O in the 6 nations thingy or maybe not the 6 nations thingy in football in BARI which was at the heel of the italy boot. chased around the chilly night, regretting immensely not bringing the FAT jacket. tossing and turning to the lullabies of scottish national songs yelled over the PA system till a security guard yelled in italian to the scots. we finally got to the next day where we would head off to MILANN. we missed a bus. another bus. and another buss. and we finally got to bergamo station where we had MACDONALDS (kenny's favourite obsesssion - and ian's?) and we trooped off to milann. irrelevantly kenny has calculated and concluded that we have covered roughly 2400km. not 2.4km but 2400km the whole trip. whee~

we reached the hotel and concussed. and got up frantically to go sightseeing in milan. saw the golden quad, felt HIGHLY inadequately dressed though i was wearing a long skirt and nice jacket (which will haunt me for the rest of the trip cos it was cold and that was my thickest jacket) and saw the excellentEXCeLLENT duomo. question: why are all churches dark? kinda ironic isn't it. church where shakespeare is buried is like the brightest church i've been to. HONESTLY. blahBLAH and we went off to VENICe mestre. my favourite place. though venice santa lucia was the main stop, but we stayed a station off, in a lovely camping place in a sweet new cabin by ourselves, which had a grand ensuite toilet and lovely heating. it was a peaceful neighbourly (silas marner!!!) place. and it housed our favourite gelateriaa. DID I FORGET TO MENTION? we had at least ONE gelato everyday. whee. one gelato might mean more than 1 scoop (or gusti as they call it) AND did i mentino my italian is brilliant? i can count up to ten (or more i bet. whee) venice is my favourite place, although we didn't sail down the grand canal in a romantic gondola which is very expensive o_O or even take a traghetteria across the river. i love the small winding paths with obscure dead ends at canals and rickety, dubious signs pointing to piazza roma and ican'tremember o_O. imagine spending 2h wandering aimlessly thru little cobbled paths occassionally chancing upon a bridge cutting across a little canal that runs like a road pass houses, with boats parked in front of them as if cars, sometimes passing through a little piazza, a small little clearing, where little kids play and huge dogs gambol, and then stepping out into a gigantic open space, where the magnificence of the duomo shines at u, glares at u almost. it's spectacular really. amazing. despite the drizzle. the incessant drizzle that drenched my shoes and indirectly burned a hole in my sock (long story). okay, it was grand. brilliant, i love venice. i so recommend walking around aimlessly. seriously.

firenze.florence.in the beautiful gorgeous countryside of Tuscany where vineyards populate (which i didn't see a single one or if i did, i didn't recognize o_O mayb it's the wrong season) trooped off to pisa the first day (so din see firenze). and it's so strange to stand next to the leaning tower of pisa, or to look beyond and see stretches of people standing on the grass, hands outstretched, in a valiant attempt to push over the tower of pisa (or look as if they're doing so) and then get chased off by diligent police, blowing furiously at the whistles and waving at the 'keep off the grass' sign, ironically, the only location where one can get a good photo of them 'pushing' over the 'excellent' architectural fiasco.

it's getting late. i'm getting lazy.. siena will wait till tomorrow

pisa has a GREAT trattoria (a little like restaurant). it's near the main attractions and starts with 'antica.... trattoria' and it serves great food at a decent price (i had seafoood - prawnss and crayfish and FISH and calamari) and despite what all the postcards proclaim, the leaning tower of pisa does NOT light up in the night. i bet they photoshopped the lights. damn. no we din stay all the way till it was dark to see the non-lighting up; we stayed there so we could shiver our way home, after our 3rd gusti of gelato.

xin is still plodding through her philo essay, having decided that kanji portfolio is unimportant.
xin has paid her accomm!
and planned a highlands/skye trip for the singsoc. whether anyone goes is another matter naturally.
xin is going to italyITALYitaly. xin needs to plan italy trip. bah.
xin has a new idolIDOL! - he is... YamaPi! piiiii-chan wa kawaiii~ thanks zun for having shown me 2 of his shows over the xmas holz (dragon zakura & nobuta o produce!)
xin has spent practically half of her time youtubing yamapi and finding yamapi songs and reading about yamapiiii~ (and reading translations of his blog OMG! haha~ xin is crazy momentarily)

gloomy clouds, grey skiess. walking in the rain.
slight but oppressive drizzle that gets to u like how drops of water goes drip, drip and eventually drills a hole through the hardest rock.
i remember telling someone: oh at least it isn't both rainy and windy.
goes into a cafe for a warm cuppa mocha, thinks all is fine, goes out, and guess what! it IS rainy and windy.
someone tells me: typical day in edinburgh.
one has to agree sometimes.

still aching from pony trekkiing on sunday in the pentland hills.
misty day it was (and yeah rainy)
splashing in the mud in oversized spare wellies.
ugly green wellies and ugly green waterproof sheet.
(pony must have thought i was grass. nose sniffled at the green shapeless thing in front of it. licked. and licked. decidedly not grass. nudged. green shapeless thing moved. pony turns away)
exciting. naughty dessie who's lazy. i kicked gently, it mrufledd and went back to nibbling grass. kicked again. dessie walked a few step and... went back to grass. kicked and kicked. and ppl wonder why sitting on a pony can be tiring.
dessie hates to follow in a straight line where all the ponies are and wanders off despite my tugging at the rein. dessie and i move parallel.
dessie hates marla. everytime we see marla, dessie makes a wild dash at marla (and xin desperately holds on) and attempts a bite. marla rears (and mary desperately holds on).
bazil likes dessie's butt. and licks it. dessie is alarmed and CANTERS towards empty space (xin holds on, pulls the rein and thankfully does not fall off)
xin and dessie are lost in the mist. voices talking ahead. voices talking behind. and all we see is white swirly mist and the sillhouete of a huge pony butt swaying in front of us.
curious sheep stares at trail of ponies.
xinyi is relieved and tired. but xin would like to go again (once i forget how horrifying it possibly might be)

xin has much to do.
we have a kanji portfolio (wth is that o_O)
we have a kanji test (soon)
we have yet ANOTHERRRRR philo essay
we have a miniquiz (potentially more than onee)
we have to pay accomm.
we have to study. and study. and study.
we have to plan italy(?) trip.
we have to... weeeeee. weeeeeeee. i dunno.

byebyee =)

happy chi new yr~ happy valentines'! did i miss anything else? i miss everybody
haha really really miss the whole festive chinese new yr.. seems weird to go to school on chi new yr.. i still went thoughh.. i'm so hardworking.. yay. i'm done with essays for now.. haf another in about a mth's time and a silly portfolio due around tt time too =(

went to portobello the other day~ the beach is pretty! but cold.. like COLDDD! why are there cold beaches? all beaches shld be like for suntanning and stuff.. erghzz. there were many little doggiess.. ohh the other day there was a cat outside my door after all!! it cuddled up to me.. and rubbed its face on my shoe.. it was so affectionate.. haha! i would haf really liked the cat if it didn't extend its claws and tried to climb up my jeanss, scratching me while she was at it o_O but she was cute la.. lala..

ISSS the rg mafia coming to uk?
i'm late for classs but i dun feell like going cos today is a gloomy day =(
and i realise i haf manymanymany things to do. (i hear a cat outside my window?door?howalarming)
politics essay next tues. AH i hate essays. i hate essaysss. i HATE essays. did u just hear me say i hate essays? i hate essays =( i want to *** it's a secrett. and i want to go to the gymm. and i want to err fill up the firefly form due like 2 mths ago o_O AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH and i want to pay my accomm. and i want to get a new phonee. and i want to.. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH so many thingss.. die.die. and i'm late for lectureee.. i better walk fastfastt =( i dun want do essay. no essay... noooooo!!!

xin shall go check out the cat meowinggg.

hellossh =) xin reports from edinburgh =)
after doing a horrendousss philo essay (i hate essayss =( ) i'm nearlyyy freee~ (well if i ignored the politics essay due like less than 2 wks later o_O)
despite the esssay, i still managed to haf a wonderfull time (As usual)
i hope the rg mafia is still coming to uk =)

xin went to the burn house for the weekend near/in aberdeen where the famouss angus steak comes from. hurhur but i din eat any.

xin was in a rustic-looking house isolated in the countryside amidst hills and woods with only a little village (ezel?) 2 or 3 miles away.
xin took early morning (slpy) walks along gurgling streams and stony paths, listening to the hollow knockings of the woodpeckers and the cries of the pheasants.

xin meditated in the labyrinth and spent idle minutes swaying on the wooden swing.

xin spent exciting nights/mornings/afternoons (well nearly all the time) having/listening to intense political debates about uk/ scotland/ russia.
xin goes for 3-course meals at the sound of the dinner gong, and at other times, have tea and scones or tea and macaroons or tea and ginger biscuits. lovely.

and now xin is back in gd old edinburgh, reading about germany and the failed weimar republic.
on top of japanese, xin suddenly feels inclined to learn french. haha!
xin missess everyoneee. mummy. daddy. sisss.sisss. hy. paulas. px. iris. tsetsemiffss. clarines. chongs. ruis. nics. rg peeps and rj peeps. ohh and i heard that my tagboard iss downn =(

hellos. it is a cold day again!
it's been snowingg. fluffs of snow driftingg.
on the first night it snowed, we went embarrassingly mad, dancing in the snowflakes with chilly toes bared and uncovered by flipflops, with tongues outstretched, eating snowflakes, and hair trapping millions of iridescent flakes. so pretty =)

it's been a busy weeeek. singapore food fest. cooking and cooking AND cooking for the whole week. at least i'm a gd chef *grinzz* haha. doing essays. TWO insane essays for philosophy and politics. trying and trying to keep up with tutorials and giving up on doing the readings for lectures. cooking and cooking at kenny's place. i'm a wonderful chef. hoho. do i need to say that again? ah and looking for flats. an abominable task. at least we've FINALLY settled who's to stay with who. AH. i hope we get a nice place =) where i can cook and cook and continue to be a gd chef. HAHA. ok i shall stop it. lalala.. feel like baking browniesss but too lazy to go buy cocoaa.

i missssssess huiyan. and i'm very exciteds that somee lovely rgssbeeeees are flying to uk to seee us!!!! when do u all intend to come and when do u intend to leavess? then i can err buy my return ticket to singaporess. haha. i end term officially on 25th may, provided my papers are (yet again?) on the last dayyy. hopefully not so i can end earlier.. HAHA. but i'll be chased out of my accomm by 27th o_O so can we pls haf some plannn? or i'm flying back on 27th okss.

and i'vee.... finally succumbed to popular presssure and gotten a facebook account =)
ta-da..

みんな、日本語を見えましたか。私は見えませんから。日本語は著～楽しいですね！上手がなりたいです！

今日はー月十ー日です。晴れとき々雨です。風が強意です。学校へ行くが疲れるの事です。でも、日本語のクラスはいつもとっても楽しいです＝）きょうは嬉しいですね！去年のテストは九十八％です。信じる事ができない！ほかのテストもいいと望む。

今勉強します。クラスの後、図書館へ行きました。多い本を貸しました。でも、読みたくない。政治学は難しい。だから、今は始めます！シンイ、頑張ってね！

おはよう！
I've finally figured out how to use the japanese input keyy! wheee¬ haha i just fiddled with the language bar thingy and succeeded! yay! happy =)

Happy birthday to Hui Chong!!
チョングさん、お誕生日　おめでとうございます！最近、お元気ですか。手紙を受けりましたか。私の日本語はまだ悪いですから、日本語で手紙を書けませんでした。
haha i think my japanese still cannot make it.. i wonder if it makes sense. haha ee. i hope most people can't read it =) nnehh. clarine don't laughh at me!

i typed a long long post about lnodon but blogger screwed up. and refused to elt me save or upload it. gr. i shall just cut and paste:

belated happy new yr! finally settled down after travelling and travelling. had a great christmas and new year with a part of my beloved rgmafiaa =) my dear shun and nic =) choc fondue. boxing day sales. movies. tower bridge. london bridge. st paul's cathedral. tate modern. madame tussaud's. spending quality time with nic and shun! i'm so glad i got to talk to nic!!! *hugzz* guess we didn't really do much in london. haha! oh yeahh. the producers! lovely and entertaining musical! gotta watch more musicals liek LES MIS! hey tsetsemifff we're waiting for u to come over and watch kk =P
new year, new start. came back with xmas cards in my mailbox. with msgs and calls from uk ppl. snuggling in bed wondering if i ought to go out and see hogmanay celebrations despite the howling wind and pelting rain (i'm exaggerating of course.) and lazy me just slept through it. but miraculously, lucky me found out that hogmanay was cancelled!! AHAHA. thank goodness i didn't trudge all the way to princes st to 'celebrate' hogmanay.
been busy lately bringing kenny's friends around edinburgh, well scotland in general. actually it's just an excuse not to start work and to explore and travel somemore.HAHA. buffet at glasgow. loch ness and nessie. urquhat castle. chopchop. yumyum. shopping. and now the new school term has begun once again =( still don't feel like studying. this yr i shall be more disciplinedd and go to the gym more often and study harder and still keep my 2 new yr resolutions to nic =) as the yr goes on, it may be hard to keep our resolutions.. but we'll remind each other kk =)

exams were over. ahh so long. so much happened. slowly retracing my steps.

15th dec was like the worst day of the year or sth. well close. i heard things i didn't want to hear. i sat for a TERRIBLE exam. dinner at arowana was pretty good but it made me feel worse cos everyone was so cheerful, it being the holidays, and that being our xmas- cum- new- yr- cum- everything-cos-everyon'es-returning-to-their-home-country-dinner, and nurul and i were juz grumpy and didn't feel like talking to everyone and being sulky and not feeling like smiling and feeling reallyreally guilty for being a wet blanket =( sorry folks. bad day. then had the girls' slp over which rox. seriously. we watched constantine, and we intended to watch legally blonde but we never made it. HAHA. like we were supposed to walk over to yy's room to watch it but everyone was settled happily on my floor, and we were talking, listening to old cheesy music like backstreet boys! talking was so wonderful. haha. it's a girl thing i guess. talking and talking about everything and anything. ppl took turns to fall aslp and then finally it was 6am, time to take the train to manchester...

16th dec started terribly. all 3 of us (hl, kenny and i) were like concussed. hl slept like a few hrs, kenny and i both din slp - hl and kenny went clubbing and i was (as above) having the slpover. we err missed the train. ok let's not describe it. it was a painful experience (for kenny). we got there, met GARRICK!!! haven't seen him for so long.. then he walked us to his place which was damn far away and NOT at all 400m despite his constant assurance that it was. it's like at least 1km oks. and it's not funny carrying a big bag (my luggageee). we had good dim sum. haven't had dim sum for like soooooooooo long like 3 months, since the imf-amazing-race-stb-thingy-dimsum-at-crystal-jade. then we err. nua-ed around till dinner. what did we eat.. err like fried chicken and chips (british chips - i.e. fries) no vege anw.

17th dec. ah 17th dec! i wanted to email a friend but ermms i forgot. oopz. we had big english breakfast (or we wanted to) but in the end we settled for beer and burger (but we din get beer - who drinks beer in the morning - the brits?!) and sunday roast, yummy sunday roast in yorkshire puddingss. mms. dunno what we did but we had a gorgeous chinese dinner, i had beef hor fun! can u believe it? reminds me of ghim moh times. anw i'm fed up of writing in details cos i can't actually remember what we did.. so i'm going to summarise.

museum. t-rex. apes. egyptians. the world. old trafford. manchester united. trophies. stadium. grass. red cafe. town hall. christmas market. university of manchester. gay pubs. canal street. chinatown.arndale. odeon. eragon. manchester eye. library. well not much after alll. and nights and nights and nights of watching stupid movies i think my iq has deterioratedd. then offfffie to london on the 21st.

shitty time on 21st morning. the airport confiscated ALL my stuffss like toothpaste, lip balm, perfumess, soapss, shampoos, moisturiser, water, my fork.

...to be continuedd. when i feel like it.

morning. irritated. my previous post was erased o_O cos my internet connection died. anwss i kinda gaf up mugging o_O went to jo's room and we talked till like 2am. actually until 1.30am but the fire alarm kindly interrupted us so we stood shivering in the cold for half an hr before returning. grr. i do hate those stupid drunkards who set off the fire alarm. if they set it off tonight again, i'm going to scream, cos unlike -some- people, i still have a paper tmr. seriously. and they set it off at THREE am the night before my 9am Logic paper (which is a bit like mathematics)

anwws i remember why i wanted to postt. cos i uploaded photoss. at least till the cambridge trip cos i errr am too lazy to upload the glasgow photos and the bubble tea photo and the nurul's party photos and the jap party photo and the baking attempt 2 phtoos. i'm trying to upload to blogger but it doesn't work grr. umm i'll do it soon.. lala.. maybe after my examss. eeks. so busyy. i think i don't want to study le.. i'll go play pool after going to the bank (can u believe the bank lost my THIRD application form so i'll be doing my fourth today.. seirously what is wrong wif them? or what is wrong wif me?)

ahh it worked. okkk above is me in the newnham gown =)

it's me again =) on 12th dec. rui's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! yesterday was tuan's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! i miss celebrating birthdayss. hmm okk.

today i'm studying japp. jappy. jappy. basically i spent 1h finishing err most of it. so i've the rest of the day freeeee. and i'm not going to start on politics. nono. eww. today is japaneseee. maybe i'll write a japanese notee to megumi~ she wrote me a reply that i could barely understand the last time though.. hahaa! i shall think very hardd and write a nice replyy. or watch anime the rest of the day - sounds good =) yays.

ahh everyone's back in singapore it seems. can't believe i'm still having exams =( can't wait till i reach london and see nic and see zun again and feel a little more normal.. till thenn~

it's the 3rd. haha what's with the weekly postss?
tuesday. went to the jap society end-of-sem party at club massa. good music, nice dance floor, but no one dancing. haha except for the friends i went with (my classmates who take japanese) and i o_O haha. they were great company though. haha and i kind of had fun i guess dancingg and dancing.. although err it got a little strange cos it was just us. haha~

thursday, went to kiru (my snr)'s birthday party. she's 21. happy belated! it was at frankenstein, a pub/ club where she worked. pretty big place with 3 floors. haha. met one fo my classmates there who was looking for her bf in the huge place.. hahaa. everyone was dressed so poshlyy. haha. cos the dress code was red carpet. haha the guys were in suits and stuff. quite cool. haha. i wore jo's dress =) i love dressing up =) reminds me of nic and rui.. haha. they constantly played a film called 'bride of frankenstein' there, it's quite alarming. haha~ and everyone was taking photos, chatting or drinkingg.. their bar specialty is a drink called (guess..) 'bride of frankenstein' haha.. but it's really good. it's like bailey's with CHOCOLATE!!!!!! yummm. then the snrs realised they forgot to buy a cake o_O so they ran to tesco to get a plain chocolate cake, which they decorated, quite well i must say.. haha.. and the cake was deliciouss.. anything that has chocolate in it is delicious *beamss* supposed to go clubbing at faith after that but errr we got stuck at kiru's house chatting and we deided to go home. haha. it was drizzling and terribly windyy. when i say windy i mean windy. at one point of time, while kenny and i were walking to the pub, we were blown such that we couldn't control where we were going.. i was pushed full speed into a fence, luckily the wind stopped before i crashedd o_O lucky. not fun to crash into a wet fence in a nice prom dress okk. i had to hold on to the fence everytime the wind blew and stop or else i might fly away o_O and i'm not exaggeratingg. it was so scaryy.. trying so desperately to stop and feeling so vulnerable in the gust o_O even kenny was blown awayy.. and he's tallll and therefore more heavy? haha.. oh well..

haven't been doing much since then but i've run into a spate of bad luck =( it's really bizarre. like i lost my meal pass which i CLEARLY remember putting into my pocket. it's not even my usual i-cant-remember-where-i-left-it-maybe-i-left-it-on-=the-dining-hall-table thing, i clearly remember where i put it, it just wasn't there afterwards o_O i tripped one breakfast and poured milk into my baked beans o_O it was gross okk. grosss! something else but i can't remember.. hm. something really annoying. ahh well.. then this morningg, hard at work studying with my lights on, light starts flickering.. flickerr. flickerrr. flickerr. i switched it off and am studying by the pathetic light of my table lamp now which is burning my book.. cos it's so hott o_O and i can't study by the light of the day. cos it's pouring now (which means i can't go for lunch anytime soon) and the sky is overcast and anw the days are so short here.. how am i going to studyyyy tonight? AH. AHHHH. (is this just an excuse??) man i won't be surprised if more terrible things happenn. drearryy.

it's the twenty-seventh. time flies.

been busy mugging. kind of. haha. exams are coming.
received my essay back (my one and only essay this sem that's worth 40% o_O)
quite relieved to know that asian students don't fare worse. haha. didn't do spectacularly well but above average (or at least the average the lecturer told us)

let's see where i've been the past week. i can't remember o_O
AH. sunday was the match between chelsea and man u. both drew. some people tried dragging me to watch at the bar in our halls but i was studyingg! studdying!
saturday was a busy day but i can't remember why. i woke up late. barely did any work then went for nurul's and aliaa's party. wore my sareee. it's damn hard to wear, i look fat o_O haha but the food was good. nurul is an amazing cook. i love the orange, mint, pomegranate salad. and the black pepper chicken that aliaa cooked. ahh. and all the hari raya cookies and sweets. fattening but good. hehe. everyone went mad and decided to gif me a name cos chinese names are hard to remember, and some of the people were having trouble. there was letchmi o_O (cos i was wearing a saree); there was betty (don't ask), i can't rmb.. angelina? haha. okk but i think my name is nice enough okk. so there.
friday. went to the german market. YUM. i had apple strudel with cinamon cream (delicious) and vanilla sauce! haha. and my frens had crepe with banana and nutella. and the dutch pancakess. can't remember what u call them. pflerroteS? haha.. some weird spelling. then they went to drink err.. the german drink.. gerveich? i'm making this up. and they kept the mug cos it's so pretty. i shld do that nxt time. then we went to the asian food fairrr. haha.. had yummy chi food though eddy says it's all chi takeaway o_O but the sushi rice was damn gd!! they put smoked salmon (Which scotland is famous for btw) and seaweed in it. ahhh.. i had half a plate of ricee.. and curry and swt and sour pork and black pepper beef and swt potato soup and a whole lot of irrelevant, non-asian sweets (desserts).
thursday was the xmas light up. it was drizzling and cold. COLD. u get the idea. we stood in the open watching. but it was gorgeous. norway gave edinburgh a pine tree for (something) and they hung lights on it so it became a xmas treee =) it was the opening of THE outdoor skating rink on princes st as well. and they had famous skaters.. some famous guy who was amazinggly graceful and superb. this couple dancers who glided on the ice to the beautiful ballad and make u feel all fuzzy and warmm despite the insistent rain and chilly wind. the amazing 13 year old junior skater. the snowman skater. the sync skaters which was AMAZING. how do like 10 ppl skate in such synchrony? and they wear amazingly little. haha! oh yeahh and the female skater from peter pan on ice (which is coming to edinburgh this january) is AMAZING.. haha man i need to brush up on my vocabulary. but she felll =( and got soaking wet.. but her moves were so beautiful.. ahhh. and it was so wonderful when the fireworks erupted into the sky. so beautiful.. and when the 7 year old girl flicked the switch for the light up, and the whole dark st was suddenly illuminated, the huge ferris wheel behind me beside the cathedral like monument, the little rides scattered along the street, the trees lined with lights. the trees are full of starlight.. (that's from les mis) i felt so blissfully happy and christmassy. and christmas music all abound. ahhh. i want to learn to ice skate all of a sudden. haha!
i can't remember the rest.. it's too long ago.. haha. yay.

went to glasgow last saturday.

willow tea room. smoked scottish salmon sandwich. apple tea. glasgow school of art. tribal art. magazine on digital drawing - lost. little children on a school trip. sauchiehall street. grid of neatly intersecting roads. wrong turn down st vincent's place. george square! statues. pigeons. pigeons. pigeons. huge christmas tree. snow sled. glass house of statues. back to winsley owens. tea at chapter house. yummy rocky road. marshmellows. fine almond slices. dripped with chocolate, set on a crumbly, crunchy base. mm. princes square. escalator from the street directly into the mall. huge huge huge christmas tree. sparkly lights. holy wreaths. i mean holly wreaths. chocolates in ruck sacks. scots. scots books and scots words at waterstones'. became a drich day. rain pattering. looking out of the bus window to an amazing darkness filled with evanescent orange lights dancing through the magnification of uneven raindrops on the window. home at edinburgh.

long time no post.

went to cambridge last wkend. i had so much to say while i was there. staying in rui's room. having the posh dinner at fitzbillies. having tons and tons of chocolate cakess. eating freshly-made fudge from the fudge kitchen. having a formal! (AH) dressing up and dressing up... hanging arnd wif rui, hanging arnd wif nic, listenin to band prac, (AH) playing cluedo o_O, talking, climbing the mound, visiting the fitzwilliam museum, exploring the rodin's exhibition at kettle's yard, attempting to watch the crucible at the round church. it's such a rui-nic-xin thing to do.

i miss rui and nic so much =( seeing them and leaving them makes it worse =( cambridge days were happy days. AH. okk. stop thinking about it.

i love rui and nic!

kyoo wa yooka desu. tenki wa kumori tokidoki ame desu. chotto samuiiii~

monday jieying and her friends from ucl came to edinburgh. (ok let me sidetrack) i think it's so cool they travel around so much together, like they've been to cambridge,to oxford, to the highlands (which i, in scotland, haven't been to o_O) and around glasgow. it's like errr we keep asking around to make sure everyone can go, and in the end, it's too late to go, it's really silly, honestly.. okk but next week we're going to glasgow. i don't care. haha~ ANW i met them first after dinner at palmyra (a kebab place), then we went for fried mars bars again! hehe. that's 2 consecutive nights of fried mars bars. but it's good. the toffeee just melts in ur mouth as u go crunch into the batter, and then the sweet blend of chocolate and toffee slides down ur throatAH. i'm addicted to it. then i went to make my railcard (irrelevantly). long storyy.

tuesday. was so slpy i went to slp right after breakfast, waking up only for class at 11.30am o_O haha. then went to join jieying and friends after class at arthur's seat, brought them halfway up, okay maybe a quarter way up cos they only had half an hour, and the view's gorgeous from there anyway. it was quite fun. we took jumping shots. like ppl jumping and we snap (i'm relaly lousy at that)haha. but there was this guy who was brilliant at it. so we had really cool photos, with the mountains (one of scotland's various mountains) as the backdrop, and the city spreading behind, and the people looking as if they were flying, and everyone looked positively happy =) then they had to go offf. so we bade them farewell =(

today'ss an exciting dayy. i feel pretty excited. haha. cos i'm going to bake.. so far i only have an oven which i borrowed from a friend. it's mini so i wonder how many batches i have to do o_O and i need to get a fork (to stir the batter) and 2 big bowls (to mix the batter in) and various ingredients. wonder what i'm going to do with so many eggs though o_O ah weelll. what to dooo.. i love baking =)

kyoo wa muika desu.
another dreary grey day. it was a little grey on saturday, quite grey on sunday, and really grey today. ah well. but today is mummy's birthday!! i managed to wish her birthday at 12am on the dot. she must be having dinner now or soon. then after dinner, we'll wait for daddy to come home, and we'll all sing her a birthday song, except me. maybe i'll secretly singg here and maybe the strains of my voice will be carried by the wind halfway across the globe =P

otooi wa yokka dshita.
woke up really late - a usual saturday morning thing. well but the day got interesting. supposed to meet yoch at 2.30pm outside the chinese supermarket with jo and yy. but jo had to study and yoch was err i dunno, so we changed to 3.30pm. we were slightly late, took such a long time deliberating over what noodles to get, and bumped into yoch's fren (whom yoch talked to for some time), so by the time we got all our ingredients, the sun had set - like literally cos the sun sets here at about 5pm o_O well anw the party is supp to start at like 5pm o_O so we rushed back to yoch's place, it's not funny carrying like 1kg worth of grocery, braving the impossibly strong wind (like everytime it blows, jo and i get buffeted. it's not funny seriously, and running across the huge Meadows. (as in the place is called the Meadows o_O) well we had a little teeny problem with the curry chicken, ie yoch who was supp to teach us and who learnt it the day before kind of forgot the receipt. so yy and i just mixed everything tgt and hoped it worked out. it didn't really taste right. haha! well it was ok. we had lots of mini-disasterss, the drying of the noodless (with a hairdryer by william) and how the electricity tripped every 5 mins, so we had to station hianliang at the main switch o_O, the plucking of the beansprouts (and the thereafter giving up). haha. but anw in the end, it was all polished off by 12 hungry ppl =P the szechuan noodles were highly valued =P yays. it was good ok.. and of cos our beloved finale - our 6 tubs of ice cream.. phish food, chunky monkey, oh my apple pie, dublin mudslide, bailey's!! and strawberry from haagen dazs (the one with the gorgeously yummy strawberry chunks which i made kenny buy for me but william polished it off =( but i am nice and generouss and i admit i ate ahemm qutie a bit.) okk it was haevenly. boy do i love ice cream =)

kinoo wa itsuka deshita.
went to the gym to burn off the icecream - need i say more? haha.
then it's guy fawkes' day. didn't really think we'll be doing much, cos everyone was so nua today. so i (tried to) study and went for an early dinner. we were trying to psyche everyone to go up arthur's seat to watch (and set off hopefully) fireworks. ok but we din get fireworks (quite sad). but anw, the fireworks were cool. there were the noisy ones that end in an anticlimax nothingness, the sparkly ones, the erupt into flames, and the little flames then erupt into a burst of stars. the pretty purply ones. the ones that stroke across the sky, leaving behind glittery dust. the ones that make interesting squiggles in the sky and manymany more. it was all around me. here a bang, there a whoosh, we were stuck at thebottomish of the hill cos we were so awed, and we couldn't focus enough to climb. haha. it was so pretty. u guys got to see it man. and like we looked over the city, the orange sodium lamps dotting the landscape, tracing innumerous roads, and then across the city, as if in a universal common thought, fireworks erupt everywhere. and from halfway up the hill, it seems as though the lights are escaping form the streets into the black crisp air in an attempt to reach their fellow stars. it's so pretty. but all the photos look stupid. haha! cos we haf shaky hands, and cos the 'night' mode of the camera, leaves the shutter open for a long timee. we haf some pretty cool effects though. anw talking about cameras, i took out my camera to capture the first firework of the night AND it said 'low battery' and konked out o_O ok enough said.

anw, we had to go. cos arthur's seat caught fire!!!! some ppl wre getting pretty drunk. i noe it's bonfire night but.. err they aim fireworks at a farside cliff with bushes and stuff, and it caught fire, and the fire spread up the whole side of the cliff. it was fascinating; it was magnificent but it was morbid. there were at least a few hundred people on the cliff that night. it was dark, some people were on top of the hill. if the fire went out of control, and people ran, there would have been a stampede, and we were all kinda trapped in the valley by the growing ring of spectators. 5 fire brigade trucks came wailing up the road, and firemen came running out. by then we could see huge billowing smoke and the red of the flame illuminating the whole hill. but that was only up one peak. we went to eat fried mars bars later (to make up for the interruptino of our fireworks gazing). i shared with yoch okk so it's not so bad =P and byt he time we returned to pollock and looked at the hill again, we could see fire up another peak as well. two peaks ablaze in the dark of the night. the trail of fire slowly creeping up the dry autumn vegetation. it was scary but a new experience no doubt. anw blhablahblah, by the time i actually got to slp, it was 2.30am.

and here i am, 9.30am in the morning, having woken up at 7.55am for breakfast. i have a char siew bao in my room, beside me now.. long storyy. and this entry has been far too long so..
jya mata~