Live a Simple Life

I have learnt a couple of thing during this year. One of it is appreciating how to live a simple life. I realised that I have brought too many things to Oxford and also bought a few branded stuffs in London and Italy. So, everytime when I do the packing (i.e. Oxford --> Finland --> Oxford --> London --> Germany -->London--> Hong Kong), I wasted too much time on it which is too annoying.

I am the kind of person that don't like troubling people but these packing activities did involve the help from my family and classmates (though they don't consider these as problems, they are too kind to me!). I think be myself and act confidently is far more essential, which I've learnt from some friends. Let's see how long could I keep my motto after I get my salary :)

Trevor

This is little Trevor, son of my best of the best friend. Today is the first time we meet each other. He is only 6.5 months old but already too big for my Oxford T.

You can see how much he has grown compared with my 29 April blog.

Habits

I realised that I have developed the following habits during the past year:

- drinking tap water: this habit developed since Finland trip but I mustn't do it in HK
- walking with sports shoes: loss interest in driving now and find painful walking with high heels shoes
- walking under the sun: thus my skin color is getting dark
- life without TV: can save more time
- text message instead of making a phone call
- reading articles on screen instead of hardcopies: more environmental friendly
- blogging: don't want to cease this habit but I think I need to formally close this blog soon because there will be nothing related to "Journey to MBA at Oxford"

Travelling Summary

Many friends asked me which countries I have visited in this year. I've been to too many places, let me summarise below in case I forgot in the future.

Spain: Barcelona
South of France: Montpellier, Avignon, Arles, Marseille, AIX-EN Provence, Cannes, Nice
Monaco
Holland: Amsterdern, Leeuwarden
Italy: Milan, Florence, Rome
France: Paris
China: Shanghai
Finland: Helsinki, Espoo
Sweden: Stockholm
Iceland
Germany: Rothenburg, Wurzburg, Zugspitze, Munich
UK: Stonehenge, Salisbury, Avebury, Bath, Southampton, Northampton, Cambridge, Farnborough, Wales (Swansea), Scotland (Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Inverness)

The place that I like best is Iceland because I like seeing nature scenery. The worst place is Finland, may be because we spent too much time working in Nokia project and I set too high expectation in this two months trip.

Connection

So cool that Wadham will have a reception in Hong Kong two weeks later. I hesitate to join or not because it may be a bit boring. However, I decided to participate finally because I want to stay in touch with my college. More importantly, if I don't join this time, I think I will be more reluctant to join in the future.

Looking forward to this event! I am proud of being Wadhamite!

Jogging Path

Here is a nice jogging path near my home, it is a very nice place but I have tried it once only. Am too lazy when back to HK, no motivation and not energetic enough. Anyway, I will join Standard Chartered Marathon on 8 Feb 09.


Random snap in Hong Kong, looks nice, is it?

Little Nephew

I stayed in my sister's home for a night in order to play with my little nephew. Lack of chance seeing him grown up in this year, thus, I need to spend some time to build up a closer relationship with him. He is only two and a half but he is already a good cyclist.

Why he looks same as Chicken Little?

Laptop Repaired

I have fixed my laptop at Asus finally. The monitor is replaced for free and it just take me two days, so cool! I have the full screen now. Hong Kong is the best, efficient and economical.

Alarm Clock

Just realised that I haven't brought my alarm clock back to HK. Now I can sleep as much as I can in the morning, you can imagine how slack off I am now. In the past year, I disallow myself to sleep a lot because it's like wasting of time and money.

Hmm, after a second thought, why I allow myself to waste my time in HK, what's the difference?

Chill Out

I wake up quite late everyday, it is not a matter of jetlag, just don't want to wake up because I have nothing to do in the morning. Can't imagine how could I wake up at 7am and prepare to go to work two weeks later.

I need to wait for my friends off from work in the evening and then hang out together.
Good food, good chat with good friends...... feeling happy.

Some MBA friends said that I am too smart and a bit cunning. Hmm, may be, at least I know how to chill out.



Just received an email from SBS saying all students passed in SCP projects, that means we passed the whole MBA course. Congratulations to all of us! (Though no surprise....)

UK Brands

I shop in ThreeSixty supermarket today before waiting for my friends to have a tea break. This supermarket sells many foreign brands such as Innocent beverages and my favourite Green & Black's Milk Chocolate (with crunchy butterscotch pieces). The feeling is special (a mixture of good and bad), like shopping in Oxford/Finland supermarkets. At least I have an option to buy the UK stuffs though the prices are unnecessarily expensive.

I have bad mood today though partly offset by some good news. Thanks for Lulu, JoJo and Yam for their accompany. Jenny need to cheer up and stay strong!

Meeting friends

Hong Kong doesn't change a lot, the weather is nice now, around 27C, I adopted to the place quickly. When the sky turns a bit dark at 5pm, I wonder if it is going to rain, I think I am too used to UK shower now. The only odd phenomenon is that I found the people here are very young and skinny, many girls wear shorts with boots on. May be I spent too much time in London where the working class is a bit mature and the people I met during travelling in European countries are mainly old retired people.

The only thing troubling me is to unpack my luggage, I also need to dig my old stuff from my wardrobe, drawers and many unknown places. I have buried my Octopus card (similar to UK Underground Oyster card) and some credit cards in nowhere one year ago. I am reluctant to unpack the things because I wish to find a new place to stay, fortunate that my friend "leader" will accompany me on the flat hunting. The property market slumps drastically because of the financial tsunami, it is an appropriate time for me at this moment.

I will start working on 27 Oct, so I will spend these two weeks to meet up with friends. Today is the first Sunday I go back to church, I feel a bit nervous at first as I need to meet hundred of old friends at one time; it turns out to be very warm and sweet, too sweet indeed!!

See my three nephews and my new hair style below

Back Home

I was staying in my friend's home in London West India Quey in the last few days, it is an amazingly large serviced apartment, I have my own double bed and bathroom, so lucky. My place is near Marriott Hotel, so I took the new National Express Dot2Dot mini van to Heathrow Terminal 3 at 5:30am; as it is too early, no friends were able to send me to the airport but I can manage well by myself because the driver helped us picking the heavy luggage.

I took Jet Airways home, it is not easy to find a reasonably cheap flight especially I buy a one-way ticket only. I need to transit at Mumbai, the first time I landed in India. The flight service is amazingly good, 28kg lugguage allowance, continuous supply of drinks, good food with metal utensil, a large variety of inflight entertainment, quite spacious seats, etc. I have watched 4 movies in total, a bit headache afterward because the individual VOD screen is quite huge.....

I didn't overload my check-in lugguage this time as I have shipped 30kg via Dimerco in advance, so, I have an empty handcarry suitcase to carry the souvenir that I bought in Heathrow. I don't expect my handcarry suitcase need to be inspected again during transit at Mumbai, the inspector asked me to open the candy boxes and nearly disallowed me to carry the Harrods jam. Lucky me again, they let me pass after I shown them the receipts. Need to be careful next time.

After travelling from 9am UK time on 8 Oct to 9am HK time on 9 Oct, I finally arrived at HK International Airport. I've been here in early June with Pawel and Tarun for the CEIBS Business Competition, miss those days so much! Anyway, back home now, have free wifi at HK Airport, Hong Kong is the best (sometime)!

Last Last London Visit

My last picture in front of Big Ben



My last supper in Belgo followed by my last musical "The Sound of Music"


My last gift from Oxford

Last London Visit

Scotland - Loch Ness

Scotland

I haven't blogged for so many days because there was no internet access, I will stop this blog probably before I start working in HK by the end of this month, I think it is time to end this blog after graduating.


Before going to Scotland, I stayed in London for a few days and watched two more musical: Chicago (very poor) & The Wicked (excellent!). Then, we go to Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness. See some snaps of Edinburgh Castel below, it is the best castle I have ever seen, with many museums inside. Not many pictures because I hate taking pictures under cold and windy weather.







The weather is cold here, I catch a cold before coming here, thus, I always feel very sleepy. Fortunately, we hire a car to drive which make life easier. Hertz guys are ridiculously rude, it is quite amazing to see people provide such level of services. My first time drive in UK, not difficult at all; the only problem is we cannot use the GPS properly, even you input the postal code, it still request you to input the street name, very troublesome. Therefore, we wasted a lot of time to drive in Aberdeen, like a treasure hunt today, hunting for castles.

Wales - Swansea & Gower

Germany - Munich Oktoberfest

The first Oktoberfest (Beer Festival) was held in the year 1810 in honor of the Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. In the following years, the celebrations were repeated and, later, the festival was prolonged and moved forward into September. We are lucky to hit Oktoberfest in Munich.

A dozen of beer tents there, I think there are over thousand of people in one tent. Would be loads of fun if more friends go togther.

1 litre for each of us

Half way there

Some people talk a lot after drink, I am the kind of people that become very sleepy. I don't like beer but can't resist to drink 1L if you come to Oktoberfest.

Wake up and bottom up! Then throwing up when back to hostel........

A lot of people no matter it is day time or at night

Beer tent

It's a carnival, many sales boothes and thrill rides.

Germany - Neuschwanstein Castle

Hohenschwangau Castle (Yellow castle)


We stayed in a guest house which is at the foot of Neuschwanstein Castle (Swan Lake Castle).

The Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disney Land was modeled on it

Do some hiking to find the Swan Lake