Our SEP Adventures: Brussels Sprouts 🇧🇪

The first time I heard of Brussels was when Jun Ji Hyun whined that she only had 1 can of Brussels Sprouts in ‘You Who Came From the Stars’. Don’t laugh, but that was how SUA GU I was! I knew Belgium existed but I didn’t know that Brussels was a city in Belgium! But through this weekend trip down to Brussels, I began to learn more about the city.

THIS WAS THE ONE I AM TALKING ABOUT

For those who are interested, The history of Belgium is very much like Singapore in the Malay World. Before 1830, Belgium was always part of a greater territory (Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg or France). Because of its strategic location (FAMILIAR HOR), it was often used as a battleground between the territories and as a result, Belgium did not have its own identity. In 1830, the Belgian Revolution successfully gained it independence.

During our stay, we tried out a free sandeman tour around Brussels and we learnt a lot more from the guide:

1) Belgium is a city flourished by trades (post independence).

2) During its construction phase, in order to receive funding from neighbouring countries, Brussels agreed to be neutral during a war and not participate in any sides. This pact still holds.

3) Belgium do not have their own language and culture. In fact, the country is split between a few cultures – Dutch, French, German. While French is the majority and the official language of Belgium is French, it is quite cool to see the country mixing in the other languages, i.e. they say Danke (thank you in german) rather than Merci.

Our awesome guide Magali

So where do I start? Well, we always wanted to visit Belgium someday but we ruled it out during the XinsonEUnison trip because of its chaotic security then and we did not want our parents to worry. It was only till recent weeks where we became more familiar with the European environment that we decided to give Belgium a shot. We booked Megabus and began on our 7 hours non-interrupted journey to Brussels. Or that’s what we thought; apparently to go from UK to Belgium (on bus), the only way is to cross the sea – via ferry or train. This means that the bus would be docked on the ferry/train as well. Of course, this  also meant that we needed to wake up multiple times to change between the transports. So in total, we probably slept like 3 hours for the journey…

Gay bars are pretty common! To my dear friends out there, you will love EUROPE 😛

Even after 3 hours of sleep, we weren’t really welcomed in Brussels – the morning of Brussels was cold and desolated. The winds were piercing through our skins and it was definitely much colder than London. We simply underestimated the climate and wore what we had worn in UK… Cold and hungry, we headed for the nearest Macdonalds before we check in to our accommodation. The Macdonalds in Brussels is not fascinating and after learning my lesson in Rome, I decided not to order the Big Breakfast, which is just salty scrambled eggs with the two buns. I had hotcakes though, but they were not really hot. Macbreakfast in Europe is simply crap..

Some Space EXPO which we skipped cause we did not want to leave our bags outside

After which, we put down our stuffs at the accommodation before heading down to the old town. After the sun rose, the city became much warmer and in a way less painful to walk. First thing that we noticed was that the streets are quite dirty and you can literally see dried up spits everywhere. Brussels does give off a pretty young vibe like Barcelona.

We walked up to our first stop, the all-famous Manneken Pis! While you imagine the icon of the country to be humongous like Effiel Tower and Sagrada Familia is, Manneken Pis is just.. a statue of a peeing boy and is no taller than 24 inches… Seriously, even the Sandeman tour guide was disappointed by it too haha! However according to the guide, Manneken Pis is a timeless landmark and it was dressed up occasionally with costumes that represented the current affairs that affect Belgium/the world during that time. You can see below (I googled those)

Manneken Pis and its costumes

The next thing that caught our eyes are just along the stretch of road beside Manneken Pis – a whole stretch of 1 Euro waffles shop! This is the epitome of PERFECT COMPETITION, where you can just hop from one door to another and see that all the plain waffles are priced at the same price! We kind of fought and resisted the temptation of getting one cause we believed we will be able to find a better waffles subsequently. And indeed, we managed to find tons of waffles shop in the city centre. In actual fact, the whole city centre smells like BELGIUM WAFFLES! We got two that had the longest queues in the city centre. After having both waffles, we concluded that waffles are everywhere, but the good ones are the ones with the longest local queues (not tourists). Note to all going to Brussels, try and get the plain waffles (usually glazed in sugar) or just a sugar waffles. Adding extra toppings just make you a tourist and what you will be eating is the Tourist Waffles and not Belgium Waffles (according to the net). Some toppings can easily double or triple the prices of the waffles too, so don’t get scammed!

Official Belgian way of eating waffles

The plain one is good enough, don’t get toppings from this stall

We then walked to the famous Grand Place, aka the Grand Market where trades around the world used to occur. It is to note that this place is particularly beautiful in August every two years where they would lay out an enormous flower carpet! We joined the free walkabout tour held by Sandemans and we followed them for awhile (see top for takeaways). Also bumped into a group of NTU students there haha!

*Grand Place is very crowded and there are a lot of Gypsies around asking for money, do watch out for your belongings!

Every 2 years in August, a flower carpet will be placed in the Grand Place! Image from Wikipedia.

So after the Grand Place, we had our lunch at Fritland as recommended by everyone who have been to Brussels. We went at 11am, fortunately beating the lunch crowd and tourist crowd. Ordered a Mitrailette for 5 euros, which is a baguette with beef patties, salad, fries and sauce. The Mitrailette was quite okay but for a place supposedly world-famous for the fries, I just have to point out that the fries are so-so. You could have this standard of fries anywhere else in Brussels or even Berlin/London. The sauce we got was Basil and it actually saved the disappointing fries though! Tangy and minty, its really unique:) The Mitrailette is quite big and can be shared between 2 people!

Mitrailette. Sauce comes with a bang. Fries are so-so

So what’s after lunch? DESSERT of course! The pig-mode us began our search for good BELGIAN CHOCOLATES. Yes, you would be interested in this. The trick to savouring free atas  dessert in Brussels is to walk in to the chocolate shops around Grand Place (there are like at least 20 shops) and browse for 3-5 minutes. Usually the staffs will come out and let you SAMPLE their speciality, and that is how we got to taste atas chocolate for free:P Some of the free samples are placed near the counters, but don’t be shy to take them. They are nicely cut into samples for tourists like us and we are not committing any crime taking them. Not like they can recognise us anyway, Asians all look the same…

That’s not all, we continued to glutton on ICE CREAM that gohjing recommended us. There is this Brussels chain called Maison Dandoy and we tried out their Senior cup (it’s actually 3 scoops but they called it a senior scoop to discourage egoistic tourists from getting it). We got Speculoos (yea, that’s a Belgian thing too), pistachio and cookie vanilla. All of them are super creamy and rich, and they totally reminded me of Gelateria de Teato in Rome. And the cost for the three scoops are about 4.90 Euros. Not too shabby! Funny how we keep complain that it is cold and we still went for ice-cream instead (cause Limxin has a bunch of sweet teeth)

Senior Cup @ Maison Dandoy. Shiok! Pistachio, Speculoos, Cookie Vanilla

Finally after posts of food, let’s take a break. We too, took a break and went to the supermarket to grab some Souvenirs. We had in mind: Belgian Choco and Speculoos Biscuits. But we ended up buying Praline and Trappist Beer to try as well. Trappist Beer are Belgian fruit beers that are brewed by monks and the profits are used to support humanitarian causes. Basically, drink beer and save the world hahaha!

Love their packaging, guess which is the house brand?

Trappist beer is actually quite nice to drink. While alcohol content is similar to beer, I guess it doesn’t have a bitter aftertaste, but it has

Credits to xinfuladventures.wordpress.com

And after our supermarket session, it is time for… DINNER! HAHAHA! Because we ate so much, we decided to have something lighter – Waffles and MORE FRIES! Fries are also called Frittes in Belgium. We were randomly walking down the alleys and we saw this fries shop that looks super legit. Bought one and tried and yes, that is the best fries I have eaten in my life. Presenting to you, the crispy and tangy fries from Cafe Geogette. While it is sold in a cafe, the takeaway menu is actually cheaper than Fritland cause it was less known. Highly recommended!

And that concludes the end of our Brussels trip over the weekends. Kind of a rollercoaster one with all the random little events that cause our trip to rather heart-throttling! But overall, this weekend has been really relaxing and I really look forward to more trips over the weekend. Stay tuned to more updates! This coming weekend will be home (UK) bound 🙂

For my friends in London, Unidays have this 1-for-1 promotion till 31st October. Do grab your coffee/tea in Caffe NERO!

Our SEP Adventures: Conquering The Troll

Oslo Harbour

All I can say, that this Norway trip is the MOST EPIC adventure we have ever done! First of all, we decided to hop over to Norway because we found a return flight for 20 pounds. Like seriously, two flights for SGD 40?! Hahaha, and there we go, starting to plan our first trip to the Scandinavian country.

Sunday in Odda

Planning wasn’t easy cause Norway is famous for being ridiculously expensive and most of the good (tourist) sights are in Bergen. A return flight from Oslo would be a challenge. However, looking at the Aalto kids and Haoqing’s insta hatched a really cool idea – let’s hike Trolltunga! This famous hike, literally named Troll’s Tongue, is one of the top 3 hikes in Norway and it is reachable by Oslo… through a 6 hour bus ride… So it didn’t seem so feasible after all, but no, we decided to turn this LONG BUS journey into our accomodation for the night. In order words, to and fro overnight bus rides replaced 2 nights of accom and we only need to search for one night in Odda, the nearby town. And we secured the bus rides😂

A full moon in Odda

The next thing is, Odda to Trolltunga would take a good 25 mins by car ride and we did not want to rent a car just to drive up to Skjeggedal carpark. So our next option would be to cab. Luckily while looking for accomodation, Limxin came across a really impressive Airbnb host. His name is Shakir and he is a Norwegian student. This guy drove his guests to and fro Odda to the starting point of the hike, regardless of what time they start/end. We were sooooo in luck, and she went to contact the host immediately – and he said YES! Omg thats accom and transport settled!

Next would be the hike, how the heck would two newbies be able to tahan a 11+ hours hike? And the period is the no hiking season too.. Well, we guess we just have to try it!

Hippie Couple in Oslo

And so we are off to Oslo on Friday. Woke up at 3am, transferred 3 buses and 1 flight  to reach Oslo at noon! Shag is for real but when we stepped foot onto Oslo, we did not feel the fatigue at all. Oh but we did feel the the temperature drop, it was about 2 degrees outside😅 Oslo is a very developed city and it felt like CBD everywhere. There are so many hotels and landmarks around and the big 4 accounting firms have a super legit building one beside another. The view was incredible. Sadly, Oslo is just a city that is heavily invested onto by the Norwegian government and it is not a good representative of Norway. What we have seen in Oslo are probably built up by the government to attract investors and tourists to Norway in an attempt to beef up its tourism hub. In fact, we do see alot of ongoing constructions just near to the Oslo Opera House and the street beside it; who knows what is Oslo gonna be like in 5 years?

 

Oslo opera House

Besides the CBD like area, we did walk up the river and visited the waterfall in the centre of the city (supposedly a massive sight). Turned out quite disappointing because its rather small in size and there are constructions nearby *yawns* On the other hand, we did chance upon a pretty ARTSY street with random grafitti, sculptures and a glass chandelier, yep all outdoors. Pretty random but we took some STEP photos there😁

Salmon and Herring Platter, 38 SGD!!!

Actually there is a trick to it, dont ever order set meals in fast good restaurants. A cheeseburger costs 20 NOK and why would one pay an additional 60 NOK for fries and drink? Buy the ALA CARTE! Norwegians can’t price for nuts! For one of the meals, we bought a snoothie, a cheeseburger and cheesy chilli pops for only 60 NOK. If you are looking for an even cheaper option, consider buying soup packets from REMA 1000 or KIWI. We got Bergen Fish Soup for 7 NOK. It was filling for two people if you eat it with bread! One thing to note is that the supermarket options in Norway are very limited compared to UK! So don’t expect to find ready to make sandwiches; you probably have to buy ham, cheese and bread to wrap hahaha! And they are not cheap when you sum them together..

Odda

Okay enough about yaking about the price of Oslo. We soon took the coach over to Odda and it was about 5.45am when we reached Odda. Waited in the bus station till 7 for the host (it was already really good that he is willing to pick us up at wee hour). He then drove us to the starting point and offered to bring our non hiking bags to his accom first. SO MUCH THANKS! Because of his kindness, we could start the hike at 7.50ish?

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Yep, now to the amazing hike! I would split the 11km hike into 5 parts:

1) The steep ascend up till 700m mark. Very tiring if you have not hiked before because it requires alot of ascending endurance to climb all the steps and not trip. Going down is the worst because it seems never ending and you just have to be wary thoroughout😅 Lucky for us, the terrain was dry cause it has not rained for a week or else it would turn into a muddy pool throughout!

2) The deep U shaped valley. Our first encounter with a relatively flatter terrain and super awesome view of green mountains rather than snowcapped. There are also some sparse houses scattered along the path. Xinyi slipped a little here cause the rocks can seem normal but they are icy! The temperature is 0 degrees~

3) The valley of the winds and safety hut 1! Did I mention that this place is so windy that they can suck out all the moisture of you within minutes? Proper gear has to be worn here and even with them, the wind will make it very hard to progress forward due to air resistance. Going down was okay cause the wind subsided somehow! There is also a safety hut for people to hide from the wind, get some warmth and pherhaps have a little break. We took a break here when we ascended and also when we descended! A lot of people would camp here or jump into the lakes during summer. We did not because the lakes are frozen😪😪

4) Never ending hills.. this is the easiest but longest part. Going up and down and around the various hills help to gain some morale because we got to see picturesque views of the nature! There is also a safety hut at the 9km mark for people who needed the emergency once again!

5) ICY PATHS. Most hated stage because every few steps we would encounter ice paths and we needed to go around them. Slipped a few times here and there too! Oh and the retarded me wanted to try some fresh lake water but i trodded on thin ice, and…. Bingo, I felt through it😅 xinyi was so worried for me, but it is okay cause my pants and jacket are waterproof but I needed to change my socks! Sorry for being burden😅

And finally after 5.5 hours of walk, we FOUND THE ULTIMATE VIEW of trolltunga! There weren’t alot of people compared to summer and most people would practice photo etique by not standing in the frame of others. Unfortunately, ours had some idiot whon did not abided and we were kindergarten!
It was also freezing cold up there cause of the wind being strong enough to kick up some minor sandstorm from the cliff! And so this concludes our awesome hiking experience!

Just wanted to share 3 more learning points for newbie hikers like us:

1) Always bring water bottle, best if it is filled. But dont worry if they are not fully filled because most hikes do have places that sell water👍🏼

2) Hike with someone of common interest, fitness level and would motivate each other along the hike. If you are thinking of hiking alone, I would advice you pick an easy trail! Having a partner would help to make the hike so much more present:)

3) Pack compact food! Things like banana, bread, skyflakes, cereal bars, rice and mushroom soup are welcomed! During the breaks, do fill up your hunger for a bit but it should not delay the school work!

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Last day touring in Norway was spent in Odda. Sadly it was a Sunday and everything else is closed:/ no shopping and fortunately, our host saved our Sunday by offering to drive us down to Latefossen, the waterfall we initially planned on going via cycling. It seemed that the waterfall was not so powerful cause it had not rained for a week or so. However, it still looked super majestic with two streams of jet pouring down. We saw a professional photographer camping at a spot below the bridge and we decided to risk our lives (okay not really) and follow suit. On the journey down, my lens cap loosened and fell into the river!!! Thank goodness the host helped me to retrieve it back for me. OMG, we owed the host too much! Taken some cool waterfall shot before we went back to the accommodation.

Abandoned Factory Exterior

Abandoned Factory Interior

Other parts of abandoned factory

In the afternoon, we went to the abandoned factory opposite the accommodation. Odda used to be a bustling town exporting goods to the municipality but ever since the town petitioned for the industrial areas to be closed down in 1999, the town began to decline into a resting ground for retired folks to stay. Now, it became really quiet. When we went to the abandoned factory, we noticed that the town did not cleared up the rubble even after so many years and there are so many buildings that are reused as offices, even when the windows have been smashed (by protesters, we assume). There seem to be a lot of history in Odda that only the people who lived there before 1999 would be familiar with!

With our star host, Shakir

And lastly, we would want to thank our kind host Shakir for hosting us really really well. Shakir is a University student from Somalia and he was a refugee from war. Coming with almost nothing, he told us that he needed to move from camps to camps in Norway, hoping to get positive reviews from the Norwegians so he could be given a permanent housing and citizenship. He came a really long way and it is very heartening to hear that he is returning the favour by helping travellers coming into Odda!

And so, here’s the end of this super massive post about Norway. The key takeaway for this trip would be to be really flexible with plans, but you have to still plan for it. No plans may be the best plans, but that do not always work out for everyone! Looking forward for our next trip, CHOCO HEAVEN!

Our SEP Adventures: Dover Cliffs 🇬🇧

Dover, the rainbow shining through

Just a pretty short post to add on to our anniversary extension. Yes, we decided that we would want to see the white cliffs in Dover and we decided to make a spontaneous trip down to Dover Priory on Monday:)

WEnter a caption

What’s the big deal about these white cliffs anyway? The White Cliffs of Dover acts as an important landmark in war invaded period as it faces the narrowest part of the English Channel that warships and planes would cross. They therefore act as the first and last sight of England, and obviously they are damn chio la, covered in soft, white chalk! These cliffs glow radiantly under varying amount of sunlight and they have different shades at different period of the day! They are also protected by the National Trust while they are eroded gradually every year (which means, it may be gone in the future) Lastly, they are located in Southeast England and of course we wanted to travel down South to see how the place is like as well!

Dover Castle in the background

And so we rendevous in the afternoon at the station and we walked through the town for about 40 minutes before reaching the cliff face! The town Dover is pretty quiet and houses are definitely more sparse than in London. They look pretty traditional English as well. And they also hosted the famous Dover Castle, which Xin and I skipped cause we thought we didint have enough time and we had enough of castles. The two photos above managed to capture the castle located on Dover Hills too:)

Dover Sea Port

Prior reaching the cliffs, we saw the Dover Harbour, which was filled with busy cargo ships and a lighthouse. The whole harbour actually felt really complex and modern and as we started hiked on the cliffs parallel to it, we could hear announcements made through a PA system. The whole harbour kind of reminded me of Harbourfront in Singapore, just that its far smaller than it!

As we hiked up the cliffs, its really fasinating to see that they are protected with netting to minimise erosion threats. This shows that the UK government are really protecting this national treasure! We then discovered and walked through an unmanned gate. The view just gets better and better😄 By the time we reached the first 30 mins or so of the walk, we began to see the full drop of the cliff and being daredevils(for a photograph), we decided to sit near the cliff edge hahaha! Dont worry, its pretty safe and we made sure we are completely anchored to the sturdy ground before we sat down!

Looking down is quite terrifying

And yep, the walk supposedly continued on further but we had to rush back by a train at 6.30pm and we decided to head back, buying fish n chips(the southern cod fish is damn good, and cheaper too) and parted subsequently.

Goodby my love:(

Yep, thats the end of this relatively shorter post, hope you enjoyed it! See you next time!

Our SEP Adventures: Anniversary 🇬🇧

Ready and set for anniversary plans

The long awaited day! Our second anniversary:) we are very lucky to be able to spend it overseas this year and the magical part, we are both based in UK so its easy to travel out! So, we decided to make it even more meanigful by travelling out of England… We went down to Wales!

Cardiff, town of Wales

What’s there at Wales, you may ask. Well, for one theres the infamous Brecon Beacons, which house some of the most magnificent peaks in UK. We went to the Welchish border that separates Wales and England and we hiked up Offa’s Dyke Path(amazingly dug to keep out Welchish people from England). While the grasses look really green and great to nap on, please be aware that it contains natural fertilisers left by farm animals (sheep and horses) everywehere🌚 We were literally watching every step we took HAHA!

Did we lose our way, but still acting step!

This tree is dying cause its attacked by a Stangler’s fig!

There isn’t a proper route so we just tried to navigate our way up by using our gut feelings in alot of times! The view up there is amazing and we saw a view that separates England counties and the Welschish landscapes. Its really cool even though Xinyi said she hiked better views before hahaha! The route down was insane cause we just walked the off beaten path and basically its the trail a lamb took to go up for a graze hahaha! We bashed through vegetations, stepped on mud ans dung probably, chase sheep down, carefully avoided sheep carcass and climbed over barbed wire fences😱😱 and that tore part of my trousers😞 But overall the whole hike was fun and we saw a lot of wildlife(actually farm hahaha)!

Hello Horsey! So cute, it doesn’t run away from us humans!

Horse at the Inn! We could horse ride but we didn’t!

Overseeing 5-6 counties!

The people in Wales are extremely nice too. What we saw are a bunch of countryside folks that are really laidback and easygoing. We stayed in an inn in Llanthony for 2 nights and the owner actually gave us a 50% discount on the second night! The Bed and Breakfast includes a nice English breakfast every morning as well so it was a pretty decent deal! And the best of all, there was an event on the second night and it was really cosy to see the whole village partying with the villagers gathering at the pub to talk and groove to the music. And omg xin and I were about to take some selfie and a lady offered to help us take a photo. Turns out that she was some BBC personality and we went to then take a photo with her🤓 then, we went to join in the locals to dance and groove along to the music as well heh, it was SO MUCH FUN!

Traditional English Breakfast

Of course the trip is not perfectly fine. We actually wanted to drive and even booked a car to do so. However, the forgetful me forgot the driving license and the UK laws are extremely strict about seeing a physical license if we are international drivers. And so, we needed to cancel the booking and ubered up instead. I know Xinyi actually had made plans to go up to Breacon and Snowdonia if we had a car but the plans have to change, so sorry about it dear:/ However, because we did not have a car, we got to experience what is it like to have a chill and no rush anniversary too:)

Llanthony Priory, sadly skies isn’t clear for stars!

Cardiff City Hall

The other thing was the clouds in the skies throughout the time we stayed. We always wanted to stargaze and we chose such an ulu place to come and see them but we were disappointed by the covered skies. Sighs, but at least we got to enjoy the music from the band:)

Anniversary Lunch!

And now, back to the most important part.. the Anniversary:) the whole magic comes from spending time with Xinyi and us surprising each other with small events here and there. I really missed her while I was in London and so many times, I just sang ‘On My Own’ to myself hahaha! The surprises really work wonderfully and we had candles on the bed(some people said its cheesy but I love it!), postcard, scrap book, ‘Just Married’ deco and a film dedicated to Xin Yi! So many things we exchanged and it shows how importnant we are to each other! Heres to many years and more to come:)))

The SURPRISE!

My SEP Adventure: Settling down 🇬🇧

Back to London, I still cannot believe that time has passed so fast. Unknowingly, 1 month has flew by with the blink of an eye. That I have covered 5 countries, 16 towns/cities with Xinyi! Now that 19 countries, 60 cities in 6 month doesn’t seem so hard anymore hahaha (as inspired by one of the girls who gave the FOE SEP talk last year). I will post a separate post about travel tips and I hope I can sticky it so it can benefit students who want to travel around smart!

Yep, so it seems that we have come down to the very last part before school starts. Settling in to the new accommodation, culture and environment. I would say that putting up with friends is a bold decision and most students only arrive on the day where they can move into hall! I put up in Ryan’s room at Queen’s Gate and I am very thankful that he helped to make all the additional arrangement for me! While staying in the accomodation, I could walk to Imperial within 5 minutes and settle my stuffs and walk 15 minutes for my free haircut! Speaking of the haircut, it is so awesome because it is free and your hairstyle will turn out fine! The only downside to it is that you are volunteered as a model for the trainees to practice and they will take a little longer to cut(got mine done in about 2 hours). Staying in a cosy apartment here at Queen’s Gate is welcomed but somehow I still felt unsettled? Cause I know that it is not permanent. A little thank you to Rachel, Bejamin and the others for talking to me from time to time, keeping me kind of company and not missing home so much. I was very happy to share my travelling experiences with others and it makes me want to travel even more:) 

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Other than that, I was actually quite looking forward to moving in to hostel and settling down! So on moving day, even though I was lugging 40kg of luggage up and down flights of stairs, i felt really excited to see my new place!

Reaching Woodward, I was welcomed by the team of seniors and wardens and the check in process was really smooth since most of the people only check in on the Saturday(I checked in on Thursday). And so the verdict of the room… ITS FANTASTIC HAHAHA! The room may seem smaller than my room in SG and similar (or smaller) in size to NUS ones, but its really cozy and the toilet is freaking atas hahaha! It is really comfortable to own my own toilet:) And after staying in so many accomodations in London and Europe, I think the Woodward room is amazing, given the cheap weekly rent too! 😁 

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Spent the next 2 days(most shag) unpacking, decorating the room and buyimg groceries. Now my room feels really cosy and settled hahaha! Would invite people to come over if they want to sleepover😁

Imperial halls seems to have a lot of hall budget and they do spend alot on events(pizza events, boat parties, mingle) . I went to some of these events for the experience and I would say that they are not my kind of thing! While the idea of getting to know people and the ‘try once while young’ kind of mentality is there, but such parties usually involve meaningless conversations that last less than 10 sentences and are superficial in level. Oh well, will try and avoid these events!

And it is a twist of fate to have met this German with Vietnamese family background! Was just walking along from tube and I saw this guy taking photo of the building while he’s still struggling with his bags. I thought that “hey this must have been a student of woodward” and I went to talk to him! He is also an exchange student and he will be reading Chemistry in Imperial for a year! We also realise out we were event in the same block and And he has a girlfriend in Bavaria as well. Its really comforting that he does feel comfortable hanging out with me and we did plenty of things together:) 

So now moving on to Imperial College, I will write them in the next post when I have settle down in school as well!