Shropshire

Three seminars this week and having completed them, I managed to squeeze in a little time to blog about my recent fantastic weekend away with the Leeds University Christian Union at Shropshire! The name Shropshire does sound weird indeed but it's actually a small English town near the border of Wales. Since I've already anticipated a heavy seminar week coming right after the weekend, I started to work on my Evidence seminar on Friday where I have no class. In the evening, I headed to Parkinson Steps to board the bus. Winter's approaching and this means by 5.30pm or so, it's already turning dark.

Well, this shall be the first time where I'm heading out of my base of operation in Leeds for a camping trip outside. With the bus hitting onto the M62 route, I had an opportunity to see what British highways are all about and I realised that there isn't much difference. Certain parts of the road are dark since it is not economical to place streetlights and there are exits just like the PLUS North-South highway back home. The foliages that they plant in between exits of course are different since back in Malaysia they are oil palm and rubber. Since we were caught at the massive traffic jam at the city center, it took us longer than expected to reach Quinta Hall, the place where we will be staying.

I would say that the weekend away is a good opportunity to mix and get to know more of the local Brit students since on a daily basis, interactions are very very limited as they are more reserved. Interactions happens best during free time or during activities and even a simple act of knowing one another's name can go a long way in breaking the ice and starting conversations. Since Shropshire is a suburban area, we had the opportunity to have a long walk on Saturday to explore the countryside and cross the Welsh border. I had the opportunity to see the Chirk Aqueducts, ancient structures which were built in 1801 and standing tall at the aqueduct, I can see the vast green fields with sheep grazing on it (although it reminded me of lamb chop..lol). There's also the Chirk Tunnel which stretches 421m and it was kinda fun navigating through total darkness although we could see both ends of the tunnel. We also played the wide game in the evening after sermon which is basically something like capture the flag. Everyone will be given a glowing wrist band according to their team colour and basically, one team gains points by stealing the flag or making "kills" by snatching another opponent's wrist band. So, we get funny instances where isolated individuals will get overwhelmed like a zombie mob kill. Since the field and the surrounding areas are muddy from the rain, it would a rough and dirty affair with some of them wrestling in the mud during the encounters. It was pitch dark too and it's very hard to identify whether it is friend or enemy that is approaching. Overall, I had great fun playing it and right after the game, it was bonfire time with sparklers and marshmallows!

At first I thought that we were going to be sleeping on the floor since we were asked to bring sleeping bags but in the end, I found out that we have comfortable beds to bunk in at night and yea, sleeping arrangements were great. The first night was spent on a mini-party while the second after-activity night was playing cards. Since the Brits don't play Tai Di, I'm wondering what else they could be playing and it seems that they have an interesting game called Spoons - a modification of Snap. I enjoyed the food very much for lunch and dinner and it was really a surprise to me that they had rice on Saturday night! Sunday pork roast was awesome too with all the potatoes and corn. Sunday was apparently the end of the daylight saving time and so, the clock had to be reverted one nour earlier. I was kinda confused with that initially, but I understood after reading about it in the net. I was just wondering then that if an international student had no idea about it, he/she will definitely get pwned for lessons on Monday. Even when I was on the way back to Leeds, it turned dark already by 4.30pm already, an indication that winter is approaching. I managed to squeeze time to go for service that Sunday night and when I got back to my room, I was too exhausted to do anything and proceeded to sleep right away..haha. Anyways, here's a couple of new things that I discovered about the Brits during the weekend:

1. The Brits do laugh at each other's accent and have difficulty in understanding some of their own countrymen's accent. They may all speak English but their accents are diverse from all over the country. The Scouser(Liverpool) accents still tickles the other Brits from other parts and so does the strong Leeds Yorkshire accent.

2. The Brits eat rice with knife and fork! This is the most amusing thing I observed on the dinner table. Seriously, they eat rice with the fork. The knife is only used to cut the small cocktail sausages while the fork is used to scoop the rice. o.0

3. The Brits find it interesting that my real name in my ID card is actually Stanley and it is not an adopted name like most China students have. They though that the only name I have would be some exotic sounding Chinese name and they're also suprised to hear that I speak English as my 1st language.

4. While evangelism back in Malaysia is focussed on turning people away from their hand-crafted idols, it is a different battle over here in Britain where atheism is a big thing. It does seem that a lot of Brits no longer believe in the existence of a God despite having a rich Christian tradition.

Alrighty, that's all for now. I'll be looking forward to the Malaysian Nottingham games happening soon this weekend and perhaps have a chance to meet my other Malaysian brethrens from the other parts of the country!