When it snows

It's another round of delayed blogging again on my personal life! The last busiest round of week for this term has finally come to an end and this means that there'll be no more hectic seminars until next year. Meanwhile, I'll utilise this free time to recollect on the things that had happened since last week. Well on last Tuesday was the first social for my St. George's CG and it was held in one of my CG leader leader's(Sam) house. It was a pleasant change from a student oriented area because Sam's house is actually his family home too. He's a Leeds local but studies in the University of Bradford..haha. We had a fantastic evening with his lasagne and playing pictionary at the hall too after the meal.

On Friday when I was having my meal at Tong Palace after the Chinese CG session, a natural phenomena occurred outside the restaurant which transformed Leeds into the landscape of.....a WINTER WONDERLAND! After paying the bills and wearing all the winter jacket and gloves, I stepped outside excitedly into the open with snowflakes falling on my face. It's another historic moment for Stan. Father Frost has finally arrived in Leeds and I'm there to witness it and experience it. And with all the ice around, everyone's just tempted to roll up a snowball and get into random fights with any stranger. For some weird reason or so, I noticed that as I was walking back, police presence seems to have increased in the city center, as if snowfights are signs of anarchism.

On the next day was MASSoc's trip to Castleford for the laser tag game event. Laser tag is like paintball but better in the sense that there is no limited ammunation and there are less mess too. I tried to recall back some of the training that I got from my cadet high school years and also the first person shooter games that I have been playing. I employed a few of that tactics successfully, and my favourite one was to creep up behind unsuspecting shooters who are engrossed in shooting at their front and not looking at my gun targeting their backs. After all the fun in playing, we went to eat at Nandos. Woah, if you think that Nandos in Malaysia is expensive, wait till you see Nandos UK. A quarter chicken meal costs at least RM30! Ayee, fortunately, I managed to find people to share a jumbo meal with and the unlimited iced plain water is free fortunately. Everyone sort of dispersed after eating lunch and a group of us decided to venture to a bridge in Castleford which is a famous tourist spot according to Edele. It's a 30 minute walk from the place we were at but I think it's a walk that's worth it with all the snow around although the temperature is freezing. Btw, on that Saturday, it seemed that Castleford is covered with a heavier volume of snow than Leeds. When we reached the bridge, we were at first puzzled because it didn't look anything extraordinary. It was only when we looked across that we realised that there is a second bridge across with a mini-waterfall. We crossed over, had a bit of photo fun, enjoyed the sunset and then head to the train station.

On Sunday was St. George's contemporary carols. It's a special sunday where the church puts on a public performance by its worship team. The surprising thing I got during the service was that the band was covering modern contemporary music like We Are The Kings by 30 seconds to mars and The Scientist by Coldplay. And they did a good job of it.

There are things to learn as well in these wintery season and here they are:

1. The locals told me that White Christmas is a myth and that snow doesn't come until around Jan/February. I guess they were wrong this year with the freaky weather.

2. The Brits have Mulled Wine and Mince Pies as the traditional food for Christmas. Mulled wine is an interesting blend of warm wind with sweet spices. Mince Pies do not contain minced meat. It's just sweet raisin paste or something like that minced together.

3. While the white fluffy snow is nice to play with, a snowy winter brings about lots of other problems when the snow melts and mixes with dust and dirt. The result is dirty mud in areas with heavy pedestrian traffic. It's sliperry and very inconvenient if you are rushing to somewhere. Usually, I'll try to step onto the white and clean crunchy areas wherever possible. Btw, it's interesting to see the fluffy white ones cleaning my shoe soles.

4. It's challenging to drive in the snow. You gotta have special tires for it or the wheels will just keep spinning on the spot. That's the reason why cars move so slowly after a heavy snow shower, causing a massive jam in town during winter.

5. Shake off the snowflakes in your clothing or hat before entering into a heated building. Failure to do so will result in a sudden drench of water.

6. Black Ice are frozen water formation found on pavements and roads which are transparent. By far, this is the most annoying hazard during the snowy days. Lots of people slip and fall from that, and skill is needed to balance oneself from falling when one is speed walking through.

7. The Skies are strangely bright and clear during the day although it has been snowing nowadays. A pleasant change from the cloudy rainy clouds during autumn but the winds still continue blowing. The sun however, is a lie because although it shines for prolonged hours, the snow doesn't melt at all. I shudder to think the conditions of the roads when the snow starts melting when spring comes.

Holidays are coming in about a week or so and I'm looking forward to the winter break!