Viva La Madrid!

I had been trying to piece together a trip to at least one of my targeted destinations in Europe before the arrival of Mama and graduation. Now, I definitely do not want to be caught in a situation where I ended up travelling alone to these places. I dread thinking of the fact that I may end up getting lost alone in Europe. It’s always better to have a 2^nd person since that would mean accommodation would be cheaper and taking photos would not be such a hassle. Leo joked that I should do a ‘Carrie’, in reference to our mutual female friend who had travelled around England and Europe by herself. Ahhhhh,,I’m trying very hard not to go down that road!

After much deliberation and checking, I decided to make Spain – Madrid and Barcelona as the destinations to go to during this early July period. I did a couple of flight checks to get the best pricing and in the end, the cheapest combo that I could come up with was to start off with Madrid first using Easyjet from Manchester, followed by a connecting flight in midweek via Spanair to Barca and returning back to Leeds from Barca via Ryanair. With that settled already, I went around, asking in desperation for people to join me. The response was not very good though, as people were either not free, going with parents to the destinations I am going or have gone back to Malaysia. In the end, I got quite fed up asking people or waiting for their replies. I made the final decision, albeit reluctantly, to go ahead with my plans alone and to book the necessary accomodations.

The flight from Manchester was in the evening on 6^th July and when I reached Madrid, it was already 10pm+ or so. When I walked out of the plane onto the Madrid runway to take the transit bus to the terminal, I could feel the Spanish warm air. Ahhhh, it looks like somewhere in Europe, there’s a place where there is tropical Malaysian weather! Naturally I was delighted because I could get rid of the Northern European cold for once. The hostel that I booked is in the region of Barajas, which is where the airport is located. I decided to stay near the airport since my Spanair flight is early in the morning at 7.30am. The area where my hostel is located looked a lot like some small town in Mexico..lol. I think that’s how the Spanish influence the Mexican in terms of town planning. I was quite surprised to find a Chinese provision shop near my hostel too. Hmmm..seems that the Chinese are everywhere! I managed to find my hostel without much problems and my room is actually located in a separate building from the reception office. I was quite surprised at the size and nature of the room though because it felt like a hotel room and the toilet inside the room was quite nicely decorated with marble tiles. There was air-con and Spanish cable TV, so I ain’t complaining much about it. The only left to do is to get a good night’s rest and prepare to explore Madrid the next day.

On the next morning, I headed straight to the train station to purchase the Madrid transport pass which enables me to have unlimited travelling on buses and trains for 3 days straight. The first destination that I had on my card was to head towards Puerto del Sol, which is the main square for Madrid. I was supposed to be there early for the free tour but because of my lateness, I had to go for the free tour in the evening. So, with plenty of time for me to burn, I did a short exploration around the central square before heading to one bakery stall to get some food. I got myself a jamon, which is someone like a raw cured bacon ham in a croissant and it costs only 1 Euros! I topped it up with some juice from the supermarket and that was good enough. After the small lunch, I decided to head off first to check out the Chamberi Train Station, which is one of the ghost train stations in Madrid. One of the reasons why I started from there is because it’s free too..lol. Chamberi is a train station that’s abandoned for decades and has just recently been reopened as a small museum. It’s interesting to see the retro ticket barriers still in place and some of the painted rail map is still in existence. I head back to Plaza Mayor to join up with the free tour group. As usual, we had a basic run through around some of Madrid’s main attractions. That gave me some idea on where to go and what to plan for the next few days. As you can see, I’m pretty impromptu coming into Madrid with not much expectation or plans on where to visit except for the Santiago Bernabeu stadium.

For the 2^nd day, I decided to start off the day by heading to bullfighting ring at Plaza de Toros. Bullfighting is a controversial sport but it is part of the Spanish cultural heritage. There are occasional bullfighting matches in Madrid but it is totally banned in Barcelona. So, if I wanna have a chance to see how the inside of a bullfighting arena looks like, this is the best opportunity. I went to have a look at the museum first which is free and it exhibits a lot items related to the gory sport. There are bull heads, matador costumes (including one which still has blood-soaked stains), weapons and portraits of famous matadors. After feeling satisfied exploring the museum, I headed out to the main gate and purchased ticket for the tour. It was very much like a stadium tour as the guide brought us around the arena. He had to speak twice though, once in Spanish and another time in English. The waiting areas around the arena are somewhat like a football stadium, they do sell snacks and drinks. We did go down all the way to where the bullfighting takes place and it’s nothing but sand and dust. After bullfighting business, I went to check out the Vincenzo Calderon Stadium, which is Athletico Madrid’s stadium. From the distance, it looks rather huge and impressive. I tried to search for a main reception area (like Anfield or Old Trafford) but found none. It seems that outside the stadium is quite plain. The interesting thing about the stadium though is that it has an active road traffic running under the stands. Athletico certainly has a bigger and modern stadium than Anfield and I wonder what Torres thought when he first transferred over..haha. I didn’t have lunch or anything yet, so I went to search for El Tigre bar which I read on the Internet serves free tapas for any drink that you buy. It took me quite some time to search for it because it was hidden in a small alley. I came at the right time around 4pm-ish where the crowd is the least. I ordered cider, thinking that they will give me the typical English cider. Instead, they gave me somewhat like a dark red Spanish cider cocktail with peppermint leaves. It tasted quite good and refreshing actually, especially under the hot blazing cloudless Spanish sun. I was given free tapas as expected and it’s quite a generous portion of paella and meat. My drink cost 5 Euros, and I suspected that I may be overcharged as a tourist but I still think it’s worth it if I were to put the meaty tapas into consideration. In the evening, I went to the Madrid Maritime Museum. It was listed as free on the web, but when I went there, I was requested by the guard to make a ‘donation’ of 3 Euros. Ahhh, I paid up anyways since I’m curious to see the artefacts of the Spanish as a former seafaring colonial power. They would have some remnants about Isabella being pwned by Elizabeth during the Golden Age..lol. I stayed until the museum closes. My free tour guide told my group the day before that Madrid has the largest collection of art pieces in a city. It would be a waste if I don’t visit at least one. Apparently, some of these world famous museums do offer free entrance at a particular time. I picked Museo del Prado as it has free entrance from 5pm-6pm and it fits in just nice with my schedule. Inside Museo del Prado, there’s hundreds of Biblical themed paintings. With such a short span of time, obviously I can’t finish seeing everything but it’s good enough to have a glance for a free entrance. I waited for quite some time for the sky to get dark. It’s the peak summer period and even at 9pm, the sky is still bright. Finally, when nightfall did settle in at around 9.30pm-10pm, I walked around the city centre area to enjoy the night lights of Madrid. I went to the Bernebeu for a quick preview and to check out to see whether the stadium is litted up at night. To my dismay, the stadium was pitch-black but outside the stadium were some “pasar malam-ish” food stalls. Oh well, looks like I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get the full view of the stadium.

For the last day, I took the train down straight to the Bernebeu station. The Bernabeu is a massive complex situated in the middle of Madrid’s high end commercial hub. Most stadiums are located in the outskirt but Real Madrid’s stadium is right smack in the city. I proceeded to a long queue to buy the stadium tour ticket and it costs 16 Euros. Unlike the stadium tours in England, visitors to the Bernabeu are allowed the freedom to explore the stadium on their own and stay however long they wish. So, it’s not only the museum that visitors can have the leisure of wandering around, but also the spectator stands, commentator box and dressing room. There are barriers to guide visitors to walk the correct path in this self-guided tour. The first point that visitors came across is the highest point of the spectator stand in the Bernabeu stadium. That point of height is at least 9 to 10 storeys high. Afterthat I went through the museums and the trophy display room. The Champions League sections reminds us that the last time Real had won the CL is in 2002. At ground level, visitors have the opportunity to get a feel of the seats at the substitutes’ bench and of course, Mourinho’s seat. It was there that I got to know for a short time a Bulgarian who strangely had a fancy for Celtic. It was towards the last part of the tour, so he helped me to take photos for the last stretch. After Bernabeu, I went back to the town center for lunch. Once my stomach is filled, I decided to backtrack to some of the places that I came across during the free tour. I came across the Royal Palace but I declined to go in because the price is quite expensive. Instead, I entered inside the Almudena Cathedral, which I thought was a very unique structure. It does seem weird to have a cathedral with an Arabic sounding name but I guess it’s due to the Moorish influence in the past. The interior Almudena is quite impressive while it’s exterior is a reminiscence of Moorish architecture.

My last stop in Madrid is the Buen Retiro Park which is the largest green space available in the city. It houses the monument to King Alfonso XII. Looks like there are plenty of activities to do there. There’s a huge lake in there too where folks can ride a boat around. The most interesting structure that I came across was the Crystal Palace The entire structure was built somewhere in the 19^th century and consisted predominantly of glass. With that, I closed the chapter on Madrid and prepared to go back to my room early to get sufficient rest before waking up early for my flight. My overall conclusion for Madrid: clean, excellent rail service and it certainly did not look like the capital city of a country in debt. I was quite fortunate to have supermarkets selling 1.5l of orange juice for 1.38 Euros and Museo Jamon to sell those cheap 1 Euro croissants. That saved a lot in the food department. Ahhhh, the next stop will be in the Catalan region and I’ll be interested to see how they would differ from the capital city.

By God's grace, it is Classification One!

As mentioned before, I’ve heard of rumours swirling around in Amsterdam but I did not want to confirm it until I’ve returned back to England. Anyways, I’ve deduced on the possibilities of situation by figuring out that if I had gotten a mere 2:1, people would not have start to message me on facebook with such excitement. There is a high possibility that my results could have gone beyond 2:1. Of course, at the same time, I was also worried and did not want to be so upbeat about it only to find that my deductions were wrong. Afterall, people could be just be nice to offer customary notes of congratulations for doing well for degree at a 2:1. Not only that, mathematically, it seemed very improbable in my prediction of my own marks that I can hit a First based on my own evaluation of performance.

I came back on a Saturday, so there’s no way that I could find out from the law office. The only way to get a clue on that was to check from the online portal to see if they had released any list. There was no list at all, so I searched deeper by going to the LFL webbie where there list career opportunities etc. I checked to see if they had updated my profile and true enough, they did update it! So I read through to result and..and I just went WOW! It wrote down there – Classification: ONE! =D

Let’s start from the main talking point first from the bottom. I’ve always expected my EU Law paper to be a major screw-up and I would be contented just to have passed it. I honestly didn’t think that I would get higher than a 2:2 grade for it but It turned out in the end that I secured a 2:1 for it at 63. The surprising eye-brow raiser was that Jurisprudence was actually the one which got the honour of being the lowest marks at 61. Ahhhhh, perhaps I should not be that surprised considering that I didn’t submit a good performance for the law as fiction question .

Now for the good news for the rest of the subjects which helped me to seal the grade – Criminology was the subject which I placed the highest expectation on and it duly delivered a first class grade as expected at 70. Evidence is somewhat like my A Levels Eng Lit paper – not a guarantee First but a possible one. And yes, in the end it was 70 marks for Evidence for another first grade! Evidence was one subject I would say that I would not have expected to get the first grade but I guessed my focused calibration during preparation paid off in the end, especially with that last minute decision to focus on bad character. The most glorious of it all is of course, my long dissertation – a whopping 73 marks and I’m glad it turned out well after months of working on it. For LD, I already had predicted that I would get at least a 2:1 without much problems and a small nagging feeling that I would get a first if my supervisor sees my work and ideas as revolutionary and fresh. I, to a certain extent, felt surprise at the given mark at 73 because this meant that my supervisor found my dissertation to be much better than the prerequisite first class 70 borderline marks. Like football, additional goal difference is welcomed and having 73 for LD is a tremendous boost for the average marks classification. (A win is 70, anything more is goal difference) Since LD occupies 40 credits, it’s akin to scoring 73 for two subjects. Big gamble to stake two lives with one attempt, but in the end it paid off big time. That additional 6 marks could be used to shore up the deficit in EU and Jurisprudence. Mhmmm..analysis wise on the distribution of marks, it looks like I woke up my ideas for the last two papers and got back on track for my aspired first classification unknowingly along the way.

The final average marks that I’ve accumulated was 6.83/10, 0.02 marks off the guaranteed 6.85 border for First class. It would be inequitable to deny me of the first for that 0.02 difference, but in anycase, my grade was secured by a proviso which states that any average marks difference of 0.10 would see the student being awarded the higher classification which he is eligible for. Furthermore, a student can also score a first if 50% of the credits that he has taken is a first class grade. I’ve scored a First for 80/120 credits that I have taken, so that factor would have secured me the grade too.

I told Mama to keep the excitement down when I saw the results over the weekend since it is not finalised yet. Then today, 1^st July, I popped down to the law school to see the finalised list and praise God, the first class grade was confirmed. It turns out that my fellow Lee sister, WY, got a First too! Haha, I knew it that she would get it! I had the feeling about that in Amsterdam and I’m not surprised considering that she put in quite a lot of hard work into her studies compared to a slacker like me. My average of 6.83 was right at the borderline and if I had gotten anything less in any subject even by just 1 mark, I would have been off the scale. Part of me figured that if I had prepared for my EU paper properly, my average marks would have been higher and I would not have sat at the border. Hence, this gift of first class for my degree can only be attributed to divine intervention and it is only by God’s grace that I have gotten it. Such a small margin, and it could go either way in the slightest change of circumstance. The laurels of being exceptional and being average are just separated by a thin thread. It’s a big difference in future opportunities or the response of the people around. Honestly, I did not really believe that I would get a First Class for my degree. Mama told me to pray about it, but I shrugged it off telling her it’s a mathematical impossibility. Yet again, I’m proven wrong by God for the umpteenth time. O ye of little faith! Is anything even too improbable for God! I felt disappointed at myself for doubting Him but at the same time, thankful and glad that God never stopped watching out for me.

Then, I remembered the words of one of my friends, who pointed out that God will give us the necessary grades that will help us to advance in life according to His plans. I’m not sure why He has given me a First class award eventhough I didn’t do anything to deserve it but I’m certain that it’s a key that He wants me to have it in order to open doors which He wants me to go through in the future. Thank you Lord once again!

I AMsterdam

It’s time to kickstart my European summer travel plans and the first destination on the list is Amsterdam! I’ve arranged myself to go with a group consisting of Carl, Hannah, Carolyn and Wai Yi. The planned period was from 22nd June till 26th June and we were supposed to take Jet 2 down from Leeds to Amsterdam on the morning of 22nd. Due to some miscommunication (me not reachable because of phone problems), WY did not purchase my tickets since she could not get confirmation from me. I tried to get the same flight on the net but just within the time period of 24hrs, the price had risen way beyond the 9.99 pounds to some ridiculously priced 40-50 pounds. The only 9.99 pounds ticket was the evening before on the 21st. I figured out that I should take a chance with that instead of paying unnecessarily. This leads to two options of either going to downtown Amsterdam to stay for a night a hostel or to sleep overnight at the Schiphol airport. Once again, financial considerations had led me to pick sleeping at the airport but I’m confident that it’s not going to be a bad experience. The key is not to leave the transit area of the airport. I did some research on the net about sleeping at Schiphol airport and the reviews weren’t too bad. I had personal experience at Schiphol’s transit area from my transit time at the airport in September last year and I would say its facilities are top class.

So, on the 21st, I made my way down alone to Leeds airport to take the flight. I arrived at Amsterdam around 6.30pm local time. With so much time to kill, I decided to go around to look for dinner (other than McD) that won’t blow up my pocket. My search was not too successful because in the end I still ended up eating Dutch McD because the other food areas were just too expensive. After eating, I went around to find a suitable place to sleep. I was thinking of the chairs near some bistro which I had seen but the characteristics of those chair would not allow me to lie down. The other one was the lounge area with some comfortable sofas/bean bags but the problem is that it may get pretty congested later in the night and there won’t be any privacy. Somehow I bumped onto a section know as “comfort chairs” (lol) and they are perfect! These chairs are reclined with a leather padding overlooking the runway. The section that I went to was not really populated by lots of people. I spent the rest of the night there with my newly acquired netbook and used part of the free 1 hr internet to log onto FB. The 8hrs of sleep was great as I was the only one in the area and I woke up being greeted by the sunrise at the runway. Voila! One night of accommodation saved!

In the morning, my area became rather congested though because flights are coming in. It was time to shift myself to McD since I’ve told WY that I’ll meet them there. I bought myself a McKroket for breakfast which I was feeling rather curious to try. McKroket is only available in the Netherland. After munching on the burger, I have no idea what filling the patty was, other than the feeling that it tasted like mashed potato fried in breadcrumbs. WY and the rest soon arrived and after breakfast, we checked out of immigration without much problems. The first thing to do now is to take a train down to the city center and look for our hostel. One of the first interesting sights that I saw at the train station was the double-decker train which we took to downtown.

It did not take long for us to find the hostel but we could not check-in because we were there too early. We left our bags at the counter first for them to store and then off we went to the main square to catch the free tour. Just like the one in Paris, the free tour gave us a rough idea on where to and what to expect around Amsterdam. We went back to the hostel to check-in after the tour. The room is quite cramped for 5 people. Basically it has 2 double decker beds and one single bed thrown into the middle. I took the middle bed..haha. It was stated that Wi-Fi is charged but we were able to access it without the password anyways, so charge attempt fail. In the evening, we went to pay a visit to Anne Frank’s house, which is now a museum. It was a long queue to get in and to make matters worst, it was raining with strong winds. My pathetic 1 pound umbrella got destroyed in the process and I had to get drenched with my jacket on. We managed to gain entry eventually. Since the museum does not allow camera, I wasn’t able to get any pictures of the interior. Anyways, the layout inside the house is very simple, most of the original furniture had been removed except for a few. The secret attic chamber is still there. Since there were so much of visitors in the house, it gets rather cramped and very often a long stretch of queue forms as we navigate through the narrow corridors of the house. At some sections, we can’t stop the read because the narrow corridor would mean that we would have to continue moving so as not to hold up the people behind. At the end of the museum trail is a small exhibition on the Holocaust in general. We went back to the hostel pretty early at around 8pm also after getting our dinner.

On the next day, we took a bus down to the outskirts of Amsterdam to have a look at one area with lots of windmills. The windmill is one of the trademark symbols of the Netherlands but it’s not the only thing that is found there. There’s a cheese shop which makes traditional Dutch cheese and also a Dutch clog factory. We did a small walk around the area, filled with streams and rivers before proceeding on to the clog factory. I had the opportunity to watch how a clog was made from a block of timber. After feeling satisfied going around, we took a bus back to the city centre. The group decided to rent bicycles to go around Amsterdam instead of taking the public transport. I was a little apprehensive but decided to give it a try since one of the Amsterdam experience is to try riding a bike around the cities like the locals. You see, the problem with Stan is that most of his cycling days are in a park. I have no problem riding a bike, but add cars zooming beside you and other impatient cyclists along a narrow strip of pathway sound alot like a recipe for disaster. Anyways, we cycled to a nearby park so that Carolyn can have a crash course on biking. That took quite some time and when we were done, we cycled back to city centre to park our bikes somewhere before heading off to search for food. Mhmmm..food choices are a little bit hard because everywhere seems to be expensive but we settled to eat at one Italian bistro in the end.

We started off the 3^rd day by checking out the wet market. It was literally wet because the morning weather was gloomy and it was drizzling all over the place. There ain’t much to see because tulip season is over and most of the stuff that are being sold were gardening materials. We proceeded next on our bikes to the Heineken factory. This was the original brewery which was first established in Amsterdam. Hmmmm..I never knew Heineken was Dutch..lol. The museum was quite interesting as it provides some information regarding its origins. There’s also demonstrations on how beer is created. The room with the giant boilers were preserved for visitors to see and those metallic containers are huge! We get to sample Heineken straight from the tap too. At the end of it, we were given two complimentary pints. We redeemed one only though because drinking 2 during an afternoon may be a little too much. Besides, there is a risk that we may be too drunk to ride a bike too..haha. I got myself an interesting souvenir – a Heineken bottle of beer personalised with my own name on it. It’s only 5 Euros and the only setback is that I need to pay another 5 to transport it across back to England. We returned our bikes to the rental shop at around late afternoon and at that time, I was feeling relieved to be able to walk on two legs instead of man-handling the bike in congested Amsterdam. Nevertheless, I have to say that cycling in Amsterdam itself is quite an interesting experience. We spent the remaining evening just exploring Amsterdam on foot. The red light district was an ubiquitous feature and we were warned not to take pictures of the booths because they don’t like tourists doing that. Other than the red light district, there are numerous shops selling everything related to love-making – condoms, DVDs, live shows. Weed of course is another prevalent substance distributed throughout the city and they can be easily obtained from the 200 over “coffeeshops” spread all over Amsterdam. Some of these coffeeshops don’t only sell weed-smoking services but also various other cakes laced with weed (which they call space cakes) and some weird nonsense known as magic mushrooms.

On the final day, we did a short visit of the city’s Heineken souvenir stall before heading off to the airport to catch a flight back to Manchester. Ahhhhh, Amsterdam has certainly been fun and eye-opening at the same time.

P.S. While I was in Amsterdam, I received rumours and congratulations at Facebook for my exam results. You see, the provisional exam results are to be out while we were holidaying in Amsterdam. While hundreds of law students are eagerly checking their results, WY and I are two law students who are still lepaking in Amsterdam, having no idea or confirmation of our results other than rumours from friends. Now, I didn’t want to get excited over anything while I was in Amsterdam and I shut out any news on the results from others because I really wanna enjoy myself without thinking about exam results. The confirmation of classification will be finalised on 1^st of July. Till then, I ain’t gonna speak anything about it!

3 Doors Down LIVE @ Manchester Academy

It was Carly who gave me the heads up for this concert a few months before. Since I couldn’t find any worthwhile concerts to attend during summer, I quickly snapped it up online after hearing about it. There were plans to be there early to get the front row, so I booked a 9.30am train ticket to Manchester Piccadily. I met up with Carly at the station and we went to have food at the Arndale shopping mall food court. Since we had lots of time to kill, we ended up chatting for a couple of hours.

We started to make our way to Manchester Academy around 3hrs before the start of the concert. Along the way, we bought our packed dinner from McD to eat. When we arrived at Manchester Academy, there were a few people waiting in line already. Wow, I didn’t know 3 Doors Down were such a big hit in England..lol. Our waiting period was made complicated when it started to rain. It wasn’t a heavy downfall but it was potent enough to make one wet. We squeezed ourselves to the side pavement with a thin shelter. It rained for quite a while before the grey clouds passed away. By then, two queues had already formed, one on the left entrance and we were standing on the right entrance. It looks like one of the lines is gonna get short-changed in entering early. It turned out in the end that my line was allowed to proceed in first! Ah, I felt sorry for the other line because they would have to join my line’s queue which by now would have extended beyond the student union.

When we entered, there was already a first row there which I assume is the people with VIP pass. But we didn’t get it too bad at second row. For the opening band, we had a British hard punk rock band from Brighton called the Crave. Although the doors were opened, 3 Doors Down did not start playing until around 9.15am. Their status as an internationally recognised band is apparent. After the Crave had departed, the stage was cleared of all wires. 3DD’s stage set was clean because all of them were using wireless instruments.

Well, 3DD is one rock band which I would regard as a nostalgic reminder of the high school days of my generation. During the early 2000s, 3DD was prominent with Here Without You and Kryptonite. I wouldn’t say I’m familiar with all of their other songs like how I am with Paramore or Muse but 3DD makes good listening. Another one that’s worth listening to is Away From the Sun. The 3DD band members ain’t young anymore. They look like they’re going into their 40s already and somehow the lead singer Bradley Arnold gave an “apek-ish” aura when he came out in his white singlet. Somehow, the song list for the concert got passed around the audience and as expected, Kryptonite was left to the last during the encore period. I have fond memories of course, of Kryptonite because when I was in Sec 1 at SJI, I saw it being performed live by my Sec 4 seniors. While “Holiday” was the threshold of me getting into the rock scene, “Kryptonite” was actually my personal prototype of that inspiration.

I was getting a bit worried at first on the late starting time because I may end up missing my train at 11.30pm. Thankfully, it ended just on the dot at 11pm, giving me ample time to walk from the academy to Manchester Oxford station, which is of a considerable distance. Ahh, it was a good concert and yesh, yet another one to the list. The only thing that I lament about is that thanks to some bungling up in phone numbers, my new Panasonic FZ45 camera did not arrive on time for the concert. And silly me did not borrow Henna’s camera as a back-up plan, thanks to some bad overconfidence that the new camera will arrive in time. As a result, I had to record concert footage with the lousy video recorder from my Nikon camera. Ahhhh, I’m not pleased. This is not what I envision for my last rock concert outing in Europe. I’ll have to hunt harder on the net for one last big bang rock concert where I can utilise my new HD camera gear at least once.

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

It all started out in Leo’s photo album where I spotted a comment from one of my former journalism junior, Clara. It turns out that both of them are mutual friends with each other at NUS. From there, I got to know from Clara that my former JC English Lit lecturer, Miss Kwok is making a trip down to London in June. Arrangements were made on when to meet and it was decided also that we would catch a show at the Shakespeare Globe Theatre. I took a bus down as it is a cheaper option and would plan to return back by bus too. This meant only a mere 13 pounds for a 1 day London return trip. Once I’ve reached Victoria station, I met up with Clara and we went to find Miss Kwok. Along the way, I received news that we’ll meeting a fieldtrip group from my JC and that another one of my former lecturers would be there too. Woah, during my time, the only fieldtrip that we heard of was to Vietnam and now the kids get to fly to England.

As a uni student now, I suddenly felt quite old looking at the JC kids in the group. 3 years ago, I was at their stage. We hang around the group for a while before moving off to our own directions. We proceeded on to have lunch at one of the Spanish BBQ stalls near the Thames River. We had 2 bowls of paella shared among ourselves. After lunch, we took a slow walk to the Globe Theatre. I’ve heard of the Globe Theatre (from playing Civilization games) but never seen it personally myself. Apparently this famous Globe Theatre in London is merely a reconstruction of the model that Shakespeare had during his time. Clara booked for us standing tickets for “All’s well that ends well” and it costs just a measly 5 pounds! That’s really a value deal for a unique experience of a lifetime. Wow..apparently the more expensive tickets are the seated ones but the irony is that the standing area is the actually the better experience. This is because the standing audience get to be as close to the actors as possible and we get to have an experience how an open-sky theatre feels like.

The Globe Theatre management were strict on camera policies – no video taking or cameras during performance time. During the performance, I could see that Shakespeare plays were the medieval cinemas of his time. It was like watching a film, except that very old English was used and live music were played. There was a slight drizzle at the interval but thank God there’s no heavy rainfall. Anyways, it was a very good show and kudos to the actors for bringing out the comedic effects of the character.

After the show we had some ice-cream before sending Clara off to the tube station since her bus is coming earlier. I accompanied Miss Kwok along the Thames River for a short walk before heading off to Victoria Bus Station myself. It was great catching up with some of the old people from my previous stage of life and I certainly never expect us to meet up in a foreign land – of all places..lol. The irony is that we probably wouldn’t be able to find the occasion to meet up at Singapore itself. Nevertheless, Miss Kwok pointed out that it’s always nice to share moments of exploring a new place with her students. In any case, Miss Kwok herself has always been one of the lecturers that I personally respect because of her passion and dedication in teaching English Literature. Even after years later, I still find her passion for teaching English Lit is burning as strong as ever and I’m indeed thankful to be able to learn under her during my time in JC.