Happie Chinese New Year!! Bit late to say that, since itz already the 2nd day of CNY in m’sia. Still, 新年快乐，恭喜发财!! How was ur chinese new years? Anyway, Chinese new year here is nothing like m’sia, cuz there’s totally nothing! No red stuff, no songs, no atmosphere of CNY. Its like nobody know that it exist. So its up to ourselves to celebrate it in our own way. Below is me long boring diary, continue reading at ur own risks – high level of boredom. 除夕 (17th February, Saturday)
friends going to Birmingham today, so might as well join in, wont wana spend CNY in my room right?!
8.00am – manage to get out of bed, wash up n had bfast, nvr did this b4 in msia, would have slept till 10/11 am. Was gona meet them, including Li Hsien n Sao Lee + other friend + friend’s friend at the bus stop around 9.30am, but me went out early to finish up my simulation project in the engineering building (假假 hardworking =P) after setting up the program, me left a note there, n went off. u’ll b surprised how long it takes to complete the simulation, hehe~ Met Sao Lee at d bus stop. As always, the girls were a little late.
10.30am – reached the ‘Virgin Train’ (Figure 1 left) station. It wuz my 1st time taking d train, kampong boy >. n real smooth. U wont feel that the train was moving. It was so nice, wonderful. Wow! Okay, me know me caveman la.. reached Birmingham New Street Station (Figure 1 right) around 11am. Walked around, window shopping.
Figure 1
About 12pm – almost lunchtime, so we went to Chinatown. Heard that there wuz a Chinese buffet restaurant with a reasonable price. On our way, me saw something like pasar malam (Figure 2 left). Got a little shocked when we reached Chinatown, or should me say, ‘chinablock’ or ‘china-alley’. there was only a block of buildings which looks Chinese (Figure 2 right). N there weren’t any red stuff either. Anyway, found the restaurant.
Figure 2
12.19pm (as stated on the receipt) – paid for the buffet. Yup, pay b4 u eat. We were only allowed 1.5 hrs, so without wasting time, we grabbed a plate n walked around. There were so many delicious food there. For starters, dumplings, popiah, 饺子, ribs, soup.. total about 20 different dishes. The main course, pork, chicken, beef with black pepper, sweet n sour sauce each, 3 different dishes of tofu, vegetable n mee n fried rice n… there were cakes, fruits, salad, ice cream. Wow wOw woW!! Cant stop eating… all in all, me had 4/5 rounds, me dun feel well after that, too full. But my fren, she took even more. Yup, itz a ‘She’! so paiseh, ate less than a girl >.< but wif d cold weather n d distance we walked after that, d too-full-feeling was soon gone.
Aft lunch – went back to d shopping mall, which was called ‘BULLRING Birmingham’ (Figure 3 left). It had 160 shops, around 40 restaurants, which consists of 2 buildings. It was something like midvalley. Was walking when me saw people taking picture with a big, brown cow statue (Figure 3 right). Whats a cow statue doing here?! Wait, it’s a bullring! There mus b a bull in d bullring! Haha~ took me quite some time to figure that out, must b d effects of eating too much. There were alota ppl around too (Figure 3 bottom), since itz weekend. Continued shopping till around 4pm, n decided to go bak.
Figure 3
Around 5pm – reached Warwick Uni, went back to my room after closing the simulation which just finished running not long ago =.=’ was stil very full for d whole night, so took only a couple of biscuits for dinner. Intended to study abit, but eventually, played games till 3am d next day, manage to chat wif Lawrence too^^
初一(18th February, Sunday)
Was awake quite early, stil abit full, but stil manage to have 2 slices of bread for bfast. My neighbour, from Singapore, invited me to have lunch wif him n Li Hsien. Btw, he’s Li Hsien’s coursemate. He’s a nice guy, n a good cook too. Had 3 dishes + fried rice. So another fabulous meal, very full again =.=” feeling bit 不好意识, decided to invite him to dinner with Li Hsien, Sao Lee n d friend who asked us to b’ham, 5 of us. Ohya, went to feed ducks around 3pm n got bitten in d hand >.<>rted preparing d food around 4.30pm, chopping, slicing, cutting… LH, SL n me eventually finished cooking around 6.30pm, n we cooked curry, broccoli + cauliflower, 豆芽, baked beans n Campbell soup (Figure 4). Okay, itz a weird CNY meal. Hey, who cares when we can eat together, right? We ‘yam seng’ using Campbell soup sumore, haha~ after that, we had cakes n 年糕provided by LH. OMG! FULL FULL FULL! we took pictures n talked too. Without even notice, it wuz already 10.30pm. Quickly took a bath, n sat here posting.
Figure 4
Me really didn’t expect my CNY would b like dis here, it wuz really fun! N becoming a pigie too, wif all d meals:P Although unable to hav reunion dinner with family n relatives, but its really nice to hav it wif frenz too (will try to get d picture of 5 of us n post it here). Well, d weekend turned out totally different from wat me thought. Me even managed to get a Special Angpau^-^ itz almost 1.30am now, should get some sleep, next week will b busy wif test, reports, assignments, labs.
Anyway, Happie Chinese Pigie New Year to u all!! Hope u all hav even more fun than me did. 新年快乐，万事如意，年年有余… take care everybody!
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