Infectious Diseases Meeting London

22 October 2008

I attended an Infectious Diseases Meeting (more like seminar) at British Medical Association (BMA) in London today. The meeting started at 9.00 am and finished at 4.30 pm. I took the train from Cambridge to King's Cross station. It was my first time taking the train here in UK and as I didn't have my rail card yet, I'd to pay GBP30. So expensive la..!

Cambridge train station

I went with my labmate, Claudio and had to really struggle to keep my pace with his speed! He's more that 6 foot tall and has long legs. Just imagine me trying to walk beside him. Frankly, I did more running than walking. Haha! Poor me....

As usual, there was only one of me. No Muslim women around except me and one Muslim guy from Sudan. Abg John and Cludio presented a poster on TB genomics technology. I'm not doing anything with TB but my interest in this is very personal. My sister is very sick and is still recovering from this deadly disease in HKL (based on medical diagnosis).

Seminar room

Main Hall where they served food and also held posters session....

Wonderful court area..

Since we were in London, Abg John and I decided to try the Malaysian food in Malaysia Hall canteen (actual, I mentioned about it to Abg John the day before!). So, we went to this canteen in Queenborough Terrace. It is true that the canteen is a bit tricky to find for non Malaysian as not everyone knows a Malaysian flag. Anyway, this was my first time coming here but I didn't have any trouble at all to find the place as we took a taxi to there. Hehe! Kind of cheating la...

Abg John and I in front of Malaysia Hall

I've read in the website that people keep commenting the Malaysian Hall as serving good and cheap Malaysia food but the canteen look like a school cafe. When I came and saw the canteen for myself, it really looked like a school cafe and what people were saying in the web was all true. Nevertheless..it didn't really matter as we were looking for good food. And I really miss the opportunity to order food in Malay language!!

The layout of Malaysia Hall canteen

Abg John had nasi lemak with beef rendang in Malaysian Hall canteen.


Claudio and I had nasi lemak with fried chicken. The nasi lemak was nice except the anchovies sambal was a bit too hot for Claudio and me. Abg John, as usual had no complaint as he love hot stuff!



We all had teh tarik for drink. Frankly, teh tarik here was not as good as what we had before in Malaysia, especially from Khulafa' or Kedai Kopi in S.Alam. But it would have to do as we had no other choice...


But the sweet cakes that on offer there were very nice. We chose kuih kemboja, bingka ubi, seri muka. Both Abg John and Claudio really love these cakes as they were very tasty and not that sweet.


We left around 15 minutes past 6 pm. Claudio took a tube at Queenway as he was going somewhere in London for a Ballet. Abg John and I took a taxi to Liverpool Street and caught a train to Cambridge.

The day maybe tiring but I had a very nice day. The meeting may be a bit boring as I'm not a medical person but the food was nice especially in Malaysia Hall. And I had two very charming gentlemens with me. Hehe!

Claudio made me promise not to put any of his pictures in my blog. He is a bit shy I think. So, no more pictures of him.....