International Night St Ed's

5 October 2008

More freshers joined St Edmund's College. I heard about 180 of them. Wow! That's a large number. I'll see more unfamiliar faces than the faces that I recognise.....

One of the activities, other than parenting exercise, was this International night that I went to. It was held in our Combination Room (CR). Most of the college members turned up and the CR was very crowded. As usual, only few Muslims in the room and only one "ME" with my head scarf in this event...

Ms Chih, me, Guangyuen, Joe

Glad to meet my old friends again. At least these are the faces that I recognise and know quite well. We chatted about all kind of thing and kept each other updated on our current progress. Such a pleasant moment....

Me and Katarzyna from Berlin

Katarzyna and Mr. T

Guang Yuen-our CR vice president!

Four different types of food were served in turn- Mexican, Italian, Chinese and Indian.

Mexican nachos

Italian pizza

Chinese food

Everyone was really looking forward for the free food and attacked the food once it was served!They must be very hungry!!

I barely touched the food as I only had vegetarian option-which was a bit yuck! Luckily I was smart enough to eat first before I came down to CR...

Ms Chih all happy with her chicken pizza

And I only had prawn cracker!

I met students from Thailand (Riam Sara/Saz), Afghanistan (Mohammad), Singapore (Lu Shan, my mentee for the parenting exercise) and a few others.

Mentor-mentee, me and Lu Shan

Mr. T and I stayed for a while and chatted until about 10-30 pm. Then we felt tired and went to our rooms....

Have to get ready for tomorrow.... ZZZzzzz....

Apple Trees in St Ed's!

4 October 2008

Me and apple trees that bear lots of fruits. No one seems to be collecting them. Such a waste...

I've been having this craving feeling to climb an apple tree...any where as long as the tree is full of apples. I even asked Abg John and a few of my friends if they have any knowledge of an apple tree that I can climb. Guess what? My wish came true today.

All the fresh, juicy apples......

Some of the cooking apples

On my way back from Chuchill College with Mr. T, we walked through some apple trees near the back entrance of St Ed's College. These apples are cooking apples but I just didn't care...as long as it's apple tree! I asked Mr. T to stop and took pictures of me with the trees. And of course of me climbing the tree! Yeaaahahh! Finally....

Me, all happy as my wish came true!

Here are some pictures of me and Mr. T in our monkey stunts!!

Me on the tree in my baju kurung. Hehe! Luckily this tree is not really that tall....

And Mr. T joined me afterwards!

Well...Abg John. I'm not looking for apple tree anymore! Hemm.... some wild berries maybe?

Eid Gathering

4 October 2008

We had our Eid gathering among Malaysian students in Churchill College. Thank you Chief Kimie for your effort to make it happened and thanks to both Hisham and Zue for offering their place for this joyful gathering.

Group photo

I was sick for the last two days and is still not really that well today. But...my ill condition didn't stop me from participating in this event. It was pot luck style of gathering. Everyone came with their contribution. Zue and Hisham have a new member in their family, Fahmi. By having this concept, we managed not to burden them so much.

Mdm Zue and the newborn Fahmi.

The Eid gathering started at 10 am but Mr. T and I went before 11 am by cycling. As St. Ed's and Churchill is not that far, we took only a few minutes to get there through New Hall.


We celebrated Amin's (Zue and Hisham 1st son) and Miss J birthday. Both Amin and Miss J took turn in cutting their birthday cake. Many happy return to both of you. May Allah bless you and your lives....

Amin cutting his birthday cake with Ms ZZ help

And Miss J's turn to cut her cake with all her close friends around. Happy Birthday girl. May you succeed in your MPhil..

Me and Miss J the birthday girl

Our chief, Mr. Kimie gave his opening speech, welcoming us and our new members for this Eid gathering and wishing us well for this Eid and our lives. Followed by a short prayer by Mr. Khairul before we attacked the food!

Mr. Khairul, Mr. Kimie and Mr. Ikhwan

Our main dishes :

Soto (courtesy of Ms ZZ, Mdm Zett and Miss J), Satay without skewers (Mr. Kimie and Mdm Azlin), Roti Jala (Mdm Airina and Mr. Ikhwan), Roti sardin (Ms Intan), lamb rendang (Ms. Belle), Popiah basah (Ms. Fatin) and some others. Everything looked very tasty!

Desserts/Titbits :

Kuih raya brought by Mr. Khairul who'd just came back from Malaysia, some cakes and others. And of course both birthday cakes as well.... Sugar2! We'll be high in sugar afterwards for sure. Haha!

All the gents attacking the food!

And the ladies turn afterwards...

Everyone enjoyed the food and companies. We chatted with each others and it was a very warm and pleasant environment. I hadn't met some of them for a while. Plus we had three new members - Aliff, Azlee and one more name which I couldn't remember. Sorry! To our new members-welcome to Cambridge and hope you'll succeed here. And success for all of us as well. Hisham went through his viva and is currently doing the minor correction. Wow! That's awesome. Congrats! Wish you well when you go back to Malaysia and start teaching...

Here are some pictures of us. Enjoy!

All ladies except Amin and Fahmi of course (Zue's sons)!

Us with Sui Seng. We hadn't seen him for a while....

Me, Mdm Zett, Ms ZZ and Ms Intan. Miss J, where were you??

Second day of Eid

1 October 2008

I went to Asia restaurant again. This time I brought my friends along. There were seven of us. The restaurant workers recognised me from yesterday. Hehe! Apparently, I gave them quite an impression. Hehe!

We walked together happily from our department to Regent Street

Us, in front of Asia

I didn't take any photo on the restaurant decor yesterday. For this entry I managed to do that. Here are some pictures of the restaurant layout.

Waiter always in standby mood for new comers...

Romantic tables for couples

And a dragon near our huge table!

Food is sent down from the kitchen using this small elevator system. Cool!

We ordered different meal each. Mdm Zett, Ms. ZZ, Mr. T, Miss J and Mdm SA had tom yam prawn soup as starter. They love the tom yam, which had just the right taste and hotness.

Tomyam Prawn soup

A thumb's up from Mdm SA. She really like the food!

I saw some guests ordering Pad Mee last night and thought that might taste yummy. So, I tried this noodle today. Pad Mee with grilled duck and bean sprout.

Pad Mee

Most of my friends ordered a dish and a bowl of rice each. Mdm Zett - Chicken in tamarind sauce. The portion was quite large and suitable for two persons. Ms ZZ had chicken tikka , Mr. T ordered Tandoori lamb chops and Miss J chose chicken Lababdar. They offer rice of different types-Pilau rice, boiled rice, Jasmine rice and steamed coconut rice...

Chicken in tamarind source. Huge portion!

Chicken tikka

Tandoori lamb chops

Chicken Lababdar

Mdm SA and Ms Chih chose different dish each and had theirs with plain naan. They had Bhoona lamb and Jalfrezi chicken which turned out to be very tasty!

Jalfrezi chicken

Bhoona lamb

Plain naan

I believe most of the main dish are suitable for a pair. You will only manage to finish all the food IF you have big appetite and stomach!

We finished our meal around 2 pm but had to deal with the payment as we decided to pay separately. When it was my turned to pay, I asked (like normal Asian, without being shy at all!) whether the price written on the bill was after the 25% discount that I should get. Apparently, the waiter forgot about that. We were supposed to pay a total of GBP 95. After the discount, I got GBP23 back! Wow! That was a lot of discount. Then, I could give everyone at least GBP 3 back. Hehe!

We really enjoyed the food. The waiters were very friendly, patient and helpful. They even made a joke to make the environment more friendly. Well...I would definitely recommend this place to anyone!

Mr. T, Miss J, Mdm Zett, me, Ms ZZ, Mdm SA and Ms Chih

Miss J, Mdm Zett and me

Ms ZZ and Mr. T

And Mdm SA and Ms Chih