Sleepy Loughborough

Been to Loughborough town a few times mostly for groceries, travel to the central bus stops and a bit of exploring. Strikes me as a quiet sleepy little town. On Thursdays and Saturdays, it becomes into a pasar malam with lotsa stalls set up selling lotsa stuff. Haven had a chance to go down for it yet...(Thursdays are packed wif lessons and Saturdays are day trips out!)

William Street (the shortcut to town). It's a straight 20min walk along this road to get to town

Why wld anyone want to name their house that?

Interesting alleyway I found here......ahh.....where's my princess chio?!? Hahaha anw the real story is tt ppl make out here at night and there were cases of rape here b4...oh well......

The Loughborough Carillion

Along Market Street, the busiest street in town

HSBC Building

Loughborough Town Hall

Asked the locals and they said this statue is abt some guy putting on his socks.....watever tt means...

Rushes Shopping Centre = Main shopping district in Loughborough....not alot of stuff tt excites me though....

Grocery shopping at the market

Random mutterings from Loughborough Uni

Been 2 weeks here so more or less settled down. Onto my lessons, drats.....Butler Hall to the Chem Eng dept is like 20min walk apart. And it's amazing tt sometimes lectures for Engr are not held in Engr but could be somewhere else in the sch. (Think having our CN module in NUS LT27 tt kind of pattern) But at least it is quite a scenic walk and the weather is mostly cool so it's not too bad. Basically it's a 20min walk to almost anywhere of importance from Butler (the town, TESCO, engineering dept) Aniwae took more photos of the Loughborough Uni and one thing special about it is that the buildings are named after some person so the first time we came, we were unsure which block name was for which dept, took a bit to get used to. Anw there are also several statues and odd artistic structures arnd.

Wavy top building....Yes dun ask y...reason's obvious but it is seriously called the Wavy Top building, Fac for Human Sciences

A downed tree in front of Edward Herbert Building, heard it was struck down by lightning

The bar to chill in Edward Herbert Building

Dunno y but whenever i c this name, reminds me of some sch from Harry Potter, anw it's the computer centre

Walkers Statue

A windmill in Loughborough Uni, kinda intimidating to stand below it

Rainbow flag.....seriously heard tt there's a Loughborough Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Association........right..............super dotz

Another artistic impression. A mess of twisted pipes outside the library

Pilkington Library, somehow it looks as if it has its 3 levels sunk into the ground

Earthquake at the Bar Europa

Was invited to the Bar Europa by the exchange students, so decided to head down to town to check out the night scene in the town. Bar Europa is a small Italian pub with a sky garden of sorts (actually just a smoking corner) Ambience was quite alright and what was expected of the pub, although free pizza was served. Most of the ppl who attended were exchange students and from Europe. Benjamin and I were the only Asians arnd and struck up conversations wif several ppl from Germany, Austria and Italy. Basically from what i gather, ang mohs from europe have some general misconception abt us Singaporeans and i am hearing the same thing from everyone!

1) Ang mohs think Singapore is still a colony of Britain!! Love live the queen!
2) Ang mohs believe us chinese are all communists, doesn't matter if we are s'porean or not.
3) Ang mohs also sure of themselves tt Singapore is part of China, and so is Taiwan.
4) Ang mohs somehow impressed and surprised with my level of English. Conversation will go like this:

Curious ang moh: "so how long haf u been in Loughborough?"
Me: "2 weeks"
Incredulous ang moh: "but u speak really good English!"
Ego Me: "Yea w8 till i do Singlish!"
Confused ang moh: "?!?!?"

And the night went wif me trying to dispel all these misconceptions. And the general conclusion, as summed up by one of the guys: "We're not knowledgable abt Asia...sorry.." Right....................

On a side note, as i returned to Butler, somehow experienced a mini-earthquake tt shook the entire place. Siao liaoz....anw, more info can be found here.

http://www.inloughborough.com/news/2008/02/10547_earthquake.php

Quoted from the article: "The earthquake was not limited however to the Loughborough area and early reports indicate that it was felt in Leicestershire, Bedfordshire and East Anglia." Wow....guess tt beats even the kind of tremors we get in s'pore

Loughborough changes by night

Went down to the Loughborough Student Union to check out the night scene there. Heard tt by night, it transforms into a mini-clubbing scene. Sure enuff we did see queues tt can "fight" wif tt back home in zouk. And the best part is tt there were ppl dressed up in funky costumes. Did not really enter cos the queue's long...and we realised we looked kinda out of place with our coats on....i mean the clothes tt the girls put on were even more skimpier than those in s'pore la....and it's so cold here! Must make it a point to enter earlier next time. Heard tt wednesday and fri are the more happening nights.

The queue outside the one of the clubs. Apparently there are 3 clubs and a pub in the union by night.

Part of the reason of the dress-up was the election for the Loughborough Student Union exec committee. The nominees went arnd in their costumes and supporters gathering support and giving out free sweets and marshmellow. Loved the costume for this dude though....wif his Viking helmet and devilish female side-kick! :p

Tio warning letter....wah piangz!!

This is really silly, but woke up this morning to find a letter slipped under our door. Thought it was the free SIM card tt came but opened only to see a warning letter. Kaoz! So fast in UK and tio summon liaoz?!? Actually it's some TV licensing requirement and it tells us that we have to register and pay for a TV license if we want to watch and record live TV. (Omg....means no TVU...no freewire.....) The license costs GBP135.50 for a yr and a fine of GBP 1000 if they catch us illegally receiving TV signal! I immediately called the administrator in charge to tell them we dun need the license. I think we can live without TV for 6 months right....haha.....well at least the Butler common room has this huge ass LCD TV with more than 800 channels....so i guess tt's where we are gonna chill from now on..

Stand to! Stand to!

The last time I kena a fire drill was like....way way back in army....so when Butler Court decided to hold its fire drill in the wee hours of the morning, it was stand to positions all over again! Super blur and just grabbed my coat and ran down in sandals. Heng I wear track pants to sleep. There were others who were in their shorts and sandals only and there was this ang moh half naked and covering himself only wif his duvet! So miserable being woken up at 4am on a cold, foggy morning. The temp's like -3 like tt. We were all shivering loh!

And the best part was later in the day we realised that it wasn't really a fire drill but some cockster actually set off the fire alarm in his block by smoking in the room. Geesh....i guess tt means there's gonna be a fire drill sometime soon....

Leicester Trip (16 Feb08)

Incredibly excited cos this is after all our first day trip out to neighbouring Leicester. (note pronounced as lester, not leh-ces-ter) Leicester is one of the major cities in the East Midlands here, and very evident from the large major shopping centres Haymarket and The Shires Shopping Centre. Some renovation and refurbishment also observed cos according to the tourism website, Leicester is trying to re-brand itself. But the major highlight was going down to watch a soccer match between Leicester City and Norwich City at the Walkers Stadium. We were seated in the midst of die-hard Leicester City supporters...oh well...it's their home ground after all....and man...the English really get generous with expletives when they cheer! Apart from the usual "we will rock you" cheer there's even the mockery one..."ooooh...Twat! You're SHIT! HAHA!!" And they dun refrain from booing or cheering or to give a standing ovation...the atmosphere is exactly wat u shld see in TV when watching a soccer match :)

Leicester City centre

Leicester City Clock Tower

Statue in front of Leicester Town Hall

The majestic Leicester Cathedral. Kinda creepy with all the graves surrounding it.

Posing by the Sports Statue on Gallowtree Gate

There was this army recruitment exercise where the Royal British Armed Forces displayed their might...eh...their climbing skills. The UK flag is flying high too....long live the Queen!

Cheese baked potato for lunch and a nice hot chocolate cos it's freezing cold outside

Mighty battlement but it's actually a prison know as HM Prison

Can't help it but we just had to flash our tickets!

Leicester City's mascot....some fox

Walkers Stadium. Looks like a newly-constructed building

Norwich City supporters in yellow....They dun even make up for one-tenth of the stadium...haha

And on the right....the Leicester City supporters!

Let the game begin!


This is wat happens everytime Leicester scores a goal! Quick, cheer! Music starts blaring and the crowd goes crazy! End result: Leicester City 4 Norwich City 0. Exciting match tt had a bit of everything. Got one point where the players almost fought one player elbowed another from the opposing team and had to be stretchered out. Damn drama :)


We observed this long queue outside the stadium and inside too...and being curious S'poreans tt always wanna c wat's up in the queue, we soon found out tt this was the culprit!

McDonald Deli for dinner

Incredibly power! Even wif the bicycles chained, this is the first time i saw the wheels and seats of the bicycle kena ripped off and stolen. Looks like chains and locks not even safe now...haha

Ended the day with a drink at the local pub, the Parody. The English start coming in at arnd 8pm to fill the pub.

Stalking a freezing Wanping from afar

Ended with us rushing forward to take photo!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Kinda belated for this, but just wanna wish everyone a happy valentine's day, and for the singles, a happy friendship day! Btw over here i noticed that a single stalk of rose is selling for 5 pounds! Total ripoff! Another thing i noticed is that the couples here dun realli hold hands, cos it's so cold that they tend to put their hands in their pockets....haha....interesting observation.

How we celebrated V-day....spread the love!

My homebase

Our accomodation's at Butler Court and I must say the place is quite nice. All 10 of us are staying on the same level with myself, my roomie and the 2 Jareds separated from the others by a door along another corridor. The place is generally clean, heck....there's even a cleaner tt comes in to clean our rooms and toilet every Fri....wat more can u ask? Only thing is tt the kitchen for our side corridor C was terribly messy...as if someone had a huge slumber party and din clean up. Oh and the heater switches off automatically after a certain timing....so haf to bathe early

Welcome to Butler!

A typical block of Butler Court

A small garden in the midst of Butler

My study table

My sleeping nest....gonna buy the duvet sheet from the supermart

Survival kit....hopefully can last 6 months. Haha....my favourtie Oreos! And snack bars! And instant noodles. Mum overloaded me wif tissue packs again........lol

My wardrobe...neat right?

It's so cold outside tt I can chill my drinks by the window

View from my window at level 1. Over here in England their level 1 is not level 1 like in Singapore, Our level 1 is their ground floor. So tt makes level 1 the second storey in S'pore. Haha....hope i din confuse u guys reading wif tt