Weekend in London

I went down to London on Thursday initially planning to make my visa for Morocco on Friday, but unexpectedly, they were closed for Hari Raya Haji. It just occured to me how much it made sense that they celebrate their main festivals even overseas like how we still celebrate the festivals that are occuring in Malaysia.

Little Venice, just 3 minutes walk from Paddington Tube Station. It reminded me more of Amsterdam actually.

Feeling disappointed and sleepy, M cheered me up with Beard Papa's cream puffs. That did the trick. The bun was crunchy on the outside and filled with lots of cream inside which wasn't too sweet. Yummy.

We went along Oxford Road and visited a few computer shops as M was planning to get a new laptop. The best offer so far is from Sony. They give a rebate of 100 pounds if you trade in your old laptop.

As I kept on complaining that I was hungry, M took me to Cafe de Hong Kong to have lunch. The cream puff didn't last that long.

I would say that the portion was quite small for the price that we were paying. Service is the typical service you get at Chinese Restaurants where they just collect your plates without first asking if you were done. I liked the Bubble Tea and even bought a packet home myself to make my own. Haven't attempted it but I hope that it's nice.

Covent Garden Market - I loved this place. There were so many stalls selling so many unique little things and impressive live string quartet. It does give me the feel that Christmas is just around the corner.

Benjamin Pollock's Toy Shop - M's favourite place in Convent Garden Market. I was suddenly brought back to my childhood. Loved those paper pop-up theatre and puppets. M seriously didn't want to leave her red dragon behind. She even went back to play with it. There were other street performers doing stunts which left the audience in awe.

The highlight of my trip - Chicago musical

M told me that we could get really good seats at student price depending on our luck, so, we went to Cambridge Theatre right after lunch. It was my first time watching a theatre in London and I was really excited. The seats that we got were stall seats, just 4 rows from the stage for just 28.25 pounds.

I would have to agree that it's the sexiest theatre in town. After getting past how sexy and fit the performers were (not to say that it's a liability), I was really impressed by the quality of singing, dancing, acting, and how the whole show kept me entertained throughout. There wasn't even a second when I felt bored. I really liked how the conductor of the band participated in parts of the act, how they depicted that Roxy Hart was mearly a puppet controlled by her lawyer whilst being interviewed by the reporters about her murder. I went home singing 'it's all....that....jazzzz'.

Being so nice and warm in the theatre, we didn't realise how cold the weather turned outside. My teeth were chattering all the way to Tomoko, a Korean restaurant where we had our dinner.

It was my first time trying Korean Tea and I liked the subtle taste and nice fragrant. The spicy rice cakes were named appropriately. They were spicy but I enjoyed it. M's spicy pork was not bad too. The thing I noticed about Korean food that we tried that day was that they were sweeter then most food I've tried and there were loads of onions.

Saturday:

M handed me over to my sifu, H, who was my weekend consultant for activities in London. As she has so many templates, she just fitted me into the Duck Rice at Four Seasons followed by desserts at Malaysian Students Department after.

The 3 classmates from college. M, my deskmate for 2 years and H, my sifu in makan but retired. We were supposed to meet up with A who came all the way down from Edinburgh, but he never appeared even after we've finished lunch till the moment they sent me to Bayswater tube station. Luckily he appeared later with proof of a phonecall and photos from H's blog, or else we'll call her scam!

At Four Seasons, we had boneless roast duck with char siew, and straw mushrooms with crab meat. Recommended. I had take-away sotong with fine beans from MSD as I had to make my way back to Liverpool by train that evening.

Thanks to M and H for making my weekend trip to London so memorable. Now to cultivate the motivation in me to complete my portfolio and face another exciting week of GP.

Cooking halibut

Finally, we managed to get to the smokery on West Builder street before they close for the day.

It was a really weird experience for me as I confidently stepped into the shop thinking that they might sell a species of fish which I knew but how wrong I was. Except for the cod and salmon, I couldn't recall any fish with those names.

We ended buying a piece of halibut fillet and a packet of smoked salmon for a really cheap price of 9.07 pounds.

The smoked salmon was half priced that day. Such a bargain.

Initially, the man who was serving us looked very bored, but after watching out antics, from asking him to recommend which type of fish to how to cook it, he was smiling all the way while I was paying him. Hahaha. I guess we brightened up his day. Too bad he didn't know how to prepare halibut.

Next, we stopped by Asda to get the ingredients to cook the fish and saying that, it was really funny as we haven't got a clue how to prepare it. A brilliant idea came to my mind, why don't we ask the person at the fresh fish counter?

'Which fish sauce do you recommend cause I'm planning to cook halibut tonight?', while casually pretending to choose one of the fish sauces arranged at the bottom of the fresh fish counter.

'No, you shouldn't prepare it with fish sauce. You should lightly fry it and top it with mashed peas........'

And so, we found out that he learned that recipe from watching Saturday Kitchen and had even tried the recipe himself. Hahahaha.....my ingenious plan worked all thanks to him.

The 3 enthusiastic cooks in the kitchen. D was the main chef and NI and I were the assistant chefs.

After 20 minutes.....

Tadah!!!!! Halibut topped with mashed peas, smoked salmon with boiled vegetables, mashed potatoe and fresh salad. Yummy!

I was trying to get a self shot with the amazing dish but D somehow was caught in the background. Oh well.

Halibut is seriously amazing. The fish on its own without any marination at all tasted so good. So, if any of you are interested in having seafood, halibut is a must try.

I think the picture says it all. The above was for photo taking purposes, and our actual meal was the one below. We even had rice with it. Hahahaha.

I'm now looking forward to our next cooking project. What will it be?

Final round

Friday evening, we went to Ye Rah for dinner. Highly recommended as not only the food was delicious, the service was good too.

From Singapore fried noodles, Thai green curry, to lamb kebab. Other than the lamb kebab being too salty, there were no further complains.

There's a ferries wheel at Liverpool One but it's not going to be permanent. Only till the new year. It's 5 pounds for students. Not very sure about the view as it's within L-1.

Saturday birthday dinner:

I have to accept the fact that it's really difficult to get everyone together nowadays but I was happy that many turned up. The food at Harbour City was delicious but I thought that the portions were quite small.

Round 3 - my 3rd birthday cake. Can't believe that I got so many this year. Maybe it's to make up for not having a birthday cake in a few past birthdays. Does that mean my 3 wishes will come true? Muahahaha. Happy birthday to YM too!

Round 2

Got a lovely surprise when I got back. My flatmates made me burgedale...if that's how you spell it, with bihun soup. So nice.

Then, the second surprise appeared in the form of a birthday cake and song. Hahahaha. I get to make 2 wishes this year.

Alamak...why is my age on the cake? Now the whole world knows...

Is there going to be round 3? Hmmmm....I wonder. Need to go to the gym this weekend.

My birthday celebration

The weather was a combination of strong wind and rain today. Things didn't look like it's going to change for the better anytime soon. Went to GP earlier to get some work done. About 50% of the patients didn't want to see me. Went home feeling slightly disappointed thinking that it's not going to be a good day for me.

When I got home, D was busy preparing dinner for the whole house and it ended up a birthday celebration for me.

My group for GP rotation

D's peanut butter chicken and chicken rice tasted really delicious.

I was already very happy by that time....and what I didn't expect was this:

Now, I'm really touched. Had a birthday card from all of them too. No wonder they didn't let me in the kitchen while they were doing the washing.

Made my birthday wish and blew the candles while everyone sang my birthday song. Thanks everyone!

Now to face the reality that I'm already one year wiser. Hahaha...not older. I'm still very young.

Home made Pizza

Note: The author holds no responsibility in triggering hunger pangs. Read at your own discretion.

Last Saturday, we attempted to make pizza from scratch. Come to think of it, I think it's because A and I had too much time on our hands. The Pizza here is so cheap and easily available and we were just looking for more work to do. The good side was we got to customise our fillings and the cost of making so many pizza was really low.

Let the pictures do the talking:

Hardest part was to kneed the dough and leave it to rise. Second hardest part was to shape it into the pizza base.

Cheese, cheese and more cheese!

Don't they look tempting.

Liverpool Medical School OSCE

After 5 long months since the whole lot of stressed out 4th year Liverpool medical students sat for their final OSCE examination, I received my feedback for the summative OSCE today. It provided such little detail, only informing me whether I've passed or failed a station and which quartile that I'm in. On top of that, I received a second email giving details of requirements which are assessed in an OSCE examination, including hints and tips to get those bonus mark.

Come on, what's the point after 5 long months, when we've had forgotten everything except for the examiner who was promoting the story book that she was reading while assessing me in one of the stations.

I am lucky to have passed all the stations except for basic life support, which I have never failed in the last 7 OSCEs and now they don't even give me any details on which part went wrong and passed me. Does that mean I can go on carrying out all the other examinations and procedures properly, but maybe end up not saving some poor soul's life who I may have to carry out BLS on him/her?

What went wrong? How can I learn from the experience? I don't even remember what I did at that time. So, what's the use of the feedback?

The email kindly ended with this statement: 'This is for information only, and no further discussion of the result will be held.'

I think I can live with that.

Anglesey and Conwy

Last Wednesday, I had a half day of GP and N had an off day. So, we went off exploring Anglesy and Conwy even thought the weather was quite bad. It was raining most of the time.

Menai Bridge

You can judge for yourself how windy it was that day. The rain stopped momentarily for me to take a few pictures.

Next up is UK's village with the longest name: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

The name is in Welsh and the meaning of the name is "St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave". Phew, I'm not even going to attempt to remember it.

Malltraeth - a landscape shaped by wind, sand, time and man.

The forest was grown to protect the the Newborough village from the wind-blown sand and it provides timber. As you can see, all the trees and grass are bent in the same direction. That includes my hair.
We were seriously freezing at that time.

We stopped at the entrance to the animal farm on Anglesy. N commented that my hair looked like the furry bull behind.

The smallest house in Great Britain. It was situated on Conwy Quay just below Conwy Castle. At least I can still stand at my full height to go through the door. Too bad it is closed for winter.

Conwy Castle. Just 10 minutes walk from my GP surgery.

I have to keep reminding myself that I am here for my GP placement but let's hope that the adventure continues.

I need a new pair of sport shoes

I realised that it is time for me to hunt for a new pair of sport shoes when my right sock was wet from walking back through the rain today. Seems like there's a hole where water had seeped through.

Curious about the latest Nike shoes, I surfed the website and came across NIKEiD where it allows personal customisation of the colour. Thus, the designing process began and the end product is:

You can even customise what you want to print on the back of the shoes. I would prefer something quirky but I couldn't think of anything while I was playing with the designs. I think it will be quite weird for people knowing your name from your shoes if you decide to put your name on the back. Hahaha. At least nobody will steal this pair of shoes!

Total price for this pair of lovely customised shoes: £151.70.

After all that fun and effort, I wish I could own the real thing but I cannot afford it!!!

Llandudno - Great Orme through pictures

First day that we arrived at Llandudno (pronounced as Th(l)an-did-no), we decided to take the cable car up Great Orme before it closes for winter.

The view of Llandudno is just so beautiful!

The longest passenger cable car in the UK.

6.50 pounds for a return ticket. Worth every penny of it.

You could take the tram up the Great Orme as well, but may encounter the above 'adverse event'.

Kids, do not try this at home.

Even the photo of the grass only turned out so nice.

Weather was perfect to just sit and just admire the scenery.

The scenery made me recall the art pieces which I copied at Art classes which I took when I was younger. Now I know the origins of those art pieces.

My masterpiece. Many thanks to D for being my model. How I wished that I was the model and not the photographer at times. Then I can get nice photos of myself.

Another piece. Thanks to Lassie. Just joking, I don't even know what it's name.

On our way down...

The sun came out fully at this time and the photos turned out really well.

The gazing sheep looked like little cotton wools on the grass.

Back to the lower grounds. Even the seagull happily posed for me.

Had fish and chips by the sea accompanied by this well behaved seagull which didn't steal our food. Still soaking in the scenic view.

Our 5 star accommodation. I'm still wondering if I'm in the middle of 5th year or on a vacation. Let me just call it 'lawatan sambil belajar'.