What a Technology

I was walking to my university just now. The weather had changed and winter seems to come too soon. I was wearing thicker clothes and gloves. The journey from my hostel to my campus takes about 10-15 minutes. As usual, I grab my iPod to accompanied my journey. However, I ended up placing it back in my bag.



I couldn't touch or function the device with my gloves T_T

Tatton Park (Sept 18)

I am finally back with more updates. It's been seven weeks since I have settled in Manchester and I'm not updating my not-so-exciting life here for some reasons:

• I have so many things to do on a per day basis. I have to run my Restaurant City about 18 hours a day, visit 130+ friends' pets at Pet Society, constantly race in Street Racing, cook breakfast/brunch/dinner)
• A day does not seems to be enough for me to do what I intended to do. Assignments, readings, blog, photos editing, video call with my family and the list goes on.
• I am a pure procrastinator! Serious shit. I finished an assignment which is due today only in the morning. When I am supposed to do my homework first, I'll delayed them till late night and go on with facebook-ing for the whole day.
• I insist to be in my comfort zone in the weekend aka I am hardly in contact with the outside world. Seriously, I have classes everyday in the weekdays and most classes end pretty late, between 4-6pm. By the time I get home, it felt like I don't have much time for myself (although I have) and I just feel like staying in during the weekend to do my own things..which revolve to the same damn things I do every other day anyway actually...
• Manchester is not as interesting as I imagined it would be, hence nothing interesting to blog about. Okay. I might be biased about this. I didn't enjoy that much here probably because of the workloads I get from my programme AND I am not into the famous night-life thingie in Manchester cause I am obviously not those type who enjoy that AND I didn't get the Man U job AND some nasty guy pee on my flat's door AND I am just pure lazy....the list keeps go on...
• I am just pure boring or you can call me nerd (which I think I am not but everyone thinks I am) *boohoo*

On second thought, I did not stuck at Manchester City Centre all the time...although 'most of the time' seems applicable. So this post today I will be blogging about Tatton Park, a tourist attraction I've visited on my first week here (THAT'S SIX WEEKS AGO)

TATTON PARK

If you have noticed, I was VERY PALE! 

The trip was organized by the university at a price of 5 pounds which include barbecue dinner, followed by Irish dance (which I did not participate,d-uh). 

Back to the pale-ness. We went to Tatton Park by bus and OMFG the ride was HORRIBLE. The problems lied on the uncomfortable bus (it's Bullocks) and the driving skills the driver had. He kept on press the break hard and that made me nauseous. I was having my worst half an hour bus ride of my life. My head was spinning and something ought to come out from my throat at the same time. Now, I have phobia taking Bullocks buses >.<

-Tatton Hall-

There is nothing much in this place or maybe there is but I was feeling so sick to even bother to explore.

The park was huge and obviously very green! The greenness made me feel much better later that trip.

Taking photos with the grass is a must over here I supposed. At least that's what I noticed from my bunch of friends' photos who were in Liverpool in the summer. Everyone has AT LEAST one photo of them on the grass! Here is mine:

I am glad that I have at least one photo on the green grass right now because it's the end of autumn and the park near my hall is not that green anymore. Falling leaves topped the grass in shades of red and orange.

Cheers~

The trip followed with a barbecue dinner and the food was delicious :)

Paiseh! Food too delicious that we couldn't wait to have its photo taken first >.<'

The Irish Dance which I was not involved in. I can't dance for god's sake.

The after-dinner section was pretty boring for people like me, who doesn't dance. Hey I was not the only one who did not dance. They're probably at least 50 others who did not dance as well. I was stuck on my seat waiting for the dance to be over but it never seems to come to an end. It was a very long night that day :(

Off to supper. Goodnight!
ps. I am going to see my sis this Wednesday!!! :) Excited =)

Why...

do we pronounce BREAKFAST as breakFIRST?

Hmmm....

www.devonnlee.com

It's up from today onwards!!!

=)

The Art of Cooking

Cooking is never a plus point of me. I never really cook at home and I am used to eating outside or if I am lucky, I'll eat the dishes that my grandma cook (She's the best chef ever!)

I'll give you an idea on my cooking level:

1. I can cook instant noodle the best :)
2. I can't fry an egg (I meant mata kerbau- without destroying the egg yolk is IMPOSSIBLE for me).
3. Of all meal, I can prepare breakfast the best: red beans, scramble eggs (which my lil brother loves very much and I'm so proud of myself with that), toast bread, etc.
4. I know how to cook rice (yes, the one where you wash and put the rice grain into the rice cooker). Eh, I can cook white porridge as well larh :)
5. I've never prepare a typical Chinese 3-dish-1-soup (or even less) dinner for my family before. *I've cooked vegetable once and it tasted really bad :(
6. I picked up FRIED RICE just before coming to Manchester
7. I CANT COOK!!

SO what I did to improve my cooking was watching my grandmother as she cooked dinner whenever I can. Read that right: I WATCHED her cook only. I put little notes on my 'recipe book' on what's the dish, the ingredients used (without the measurement) and how to roughly cook it.

BASED ON MY 'RECIPE BOOK' or not (some I just cook based solely on intuition), here is what I've cooked so far:

Food looks pretty oily because we weren't expecting the meats have fat/oil with them so still there's room for improvement.

Jon is really good with fried rice and we've eat it for numerous times and Jon cooked most of the time. I only cook fried rice ONCE for myself to tapao to university.

We were happy to have our college friends to stay with us for few days when they were kind of on a transit back to Malaysia. So when they arrived, we have Mavis VS. Jon's fried rice. We agreed that both taste delicious :)

I am salivating as I see this picture! Mavis and Pui Yeing cooked it, actually. They taught me how to cook it and I am earning some credit here because I HELPED SOMEHOW OKAY!

This is totally my very own recipe- based on intuition! Surprisingly, it tasted very good (comment is not biased as it was from Jon and another friend).

Of all the dishes I have cooked so far, I love this the best:

Thanks to Grandma for the recipe! I even called her to double confirm the ingredients okay. This is the one that I took the most time to prepare because I boiled it from morning till late afternoon(at least 4 hours). So it tasted very good and I dare to say it's almost as good as my grandma's =) =) =)

We usually cook for dinner only since we have most classes in the afternoon. In the morning, we survived on flakes, milk, breads, American-style breakfast, etc

On our typical-dinner menu, we have at least 3 dishes which 2 are compulsory meat (chicken and pork) and 1 vegetable. On certain days, we get to have soups :)

Paiseh but I've forgotten to label A1 Chicken Soup! It tasted very much like ba ku teh but we weren't using pork, just chicken. Very delicious as well.

There's another soup that I've prepared twice before but did not have a photo of it :( It's dried seaweed soup which I really like back at home as well. I am relying on the only packet of dried seaweed that I brought from Malaysia so have to jimat-jimat eat!

The fried bacon looks so little because it's quarter-way to the meal that I realized that I've not taken a photo. Veggie remains a lot because Jon doesn't really like anything green (ironically, his favorite color is green -__- )

Steamed vege dish is the easiest of all. Perhaps healthier as well :)

Oops! Another missing photo. This time is my white sauce pasta. It was really good because the white sauce is of Campbell's. I got add ingredients to it okay!

Hello Mamucium!

Goodbye Malaysia!

Well, I have never been alone from my family in my whole life but there I was, saying goodbye and bidding farewell for at least ONE YEAR to them.

*All of you will be dearly missed*

PS. including Dionn who's not in the picture

I almost cried at the last part (the hugging each one part) but I did not. Thank god I survived that because my family had been going through the departure thing for the second time that week! Before mine was my sister, who departed to Newcastle (so that's why she's not in the picture)

Aloha Manchester!

Here comes the greatest challenge pf my life, at least for this particular time: pursuing a Master. Up till now, I am still uncertain if I had made the right choice to study a master because oh well, I have been studying for so long and I was tired of it but then again, getting a good job is not easy right now so somehow, I thought to myself that it'll be much better for me to do it right now :)

*Us in the plane*

We were flying with Etihad and the service was pretty impressive. Thank god we are not flying with AirAsia for this time. It's a very loooooooooooooong flight and I felt so blessed that I don't have to pay for my meal and drinks and MOST IMPORTANTLY, I got to watch so many shows in the plane for FREE.

-Jon's Meal-

If I'm not mistaken, I watched The Proposal, He's Just Not That Into You and half of Armageddon. I seriously regretted that I did not choose to watch Armageddon first. I kind of like miss the climax of the show (yeap, the part where they hit the asteroids/meteors/whatever-you-call-it and I don't get to see the part where Bruce Willis sacrifice himself)

-My Meal-

Flying for 14hours (not including transit in Abu Dhabi) wasn't that bad for me. I think I did not sleep at all in the plane. I was busy walking up and down the loo, watching shows and.........

I got to watch the sunset from the plane :) So cool right?

AND THEN FINALLY, I ARRIVED IN MANCHESTER (halfway through Armageddon )

Half of the group that travelled together with us had problems at the checkpoint and I was so afraid that the rest will leave without us. We practically stuck there for AT LEAST 40 minutes.

Nevertheless, MMU's Welcome Team waited for us and we were brought to our hostel safely :)

Cambridge Hall is where I stay and it's pretty far from my campus. I've timed myself before and I actually took about 21 minutes to reach my campus.

And here is how my hall looks like:

Paiseh that I did not take this shot at a more strategic location because on the other side of this building, the wordings actually look perfectly fine without any missing alphabet!

*Ironically, the first missing letter "D" and the last missing letter "N" make up the first and the last letter of my name DEVONN. Hahaha..sorry for the lameness!

The Palace Hotel

First impression on Manchester: The weather is FREAKING COLD. It was 13 degree Celcius when we first arrived and I am always afraid of the cold. Secondly, the buildings are very old-fashion and don't get me wrong because I really love being surrounded which such buildings. I love all the houses here too because it reminds me a lot of cottage houses and there aren't any with gates which to me, it's so cool. You basically do not need to paint your house here because its all made up of red bricks..very vintage-looking! *kampung girl*

On the first few days upon arrivals, we were sightseeing the city centre and the places that we stopped by were mostly places to buy essential items like:

PRIMARK: where clothes, shoes, bedroom's essentials, etc were really cheap! I got my duvet, pillow, and bedroom slippers here :)

CHINATOWN

Well, this is the place to go to get chinese herbs and other cooking essentials. Things are quite pricey here but if you are a student, most Chinese supermarkets here often give you discount (although it's 5%, it's a lot if you convert GBP to MYR).

ASDA is the place to go for dairy and fresh products. I find it the cheapest as compare to other brands for now. The only downturn is the location from my hall. It takes about half an hour to walk there and after grocery shopping, Jon and I have to carry so much weight back home which is pretty tiring (unless you want to get a cab which is pretty costly)

Oh by the way, another cool thing about studying here: check out their freshers' week promotions:

IT'S ALL ABOUT PARTY PEOPLE!

I have people come knocking at my door again and again asking to participate in different clubs and by night, MANCHESTER TURNS YOUNG!

Next up: My Accomodation :)

Goodnight :)

In case you are wondering about the title, the name 'Manchester' originates from the ancient Roman name 'Mamucium' and the rest you can wiki them....

Finale: Taiwan

Finally, this will round up my Taiwan trip (err..excluding the "coming soon" Jay Chou's posts because he's just so exclusive).

On the final day in Taiwan, we checked out Dan Shui for delicious food and more Jay Chou adventure :)

Dan Shui is a rather small and peaceful part of Taipei. It is not as chaotic as Taipei City Centre but this does not mean this place is not 'happening' because this is where Jay filmed Secret and here is where most concerts/events were held at most of the time;.

We came by the commuter train and it was at the last stop of the Red Line (fuyoh, I still remembered :)

Very delicious dumplings. -VERY-

One round of food is never going to be enough for us. Well, we considered the dumplings as our appetizers and as for the main course, here we are:

Wen Zhou Restaurant

It may looks just like any typical Chinese restaurant but hang on right there because this shop is not any ordinary shop. It has the J-factor:

Jay Chou is the biggest fan of this restaurant. And there we are, the insane fans visiting the place he likes so much and eating the same thing that he likes:

Roasted Chicken & Dumplings

- THESE ARE REALLY GOOD TOO -

*I swear I'm not biased*

When our stomached is filled with so much Jay food, we took a walk around and stopped by a shop filled with TEDDY BEARS :)

Later on, we took a boat across to visit the Fisherman's Wharf:

The wind was so strong and the weather was super hot with no shelter! We were not interested at all to make any further sightseeing so we were just by the dock, taking pictures from far of the famous Lovers Bridge:

and left afterwards.

The day's adventure continue with of course, none other than ANOTHER visit to ANOTHER Jay's restaurant...

which I'll try to blog about in the future if I have the time and motivation.

Last but not all, we walked from Jay's restaurant to the famous 101 before wrap up the day with a brief visit to Xi Men Ding. I cut my hair there you know but then, I was not happy with the service at all. I think the stylist trimmed my hair only lorh. And the shampoo girl was not doing a good job (I was not demanding for a great job). A hair wash and haircut cost TWD500 you know!! I was pretty disappointed but well, my hair has grow so much since that bloody visit...

*This post is so brief because I meant to finish it within 10 minutes. Fuh. it's been few days since I hardly have enough sleep. Fiona, Mavis and Pui Yeing were here AND my experience studying in UK was pretty scary and exhausted. Imagine having to read few journals and doing a presentation on the FIRST INDUCTION WEEK. I wasn't prepared at all so oh well, I screwed up a little on the presentation. Maybe I was not aware that I have to wake up and slap myself a few times that I am doing Master :( Sigh... now I am worried that I can't cope :(

Goodnight

Next up: Manchester United!

Day 5 in Taiwan

After a day of relaxation at Yi Lan, we traveled a few train stations away to Jiao Si where we enjoyed another round of relaxation, HOT SPRING.

As you arrived, you'll be surprise to see the numerous places available for hot springs. We went to a privately-owned one:

Err... sorry to disappoint you guys but there were no photo from the hot spring as photos weren't allowed but it was REALLY REALLY a good place to go. There were many pools filled with different ingredients like rose, lavender, milk, etc which all have different good effects on the body. We were tempted to go into a pool which was 7 degree Celcius (yes, not all hot spring is hot) but after so many rounds in the hot one, we can't possible get into the freezing one :( It was like millions of needle attacking our feets.

Once we were done and before we took our train back to Taipei, we craved on Beef Noodles :)

-omg these were so good!-

Once we got back to Taipei, we hunted for BAPE and seriously, it was not that easy to find....

but we still managed to get there. Thanks to the generous citizen of Taiwan for showing us the direction :)

Jon with his new stuffs

The day didn't end just like that. It seems to be a pretty long day for us and we made full use of the last few nights we have to visit the famous Shihlin Night Market:

The crowd here is crazy with lots and lots of food. I bet this is like the most happening place at night in Taipei. Clothes are pretty cheap and food is great and I'll say this is a must-visit place by tourist.

We specifically queue to eat these desserts:

famous for its thinly-blended flavored ice

PS. I have stepped on Great Britain and have been in Manchester for the 5th day. No update yet as I still need time to settle down. The weather here is unpredictable... or you can just say is crazy. I'll blog again pretty soon :)

Off to bed. Goodnight :)

Pss. Now what? Malaysia time stamp or UK? Hmmm.....

It's Yi Lan

On the 4th day in Taiwan, we visited a more relaxing county, Yi Lan.

There's nothing much in this small town as there aren't many cars around and definitely no shopping malls at sight. We did enjoy the fresh air and greenery there :)

We came via express bus and as we reached there, we hired a taxi to bring us uphill to where we stay:

Shangri-La Farm Resort

*I think that's the name*

Here, we got to visit a huge farm belongs to this resort and too bad its not a fruit season so we seriously see only GREEN.

The best thing about this farm was it wasn't only a farm and it's more like a recreational place with many activities can be done :)

Me with my big smile :)

Like I've said, nothing much to be there out of this resort. So it's a good thing that the resort organized various activities for its customers.

By night, after our buffet dinner, we entertained ourselves with activities like:

Err... I'm not sure what this game is called but 3 of us wore these huge slipper and we all have to make the same 'left-right' movement.

Apart from a chinese-doll opera show, they have some gimmicks

which I do not what to call it. And we get to make tong yuen!

Then, we get to watch the duck race! We get to bet on which duck will win.

I remembered we chose No.3 and that fella won!

Best of all, we get to release this huge Chinese Lantern (guo ming den?), all for ourselves. We wrote all kind of wishes for family and my pet Furby. Poor pet.....

Got to go. In Melaka now :)

I wonder...

If I should get a domain name for myself or not.....

www.devonnlee.com sounds good?