things so far...

Manchester 25th June

Shopping with Sue Yen. Bought a jacket and a few tops from Mango.

Went around the city centre and took pictures together.






I also had the chance to feed pigeons! It kinda reminds me of Mary Poppins, the part where the Birdlady sing, "Feed the birds, tuppence a bag/tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag..."







The guy in the picture was really nice cos he gave me half his bread to feed them, but I've been *traumatised* when it comes to birds because I watched Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds' when I was really little. It haunts me till today. Beaks and claws scare the living daylights out of me.

Played some pool and fustball (however you spell it). Btw, look at how Yen plays pool, note that her leg is up the table. Kekeke. So cute, hor?


if you can't reach, climb on the table!

Damn sien, since we both weren't too good at the games, it took us forever to put all the balls into the holes. Heh. So we went to the fitness centre after that.

First, the stream bath... went in there, and then quickly rushed out cos it was like sooo hot in there and we were suffocating from the hot steam!

We decided to hop into the jacuzzi instead. Sat there like 5 minutes, and only then did we realise what was missing - bubbles!! So we tried to push the button to start the jacuzzi, but couldn't and decided to soak inside for awhile, since it had Epsom salts in there, to soften our skins and whatever not. It was so relaxing, just soaking in there ala Japanese hot tub, but some fat guy decided to join us in the tub and chat us up. Yeesh. So we quickly left and went into the sauna instead. At the sauna, I ladled in too much water (cos I was fascinated by the sprizzling sound that it made when it touched the hot stones) that I almost baked us to death! It was so hot in there that we had to run out!

By then there was another lady at the jacuzzi, and it was working! So we sat there enjoying the water stream massaging our aching bodies. Damn relaxing. Me likey jacuzzis.

We both wanted manicures and pedicures but by that time, it was a bit too late and the fitness centre was closing... *sad face*

But it was fun at the spa with her, just us girls pampering ourselves. We went back to the room and I watched a bit of tv while she wrote to her boyfriend.

There was this movie about the G8 - with the theme of 'make poverty history', which was really excellent. About how a young girl changed the life of an elderly man (senator or something), and how she dared to speak up against those in power.

And there was a part in the script that really haunts me. The part where he asked her why she was in prison.

Girl : I killed a man...
Man : Why?
Girl : Because he hurt a child, killed her.
Man : Your child?
Girl : Doesn't matter whose child it is.

Gave me goosebumps, that part. And those finger snapping ads that about a child dying every 3 seconds sends shivers down my spine.

But it doesn't make much of a difference, does it? You stop for awhile, maybe reflect on it... and then go on with our lives. We feel sorry for them for awhile, thinking of how lucky we are to be in our position, and then think, well, there are other more fortunate people than us, anyway.

We live in a selfish society, you and I. We've put ourselves and our little pleasures ahead of other people's more pressing matters, matters that could make a difference life or death. Our creme brulee may be more important to us than a the last days of a child suffering from cancer.

Sad but true. And I admit to being guilty of that.

Its always a figure. 1 in 3 seconds is just a statistic until it happens to someone you know, someone you love.

Sometimes I wonder if anything I do will make a difference. I sponsor a child for about £2 a week, and its nothing much, and I wish I could do more. But I cannot give up my shoes, I cannot give up my shopping and my spending sprees. I've put a price on someone's life and I'm not proud of it.

But then I think again, well... i may not make much of a difference in the world in general, but hey, I'm making a difference in that child's life, and that has to count for something.

So yeah, go on, sponsor a child, and make a difference in someone else's life. Log on to http://www.worldvision.org.uk/ for more information.

Geez, I sound like an ad, don't I?

* * *

Manchester 26th June

Mikael came with 2 of his friends, Sandev and Han Sian, to pick me up at the hotel.

Which was a good thing too, considering the amount of bags I was carrying! Hehe. Nothing like 3 gentlemanly blokes to help carry your bags.

*happy grin*


such gentlemen...

Anyways, they asked me where I wanted to eat and I immediately chirped, "Wong Chu!". Thanks to Differ, haha. He sang praises about it so I just *had* to try it.

At Wong Chu we had... rice with charsiew (bbq's pork), siew yoke (roast pork), siu ngap (roast duck) and siu kai (roast chikin), and it was sooo yummilicious! Haven't been eating pork for a damn long time, ok? Almost forgot how good pork tastes like! I now have a newfound appreciation for pork. Never again shall I go without pork for more than a week, so help me God.

Okay I exaggerate.



Anyway, after that porky meal we commenced to St Anne's Square for a German beer festival thingy. Sandev treated us to pints of wonnerful German dark lager beers and some German pork thingy that looked like curry, it was good stuff. And I took out my Mamee monster snacks that Yen bought for me to eat as finger food to go with the beer. Mamee monster snacks and beer is a good combination, methinks. But I think the kwailos there must have been appalled thinking that we were eating raw noodles. Ugh, just typing about this gives me cravings for beer and mamee monster snacks. Yeesh.


St Anne's square was packed with lush ppl like us..


"in heaven there is no beer, thats why we drink it here - and when we're gone from here, our friends will be drinking all the beer!"

A few pints and some addled moments later, I got really attracted to the confectionery store selling sweeties for £1.99 per 100g. So I took a bag and picked a few of every type of sweetie, which came to about 550 plus grammes. But the nice guy at the counter only charged me £10 for them all. Sweet of him. And I was like so blur that I thought it was only RM10. Damn sam thong thinking about it. RM70 on sweets I don't even fancy.



Thats why la, lesson of the day: don't drink and buy. especially if you're paying in foreign currency.

*sigh*

Come to think of it, even RM10 for sweets is a bit ridiculous, innit?

Anyways, we went back later and all of us were like floating on air... and Sandev tak puas minum so wanted to stop by a pub for a few more pints of Heinekan, but they ran out of it. The poor thing was so dissapointed. I was like, ugh, enough, anymore and I'd throw up already. Haven't been drinking for quite sometime, so my body just couldn't take that sudden influx of alcohol in my bloodstream.

Went back, said hi to Mikael's housemate, but didn't talk much to her cos she was busy.

Mikael and I spent some time catching up with some stuff, talked about guys, girls, our families, our old friends and all that. And I helped him decide on buying a car here. He's pretty much decided on a mini, but not the colour... so I told him that red says 'look at me, look at me', light blue kinda says that 'i'm gay', yellow imples that he wants to be a bit different, but not too different, black means that he's wants to blend into the crowd and white would mean that he's very rajin to wash his car.

Don't know what colour he decided on though, was too sleepy by then.

Then we called Han Sian to talk... put the phone on speaker mode and it sooo fun poking fun at each other.

The guys damn terasa that no kwaimui is attracted to them. Heh. Super defensive about chinachinksman jokes some more. Haha.

Went to sleep at about 3 something, but Mikael stayed up until around 5 to finish up his essay on Diabetis.

I tried reading his medical textbooks, and oh my gosh, its quite interesting! But the STD pictures are *scary*. Seriously, you don't want to kena an STD man... they're utterly disgusting.
Its horrific enough to turn you off sex for good.

Eww eww eww eww!