a lecture + one horribly hard test + dos meeting + lion dance = enough indication that easter term is not going to be one fun ride.

haihhhhhh i want longer holidays...

cramming 48 lectures worth of stuff in 5 days ISN'T FUN. the pace is invariably slow at the start, and lost time has to be made up with speedy mugging at the end.

the test's about 15 hours from now, and yet i have about 1/5 of the lectures un-mugged. shld i sleep? haha.

i envy those who can sleep well before exams - something that could get rather elusive from me sometimes. haih.

when things go on offer, buying two items is cheaper per item than the price of one.

when things go on reduced, either bcos of damaged packaging or expiring food, the price of one pack is usually half that of the original price. the closer it is to the closing time, expiring food might go 1/4, or even 1/8th of the original price.

when stuff on reduced has an associated offer, this is where the math gets a bit funny.

guess how much these cost?



6 pounds? nope.

2.99? nope.

it's £0.00. FREE. really.

if it wasn't on reduced, the cost of one would be £5.99; two would be £5.99 + £5.99 - £5.98 = £6 (as stated on the pack).

when it's on reduced, the cost of one would be £2.99; two would be 2 x £2.99 - £5.98..

this is the first and only time i managed to get something for free from a supermarket haha. it pays for one to check the reduced section regularly! =)

an interesting program indeed =)



create your own visited countries map

visited 5% of the world only, no doubt helped by the fact that i've "visited" china! been to guangzhou and hong kong only haha.

courtesy of voonie, van-gogh-on-msn wannabe =)

i had two wonderful presents after playing basketball yesterday.

note: gory images follow. if you are of age 18 and under, please try not to scroll down. haha =)

















right foot.

left foot.

yep, i'm really lame for the time being.

friday 23rd march

had another company visit, this time round to inria (link), which is heavily involved in information technology and engineering.

we were shown one of their up-and-coming development - a smart car that (theoretically) could navigate automatically from point to point, avoiding any stationary and moving obstacles along the way. apparently there are many unsolved and teething problems with the car, not just in its navigation, but also in its wireless communication with other similar cars - apparently networking still has many problems associated with it.

it was kinda cool to see that this car (called cycab) was still work in progress, and that the programming could be done in the car itself. the program is written in c++ (or c, i'm not sure which).

after a fantastic lunch in inria (they were very generous to visitors - a three course meal + drink! yum), we then went to the palace of versailles, which was rather near inria. i've already been inside, so i followed the frugal group who decided to just look at the gardens.

the trip didn't turn out to be that nice due to the lousy weather - it started drizzling when we were in the gardens, and it poured later. and it was rather cold too, which was kinda weird for a day in march.

the fountains are still not on cos the peak season is april to october i think. and note the bleak sky - sigh.

we took a train back to paris, but didn't really do much after that. we went to the national opera to check out whether there were cheap tickets for any musicals / dances, and found out that a kabuki show was on that night.. but it was completely sold out.

we then split up into two groups for dinner, i went with my group to maison blanche again cos the set meals were cheap. this time round i had a three-course meal and shared swiss cheese fondue with 4 others, which was filling and delicious. after dinner we walked around the area, and for the first time i actually bought a souvenir - it was a mass-produced poster of a painting of the arc du triomphe, but what the heck. so long it's cheap =)

some pple came over our room to chill - think there were 8, but i fell asleep halfway during the conversation and woke up again when they were leaving. think i was quite tired from the horlan excursion the previous night hahaha.

saturday 24th march

today was the last day we had in paris, so we decided to make full use of it. first stop was les invalides (link). it's actually a complex of museums and monuments, and that was where napoleon's tomb and a war museum is located. its original purpose was to provide care and comfort to those injured in war, that's why there's a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans.

token picture of the front of les invalides - nothing special actually. haha.

first stop was the church of saint louis des invalides.

the flags is the interesting feature of this church. there was a tradition of keeping the flags of the defeated, and flags obtained prior to 1795 was kept in the vaults of notre dame. this tradition was kept alive by decorating this church the same way..

there were a couple of chinese flags there - china of the 19th century didn't come up on the victorious side most of the time, i guess.

we then went over to napoleon's tomb.

this is THE tomb of napoleon. it looks massive cos there are 5 layers of coffins protecting the remains of what was one of the best military leaders.

there was also an exhibition of napoleon's possessions - his decorations, swords and guns were all there. some of his generals had their own tombs in the wings of the building, can't really remember their names though.

we then crossed over to the musee de l'armee - a museum that chronicles both world wars. it was rather interesting to see the war from the point of view of the french - in both wars, the french suffered large losses (as compared to, say, the uk). defending france wasn't as easy as defending uk as her neighbour did not need to cross the english channel to mount an offensive.

special guns to defend their trenches (in wwi), allowing soldiers to aim and shoot properly without the fear of getting their heads blasted off by enemy gunfire. the extensive network of trenches prevented the troops from advancing without suffering heavy losses, prolonging the war from the weeks it was thought to be ended within into years.

trench art - the body of the plane is made from a bullet. life as a soldier in the trenches can be quite sian, cos they actually rarely saw action.

i learned quite a lot abt world war ii too. i knew the french surrendered to the germans after being conquered, but what i didn't learn from my history textbooks was the french resistance. the vichy government actually printed propagandistic posters urging the local populace to not resist the germans, but across the english channel, the bbc was instrumental in radioing the french all around the world to rally around charles de gaulle in resisting the germans. interesting.

we spent so much time in the museum that caused us to be very late in returning back to ecp. we quickly got our bags and rushed to gare du nord, where we were supposed to take the returning train. good thing we were still in time for it, else our heads would have rolled.

upon reaching london, some of our tongues craved authentic malaysian food, so off we went to a malaysian restaurant in chinatown.

my assam laksa (6 quid). not very spicy and sour though. the teh ais (2 quid) was quite nice though. haha.

vk, chris and i shared this plate of 鱿鱼蕹菜 (6.50 quid). this was reeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaally nice =)

it was one magnificent dinner, but it was kinda pricey - abt 10x the price of those dishes in ipoh. haha but too bad, the living standards here is that high.

took the 11pm bus back to cambridge, reached abt 2 hours later.

home sweet home. haha.

(overall spent abt 100 pounds for the 7 days in paris. cheap cos we had free accoms haha.)