We landed safely in Manchester, the city of the infamous soccer team, after a pleasant 13 hour flight which included a transit stop (poor student) at Dubai. The only thing I felt uncomfortable with was that because of the time difference & change of flight, I felt like we were treated like sows because they kept feeding us multiple full meals during the journey. lol

From Manchester, we hopped on a coach and began our journey towards Preston, where our University is.

Oh yes! I realised that my blog content rarely state who I am with while I’m traveling, so please let me introduce to three of my other classmates who I spent most of my time with. (We were so close that we even spent a night together on a queen sized bed, where we are positioned neatly like sardines in a can *Please see badly done diagram below*)

Here’s Ain, I, Amanda the little one & Syahidah.

The point of the trip was for us students to be immersed in the university life in the UK, as well as to widen our knowledge of Architecture and it’s Interior. Of course, tutorials/consultations with the lecturers, attending lectures and being in a critique (!!!) in the university during this trip were a must so I wouldn’t say it was all fun and dandy.

^ Ain being serious during her critique

The one thing that captivated me the most was the journeys we had on the coach. As boring as it may sound, I loved it personally cause during the short and long transitions of travelling to and fro from a concrete urban jungle to a scenic mountainous environment allowed me to be a crazy sheep-spotting idiot as well as to think.

Glasgow was an amazing place. Although the field trip to Glasgow only lasted a mere span of 48 hours, we all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. The people were friendly, roads were grid-like (therefore easy for us to drift around), had Urban Outfitters – which Amanda & I though was damn cool because we always thought we could only get items from them via the internet and never did dream of stepping into one of their stores (!!) and the highlight was that we were able to visit the School Charles Mackintosh designed – The Glasgow School of Art. 

^ The disintegrated & The new

^ The Glasgow School of Art door plate

We signed up for the tour and had to respect their regulation of “no photography allowed as we would like you to respect the student’s privacy”, so.. I’m sorry that I do not have photos of the interior of the School.  But! The tour gave us a deeper understanding about the thought process behind Mackintosh’s design in the school where he creates spatial qualities that relates closely with the routine of the art students.

^ Sights in Glasgow

Would love to visit Glasgow again if I had the chance but for now, saving up for India seems to be the top priority! (Taj Mahal!)

….Sooo here’s an abrupt end to the first part of the trip of the UK trip! The photographs are taken with my Canon G12 Powershot Camera and I have to say though the functions are amazing, the image quality can never be comparable to my other DSLR Olympus E-500. Lens and bodies comes before the megapixels, folks.

You know, after not being a frequent blogger for such a long time, I found myself staring at this post for a very long period of time like staring into space, wondering what I should type and how my already little talent of blogging has already dilapidated in my brain. Well, I blame it on growing up. – xoxo

We booked a last minute flight! Therefore, Ethel & I didn’t had the same privileged of going on board a direct flight. We had to settle for a transit flight from KL first then all the wayyyyyy to Paris. Aunt J met us in the Airport all bright and cheerful after a 12 hours flight whereas we kinda looked like this:

Although I was looking around with my eyes half closed, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the floor tile, the roof, the ceiling fixtures etc etc..  Everything was amazing!! (Job hazard alert)

^ I need these tiles to be in my future bathroom.

We took 45 minutes long journey to our hotel via the shuttle bus. Here’s a random photo of Aunt J…. and the shaky view of Paris while we were travelling through a tunnel. lol

Here’s how the bushes and the speed limit sign look like in Paris:

After we left our luggage in the hotel, we took a train to Montmarte.

We climb up to Sacré-Cœur Basilica (Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus), where the church is erected at the highest point in the north of the city in Paris.

Oh yea, here’s a picture of hot babes climbing the hill for my non-existent male/bisexual/lesbian readers. I have this habit of taking photographs of strangers and Aunt J doesn’t quite like it.

Wanted to show you guys those coins imprinted with these monumental buildings which cost about 2 Euros but I think I have misplaced them.

After admiring the church in both interior & facade up close, we walked downhill and reached a cluster of shophouses (Montmarte?) where we had our lunch, see artworks by artists with lots of pride in their work (I couldn’t even afford a 50x50mm sized art piece!), bought lots of pins and see many *Chinese tourist with their lime green Louis Vuitton bags walking in clusters smiling from ear to ear.

* I am also Chinese but just not as wealthy

While absorbing everything I see around me in Montmarte, I noticed these two artist sitting very very still. I swear both of them look as though they came right out from a portrait.

^ Does anyone knows how to braid your hair like that? Please teach me!!

So…there you have it!!  Here’s an erupt conclusion to my first post on my trip to Paris!! I guess I have lost my touch with blogging cause this post took 3 hours to finish. The agony. I sincerely hope the next part wouldn’t take another year. *crosses fingers* (and I hope the handsome person paying for the domain would be kind enough to tolerate this terrible behavior too)

Good bye! Oh yea, here’s a cute dog rocking his awesome hairdo welcoming people to his ice cream shop to see you off! Until my next post, Toodaalooo!

I had been there several times, but this is the first time I came prepared with my camera!