The Books Have Arrived!

Okay... I'll be honest, they arrived like last week Wednesday but I haven't had a chance to get excited about them until now. I've mentioned on a previous post that one of my Summer To-Do list item is to get back into reading. I've asked people on facebook to give me some suggestions, checked out some reviews and ordered them on amazon. So far, everything is looking good!

So what's on my summer reading list?

1. The Empress Orchid (finished)


2. The Glass Palace


3. Shantaram


4. Half of a Yellow Sun


5. A Golden Age


6. And the Mountains Echoed

I haven't ordered 'And the Mountains Echoed' but I've been looking forward to reading it for ages that I know I *will* read it this summer. The only problem was that it had recently come out only in hardcover, which will not help with packing, hence I've decided to wait and maybe buy it abroad. If only Amazon would let me know when the paperback would come out!

I'm planning on taking The Glass Palace and Half of a Yellow Sun with me to Nepal and get James to bring the other two/three with him (assuming I've finished Empress Orchid, which might at the rate I'm reading it now). I have to take approximately 5kg of books with me to the school in Nepal, which is the only condition they have to volunteer there, hence I might be limited in baggage space. I know this could all be solved if I get a Kindle. Initially, I was all against the Kindle and belong to 'I-like-the-smell-of-a-book-and-the-feeling-of-the-pages-between-my-fingers' but that's before I gave the kindle a chance! The more I try my friend's Kindle, the more convinced I am that it's a good alternative. I'll never give up using books but Kindle may be convenient every now and then, especially for travelling! However, my budget is a little tight right now and I've decided to stick to the short term cheaper alternatives. In fact, some of the books I bought are second hand and just as cheap as buying it on Kindle.

My dad once said 'Books. I will always happily buy you books'. It was probably said in frustration during one of our shopping trips and he was trying to find a way to get out of it. I've taken advantage of this and he's always kept to his words. Luckily, I do like reading and this is something I'll appreciate from my dad.

Botanic Garden & Lessons Learnt (Never forget your SD card!!)

Next on the to do list: visit the Botanic Gardens!
I'm sure this is on almost every Cambridge student's to do list, since it's free for students, why not? I've been to the Biodome in Canada, which is definitely impressive but I wasn't sure what to expect from Cambridge's biodome. I don't actually remember anyone talking about their visit to the botanic gardens... at most, it's always been 'I should go there'.

The weather was getting quit chilly, so I was hoping to not stay too long (I seem to only tolerate a very small temperature range). I grabbed my dSLR, had a quick lunch at subway and had a pleasant walk. The entrance to the Botanics Garden isn't very exciting, in fact, we almost missed it from the angle we were coming in at. The outdoors part looks like a typical English garden/park, reminds me of Regents part, with different sections for different plants. I did wish we were having a picnic there and have time to lie down and look up to the sky.

The best part in my opinion was the green house. It has a room for each climate: arid, tropical, mountain, ocean islands and more that I can't remember. The tropical/wet room actually got me excited for Malaysia. I'm definitely going to visit the rain-forests in Borneo and Peninsula (did you know Malaysia Peninsula has the oldest rainforest) and the tropical room was a reminder of how hot and humid it's going to be. It's so easy to get caught up reading activities you'd want to do, dream about the adventures, that you forget little details like the climate and... how unfit you are. Anyway, back to the greenhouse, looking at the huge water lilies, wet vines and colourful petals just makes me buzz with excitement for trekking.

The different textures, shapes and vibrancy just wanted to me to get my camera out! So I did, and started snapping straight away, but my camera kept making a weird noise. Turns out, I left my memory card at home, still plugged in my laptop from the time I was uploading the photos from Castle Mount. It's not the first time this has happened. I'm contemplating about buying a second SD card just in case something similar happens or my first one gets stolen. SD cards are not cheap but missing a once in a life shot suppresses that cost. Luckily for this time, James was happily snapping away before I found out I left my SD card. He's actually a better photographer than me and even though we was using his phone camera, he had a better understanding on focus, texture and angle. Plus he loves take panorama shots. I've included some of the photos he took throughout the day.

There's not too much to say about the Botanical gardens. Certainly something kids would enjoy playing around, especially if James had fun running to the top and yelling 'I'm king of the Jungle' in two/three different spots, us students would enjoy having a picnic in. I remember being surprised there was an 'Ocean Islands' room and that it actually referred to geological 'Ocean Islands'. I tried to explain the James what they were but he was too distracted by people having trouble coming into the room, hmph.

Anyway, have fun looking at the photos and hopefully it makes you want to visit too.

New found freedom, Castle Mount and disappointing views

So on 6th June, I had become free of the soul draining exams of my 3rd year.
That's all I'll say about the exams. I don't want to talk they went or how much I worked for it. Just want to forget about the last two months (without loosing all the knowledge I gained, I do love my subject)!

So yes, new found freedom. No more library trips, no more feeling guilty for catching up on shows or gaining a new hobby (exam terms are especially good for finding a new interested in something) and no more minimising sleep! ... What do I do now?

In the last 24 hours, I think I spent most 3/4 of it sleeping. I have quite a few missed calls from my dad (uh oh?) and I'm really hungry. Not planning on spending anymore time then necessary sleeping. I'm not one of those people who like lie ins; I love the mornings, it's when I'm most productive. I'm allowed one day to catch up on all the sleep I've missed the whole term but now I want to fill my days doing something I couldn't during the academic year. So James and I have made a list of things to do in the next 3 weeks before I jet off. It includes learning how to ride a bike again (I will ride a bike to lectures at least once next year), reading (haven't been able to finish a book since coming into Cambridge) and movie marathons (including Star Wars).

I've already started 2-3 things in my list. James was going to teach me how to programme/code and we started that literally as soon as my exams ended. I learnt html, css and how to use Photoshop back when I was in year 5 when I started playing on neopets and I wanted to make pretty 'guilds' and then it accelerated into making a blog with quizzes and all that. I convinced my dad to buy me a domain with hosting when I was in year 6, but due to my lack of commitment, I didn't really go beyond 6 months of making something out it. Thank god it was cheap! My domain name was embarrassing, so I won't reveal it but I was quite proud of what I could do at the age of 11. I wish I could remember it all but there's no shame in relearning (:

So other than sleeping, I went up to Castle Mount yesterday to take some photos. I need to start practicing how to make the most of my SLR before I use it in the wild. I remember when I first talked up to Castle Mount. It was my 20th birthday and having a bad summer, I didn't really want to celebrate it. I was in Cambridge to pick up some equipment for the geology trip but we thought we'd go to Cafe Naz to have at least a birthday meal. Unfortunately, I forgot that restaurants have a break in the evening between dinner and lunch so it was shut for the next 20 minutes. What do we do for now? James asked if I ever went on top of Castle Mount, and to be honest, I haven't heard of it at all back then. So we went on top and you can see Cambridge town below. King's Chapel, the UL, they're all in view. It looked so calming the first time I saw it and with the evening glow, it was quite pretty. Hence why I decided to go back and capture it.

I feel really awkward easily when I'm alone. Especially when I'm trying to take photos and there's a couple very obviously trying to be all romantic. Well... there was a tourist group on the top too, so I didn't feel bad having my presence very obvious (SLRs are not quiet). I just listening to some K-Pop to make myself feel a bit less awkward. However, that wasn't the problem. The view wasn't as nice as I remembered it to be... with trees and less fortunate looking buildings blocking the prettier views of Cambridge town. There's nothing that stood out the way I wanted it and the view just looked... boring. It was disappointing but I do have this problem where I exaggerate things in my head. If something looked exciting, beautiful, unique, I like to replay the first memory to the point it seems flawless yet vulnerable to disappointment. I have to stop doing that.

However, there was a silver lining. It still gave a chance to play around with the settings of the camera and although I didn't get to enjoy taking photos of the 'big picture', I liked how the sunset looked on the grass, how the little insects were hovering above. It had that peaceful vibe I first had of Castle Mount. So all was not lost!

Hello world!

I'll keep the title Wordpress originally gave this post because it's a little cliched but it nicely introduces any first post. I've created this blog both for myself and for others. I've put a lot of thought and planning for my summer this year and I want to keep a record of everything that happens and how it all turned out. I like keeping little diaries and planners and looking back at the things I've done: it makes me feel accomplished but also motivates me to do more. Moreover, I hope this blog will help others keep track of what I'm up to. I like telling stories of what happened in my life but I'm no talented story teller. In fact, the quality goes down each time (decays with time) I tell them because I grow impatient and so I just want to skip to the good parts. I'm hoping that keeping them in a written form helps keep the excitement, the tragedy, the happiness or the anger I feel originally and let my friends empathise. Or simply put... everyone gets the same story.

So it's not til another month til I arrive in Nepal, what do I do now? I want to get myself into a proper habit of blogging. I've never been able to stay committed longer than a month for such things. Even when I had my domain, my interest died away over half a year (probably the longest commitment I made to a diary) but back then I didn't have a real purpose to write several times a week. Now I have a purpose. I want to explore Nepal, Malaysia and Singapore. I want to see what pulls other people to those countries but I want to find my own adventure there. I want to be able to read back and see how much I loved (touch wood) travelling and to keep that passion going. I want others to be inspired and to make their own adventure, be it at home or in a foreign land. If that doesn't keep me committed... I'm sure James will remind me to post (;

Much love,
Nuz