London #2.
My dad said this in his email to me:
Have a pleasant stay in UK – now still your country…….Hmms. God save the Queen. And I don't know that dad is so patriotic.
Anyway though, my British passport is really very nice. I cleared immigration in less than one minute in both Frankfurt and London, in either case there is no queue. The German immigration guy just took a glance at the identification page handed it straight back to me... I cannot imagine if I have to join the long line in Frankfurt twice just to get myself re-checked to the BA flight.
Anyway, despite the rain, I managed to get to quite a few places and watched Mama Mia!. It was good fun :) and the familiar catchy tunes from ABBA!
Westminster Abbey is genuinely amazing. I have not visited St. Paul's though (went there too late). The British Library's collection of stuff is amazing too: one of the first copies of the original 1611 King Jame's Bible, fragment of the Dead Sea Scroll, the original 1526 first English translation of the Bible, draft of Handel's
Messiah, the famous 17th century circulation illustration by Harvey, original copy of Alice in the Wonderland, Newton's letter to Hooke, Captain Cook's diary...
They also house 2 original 1215 copies of the Magna Carta, which made me realise the copy in Washington is only a 1295 affirmed copy. The British are certainly more frank about the exact nature of the original Magna Carta too :)
And do you know that the New Testament was originally written in
Greek? Yup, not Latin, not Hebrew,
Greek. St. Jerome translated it to Latin :P
Catchphrase on a British Museum T-Shirt: I may not be the best, but at least I am different. Wanted to buy that shirt... but it costs £19.99?! So just bought a £2.99 Rosetta Stone key chain.
Labels: Travel
London.
London has been rainy! Most probably it's going to rain throughout my stay here... and both Shireen and Ce Xiang are saying that Cambridge and Cardiff are raining too. Not good.
Haha Kenneth is mugging really hard! I am staying in his friend's place now, and I get the whole room to myself because he goes over to stay with his girlfriend during the night.
I have been walking quite a bit (as usual haha). Visited Imperial College, Hyde Park, National Gallery, and the various roads you see on the standard Monopoly game board. Have been surviving on doughnuts/sandwiches/pastry/salad from Tesco and Sainsbury's. Oh and I realised that the Marks and Spencer here sells fresh food (Shireen says that some even have money changers!), and there is American ice-cream everywhere (Ben and Jerry's and Haagen Dazs).
Sidenote: Ben and Jerry's is
very nice and they have a huge variety of ice-cream flavours. Next year I'll spend quite a bit of my dining dollars on that (have to spend them anyway) :P
Oh well. Wanted to watch Evita but they ended the Saturday before I came. I will try to grab Mama Mia! or Chicago tomorrow... Phantom and Les Miserables are too expensive if I want a full-view seat, and I don't want to pay $31 for a restricted view with a quarter of the stage gone :P
Haha hopefully I get to watch at least one show here... if not will have to go back to New York some time (well at least GCS will be somewhere near, so got companion :P JHU people will be too busy to go to New York for a weekend just to watch a musical I suppose)...
Labels: Travel
Leaving for Summer.
Finally I'm done with my packing and planning... and will be flying to London later in the afternoon.
It doesn't seem that long ago when my family abandoned me at the airport BK before I left. It is really true that as long as there is something to do time will pass before we know it, and neverending papers, lab reports, midterms, presentations and finals surely help in contributing to that.
Our school has an insanely long 4-month summer break. It is really hard-earned... we have ultra short winter breaks (provided that we do classes over Intersession), and because our semesters are 13 weeks long (vs. 15 weeks in other schools) we have on average 7% more work to do over term time (assuming we learn the same stuff).
Though 4 months is simply too long to be slacked off... so we tend to fill it up with all kinds of stuff. I have done 3 weeks of work here, and there will be another 8 weeks at least in Singapore after I go back from 4 weeks in Europe. Yi Chung will be in France for 6 weeks (he'll be there when I am there, but he will be in Avignon :P), Grace will be going to Cambridge to do summer school; most of the juniors will be around for quite a while, and James will be going to Mayo Clinic for his internship. Even graduated people like Xiaosai are still around doing lab work... we just refuse to rest.
Anyway, this summer will be a considerably slack one for me. I seriously want to do internship somewhere else other than Hopkins and Singapore next summer... Places in mind now include Cold Spring Habour and MRC-LMB (Cambridge). Certainly it is not easy to get into these places, but it is always worth a try :)
I have decided that I won't start a journal for my upcoming Europe trip. I will post everything here and in the photo journal... I will keep blogging as long as I have time and Internet access :)
So a brief itinerary!
27/5 to 1/6: London.
1/6 to 3/6: Cardiff.
3/6 to 7/6: Bath (Avebury, Stonehenge, Bristol).
7/6 to 9/6: Birmingham (Stratford-upon-Avon).
9/6 to 11/6: York.
11/6 to 13/6: Fort William, Scotland (Ben Nevis).
14/6 to 17/6: Cambridge.
17/6 to 21/6: Paris (Versailles, Disneyland, Cologne).
22/6: Singapore.
If you know where Fort William is, you will realise that that part of the itinerary is
very strange. I could have gone to Edinburgh instead for that three days which will save me a lot of money. Haha lesson learnt here is, avoid booking from a hostel that requires you to pay in full, which effectively eliminates the possibility for cancellation. On the other hand, I cancelled the reservation in Edinburgh (highly recommended by Jessica by the way) by just an email...
Will certainly go back to Edinburgh some time :)
Now GCS believes that 1 month before flying is not early enough if he wants to fly cheaply in summer. Anyway, because of his unwillingness to act (i.e. nuahness), now I get to take the Eurostar, go to Paris, go to Disneyland, and back to Germany again. So it isn't bad after all :)
All set to go!
Labels: Life, Travel
New Photos!
Some new photos are up!
http://hiuyeung-lau.livejournal.comLabels: Travel
Cool stuff.
Hahaha check this out!
http://tomorrow.sg/archives/2007/05/19/cool_protest.htmlThere is no use complaining; helping ourselves is always the best option :)
Haha hope that these people on tomorrow will really go ahead to do this, and hope that these things won't be removed by the authorities because we aren't supposed to post anything in bus-stops :P
One more:
http://www.ndp.org.sg/contest/blogbattle/index.htmlThe Blog Battle! This week's topic is 'What makes you proud to be a Singaporean.' It is cliché to the ultimate, but it is precisely because of that anything in the world can be written on it. And the prize is a Samsung YP-K5, one every week!
They say that PRs can participate also... but it is still quite weird for me to write on this. Haha I'll wait for a more writable topic before whacking :D
Labels: Random
After New York.
New York was fun! Brought the group to Chinatown, Brooklyn Bridge, Ground Zero, and Wall Street. Ate wanton mee, pork congee, xiao long bao + shanghainese dim sum and excellent ice-cream. Though we went to the egg tart place too late... wanted to bring some back to Baltimore for breakfast actually. Haha though I still managed to bring back 3 Krispy Kreme doughnuts :)
Ka Yi asked me how many times I had been to Brooklyn Bridge when we were there. Haha 3 times... went there with different people everytime I was in New York :P
Anyway that is one of the nicer places there. Another nice place is the esplanade park facing Jersey and the Statue of Liberty; it is one of the very few places in New York whereby you don't see a crowd. I spent quite a while stoning there when I was in New York over the Christmas holiday...
Time to sum up my trips for the past 9 months!
Washington, DC: 5x.
16/10/06: Fall break, with Lynn.
22/11/06: Before Thanksgiving, with the Brown people, Bilin and Wen Yu.
12/12/06: During Finals, with GCS.
01/03/07: CNY dinner, Singapore Embassy, with SSA.
22/04/07: Before Finals, with dad.
New York City: 3x.
25/12/06 - 01/01/07: Christmas, with Ching Hua and Ding Ding.
10/03/07: Before Spring Break: with Victoria and Alex.
20/05/07: Before Summer: with Songyu, Ka Yi, etc.
Chicago, IL: 2x.
23/11/06 - 26/11/06: Thanksgiving.
23/02/07 - 25/02/07: Citylights.
Boston, MA: 1x.
19/12/06 - 21/12/06: Christmas.
Toronto, ON: 1x.
12/05/07 - 15/05/07: After Finals, with Hopkins people.
Other places:
Camden, NH: 22/12/06 - 25/12/06: Skiing.
Niagara Falls: 11/05/07 - 12/05/07: After Finals, with Hopkins people.
Buffalo, NY: Transit.
Hmms I have gone to the National Archives 3 times, the White House/Capitol, etc 4 times, Brooklyn Bridge 3 times, needless to say Fell's Point, Inner Habour, etc...
Haha Ka Yi also asked me whether I feel bored. Everytime my company would be different... how to feel bored? :P And because of all these I have accumulated enough flights for Southwest to give me a free two-way ticket within the continental United States. I will use it to go to California next spring :D
Though have not really explored Baltimore enough... I am thinking of organising an exploration trip early next semester. Places to be visited will include: Mount Vernon (Baltimore Bascilica, Enoch Pratt Library), Lexington Market (Crab Cake!), Fort MacHenry, Baltimore Street (from Arena to President), and finally dinner at Eastern Fell's Point. Of course, no taxis allowed: only buses, Metro and light rail will be taken :) This city can really be filled with surprises!
There are more exciting places in Baltimore. Haha I will make sure that I know most places by the time I graduate.
Yeah of course, I don't just play... I work hard too :D Had very nice results this semester!
Labels: Travel
Before New York.
Haha looks like my blog is full of these 'before' and 'after' entries nowadays... that is what happens when holidays start! Will be going to New York to meet Songyu, Ka Yi, Khian Hong, Chenli, and 3 other new additions to the A*Star batch of 2006 from UW Madison on Sunday. Before meeting them and going to Chinatown with them I will need to do a bit of gift shopping uptown as well.
And, after being down for one week, I managed to find out the problem with the internet connection in my room and solved it! :D I was surviving on the wireless network in the library and my lab's internet connection for the past week, and I wasn't feeling too good about having to call home from the library and MSN people from the lab :P
I have something proper to do now in the lab eventually :) I am supposed to be sorting out a specific signalling pathway in normal prostate development in mice. I have just started testing antibodies for IHC-P; they don't work with my method so will definitely have to ask around and figure out alternative methods. Also will be ordering more antibodies and start immunofluorescence staining on frozen sections. I don't think I will get a lot of stuff done by Friday, but at least now I have an idea what I will be involved in :) The nice thing is, if things work out as expected, this work can carry on pretty far. Haha I hope that I will be the one carrying it on though :P
And since I am leeching on my supervisor's funds for now (or at least I thought), have to learn to be much more careful with stuff :P Unlike when I was in A*Star...
Packing! Headache. Packed 2, and I expect myself to have one medium box and one small box more. And I still have Yiran's stuff with me. Oh well. I have contacted Zhen Xin, and I hope I can split my stuff and store probably 2 boxes with him; then depending on how much stuff I've left, I might split them further by storing some boxes in Lynn's place (which is far far far away in Uni One) and a little with Shengyong
et.al. to be stored in Laura/Wang Jia/Momoe's apartment when they eventually have to move. See how :P
I don't think I need to say anything else about the Canada trip here; I have already posted most stuff in the photo journal. Yeah should I set up a journal for my upcoming EuroTrip 2007? I stopped updating the previous one when I started working in IMCB and until now it isn't complete :P Think if I were to start one I will have to write everyday while I am travelling to keep it complete :P
Yeah one thing about overseas education is that I get to meet, and really socialise with a lot of people who I don't know initially. Needless to say when I first came to Hopkins (and this continued until now); then in Chicago (obviously I don't know Alex until I met him there; and the rest of the people in Chicago), in Boston (stayed with relatives whom I have not met since 20 years ago, and went skiing/stayed/travelled with Ding Ding's friend's family for 4 days), and recently in Toronto (met up with relatives whom I have never met, got a dinner from them and went to admire their house). Soon when I am in Europe these things will happen again and again and again (that's why I say I am extremely used to meeting friends' friends to do all kinds of things), and I have just received an order to call up another relative in Lyon whom I have never seen before and mail a packet of stuff to him.
Anyway in EuroTrip 2006 we did the same thing too, it is just that the relationship between the people we met and us doesn't come from me but Yongji :P
Haha exciting stuff. I'll count how many people I'll meet in EuroTrip 2007, see what I'll do together with them, and how many of them I will keep in contact with after that :D International networking :P
(Final itinerary will be posted in the entry before I leave the US. Need to rest for now :P)
Labels: Life
Canada Photos!
Photos from the Canada trip are up! Visit my
photo journal to view them :)
Too tired to write anymore stuff here... and in addition, my internet cable (or socket in my computer? I don't know really) died. I am doing all these in the library using the school's wireless access.
Hmms need to go back and retrieve my dinner now...
Labels: Travel
Before Canada.
Moving house is really utterly absolutely insane. Yesterday night Yiran got me to help him bring his stuff over to my place for temporary storage; it was comparable to SOC training. I was telling Yiran, now he knows how screwed we feel when we are in the army...
I still have to move his stuff and my own stuff over to Uni One! No idea how I am supposed to do that. I am absolutely completely 100% sure that I AM NOT GOING TO CARRY THEM 5 BLOCKS UP USING BRUTE FORCE.
Leaving for Canada on Friday! Haha it is going to be fun. Yiran has gone back to Singapore... while Grace and Yi Chung will be going back on Friday too. After Canada I will be going to New York on 20th Sunday, and then my holidays will only be one week away! Yayy :D
Labels: Life
After Exams...
Yeah I have work to do actually... though I just don't feel like doing anything constructive. After exams is the time for randomness and not anything structured!
So what I did yesterday:
1. Spent one whole day in front of the computer planning my trip, printing maps and reading wikitravel/wikipedia.
2. Went out twice: once to pick up a book I ordered, and once to collect money for the SSA T-shirts that we gave out yesterday.
That's about it.
So for today so far:
Figured out how to fry 锅贴 using frozen 水饺. I realised that the brand of 水饺 I have been eating tastes excellent when I fry them... I have been eating boiled 水饺 over the final papers/finals period because that is kind of the most palatable form of instant food available in the United States (hmms, before that I have been eating Chunky + pre-cooked marcoroni :( ). I didn't realise I can fry them until today when I bothered to read the cooking instructions carefully :P
If (yeah IF) I have time in the next semester I will buy the skin and start making them from (close to) first principle. Problem is, hard to find fresh leek here... might need to find some form of substitute.
Also figured out how nice is coffee + Irish Cream. I have quite a bit of leftover from tiramisu last week... got to drink them up somehow :P Haha next step will be milo + Irish Cream. Maybe I should get some Amaretto when I get back to Singapore, mix it with coffee and make almond-favoured tiramisu :D
Though I seriously need to get rid of those leftover Mascarpone! No idea how to incorporate that into cooking... the Internet recipes I remember seeing require me to buy a lot more random stuff which I will have to get rid of in the end... anyone has any idea?! Spread it on bread maybe? :P
Labels: Life
For HY Junior.
> Mum: Haha use this as a practice exercise! Read this post to Yan in English as fluently as possible.
I don't want to seperate my reply as comments on different posts, so here goes:
Replying 'Random Post':
Alright I admit defeat :P haha it is more of a reaction to your extremely bitchy attitude when you are talking about guys/man/old man that you don't like. Yes we do make negative comments about girls, and usually we generalise all that we do not think are pretty under the 'cannot make it' category. Well, I believe I have made it extremely clear to you that you fall under the 'pork chop' category, and I believe you know that the more effort (and money) you put in to improve your outlook the more negative comments I will make.
Girls (guys also) should stay as natural as possible! I can tell you I really don't like people putting on coloured nail polish (the transparent ones are alright). I really don't see how nail polish will make their fingers/toes look better... Isn't the natural colour the prettiest?!
So stop rebonding your hair before I launch another wave of nagging on you. You just need to look neat and healthy, and it doesn't take a lot of effort to do so.
Regarding Alzheimer's Disease:
If you are interested in AD, I don't know whether you are aware that we have a book at home called 'Searching for the Lost Soul' (a direct translation of the Chinese title). It is a popular science book which contains a lot of information on AD research presented like a story. The book is purple in colour. If you prefer reading it in English the English title should be somewhere inside the book as well... NLB should have some copies.
Haha alpha amyloids are cleavage products of a precursor protein (I forgot what). Tau proteins are a kind of microtubule associating proteins which cross-link microtubules into closely knit bundles; they are found in axon of neurons (I think). For your information :P
Labels: Random
Summer!
Yayyy I am finally done! As to why I am blogging and not celebrating, that is because no one else has finished yet... jia you everyone! :)
Haha my mentor recommended that I take a day off from lab today... and since I am not in working mood at all, I guess I will just stay at home to get some sleep :P I think I should go jogging later in the afternoon too...
Yup my cell bio was
more than fine :) and organic chemistry should be fine too. The only class that I am not sure whether I'll get an A is the history of science class, because my TA doesn't tell us grades when she returns our assignments. Though I think I should do alright... should get at least an A- I guess. And I already know that I got A+ for cell bio lab :D
So I have successfully cleared this year! 2 more years to go :P
So plans for summer:
4/5 to 6/5: Slack at home.
7/5 to 10/5: Lab.
11/5 to 15/5: Niagara Falls/Toronto.
15/5 afternoon: Weiyi + friend coming to Baltimore.
16/5 to 25/5: Lab.
20/5: Songyu, Ka Yi etc. coming to New York.
26/5 to 21/6: EuroTrip 2007 (England + Scotland + France; as of today)
22/6 to 24/6: Slack at home.
25/6 to 17/8: A*Star.
18/8 to 1/9: Slack at home (or might work some more in A*Star, see how...).
2/9: Back to Baltimore.
I figured that my lab is not in NUH after all... I'll be back in Proteos, level 6. Hahaha should email Sunil and see whether he's still around; now it's my turn to disturb him :P
Labels: Life
Finals.
Entering actual finals period...
Good luck everyone! :)
Labels: Life
