Wei Li's solo adventure to Glasgow - Part 2: Howzitgaun?

It's good to finally be in Glasgow after a long journey. The weather was cool...no, it was COLD...

The first thing to do is to get to my accommocation and park my luggage there. My sister and I went to the bus stop. Since we will be spending about 1 week here, we bought a weekly bus ticket that costs £13.50 per person for unlimited rides (for a week, of course).

The bus conductor said something to us, and I didn't managed to grasp what he said. Before I even replied "I beg your pardon", my sister already replied. Wow! She can understand the Glaswegian English accent?

We arrived at the Buchanan's Bus Station and being lazy to walk and wanted to maximize the bus ticket's worth we decided to take another bus that will take us right to our accomodation.

It was weird, after a while in the bus, we felt that we were on the way back to the airport again. My sister suggested that we get off the bus, wherever we may be and just to take the taxi to the hostel.

But when we alighted from the bus, my sister saw a familiar landmark..and thank God it was no too far away from where we were.



We saw Jury's Inn from far, and the place we stayed is Euro Hostel. This is a very practical place to stay for travellers. It's cheap, has a clean bathroom, comfy double decker beds (sharing with my sister) and pay TV.



Sorry for the unclear picture. It was taken with my handy camera phone at night in the hostel room. As you may have guessed it, the room is dimly lighted.

So, about the TV.. You need to put in £1 in the TV coin box compartment and your TV will turn on for 15 hours. If you decided to turn it off after 3 hours of TV time, then be prepared to say bye bye to the remaining 12 hours as well. There is no CNN, no Discovery Channel, etc, etc. It's purely 5 UK local channels and most of the programs does not interest me.

There is no need for an air cond, not a fan in our room. It was almost winter time in November 2008, so it does not really matter. There is heater in the room, but the heater is not strong enough..cannot control it either..But I am the kind of person who rather feel cold than to be hot =)

There is no fridge in the rooms, but residents are allowed to use the common fridge in the pantry. Yeah, there is a common pantry and hostellites are allowed to cook their own meal if they wish.



This is the common dining room and the pantry is not visible in this photo.

Oh, we did buy some of our own food stuff and we depended on the outside air temperature to "preserve" our food.



My favourite pure premium orange juice, some brussel sprout at the background...they didn't go bad at all!

So, this is so much for the place where I stayed with my sister. It's cheap, provides all the basic needs and is located at a strategic place. After all, visitors would spend most of their time outdoors and will only come back to clean up and sleep, yeah?

WL

Wei Li's solo adventure to Glasgow - Part 1: The Quest to find the Cheapest Ticket and on the way there

Mid of November 2008, I went to Glasgow to "bring my sister back"..hehe..

Actually it is a multipurpose trip. It's for me to go for a holiday in Glasgow (the last time I was in UK, I only sleep a night there and there was no chance to explore the city), for me to help my sister to bring back some of her things, for shopping (the best part of the trip!) and etc etc...

It's a solo adventure without LK =P

It was sort of a last minute decision to go to Glasgow, due to my health condition 2 or 3 weeks earlier. After making decison to "just do it", I was busy looking for the best priced ticket.

Glasgow being a less popular overseas holiday destination, there was no direct flight to Glasgow Airport from KLIA. I went to a few airline website to check for cheapest tickets (MAS, Thai Airways, KLM, AirFrance, SIA, Emirates, and a few others which I have forgotten the names). So, guess which one offers the best rates?

I did try to ask travel agents, but surprisingly, I found that KLM offers the lowest price. Bought my online ticket and also called the local KLM ticket office to ensure that my seat is really booked. I will be flying with MAS airline for about 15 hours to Schipol Internatiol Airport in Amsterdam and will transit for about 3 hours before flying with KLM to Glasgow International Airport.

During the flight to Amsterdam, it was a really pleasant journey. I get the whole row to myself and the flight is not even half full. I watched Mamma Mia for the 2nd time during the flight, as there were not many movies that interest me. I also try to catch as much sleep as possible as I will be arriving in Glasgow at about 10.30am in the morning.

During my sleep, I did wake up a few times due to dehydration and asked for some fruit juice. The outside temperature was the lowest when I was flying over Russia and the air inside the plane is really dry.

I arrived in Schipol airport at 5am plus local time. Malaysia is 7 hours ahead of Amsterdam. This is the only shot I took of the airport with my handy 2.0 megapixel handphone, "passed down" from LK.



How did I pass 3 hours? Window shopping, reading newspaper, listening to my MP3s... Then I was thirsty..Went to McD and bought a bottle of Lipton's Iced Lemon Tea for EUR 3! It's pricey, even for the locals I would think.

Before going to the departure gate, I went to the KLM's self check in kiosk, confirmed my check in status and reselected my seat. At the gate, there were so many people sitting around the walkway. There is no chair for passengers to sit before they are allowed to go into the departure hall. It's quite an eye sore actually..And there were so many people queuing up.

Thank God it was a short flight, and it was a nice one as well. When I was already in the terminal and was walking into the luggage collection place, I felt very cold. So I went into the ladies and put on another shirt. Thank God once again, my sister is coming to "pick" me and bring me a warm jacket.


WL

Gimme the money

We went to SS2 to buy some food and we passed a beggar who was begging for money from those who walked by him.

We felt sorry for him, so while we were choosing what we want to get from the bakery shop, we decided to buy a packet of cheese buns and a sausage bun for him.

So, on our way back to our car, the man held out his two hands, begging for money. LK gave him the buns, but he refused and looked back at us in a weird stare.

Both of us were shocked!

We didn't give him money just in case the "beneficiary" will not be the beggar himself but some other people or some syndicate.

Is there something that we didn't know about why he refused the food although we are not going to charge him for it...?

WL

Do you want fries with it?

Went to Glasgow recently for a short holiday, and at the same time "bring my sister back to Malaysia".

After a long flight, my sis came to the Glasgow Airport to pick me and also bring the winter jacket for me. We took the bus back to city centre and after taking a wrong bus (that was suppose to bring us back to Central Station, near Euro Hostel where we were staying) that was almost taking us back to the airport, we alighted halfway.

Thank God my sis saw Euro Hostel not too far from the place that we got down from the bus, so we walked for about 2 to 3 km towards the hostel. I wanted to check in ASAP as I do not want to drag my luggage to everywhere I go.

But as I am so hungry, we made a detour and ate in KFC. The chicken panini looked so delicious, and I knew I must have it!!




I told my sis to request for unsalted fries as well...but guess what? There is no need to request as the fries come unsalted and you add your own salt!





That is the way all fries should be in fast food restaurant. Save on the salt, and I think most health conscious customers (who are still able to eat fast food once in a while) would be happy with this concept.

WL

GoodYear F1 GSD3 Tires

Tires are one of the most important items on a vehicle , cause it is the only surface that makes contact with ground (tarmac). Without a good set of tires, the vehicle won't respond as you want it to respond, especially during emergency times.

After some surveying, I found that the GoodYear (GD) GSD3 F1 tires are one of the best around. They are fairly good on dry, but it beats all competitors on wet. You can check out the test done by tirerack here.

But anyway, since price of tires are going up and these are the last of the "made in Germany" F1 tires I found for my size, I decided to buy them to keep for a few months. The proper way to store them is found in this wonderful article. What I did was to keep them in my house, and wrap them using plastic wrappers (available in normal hardware store, ACE, or Home-Fix). You can see the before and after pictures.

Cost Cutting Program Hits Burger Stall in KLIA

When we were in Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) on 11-Nov-08 night, having a simple fish burger snack, we came across some 'cost cutting' technique used. Smaller sized cheese with miniature fish patty in it. We didn't expect this kind of food quality (in terms of taste) at all...sheesh. I'll think twice next time before buying any value'able meals!


LK

Kids...

Children's Church was suppose to happen last Sunday, but due to some miscommunication, many didn't know that it will resume only in January 2009.

Thank God I had done the Part 1 of the main lesson last week and I also had a rough idea on the Part 2.

At the beginning, I sat at the main hall to listen to the sermon, then my fellow teacher told me that there was no Children's Church. I rushed to my Sunday School class and there were 13 children altogether.

Teachers from other classes were also caught in the sudden surprise and were thinking what to do as most did not prepare for the lesson.

However, slowly all children went into their respective classes, some were still wondering around.

In my class, I was wondering how to occupy them. I took out the activity sheet and asked them to cut some pictures so that we can play picture bingo.

We had a nice time playing the game. The children were cooperative and they seem to enjoy it very much. It's easy when the children listen to the teacher and give their attention (except for some who found that their comic book is more interesting).

When it was almost time to dismiss, I asked them if they would like to play another round. Some shouted yes and some screamed no..

One of the children who sat in front suggested to me, "Teacher Wei Li, why don't we vote like in the election where people can vote for Hannah Yeoh, DAP, BN, PKR.." Wow..I was impressed. The children in my class are aged between 7 to 8 only...

I listen to her suggestion and only 2 were interested to play while the rest either didn't respond or didn't want to play anymore.

Earlier, when the class has just started, I asked if there is any volunteer who would like to do the opening prayer before the class and one boy said he can do it... "Lord Jesus, please cleanse the food that we are going to eat...."

Children are just so cute. Sometimes they are naughty, but it's actually very fun to teach them although I do suffer from a mild sore throat after lessons.

Looking forward to more lessons with the children, provided that they will listen to me and I have my helper back with me =P


WL

Jauh di mata, dekat di hati

It's sad when LK is out of the country for business trip. If only WL is able to tag along...

What's it all about?

Finally it is up!

In this blog of ours, we will share some of the interesting things in life that we experience. It will be a shared blog between LK and WL.

Enough said for our introduction post =)

Please leave us a comment whenever you want to in our postings.

LK & WL