UK and Istanbul trip - part 1

Salam and hey everyone,

I am currently in the midst of exams season. So most of my time has been spent on my study desk, even having my lunch and dinner over my books and study notes. So, nothing exciting happened lately to be shared in this blog. 

I even missed the Haunted House held in Memorial Union tonight. If not because of the quiz tomorrow, I would definitely have let my adrenaline rushed to the max by crawling in the dark labyrinth, being snarled by all the hidden "ghosts" instead of sitting in front of my laptop and squeezing every inch of my nerve cells. (actuarial science is not an easy course I tell you)

So, just to keep the blog updated, I decided to share some pictures of my not-so-recent trip in UK and Istanbul last summer.To sum up, it was a very nice trip..and memorable one too. I think the joyousness of the trip is deeply felt mostly because I did it with my best friends.

We began our trip in Cambridge on the day I arrived London. Fortunately, I did not experience any jet lag. Just to fuel up energy, we decided to head for lunch in Malaysian Hall cafe. I love all the food there. You can get any Malaysian food you can imagine. How I wish a similar cafe exist in Madison. 

These 2 guys were my tour-guides during my stay in UK. The one on the left is from Leicester
and the other is from Sheffield. Really appreciate their hospitality.

I did not look as I just had a  long flight, didn't I?

On the way to Malaysia Hall, London

Malaysia Hall is a walking distance to Queensway and Bayswater subway station.
Pretty convenient to get around from here.

The 10 pounds lunch (bottom right of the picture)

Only one thing that turned me off - the PRICE!! I had a plate of white rice with one piece of fried chicken, some sambal tumis udang (I counted that were only 4-5 shrimps) and some vege. It costs me 10 pounds!! My friends said the high price was because of the shrimp. Basically, he said seafood in London cost you more than chicken and meat. Limited supply I guess.

Then, we headed to Cambridge by train. It took us about 2 hours to reach the city.

A breath-taking scenery along the journey

Cambridge is a university town and administrative center of county Cambridgeshire. Just like Madison, the population was mostly made up of students who attend the University of Cambridge. 

In front of Cambridge train station

We took a hop-on-hop-off bus to tour the town center which covers most of the campus area. The tour also provided you with head-phone which you can plug in and listen to city's tour-guide. But, because, the upper deck of the bus was not filled up with anyone but us, we thought it was a chance of a life time to do cam-whoring on a open roof-less, moving bus. With the air rushing against our faces and hair, we did all the posts we could imagine. So yes, we kept our head-phone aside. What an "eduactional" trip eh.

Spot the cows

Few minutes later few folks hopped on. But their presence did not stop us from continuing our cam-whoring activities at the back. Plus, they didn't seem to bother anyway.

You can tell how "excited" we were

Cool moment (thanks to the photographer aka yours-truly)

Because it was an open upper deck, one of my friend was hit by the twig while cam-whoring. It was so hilarious. If only I was at the right time to snap the picture of him being hit by the twig. Haha

Then, we got off the bus and did punting. I love this punting activity so much. Not only, you can enjoy the beautiful and picturesque setting of the campus from the river, you can also listen to the punter telling you about the history and interesting trivia of this great university. I guess that was a great make-up for the educational part of the tour that we missed after having so much fun on the bus. Hehe

This is the public toilet where I lost my shades..pfttt

We were told that these college students had just finished exams and so they
jumped into the lake to release tension. Give me idea to do the same thing
here in Lake Mendota  =)

My friend here only did the post..not actual punting.
It looks easy but you know once you tried doing it.

Yes..actually all of us tried doing the punting.
But all FAILED!

On the way back, we did little walk around the town. But, it was already late afternoon, so we didn't have much time to explore the whole town

It is beautiful right? Cambridge is very nice little town. You can spend one whole day here and get to explore pretty much all the must-visit attractions. We wished that we could have got there a bit earlier so we would have all the time needed for a complete sight-seeing.

And believe me, all the photos above do not do justice to its reality. I wished I already owned a DSLR at that time. At least, the photos quality would be better and render the reality much closer. I think that's all for now. Part 2 will be up anytime soon. Ok, bye =)