whoa, click, done.: cambridge and oxford

cambridge and oxford

hello,
hei,
bonjour,
喂,
привет,
こんにちは,
안녕하세요.

I'm back. ahah pakan xP

I'm on a very simple and less tiring scheme of blogging now, where i post only once in a while, but each post is super-duper long to make it worth the wait. My visitor tracker been seeing similar people checking my blog daily, some i know although not saying any names *cough*fazleen haha ndawh*cough* it's good fun seeing the tracker, although something it can be puzzling to see people coming regularly from santa clara, california USA although i have no one that i know personally there at the moment.

Anyways, last week was my half-term holidays, which is the customary 10 days off from school. Holidays doesn't mean a total cut-off from school work, as even with the short term this time, i still have a bunch of work to do over the holidays. Examples are my duke of Edinburgh award scheme assignment for photography ( I'll come back to that later), physics coursework and so on.

So at the start of the holidays, i chose the days i wanna stay in and do some school work. While in the holidays, i usually stay in Brunei Hall in Paddington, London, and i have a habit of usually not being able to stay in Brunei hall for the whole day i.e go out everyday which cost $$$ sometimes. I'll usually find a reason to go out of Brunei hall, like getting food or dropping by to get some frapp nearby. So guys, if you're planning to pursue a scholarship here in UK, you better be able to stick to your budget and manage financially very well, and i do mean VERY WELL.

I'm not sure on which day again, but on one of the days ( Wednesday probably), i went to Westfield Shopping Centre, which is this kind of mega-sized shopping complex, which is lined with shopping outlets everywhere, ranging from louis vuitton shops to a David and Goliath shops. It's a very good exercise walking around because it's that huge, it will take a while to finish going to all the shops. The 5 of us, namely me, izzah, farid, mahirah and bu hajah ( opss salah, c amal) went around looking for a certain gift for a certain someone ( find out later) and also a bit of self-shopping.

Us at the Starbucks cafe taking a break before heading home. Photo from mahirah.

The good thing as well of being a bruneian scholarship scholar in uk is that you have societies of bruneian students in different areas, for example BruNotts for those in Nottingham, BruManch for those in manchester, CUBS for those in Cambridge, BOSS for those in Oxford and such. So two of the societies, namely CUBS and BOSS organized trips to Cambridge and Oxford University respectively. We had the Oxford trip first. photos are as below:

puppet-head fazleen. Tp c fazleen masih suka gambar ani. :D

izzah with her trademark pose. more of this later, honestly.

before setting off, we were briefed a bit about the trip. We were divided into two buses, so in total there were probably around 70-80 students, since this is the BIGGEST batch of a-level students ever sent to UK for scholarships, mainly due to the DANA scheme.

we're there!

we were given the prospectus from last year, the new one won't be published until around may i think. Oxford University uses a collegiate system, where the whole uni is divided into many different colleges, and the college is where the student will stay ( in some cases ) for a few years, where they receive tutorial sessions and so on. The lectures will be at the different departments around the campus.

geeky izzah. ngam ngam~

geeky erwan. khusyuk dalam maths calculationsnya,

this, people, is the 'Bridge Of Sighs' as the people call it, but it is actually called Hetford Bridge. I only realised that it was spelt that way 5 minutes ago through wiki ahah. The bridge is at Oxford university, linking the Old and New Quadrangles of Hetford College, one of the many colleges here in Oxford Uni. It's called the Bridge of Sighs because it bears striking similarities with the Bridge Of Sighs in Venice, italy.

Probably one of the oldest library in oxford uni, on maybe in United Kingdom. Note that oxford uni has been around since 1096, so if i remembered right, they said the library is about 700-800 years old.

one of the living areas of students. This is a part of one of the colleges.

One of the other colleges, where the students live. Not allowed to step on the grass at all though.

inside one of the chapels.

after a good day touring around oxford uni, we headed back to London for a good night's sleep, for most of us.

A plan was hatched up to buy out very own Opah her overdue birthday present . So we got her the bag that she wanted from Desigual, and as you can see by the way she holds it, she wants it really bad.

Covent Garden. Just behind Chinatown, a walk from Leicester Square Station. It's the place for relaxed shopping, with stalls selling antiques on some days, and street performances on a regular basis. The atmosphere is really good if you wanna get out of the hectic Oxford Street, Oxford Circus and Regent Street area. They are still some very good shops here, like David and Goliath, H&M, Zara, Fred Perry, Ted Baker, Quicksilver, Oakley, French Connection etc. Here's one of the market areas:

Those people are just enjoying a bit of sip and a few bites from the cafe below, while listening to a performer singing opera music ( that's her standing alone next to the stairs, and the shops are lined below as well as upstairs. Up the stairs is the antique market on that day.

now it's Cambridge uni's turn. We went to Cambridge on the 22nd, and the weather was much better than when we went to oxford, since it was all sunshine and blue skies.

farhan, erwan, me, nadia and khai. tu tu dua org ber A&F. Guess siapa nah :P Farhan is wearing a clown nose, and a way to commemorate Red Nose Day here in uk.

me and izzah at king's college's compound ( Mind you i do get confused sometimes which colleges i'm in when i'm there lol)

fazleen and izzah.

our tour guide for the day. She's one of the Bruneian students currently studying in Cambridge University.

me, farhan, izzah and raihan, along with a lot of other peole busy looking at the sundial ahah

dun let it deceive you. it may look small, but it's actually huge.

me, nadia, fazleen. You'll be seeing a lot of me in this post, so count it as a treat haha

along one of the canals in Cambridge uni.

the tour group ( not all of it, just the one that went with the same tour guide as i did). find me in the picture if you can.

fazleen. again.

me. again. fazleen shot this. We were walking at that time, and someone clicked on my camera. so i asked for a retake ahah.

Me and fazleen next to a completely restored and preserved whale skeleton.

me and nadia. man, i'm selling like hotcakes *kiap2*

khairi. izzah shot this, as you can see if i'm the background.

i shot this, because i'm not in the background ahah pakan xP

The next few shots are by sara quu, i stole it off here ahaha i still give credits to you sarr :]

me and my new toy, as in the lens.

if you're wandering ( and i now 80% aren't, but just in case), the lens is a tamron 70-200mm. Works well in low light and at an extremely good bargain. Buying it here saved me like 30% than if i bought it in brunei, expecially with the price increase now for camera stuff since Yen value has gone up and worth much more than the pounds ( economics talk much? yeap)

sample shot( unedited, handheld, and probably not the best scenario to use f2.8 since the izzah and farhan blurred and opah sharp, since narrow depth of field but hey, i'm still learning)