hey there readers!

it'll be a very long update, as usual i guess since i blog in long intervals, but i'll try to make it worth the wait.

so 10th december. it was a so-so cold day. it was also the day the school ended for the first term, the Michealmas term. yes, they use names here for terms. The current term is called Lent Term, while the next one is called Trinity term which is the last term for the current academic year here in DCS a.k.a Dean Close School.

So the day ended with the sun down out of sight, darkness setted in at half past four ( way earlier then brunei's ) and my luggages looks like a daunting task for me to carry along. imagine carrying a very large luggage down 2.5 flights of stairs ( the stairs to the first floor is higher than average) that has 180 degree turns every half a floor. ok, so it's my fault i tend to overpack, but i swear i'll always find a time to use them all. My t-shirt stash are now blooming. I probably have more than twice the number of t-shirts than when i first came to UK. I like the t-shirt designs here more, as they're more intricate and of such variety :]

now, back to the bags.

after bringing them down ( eventually), lester called up a taxi for us, but to bad news. The taxi said they weren't able to pick us up from school in the time we would expect them to since there was heavy traffic on the way, so we ditched the plan and walked with our luggage to the train station nearby. When you have one luggage bag that has wheels and the other one a very comfy Lowepro backpack ( which carries literally kilos of stuff like my camera, lens, flashes, laptop, all the other stuff like chargers, laptop adapters and plugs, train tickets, doesn't hurt as all since the padding is very thick *promo* ) , it's quite ok.

So we reached there, waiting for the train to arrive. Sul left earlier on another train to london, and khai was on a another train to southampton. the snowfall had not begun here in cheltenham at that time, but it was still chilly.

The train arrived, and me and lester got on it. Got settled in, and treated myself for some hot chocolate from the buffet coach. it's a 2 hour train ride, from cheltenham and stopping at London Paddington Station, with stops on the way like gloucester ( pronounced glos-ter), kemble, swindon, reading ( pronounced red-ding) . Remember paddington bear? that's the name of the place.

Brunei hall is only a short walk, so it was fortunate for us to have the train stop at paddington. Scored Room 4, which is one of the better rooms in Bhall ( own toilet, lots of bed and space, dry kitchen, lots of storage area) they were 5 of us at start, although towards the end it grew to 8.

Now, london. I've probably went around main 'attractions' of london quite a few times now, and have a mental map of the place. So i made a goal of finding new places to go to for my winter holidays. At first, we found Kilburn. Kilburn is a bit like bayswater, only smaller and more small shops ( for those unfamiliar to bayswater, it's an area close to paddington that has a lot of halal places to eat)

We went to kilburn with directions from Aunty Rose, the we-like-very-much-because-she's-cool-with-us receptionist at Bhall as she suggested this thai place to eat, which is apparently very good value for money named Spicy Basil. Very nyummy too *slurps*

You guys have seen the photoshoot photos right? well the preparation wasn't so 'light' at all. First, i had to carry one of the tripod and a studio umbrella ( bought very very cheap) from cheltenham in my luggage, which made it a tad heavy. I haven't done much outdoor shoots like this, so i make it as a practice run for me for future applications. then i got my new tripod in Bhall, which i asked Amazon.co.uk to send it to Bhall since they won't be able to send to me in time for holidays. It was chunky, but solid. it costed me a small fraction of what i would have paid for the manfrotto equivalents. It even comes with an extra ball-head ( i'll explain later)

So here are the pictures from the bahind the scenes of the photoshoot

the one above is the new tripod i got. that's the ball head below the camera. I wanted to replace my Argos tripod, which i used below because it started to suffer from the weight of my camera, and swayed in windy conditions. also it's no fun holding bare metal in winter :P the new one is much more solid, and great fun to use.



Photos courtesy of IZZAH, with her camera, edited extensively by me. helps brush up my post-processing skills :D

I had the photoshoot on a very sunny morning, at Hyde park, with people all around having a break and relaxing, some getting fit by jogging/exercising. The park itself is immensely huge, so overcrowding isn't really a problem.

Anyways, the photoshoot was on the 17th. i remembered it well due to the next chain of events. Erwan's suprise.

After the photoshoot, i only had a few hours to get erwan's suprise ready. I didn't had time to process the pictures on my laptop, so i just took the memory card, brought lela along and went to the shop to get it ready. We had to get an allibi ready in case we're asked, so we told the rest that we're going to Argos ( except the ones in the plan) to get lela a pendrive. We actually did though ahah

The picture was sent to the shop, and the pick-up time was 6.00 . Almost didn't made it.

later that afternoon, me and lela were on our way to get the suprise and go to queen's ice bowl to get it ready. unfortunately, we took the right bus, but in the wrong direction towards bayswater, where queens was. we were suppose to go to Marble Arch, where ths shop was. So we went on and sent one half of the suprise that was ready to queens. After that, the time didn't seem enough for us to go all the way to Marble Arch, which is quite a distance away to pick-up the suprise before the shop closed. So we went to a 'tube' station, or in case you're unfamiliar with this term, it's the underground train service. Again, disaster struck. While i was asking the guy near the entrance which tube leads to marble arch the quickest, lela had already swiped her oyster card and went through the gate. She then had to go back to paddington, where we lived and unable to go to the store. I'm now left alone.

So i had to run to the other tube station, which was a few hundred metres away, with only moments to spare. swiped my oyster card, got on the next tube and ran in the crowded streets towards the shop. 15 minutes before, i was still in bayswater. 15 minutes later, i'm in marble arch in the shop, with only 1 minute left to spare before the shop closed. a typical journey on the bus from bayswater to marble arch may have taken up to half an hour with the traffic and all.

The suprise that night had to go to the back-up plan, due to unforeseen circumstances, but we did celebrate anyways. i had trouble trying to persuade erwan just to go the suprise with an allibi that's probaby sounded weak with all the persuasion ahah :P




the next day, it was 18th. Not only it was erwan's actual b'day, it was also the day of Ashbourne College's Annual Revue, held at the Maria Assumpta Square, in High Street Kensington, or was it Kensington High Street? these two names means two different places, which i learnt in a very bad time. Anyways, it was a good show, with students of Ashbourne College with staff all collabrating to present a good show to the general audience, filled with a wide variety of talents among students and staff. I went with erwan, izzah, fazleen, lela, azrin and was joined by sara's mum and bro at ashbourne college :]

now i warn you that the lighting for the stage wasn't exactly yhe best one, due to the lower part of the body being more lit then the top, so taking pictures was a bit hard for me. Faces tend to be underexposed, or the bottom part overexposed. all pictures were with a 50mm 1.8, as i didn't want to use the flash and disturb the audience or performers. note that it was total darkness except the stage.


















The following is a traditional malaysian dance performance, participated by a good friend of mine, sara who i met here in london and she's an ashbourne-ian too xP











A few nights later, with almost nothing to do, and an urge for some chocolate cookies, me and my camera headed out for paddington station for some chocolates at sainsbury. then i went off-track and went straight for the very end of the station. From there, i snapped a few shots, among which i've posted here. So here's your glimpse to what paddington station look like, and what i see when i come here everytime from cheltenham, my school area for holidays. This is btw not the tube station, it is the train station. note the difference.




the door near room 4, where 5 of us ( which turned to 8 as it got closer to january) shared our room for the whole of winter break.

A few nights after that, a few of us ( in a big group) stopped by eqa's parent's apartment in gloucester terrace. At first we had no idea where this was, so my best friend, google helped me got directions. We went on the tube, changed at another station and stopped at lancaster gate, and walked from there ( with guidance since we got lost haha). It was later that night that we discovered that the places was withing close walking distance to brunei hall, and didn;t need to go on two tubes just to get there. Lesson learnt, but not in a harsh way :]

We went over there for some laksa, which eqa's mum made. The apartment was big enough to fit of all of us, which you'll find out who soon.























We had a christmas dinner around christmas time, where some of the a-level students gathered in the back part of the dining hall of brunei hall to have dinner together which comprised of kirspy kremes, chips, chicken, chocolates, soft drinks and cakes. Thanks to all the organizing commitee for making it a good time. At one part of the event, we were divided into two groups, for a game of charades. my group won with a faster time to guess the different clues, which included twilight and costa coffee :P

spot the odd one out haha. i guess some may have not seen me in person, so here in this picture, i'm the guy that's not erwan haha