Hubby wants to get away for a scuba dive, he is a license scuba diver and was very much into it before we have children. I guess he was deprived of it because he is helping me to take care of the children. He was just telling me that his dive partners have similar problems, their wife is going to pop soon.

Anyway, you know I lost the camera in Scotland, so he didn’t have any camera for his scuba trip. He didn’t show his disappointment but I thought I made it up to him. I told him I wanted to get a new camera and I do need it for my blog. I have to hold off Emily’s birthday post because I had to wait for my friend to send those pictures to me.

It was last Tuesday, I think I told him that I want to get a camera and did some surfing to see which one is latest and within my budget. He did the same and finally came up with Canon Powershot A570 IS because of the Aperture, Shutter Priority and true optical image stabilization. All are so foreign to me. Preview here. We kind of like Canon brand because of its technology. By the way, the shop told me that Canon and Nikon is the most popular brand.

Thursday, we went to survey the price. We had contacts of 2 shops that we know will give us a good deal. We also tested the camera. One important thing was we need to get the underwater casing as well. If not, it defeats the purpose. The first shop gave us a price which is RM40 higher for the camera and RM20 lower for the casing. He also gave us a 1G memory stick free. Too bad, he couldn’t get us the casing in time.

Friday, hubby called the other shop and negotiated with them, the lady owner was grumbling but she gave us the exact same deal the other shop offered. We picked up the camera with the casing and my hubby is a happy man. It was an early Happy Father’s Day present for him. By the way, the cost of the camera and housing is the same cost that my hubby paid for Canon A80 a few years ago. Camera is getting cheaper.

Why such a hurry? My hubby went to scuba diving today in Pulau Payar. Here are the lovely pictures:

London, another great city surrounded by beautiful buildings and the ever famous royalty palace called Buckingham Palace. Not forgetting, my children’s favorite song “London Bridge Is Falling Down”. London Bridge is just a normal kind of bridge, nothing special. It is the Tower Bridge that is spectacular. It is often being mix up as both are well know.

I took the BIG BUS Tour around London and it was worth it. I got a discount from buying the e-ticket. It has 3 walking tours and 1 cruise plus hop on and hop off buses. If you know the place around, you can also but a full day pass for train and bus for 5.70 pound. You have to buy ticket after 9:30am, after rush hour else it is very expensive.

2 complaints I have with London. First, the train system aka TUBE is chaotic and not very handicap friendly. Some stations do not have lifts but stairs. One station, I think it was Convent Garden Station, where I came out, there was 2 lifts but 1 wasn’t working. With a crowd of people waiting, I decided to climb stairs. Gosh, I regretted it, the stairs were never ending. When I was halfway, I was breathless. Lesson learnt, take the lifts if it exists.

Secondly, the airport is a mess too. First they only allow 1 hand carry, if you are holding a plastic bag, it is not allowed. I think they practice double standard, I saw a man with 2 bags. I overhead a conversation from a lady, she had to go around the shop to beg for a big plastic bag to put her second notebook hand carry. Oooh, if you bought anything from the airport, it is allowed. Don’t ask me why.

It was messy because as you enter, there is one station to check handcarry and another to check your shoes. Those guards are pretty rude, they treat everyone as criminals. As you enter the gate, to board your plane, there is another check. By the way, if your bag is detained, you have to remove everything. For those people who love to hand carry their luggage on flight will be a headache because the guard will take out piece by piece.

Lastly, one hour before boarding, they called for Gate Closing but when you reach the gate, people are still waiting. Sigh. Look at the picture below to see how messy it is, photo taken by my MIL on her prev trip.

I am swamp with vouchers this month. 😀 You can tell how busy I am with all the vouchers I received. Actually both my hubby and I received. Management rewards us with vouchers when we accomplished some mega projects with cost savings. Oh well, with the cost savings that we made, they can do better than vouchers. Sorry human never is contended.

Why vouchers? Oh well, I heard that it is not taxable if they give us vouchers. Then again, lately I heard otherwise. If they give us cash, certainly it is taxable and will be written in our EA slip.

Anyway, why I took my birthday card? My company gives us vouchers for birthday too. Today I just spent it and it was finger licking good. That is why I am replacing it with the birthday card which is also part of the gift. I used to get McDonalds vouchers, now they give variety after the survey. Actually I put MPH or Petrol vouchers in the survey but never got selected. I guess I was the minority. This month is KFC and Pizza Hut.

Now anyone wanna exchange my vouchers for cash??? $-)

Sometime ago, my hubby started teaching house rules to the children. He started with 4 simple rules. They are

It is a good way to teach the children to obey rules and what they are there for. Every time they break the rules, we will remind them. So far they have been listening and both of them can reside the rules.

Timothy has his own set of rules, not sure whether it is for us, if only we can read it. The saying goes “children are meant to be seen and not heard”, so if we cannot read it, we can just ignore. :giggles:

Emily, on the other hand, will shout aloud the rule if kor kor breaks it. She will point and say “rule number 1, 1 drawing paper per day, see, see.”

It just makes me laugh how they are having fun with rules. Of coz, the one who breaks it will not end up with fun.

Glasgow is Scotland largest city and like many other city, it has classical, old traditional and historical buildings in the surrounding. Not to mention, lots of cathedral churches too. I woke up early on a Sunday morning, sadly not to attend church but to tour around the Glasgow city.

I went with a couple of friends. We took a 30 minutes train there. We got off at Glasgow Queens St and went to the nearest tourist information. We have only 1 day to visit the entire Glasgow but we spend most of our time near the city. We went on a “hop on and hop off” city sightseeing tour for £9 Information here http://www.scotguide.com/city_tours.htm. We could see a lot of places with this.

There are 21 tourist spots to see like George Square, Glasgow Cathedral, Merchant City, Glasgow Green, St. Andrew Square, St Enoch (where the shopping places are), St Vincent Place, Science Center, IMAX Cinema, Tall Ship, Glasgow University, Byres Road, Museums, Kelvin Park (where the green is), Charring Cross, Willow Tearooms, Theatres and Royal Concert Hall.

You can
download the map here for details.

The bus has an open top for photo taking around the city. However it is not very good if it rains. There are many of these buses running every 20 mins. You can hop on and hop off at the designated bus stand. If you miss one, you wait for another 20 mins. It is pretty convenient.

We started the journey at George Square and took the bus to the museum. The museum displays all kinds of religion. It is very interesting walk. Let me tell you, everywhere I go, there is a museum so you see 1, you see it all. The one in Edinburgh is good and huge with more displays.

Cathedral Churches are everywhere and all of them have amazing hand painted ceiling and beautiful stain glass.

Historical statues are also everywhere to mark the history of the place. London especially has it everywhere in the city. Each has a story to tell if I only know what it is. History is not my strong field. Although I hated it when the education dept changed the history syllabus and focus on local history. It will be far more interesting to learn history of other nations.

George Square and City Chambers, the symbol of Glasgow political strength.

As I journey around, there are lots of classical buildings which bear a lot of history. It has a very low percentage of modern building like what we have here.

 

The funny looking building is Clyde Auditorium aka The Armadillo. Basically it is a concert hall.

Besides buildings, they have beautiful & huge parks for people to enjoy the sun. By the way it is cold especially when the wind blows. I rather stay inside. It is interesting how we always try to avoid the sun. When I was there, I wish the sun was there to warm me up. Now I understand why gwailo like the sun so much.

By the time, we finished the tour and wanted to do some shopping. Guess what, the shops closes at 6pm. Sigh. Although there is nothing to buy as everything is 7 times more expensive. Good for me. We also have a hard time hunting for food.

Next post, London but you have to wait awhile because I need to process the pictures. You all know I lost my camera. It will be a real waste to tour around London without a camera. I bum into a shop where they sell disposable cameras and it was buy 1 get 1 free for 4 pound, about RM14 per camera for 39 shots. I got 6 of them. I just took them to the printing shop to have it developed into negative and convert to digital. Technology, don’t you like it in moments like this.

I am in London now. I am very fortunate and I tell you why. Few weeks before I left for Scotland, I had planned to go to Paris and London. However I don’t know anyone in Paris or London. Oh well, I thought I plan for an ad hoc trip as I didn’t know my project schedule in Scotland. By the way, nothing is cheap here, hotel can cost up to more than 100 pounds. Believe me I did a lot of Google searches.

A few days before I left, my best friend, didn’t see her for like 13 years when I left Australia after my studies. I knew her when we were in secondary school and later she migrated to Sydney where I was in University. Anyway, she sent email to me and her friends updating us of her latest news. I notice his brother was in London. My prayers were answered. Thanks to him and his wife, they offered me a place to stay. Paris didn’t happen. I need to book in advance if I want cheap deals.

3 strikes to my camera trouble. 😥

Strike 1

While I was in Scotland, I visited Glasgow, very beautiful city on one of the Sunday. I will upload the pictures later when I return. While I was snapping away with my digital camera, my 1G card shouted “Memory Full”. What? There was only less than 100 pictures in there, it can’t be. I missed out on some good shots due to memory full. I had to reformat the card after I download my pictures, it returns back to normal.

Strike 2

I did some city tour in Edinburgh also on Sunday and my camera ran out of battery. Sigh.

Strike 3.

Last Monday, while I flew from Edinburgh to London, I saw a nice view up the air and guess what happen to my camera? Sigh, it was no where to be found. I remembered I packed it but it is not there. I am not even sure where I misplaced it. Isn’t it frustrated? London has so many beautiful sceneries that I need to capture. Anyway you cannot believe what I did. Nope, I didn’t get a new digital camera in pounds. No way. I tell ya later if the pictures turn out nice.

Last, I need your help if you have a blog. Please put this banner up to find Madeleine who was abducted. Help the parents to find her. It is just so sad as she is only 4 year old. Lets spread the word around the world and pray that she will be found.

Code here:

<a href="http://www.bringmadeleinehome.com"><img src="http://www.bringmadeleinehome.com/img/maddy450x124Banner.jpg" alt="Banner1" width="450" height="124" border="0" /></a>

More code here: http://www.bringmadeleinehome.com/news/

The other day, we were sharing with the UK team, how Malaysia has so many public holidays. We were asking them, what holidays they have. Apparently there are not many in UK.

UK: You guys have a lot of public holidays.

MYS: Yeah we have Chinese New Year, Raya Holidays and Depavalli. We are a multi cultural country.

UK: Wow great to have that many holidays.

MYS: Independence Day is coming up too. You know Independence Day. Do you have it?

UK: Nope, we don’t.

MYS: Why not? US has it.

UK: Because never been conquered before.

MYS: *duh, slap forehead*

I got this info from a friend of mine, so if you are talking to the English, please do not repeat the same mistake. 😆

Sorry to keep you all in suspense if you gals are really waiting for the result. I was caught up with a lot of work.

The guy actually took the banker’s offer which is really a smart move as he needed the money. From my perspective, he is not greedy. If someone didn’t really need the money, he probably will go further. So the results, lets watch.

Sigh, he did have the 250,000 Pounds.

Deal Or No Deal

I was watching the English Version of Deal Or No Deal on Saturday. The player opened the case 1 by 1. He did very well as he clear off most of the lowest amount. However he ended with 1 Pound and 250,000 Pound (RM1.7 million). The banker offer 75,000 to buy over his case. If you were him, will you take your chance to win 250,000 or you take 75,000. You may end of with 1 Pound. Tough decision yeah. What is your decision and What do you think happen?

Answers in the next post.

Source of the above map from: www.it-green.co.uk

Yeah I have arrived in Edinburgh UK, 14 hours flight. I must say that I have a pleasant flight with SIA. I was fortunate as I was given a very good seat. The seat next to me was empty given me some space. However the guy who sat near the aisle hardly went to the gents. I had to excuse myself 2 times as I drank lots of water.

Edinburgh is a very beautiful city with lots of old buildings. It reminds me of Sydney of Australia. You can hardly see any tall building here except the Cathedral Churches. It is freezing here with strong wind. I was almost blown off the street.

The strange thing in Edinburgh, the daylight is almost all day. It is still bright until 9pm and sun rises very early, 4am. When we go for dinner at 7pm, it looks like afternoon. I can say that I hardly in the dark. You can walk until late evening and still not feel it.

I am staying in a very nice apartment with a dinning hall and kitchen, just like a studio. I am traveling with 14 others colleagues and more to come. It is just like having a school excursion. I must say that I can see a strong team dynamics in them and everyone is friendly.

Here are the pictures:

The Edinburgh Castle on the second picture:

Love the house structure:

Lady Statue

Cathedral Church

Statue Came Alive: