London, England, Day 1 - Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Miss Saigon

I was in London from March 26th to 30th, primarily to watch a documentary (yes I flew all the way to England to watch a documentary :)) but since the last time I was there in 2010 I didn't get to see much of the city I thought I'll expand my schedule and add a few more days so I can explore the city more as well as watch a few musicals.

March 26th  The day started with an unearthly wake up call at 4:30am.  Flying into Gatwick I arrived around 12pm or so after going through customs at the pace of a snail.  I had completely forgotten that the UK is not part of the Schengen area, but thankfully I always carry my passport when travelling.  After I checked into the hostel to drop off my baggage I went to a Thai place to eat some noodles.  And had to also buy a power adapter since I had left mine at home.  I went back to the hostel and then checked into the room before walking to Trafalgar Square and then to Big Ben.  But not before collecting tickets to Miss Saigon at the Prince Edward Theatre.  I was too tired to fully appreciate it but it was really good, I had caught the late evening show.  Sat in the front row and that was different.  Got to smell all the special effects literally.  If you like Asian girls for sure you would like Miss Saigon, it was full of Asian women.

National Gallery Trafalgar Square... lots of people

Lion (which were modelled after domestic cats so they were sitting incorrectly!)

Fountain Trafalgar Square

Pigeon...

... on top of Shaun the Sheep

Elizabeth tower housing big ben bell.  Taken near Westminster Abbey.

London eye redux.  Yeah the weather was pretty bad that day did I tell you?

Miss Saigon cast at the end

Whiplash! $60,000 in 13 years

If you haven’t already seen “Whiplash”, the movie about a kid grinding his way seeking to earn the respect of his teacher, I recommend it.

How far can you push yourself?

Watching this movie reminds me a part of my life where I was won a 60K AUD (50K USD) scholarship from a state University in Australia.  Now you must be thinking how is this related to Whiplash?  You see, in Whiplash the kid was really competing not with others, not with his teacher, but himself.  Except mine was a lot longer than a 2 hour movie.  It’s a 13 year journey through time and space.  The journey called education, and the journey of oneself.

Helsinki, Turku, Happy Lunar New Year!

These past couple of days I spent some time in Helsinki and Turku.  Helsinki I'm no stranger to, I've been there maybe five or six times now.  It's an awesome city, the Finnish are simply incredible at design and that resonates with me.  Turku in its hay day used to be the capital of Finland, now they have approximately 175 000 residents living there and from the looks of it, a substantial student population during the day I was there.  It's about 200km away from Helsinki and buses and trains run there pretty often.

This time I visited the Natural History Museum, National Museum, went x-country skiing in Paloheinä, Turku Castle, Turku Cathedral and also did a countdown of Chinese New Year from Kamppi.  Plus ate a lot of food of course.