life @ wales part 3

Back again...to my little tiny blog world that is my connection back to the tiny island of singapore.... friends' who dunno i existed on the icq.... my life is here.. to tell u wat is going on over here on another continent.

This time round, some got news update on some new visit. This week is the final week of lectures. Next week will be preparation week and then the big day on thursday, our damn exam. Let it be over soon, I pray. One senior lecturer (frank), ex-HOD I heard, organise a social gathering at his house on tues and wed. Its FREE BUFFET. Been a typical singaporean, of coz I must be there. FREE BUFFET leh, how can dun go? Soooo lugi. Well, so the form is passed ard in the lecture hall. My kakis and I normally sit at the highest row in the lecture hall, so we are normally the last to receive anything, normally.

When the paper finally got to us to fill in our names, -wow- tues is almost full, and wed have a lot of slots. Why? Becoz assignment is due on thurs, so everyone wanna go on tues and leave wed for assignment. Damn. No more slots for us. So we thought, maybe wanna go on wed. Who cares abt the assignment? Come on, there's no scholars among us. We are not the kind of model students who studies in school from 9-5, then go back hostel and continue wacking the books till u fall asleep. Then again, I actually do wack the book till I fall asleep, and that is normally 5 mins after I open the book.

So good, after a brief discussion, we intend to go on wed. But too bad, I'm suppose to fill in the names and I forgotten all abt it! arghz! So I told the rest, nevermind, give it a miss. Maybe its more interesting to stay in the hostel to drink my bottle of vodka and then play pokers... stakes starting from one pence.

Later the annoucement came in, assignment submission date change to wed. WOW. Great, so this time round, I tell myself to that I'm gonna sign up my kakis for the FREE BUFFET (hey, its free, must go else not singaporean liao). So I sent the administrator an email the next day. WOW, wed is full and ask us if we might going on tues! My god, singapoean damn good. FREE FOOD sign up very fast, change date also very fast! Probably the tactical training in singapore to get up the train/bus before anyone can goes down, go in front of the person in front of you to grab a cab, food piling competition at restaurant that serves buffet. I must be either not pure breed enough or I do not receive enough training. So I inform the administrator that tues is a bad day since our assignment is due on wed. (Hey, I can tell her that the assignment is too easy, actually its not, can't i?). So after a couple of email exchange and spoken to the house owner, we are on the wed's slot. How nice of them. Din I told you, the welsh people are very friendly, very very friendly. A friend lose his wallet on the coach, and he can get it back with anything intact, including his ic and money.

Here comes wed, after assignment submission, we had an afternoon, waiting for time to pass while waiting to go to Frank's house. So we set off from hostel and start walking. No one bring the map. We only know the general direction. So off we go in the general direction and after some time, we did reach the place in one piece, and no miss path. How nice. Ain't we lucky. Afterall, this is Aberystwyth. YOU CAN'T GET LOST. Come on, its a small town. YOU CAN'T GET LOSE. For a person with a bad sense of direction like me who can't get lose here, how can you? I can get lose inside Queensway Shopping Centre, but not in Aberystwyth town. I have not really try climbing the mountain, so I dunno if I can get lost up there but down town, NO WAY. 2 rules to follow. Walk in one direction, and if u hit the beach, u know u gotta turn back and go reverse direction. If you hit the train station, ya safe.

Friday is our last lecture. Very relaxed. Just getting our assignment back and some tips...some...or rather i must say... almost no tips. Then since its last practical as well, and we know there's nothing to submit, most of us did nothing except chat with the support people who are with us for 2 weeks while we are there, surf the net and some even take photo. Nothing much left. Some are working there, some are post-graduates doing research, and some are final year students who finished their exams.

During our last lecture, the lecturer told us to go down to Shrewsbury if we have nothing over the weekend. She says we can go there for some REAL shopping. Hey, this is a very some town. The only place u really did some 'decent' shopping here is this kmart like chain called b|wise. So a few of us make some plans to go there on sat.

After lecture, a friend and I head down to town. Wanna try to climb another hill, to see what is that pillar on the hill that we are seeing all the time. Walking along the beach, we got to a spot at people are surfing! My god, wat this goddamn temperature, they are surfing? They siao ah? We have our first rainy days since we got here. People here been telling us that the weather has been very good for the past 2 weeks. It rains very often in UK. Indeed, it finally rains, so the weather is colder than usual.

We got to a yatch club area. There seems to be some ducks and a white ...errr... im still trying to decide if that is a swan I saw, or a goose. They swims toward us, then get out of the water and walk toward us. Wow, this is kool, fresh meat for BBQ, I thought. The white swan/goose stop right there and look at us, probably hoping that we will give it some food. The rest of the ducks got out and walk ard the white swan/goose looking for food. Ney, we got no food on us. So we just stood there and look right back at the swan/goose. After a while, it probably decided that we are not going to give it any food, it dump its load on the floor and walk back towards the water and swim away. WOW! This swan/goose is clever. It knows the concept of 'do not eat and shit in the same place'.

Then I remember something, I forgotten to bring my films with me, and I'm just left with one last shot. We have not even start to look for the hill! So we thought we might just end our days and go back to hostel. So we went back to main town area and get some ice-cream, then took a bus back to hostel. We there met some other classmates and learnt that they are going up to Snowdonia area. A very beautiful mountainous area. A place beyond Harlech Castle, the place we went last sunday.

Waking up early on sat morning is a very sinful thing for me. Since we are suppose to meet another group of classmates at the train station for the trip to Shrewsbury, I have no 2nd options. While on the train for 2 hours, we do what we do best. Play Daidi. Nothing much u can do. The other best thing is sleep. Taking photo is bad, especially for a film user like me. My camera does not have this function called 'delete'. Finally we reach the place and hey, the tallest building I can see if no more than 3 stories. For a moment, we are thinking if the lecturer is conning us to come here. We gave her a card to show our appreciation. Maybe she dun like that card.

Luckily, or maybe unluckily, we found some information at the train station. Some maps on where to shop, what to eat, and where else you can go from Shrewsbury. So we briefing read through them. There's a castle at Shrewsbury, and its just right outside the station. So T(3 of us in this trip) suggested that we visit the castle last, just before we meet the other group of friends (we decided to go separate but meet at the station at 7pm) to go back to Aberystwyth. Y and I are fine with it.

So off we go to seach for food. I look through the brochure and I'm on for some mexican food. All agreed and we go searching it for. Hey, indeed there is some REAL shopping here. Its like a mini-orchard road. I found all the telco shop just few shop spaces from each other. Very nice. Finally some decent shopping ground. The ladies might love it, and heng we got no ladies in our group. O2 got this exclusive mobile phone from Samsung, D410. It look really cool, something of similar design like that siemens phone where you slide down the dialer key, but bigger in size and smaller than that Nokia 7650 brick.

Hey, the town look small on the map and this time, I really got lost. I gotta do a couple of u-turn before we find the restaurant. Its going to cost us around £20 for this meal, and none of us are feeling rich right now, so we skip on the mexican food. So we went to search for food again, this time we just go into some sandwich bar inside Pride High Shopping Centre. The most common bread meal here is baguette. Its like taking a french loaf and stuff it with filling of your choices. Each loaf is about 6 inches. Well, I had a couple of baguettes before, so thought I should try out something different. I see they have one type called double-decker. Sound interesting. So I ordered that. It sure take quite a while for my order to come. I first thought that they might have lost my order, esp after the fact that 5-6 people after me on the queue number are getting their food but not me. When it finally came, its is BIG. I see no one around me ordered that. Its actually like BigMac except that they use normal squarish bread we eat for breakfast instead of the burger bread or the french loaf. Now there is more filling in it than the baguette meal. Definitely it looks more price-worthy. My 2 mates can only look at food with envy.

After the meal, we went shopping. Walk here walk there, found nothing much to buy. I was tempted to buy a pair of leather shoes. It looks good and cheap. Someone thought a nice t. Well, he discover it first, dun think its a good idea for both of us to buy the same t. So I left the place empty-handed. We got bored with the shopping. Then we saw on one of the brochure mentioning something about a place called Bishop's Castle. So we thought that visiting a castle is better than doing some shopping here. So we gather that we got only 15 mins to find the busstop before we have to add another 40 mins for the next bus.

Off we go searching for the bus stop. Finally found it and got onto it. It cost us £3.80 and an hour ride there. So I slept on the bus, to do some catching up on sleep since have not been sleeping well for the past few days. Finally got the place, we alight. We look at each other, big drop of sweat appear next to our face, crow flying above our heads (those who read comics will under wat i'm trying to express). My god, its a small town, extra small town. Even Clementi Interchange also bigger than the town! And we saw no castle in sight. SIAO LIAO! I hope there is a castle and its not just a town name..... We found a castle lookalike building 50m down the road. Its damn small but if its a castle, at least its some comfort.

Walking towards the hopeful castle, we pray. When we got there, I saw the signboard 'XXX XXX church'. SIAO LIAO, this time kena con big time again! &*^%£%£$~# How much more conning must I endure???? I caught hold of an old lady and ask her if Bishop's Castle is just a town. And she reply the horrifying YES. So we decided to quicky take the bus back to Shrewsbury, which should be arriving in a mins. We get back to the stop but see no bus. I check the time and well, according to the brochure, the bus should have left. My friends are more hopeful. They believe the bus that is going back has yet to come. So 2 of them wait while I go see if I can search for more info on the town. I finally found some brochures on the town and on its map, it state a spot with the name 'Castle Remains'. Oh, so there is indeed a castle. I called them on the mobile but they still prefer to go back Shrewbury. So I go back to the stop to look for them. When I got there, the bus has left! All look at me, eyes big big. SIAO LIAO. Now we are stuck here for 2 hours. Its another 2 hours before the next bus is going back to Shrewbury.

Without much choices, we go walk ard the town, search for the Castle Remains. Finally got there, it is indeed Castle Remains. THERE IS JUST ONE DAMN PIECE OF WALL, and its not even a FULL WALL. Its like a height of 2m and length of about 5m or so. ARRRGGHHHZZZZZ... There's a board on telling the history of the castle. Some drawing on how the castle looks like. First built in the 11th century, the castle is given to a bishop. So that is why its called Bishop's Castle. Sighz, this is depressing. So we just walk around the town and try to get lost to see if we can find anything interesting. Its an old town, and everything is on a slope. We did manage to get lost for a while, and bump into the local residence area, which is very modern. A far cry from the town's look. We also saw a 3-wheels automobile. An ancient design, I thought. The one with 2 wheels in the rear and a single wheel in front. I really wonder who design it.

We still got 40 mins left to kill. We go back to the castle to take some pictures. There I saw an amazing sight. A queue of ducks, yesh its a queue, walking down a slope and into the church one by one in a nice single queue! WOW! Even humans can't do that. My only pity is that I did react fast enough to grab my camera and take a picture of it. I'm too amaze by the sight. There is no one guiding there. They move in a file formation back into the church and eat their food there! A little comfort for my 'conned' trip to Bishop's Castle.

So finally catching our return bus back to Shrewsbury, and it also happened to be the last bus back. When we go back, its much faster, only 30 mins. So we quicky make our way to the castle since its 6.30pm already. And this time we are damned again. The castle is CLOSED! ARGHZ! Its only open till 5pm. "£%^T%^$&$~# I cannot believe my luck. Really sway man. Like the hokkien saying, "lang sway chee jiao pih qwek"... literally it means that a person down on his luck, keeping a pet bird and it will turn into a chicken. We have nothing much left to do. So we went to search for a restaurant to eat.

Just 4 hours ago, the place is packed with people, like a busy sat afternoon in orchard road, and now it look like a deserted town to me! ALL THE SHOPS ARE CLOSED! Oh my god, I dun believe it. Its summer! Hey, the damn sky dun turn dark until after 10pm! Wah lau eh ... where got such thing wah! "£$^%^~#^ We pray hard for BK to be open but its closed. Only left with Mac. We cannot be choosy liao, no options left. If we want to wait till we get back to Aberystwyth, it will be 9+ before we can have dinner. T is complaining already. He's the only person complaining of eating dinner at 6pm.

We thought our days have ended when we went back to Aberystwyth. Not so. The other group of friends wanna go climb up the constitution hill and shoot the night scene of the town. Well, I'm not with my tripod but what the heck, just go up and try. If I can manage to take some pictures, good for me, if not worst situation I climb the hill again, with my tripod the next time. Well, it does get cold at the top, but not as freezing cold as I thought.

Finally we end our day after we climb down the hill, making our way to Spar, our equvalence of 7-11 back in Singapore, to get some food for supper.