Hungry lil bunny's winter break with the Mehmoods

Christmas break usually involves having a cup of hot chocolate, cuddling old friends, decorating the tree (which is same height as me) whilst the soft lights are on and the familiar sea view can be seen from outside the window. These familiar routines are strangers to me this year as I am currently living in the UK.

Instead I have been lucky to spend winter break with the Mehmoods, dining in their house in Crawley and staying amongst the big family (and I mean big). The close knit family includes Umay, my friend from university. This is different for me because I have never been surrounded by so many members in my life. Back in HK, Christmas only involved my parents and I. 

During my journey from university to Crawley we stopped in London for a light snack at Westfield shopping centre. Its amazing how busy yet beautiful the surroundings are during winter time, especially with all the Christmas decorations. The rest of the journey involved rush hour trains, packed with no seats and I was left to stand in a huddle of people, breathing in everyone's air :( The railway system is far less complicated in HK and the underground in London is definitely proving to be hard to grasp. But soon, I will master the tube! 

Biryani - Spicy rice with lamb and vegetables

So far my holiday has consisted of bonding with friends and the Mehmoods over plates of food. Obviously wherever the food is, Alisa is. Umay is excellent at making a plate of potato waffles, fish fingers and fried egg.. It sounds odd but it is an amazing treat and it is becoming one of my favourite meals. IAnother great thing about staying here is that Umay's mum is a great cook and she has made me many asian dishes which were spicy, full of flavour and absolutely delicious. 

 Dressing up

Breakfast

Chicken drumsticks and vegetable rice ft Dad

Holidays are a time for spending time with loved ones, fortunately for me I have been able to experience a holiday with my friend and her family, appreciating their traditions and their lifestyle. I look forward to the new year and all the exciting opportunities it will bring.

Hungry lil bunny and her hungry lil mate

Studying overseas is not an easy thing for me because it seems like you can never make  real friends due to the culture and language differences between you and students from other places. At university I did not know what to expect. I was a lil bunny on a big farm..
Would I become friends with other people from Hong Kong? Would I be able to communicate with my housemates? Would people understand my English?! 

The first few days of uni were not the easiest. I found myself feeling slightly lost. Many people talked so fast that I could rarely hear what they said. At the time I genuinely thought I would never make friends with people that did not speak Cantonese. Luckily enough, I met Umay! It was funny because she lives in the room next to me, yet we hadn't really spoken other than introductions. One day she wandered in to my room out of boredom and after a long conversation we had bonded over our love for chicken, Coca Cola and leather jackets. After this day I knew I would be able to survive at uni. Between classes, eating traditional HK food at my friend Panda's house everyday and hanging out with Umay I have managed to keep myself occupied. 

Making friend's isn't as easy as it seems. We should be able to walk up to people and introduce ourselves, but obviously life is never that easy. I wish I could just say "Hi there, I'm Alisa" and people would respond and that would be all... One friend made! But no. The concept is way more difficult, and it proved to be even harder when I had to interact with people, slightly drunk and in my broken English. The first few nights at the OTM (student bar) all ended up with people laughing at me because of how the conversations ended. I remember someone asked "How did you find today?" and I was so confused. What did he mean?.. Where did I physically find.. the day? So obviously I responded in my typical fashion.. "Under my bed?" (Why wasn't I taught that certain questions should not be taken so literally?!)  Obviously the boy laughed, thought I was vey strange and walked off! I made it my task to improve and work on my English.

My very first McDonald's meal! <3

I have learnt so many things which I never knew existed or was even aware! Things such as the different religions in England, and how they differ; language and the different way of speaking with friends and with teachers or people you are not friendly with! I now have a list of books and movies that I need to watch, I've learnt words (some which aren't exactly good words but according to Umay but "I should know them, just in case". I am so grateful for all the things she has taught me, and it is also fun to explain my own culture and lifestyle to her. She insists I have to take her to HK with me one day, which would be great!

Something happened one night which apparently is very bad and I shouldn't even talk about it according to Umay.. But I will! We were eating dinner in Umay's room (which is slowly becoming a tradition) and a song was playing. I didn't know who the singer was, as I have grown up listening to K-Pop and Cantonese songs so obviously I asked who the singer was. But Umay's face! It was as if someone had said something so terrible. "Oh my god, it's Kanye! You don't know Kanye?!" I remember her saying in such surprise. Since this day, Umay has made it her mission to teach me about the different music genres, especially every single Drake song known to the world. She insists its important for me to know the words to 'Lifestyle' by Young Thug (???) I'm sure i'll learn. As I am writing this blog post I am currently listening to Nicki Minaj.. She seems fun.

Umay studies English and for that reason I feel like we were destined to meet each other. She is catching me up on all the teenage experiences I should've had in the UK and whilst doing that, we are eating traditional HK food. A perfect match? Maybe. I know we are going to be very good 'mates'. (A word used for friend, buddy, pal, someone you hang out with.)

The Drood Inquiry

Pete Orford has set up a new online interactive site where users can explore the world of the Dickens "The Mystery of  Edwin Drood"

We went down to see what Orford had to say about the site. The Drood Inqiury is based on the Dickens' unfinished novel "The Mystery of Edwin Drood", because Charles Dickens died before the story was completed.

http://www.droodinquiry.com

The site explores the many possible endings of the novel, including "Is Edwin dead or alive?", "Who else will die?"

http://www.droodinquiry.com/the-big-questions

Guest of the site are able to cast their own verdicts and vote on a poll, and compare their answers with the others.


You can explore all your favourite characters' profiles, including John Jasper, Princess Puffer and Edwin Drood.

http://www.droodinquiry.com/characters

Fans of the Drood Inquiry are also able to visit the site's Facebook page, Twitter and Google Plus. Share your own opinions via Twitter, and get in touch with those who share a similar interest with you. Typically the sites are most active at 10am GNT for Twitter, and 2pm GMT for Facebook.

Pete Orford introducing the site.

Pete Orford did a great job on promoting the Drood Inquiry not only about the amusing page he made but also his heedful on the readership.The site provides a lot of information that readers eager to know and also he updates the Facebook and twitter pages on specific time for the American and British readers.

The audience in the conference.

The site designer said: "There are two main criteria, one is to be fun and the other one is to be multi media." he thinks that there are many sites that have no real engagement, hence, he tries to avoid the same problem in this site.

The audience in the conference.

Setting up a business from nothing is always difficult like this interactive site, the story was hundred years ago, people rarely know it and it takes long time for the site designer to do research and production work. The site s highly appreciate by audience because it presents the old things in a new way. The application of multi media can easily attract a wide range of readers which made the site successful.





Related Links

Home site : http://www.droodinquiry.com/home
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/droodinquiry
Twitter : https://twitter.com/drood_inquiry
Google Plus : https://plus.google.com/114906552558694699882/posts
Blog : https://cloisterhamtales.wordpress.com

Hungry lil bunny and her new found LOVE for pg tips and fry ups

A nice day starts with a nice breakfast! There is an important thing that I like which is the English breakfast! Breakfast in the Uk is different from HK, it includes foods which are rich and luscious. Fried eggs, mushrooms, toasts, beans and bla bla bla, AND it comes with a cup of tea. It's one of the most blissful moments in my life....



This is the breakfast from Fireside in Buckingham. Although Buckingham is a small place, it's nice to visit these lovely cafes to fill my stomach. You can see the plate is full of food!! They are like kissing and cuddling each other on the plate~



 My friend Joanna with her lovely strawberry smoothie in Fireside~ She is the first one who 
scared by my dinosaur in media language class:p haha

Breakfast is very important and essential to human beings, especially me. I don't really like my class on Tuesday and Thursday: Media Language. I don't like it, not because of the class (in fact, I love media language) but as a lazy bunny, sometimes I do not have the time to eat breakfast. It usually would not be a problem in other classes. However, in Gerry's class, we only have 5 students including me in the classroom, so if I'm hungry... the dinosaur in my stomach will be out of control and roar in front of everyone.

... And that's the fifth most embarrassing thing to happen to me. 

Hungry lil bunny with a dumpling weakness

Whilst having a Chinese background, it's such a shame for me because I can't really cook Chinese  food! But university has its perks as I know many Chinese friends who can cook very well. They are so good to me and can heal my homesickness. Whenever I struggled with my course work or the other difficulties in life, dumplings with hot soup can always saved me from hell.

Dumplings are so common in China. Southern Chinese people eat dumplings everyday like rice. Although we don't eat dumplings everyday in HK, we do love a good meal of dumplings :P In Chinese recipes, dumplings can be cooked in soup, cooked with a steamer and oven baked. I prefer the ones with hot soup because the oven baked dumplings could be dry sometimes. 

This is definitely not me, she is my friend Coco and she is from Southern China!!!!! 

Dumplings have a lovely and funny history, its the shape of an ear.There is a story about an old doctor who invented a soup called "Quran Jiao ear soup", which protect people from the cold and make their ears feel warm. That's why dumplings are the awkward semi-circle shape.(I know, I know Chinese people are weird but I love their sense of humor and creativity) Most Chinese people eat dumplings at the Winter Solstice as it symbolises the reunion and togetherness of families.

Hungry lil bunny moves country and likes to drink... A lot.

I'm Alisa, I'm 18, I'm small and I'm Chinese; Originally from Hong Kong and studying in the UK. The change was different and slightly surreal as England is very different. When I first arrived I landed at Heathrow airport I was tired, cold, and I missed my dad. On top of this I was absolutely starving and without food I cannot function like a regular human person. Whilst dreaming about sushi and rice, I dragged my ridiculously large suitcase around with me which was so not ideal. I instantly regretted not packing lightly but seeing as I moved country, I somehow let my Mum convince me it would be ideal to pack my whole bedroom and lug it to England!

Aside from the really long 13 hour plane journey, the fact that my taxi driver was 3 hours late and that I ended up crashing in a cosy little pub for the night, (Wild first night in the UK) I made it to university which was a massive achievement as I have terrible vision and had packed both my glasses AND contacts and I couldn't really see much. The process of enrolling at uni was so long. 

So far, as you can tell, everything in England took extra time when it came to me. 

The first really interesting thing that happened to me was on Saturday, my third day at university. Or as I like to call it, my first ever hangover. In HK I never partied or had drank alcohol so when a cute boy offered to buy me a drink I didn't even think I just nodded without any thought... I ended up at the pub crawl, which is apparently a cool thing to do at uni.. And after about 5 jagerbombs and several other things I can't remember, I came home and slept. But when I woke up and tried to move my head (and I couldn't) I knew I had made a big mistake. Apparently hangovers get better, so I end up drinking whenever I go to the local university bar but it never ends well, yet I still do it every weekend in hope that one day I will be able to master drinking and waking up with no hangover. Stay tuned.