Saturday, July 28, 2012

[L.E.P.A.K series: London] Chapter 27: The Morning After



 Yes. This is it. This is the last of my L.E.P.A.K posts. The adventure is coming to an end. 
Just a little bit more to go. Are you ready? 

 I'm not. :(

 But here goes! Our morning market stroll was greeted with all kinds of 'wacky'.



Seriously. Who would be looking for Ice Cold Water in this weather?



The must-have Notting Hill shopping bag. ;)



Umm... for those who are patriotic inside and out?



Alright. There's nothing really 'wacky' about this stall. 
It's just that we passed by it, took a shot and moved along... 

.
.
.

 ...and then when we passed by it again, much later...


WAA-LAH!



Lots and lots of pastries to choose from. We bought some to munch later. 
It was a very 'bread' day for us. £1 each or 3 for £2.70. 
Very affordable to the locals but that's a whooping RM13 to us. Oh well.



Merry men playing merry music for the merry people on the street. 
They were pretty good but we're pretty poor, so yeah. Haha.



This was the point where we decided it's time 
to make a U-turn and head back. Time to go 'home'. :(



One last pretty before we go.



Good bye Baker Street.



Struggle struggle. Resist resist.



Waaaaaa.... at the waiting lounge.



Attempts one last shot together.



One last London meal. Yes, bread again. But this was soooo yummy too. 
The Real Prawn Salad with crazy load of fresh prawns. Squashy. Yummy.


And so it begun... our 13-hour flight back to Malaysia.


Think the story has come to an end? 

 Think again. I'm not done yet. 

I want to remember some details on board.

You see, our plane took off at approximately five in the evening. The scenery outside changed from daylight to sunset, from sunset to total darkness and from night to sunrise and back to full daylight as shown in the sequence of photos above. During our flight from Malaysia to London, it was just daylight throughout the entire journey as we were travelling backwards in time, so we were stuck with 13 hours of daylight.

 So naturally this time, everyone went to bed at one point during the flight. 
That's normal right? 

 The thing was that it's Air Asia X. Not exactly the most comfortable long haul flight out there. Economical, yes. Spacious comfort, yes, if you pay more for a premium flat bed. So yeah, all of us 'economical' travellers were making the best out of the situation. 

 That was until a guy came right beside my seat and decided to create his own 'flat bed' 
by laying on the floor. 

 Say woot?!?!

You see. The usual plane seating would be 3-3-3, until you reach towards the curvy end of the plane where it gets narrower and the seating order changes to 2-3-2. Cik Anai and I were lucky enough to be seated at the very first 2-seater row. Yay! That means no stranger sitting with us. Double Yay because that also means we don't have to risk sitting next to a super big guy or a super smelly guy or a super talkative guy... (okay, I'm sounding a tad too bias and judgemental here but you get the idea). 

 But apparently we got ourselves a super strange guy instead. Who was laying right beside my seat, on the floor, trying to be as close to the side as possible because hello, the floor is of course, the aisle! And because it was 'night' time and everyone was 'asleep', no flight attendant actually noticed or came to ask the man to 'remove' himself. 

 Awkward. 

 The awkwardness continued for about 15 minutes or so and finally he stood up and left. 

 -_______-

After that, we passed through what we believed to be the desert, the Himalayas and we're home! 

 Our instant reaction?

H.O.T

Hot. Hot. Hot. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Our first meal upon touch down?



Curry Mee and Koay Teow Ting.
Unfortunately, we had them at the airport. So not yummy. 
 But we were too hungry to care. 

Sigh.

Yup. We're home.


Saturday, July 21, 2012

When Smart + Smart doesn't necessarily equal 'Smarter'

The long overdue post is back. Yes. It's been more than a month. In fact, "whooosh!" and just like that we're more than half way through 2012. Well, this post is about one of the many little 'important' days to me.

Yes. It is the day I became... not just smart!

But Smart + Smart.

How's that for progress?



You see. After more than 10 years of being red, I finally switched to yellow.
Oh yes, I made the 'smarter' choice. Or so they claimed. Personally, I don't think it's really a 'smart' choice because quite frankly it loses big time to red in terms of connectivity, 
but it is really affordable.

And that is a BIG plus for me.

Because I live and breathe prepaid since I got my very first mobile phone when I was seventeen. And after 10 long years, I have reached the point where I am no longer even constrained by credit expiry. Yes, my lovely red offered me year-long credit validity. How cool is that? Very Cool. Except, my lovely red has a very expensive green partner. So I made the 'smarter' choice and went with yellow instead.

But it's not just that that matters.

If you ask me a few years ago, back when 'switching' means 'changing your number', 
I would have never taken that leap of faith. So that's another BIG BIG plus for me.

So what's with all these change we're talking about? Why now?



Because of this!
Before you go all "S2?!? Girl, it's S3 now!" Yaadaa yaadaa yaadaa.
Save your breath. It's my choice anyway. Not gonna justify it either.
*shrugs*

This is a 'big' leap for me already, okay?



After all, lookie at my old phone.



Ah. My simple ice-cream phone. So pink on its own.
Gotta take a picture and remember it as my 3rd phone. 
The 1st that I'd bought with my own hard earned money.

Now the funny thing was, my new s2 was way bigger than my ice-cream, 
so there's no way it could fit into my little knitted-bag. So I went on a hunt inside 
my room in attempt to find some means of protection for my new phone.



And I found this! 
A little pink bag that just managed to snug it perfectly.
So the 'pink' lives on!

I threaded the rest of the week with caution as I have yet to buy any cover for my phone. PSP-san, as resourceful as ever when it comes to all things gadgety, presented a cover for my phone "just to get by, until you buy one." It's a little dirty for being kept in a corner for too long but it's still a cover nonetheless!


BUT!!



Why is it pink too?!? Hahaha.
And you see that little cloth on the bottom right there, that's pink too.
It was a complimentary piece from the salesgirl when I bought my screen protector. I guess when she saw my pink-inspired phone, she naturally chose pink for me too.


No. Pink is not my favourite colour.
All these pink were not chosen by me anyway. 


So what did I choose then?



*slaps herself on the forehead*

I had no idea how I ended up with flowery pattern instead.

Sometimes, I don't understand myself either. LOL.