Hello from Portsmouth!

I finally arrived at London Heathrow Airport after going through the longest flight (plus/minus 14 hours) of my life. Met two awesome babes who were also going to take a coach from the same station (but to Cardiff instead to catch John Mayer's concert) on my flight, so we made our way to the station together. Hopped onto the coach for another 2-hour long ride to Portsmouth (damned long but what's another 2 hours after you've gone through 14?), where Felicia, my dear cuzzie, was waiting for me at the terminal.

cuzzie's place

Walked a 15-minute walk back to her place and it was 8.30 p.m. when we finally had my bags placed. Felicia brought me and her next-room neighbour, Stephanie out for a Chinese dinner. I fell on the sidewalk while we were walking to the dinner place; landed on my back, and scrapped my left elbow (well done AJ). Felicia said it's a "血光之灾", and unluckily enough, my period came post-dinner wtf. When we were finally eating, I kept looking out of the window because my watch read 9 p.m. but the skies looked like it was only 7; the sun hasn't even completely set. The temperature was around 21°C, and it got cooler later in the evening as we walked back.


Thought I could clean myself up after such a long day(s), but what was supposed to be a quick shower for me before bed became an hour-long struggle in the bathroom. I wasn't paying enough attention when Felicia explained how the water-heater works, and I paid for that later by scalding myself with near-boiling water multiple times (well done again AJ). Had quite a good sleep all the way till 5 a.m.; was woken up by stomach cramps, thank goodness it didn't last that long.

Stephanie brought me to the place where Felicia's waitressing and we had Chinese food for lunch.

Inside Roast Bar.

Char siew, roast pork and roast duck rice (7pounds).

Stephanie with her lunch.

and this is my lunch that I didn't manage to finish eating; Chicken in garlic, onion and wine sauce (状元鸡) plus chips. (6pounds) 

Talked to Stephanie a fair bit over lunch and found out her Dad's operating a diving place in Langkawi, how cool is that!

Cuzzie knocked off and had an hour-long break before she had to report for her next job, so we headed to Commercial Road to do some grocery shopping for our barbecue tomorrow. We bought some cherries and strawberries from a fruit-stall at the market, and headed to Tesco's and Poundland (this is going to sound so cheapskate but, I love Poundland, you can find all sorts of things here everything's only a pound each!) to complete the rest of our barbecue-shopping. 

Passed by Portsmouth Guildhall on the way to Commercial Road; lots of people taking their graduation pictures.

Lugged the grocery bags back with Stephanie, and took a short break before she brought me out again to gai gai again. On our way there, we passed by some pretty flowers so I took a few quick shots: 

Dandelion seeds float in the air all the time and it's really pretty sometimes. I shall remember to snap some pictures of those big, fluffy seed heads sometime soon.

We reached Gunwharf Quays in 15 minutes, bought an ice-cream cone each for 1.50pounds and took a stroll by the harbour. The weather was perfect; it was sunny and windy at 20-odd degrees and families were out shopping or simply not doing anything, and almost everyone had an ice cream!

the Spinnaker Tower

tried to pan but failed miserably. bah. It was so sunny that I couldn't work with a much slower shutter speed.

come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away

Gunwharf Quays shopping area; quite a few factory outlet stores here.

I bought three tops from FCUK, a bag from Ralph Lauren's factory outlet store, a pair of jeans from Next, and a luggage-weighing scale from Clarks; spent more than S$100 today gahh!

Did I mention that the sun doesn't set before 9? This is how the street outside Felicia's place looks at 8p.m.