Our last Spring..

yey.. spring is here, bye2 that terrible winter :). You can see flowers blossoming everywhere, like my blossoming heart, hehhehe. Why??? B'cos my family will be arriving in 2 days time, yeyyeye. Hope everything is OK.

Syafique is in holiday now & the weather is very lovely out there. Managed to go to cple of shirt gateaway just around soton but I am quite occupied with other stauff, hence no time to upload the pix. And also.... finally I reached Arundel, the place that I wanted to go for soooooooooo long.

Quiet again...

The past 2wks the 260, Br*adland Rd was so lively with voices, laughter,ect,etc & today, it resumes to its normal quiet situation, just the three of us. Syawal's sister a.k.a my SIL came with her hubby for holiday. Thanks to Air Asia.. now everyone can fly.

Anyway, I think they had a great time here. The 2 wks stay is actually quite short to do everything in UK. We just brought them to mostly all of the interesting places close to Soton & they managed to make a short trip to paris too. We missed the Windsor castle though b'cos suddenly syawal got terrible back shoulder pain that day. And not forgetting, their shopping experince. I bet they'll find shopping is heaven here, hehehe. We share the cost of travelling + eating together & of course we're happy with that.

They went back early this morning & all of us sent them to the Stansted airport. And now, I am still tired of travelling there as we we woke up as early as 4.30am. The initial plan was, only syawal will take them to stansted. However, syawal experienced a very bad back pain yesterday. So I decided to follow them, afraid something happened to syawal on the way there. We arrived at the airport about 8am & it was just nice time for them to check-in. Luckily everything was OK except their hand luggage was overweight so they have to leave one luggage of dirty laundry here. This is my 1st time seeing they weigh the hand luggage. From my experiences b4, they only measure the size of the hand luggage but never weigh them. Now I know, the limit for hand luggage is 10kg & it's ok if you bring two hand luggage, provided the other one is just a small hand bag. We then left the airport about 9am.

I was really sleepy on my way to and from stansted. Luckily I was not the driver and the driver, Syawal was sleepy too. He took a short nap at the services when we're on our way back. Anyway, not to make our long journey to stansted a waste, I asked syawal if we could stop at popat store as I wanted to complete my Corelle collection. Furthermore, I just received my pay cheque yesterday. Thankfully, syawal agreed since it was still early & we didn't have to pay the congestion charge. besides, I knew he wanted to go the Chennai dosa. Both place were just opened when we arrived and about 11.30am we're already on our way back to soton & reached home about quarter past 1. Once we reached home, both of us jumped on the bed straight away & syafique enjoyed him playing computer.

We woke up about quarter to 4 & luckily we still have leftovers from yesterday. Had late lunch & suddenly I feel the house is very quiet. Luckily, this quietness won't be too long. In about 2 wks, it's gonna be lively again, yay. However... the thought of going to stansted airport again make us feel exhausted. It takes about 2 hrs from Soton to stansted in avery smooth traffic. We'll at least make another 4 trips go to/from there, huhuhuhu.

I am still tired though... not b'cos of the travelling but been bullied by my two boys. It doesn't make any difference at all whether I'm pregnant or not, I'm always their waitress, huhuhu. My mind is exhausted too. I feel like I have so many things to do in the next few days...aargghhh

*Just pictures*

I just downloaded all the pictures from my C905 & the pix below when we're in the plane on our way to Inns. Also, the outside view from our room there.

Amazing Innsbruck

I've been wanting to blog about our recent holiday+work trip but my hands were full with other stuff so I've to put the story on hold until today. Basically, I managed to settle the stuff & yey... now I can blog. Actually, now I am waiting for syawal to get ready to go to the boot sales. I so miss the boot sales & luckily, the weather is lovely outside :).


For those who have been following this blog, must realized how stress was I for the past few mnths b'cos our visa was expired at the end of Jan'09. If we wanted to go to Inns, I had to make sure, we submitted within the ample time. At one time I thought I wasn't going to make it. However, thank God, we got back the visa about one wk before we travelled. I booked everything within one week & Alhamdulillah, everything was done w/out any trouble.


We came back from Inns last Wednesday after spending 8D/7N there. The summary... it was amazing, very affordable (a.k.a cheap) & the three of us were really happy. This holiday is totally different with our other holidays. We spent most of our days at the skii places, not much on sightseeing eventhough they have quite some interesting places to visit.


Well, we went there b'cos I have a conference. My 3rd conf since doing my PhD. Let me share with you my little secret.... The conf is held every year, the same time, the same venue & the same topic. I've been eyeing for it since 2007. Not because my PhD topis is very closely related to their conf but the main reason is b'cos of the venue. Like Switzerland, I know Inns has a heavy snow ever year & I think feb is the best month of snowing. Since it'll be more costly if we want to go there just for a holiday, so by attending a conf I could save a lot, at least just for my part. I still remember what my boss said about attending a conf.... paid holiday man!!!. hikhikhik. Anyway.. the conference was really good. I gave an oral presentation and to my surprise I received Qs from the audience. The conf was on signal processing & pattern recognition, most of the presented papers were on the medical imaging application. Just few papers that were not in that area including mine. From their Qs, I knew they understood what I am doing & could see several issues about my research. Issues that I always aware of. That is why I am happy of the conf. & what make me dble happy is those who asked me the question. I didn't know who were they except one, who was the conf chair. There were this 2 senior fellows that I noticed from the 1st day of conf. They didn't wear the conf tag but I knew they are somebody, from their appearance. They always came in together in jeans/shirt & each of them was carrying backpack. My guess maybe they're professors from universities & I am sure they're not English/British.


The conf was only for 2 days but we went there for 8D so we have 6D to get around Inns. When I wanted to book everything I thought 8D was a very long time & I couldn't think what would we do there. However, either u believe it or not, the flight ticket was much cheaper when travelling on weekdays. If I wanted to fly there on weekend, th flight fare was really ridiculous & we decided to fly there on weekdays. I only paid about £88/person that included the insurance.


Luckily too, we got a very affordable B&B @ just Euro350 for 8D/7N. The B&B location was very strategic, close to everything; short walk to the conf venue, the city centre, local attractions & even the bus stop to the skii areas. We purchased 2 days Inns card (£30pp, syafique free) & with that card everything is included. With that card, we got free ride on a cable car to the skii mountains, entrance to museums/local attractions, transportation, etc,etc,etc. In fact, we used that 2D card for 7D, hikhikhik. Well, we got on & off the trams, buses & nobody wanted to check the validity of the card so don't blame us OK?. We also got free passes to those skii areas but like the Inns card, the drivers didn't even bother to check evertything when we boarded the bus.


I think we spent of our Euros on food but still we have extra money left b4 coming back to the UK. I did bring nasi impit & rendang & they became our dinner for the 1st 4 days. Everyday we had breakfast at our accommodation & for lunch we only took light lunch; coffee/hot choc & pastries/fries as we're still full from our breakfast. Because of the freezing cold, after few hrs outside, we're really desperate to get into warmer place & coffee shop was the best place :). I also brought some snacks & water for syafique as he was the one who kept feeling hungry. There were only 2 days that we ate outside, besides for the last 2 days I ate at the conf.


This holiday was really meaningful for us. I never expect it would turn out really great. As I mentioned earlier, I think 8D was too long & the sight seeing in Inns would only need cple of days. I even planned to make a day trip to Salzburg, however after considering all the cost, it's really not worth it. And I really glad I didn't go to Salzburg as I could do lots of things just in Inns. The city offered us more. What more... I saved more money.



Playing snow in Inns would be one super wonderful & unforgetful experience. It is so difficult how to explain my feeling that time but.. yup, really sweet memories. When I looked at syafique, I was really proud b'cos he was really2 happy. He totally lost himself whenever he saw snow. & for syawal.. he was super duper happy as he managed to learn & play skii on his own. Yup..after cple of hrs trying to skii & learnt by himself from the ppl around him, he could skii now. Of course he experienced some embarassing moments while learning, hikhikhik.


However, if you ask me, do I want to go there again? My answer is NO, not in winter. Not because I don't love it but b'cos of the very2 cold weather. It was very cold!!! especially when u're at the peak of the mountain. Your body might be not that cold b'cos we wore layers of cloth, (me - 6 layers, syafique - 4 layers & syawal - 4 layers) but the feet, face & hands that forced us to get into warmer place everytime we went out. Now I know what frost bite meant. B'cos of that too, we couldn't make a snow man. Poor syafique.... But at least we found one snow man at the park & syafique just took pix with it.


I guess that is all the story of our magnificent holiday+work. Yup... sweet memories :). I'll upload some (read:very few) pixs in my photoblog later. I've uploaded most of the pix in my FB and if you are on FB, you can click here, here and here.

Unfinished business

Recently we went to Birmingham for two reasons..... wait, not two but three reasons. However we only managed to get one of them done. Since we have unfinished business there, we 'll definitely go there again anytime soon, but not too soon, InsyaAllah.

Well, even though our plan didn't go as we planned, that didn't stop us from enjoying the holiday. We stayed at Travelodge at a very reasonable rate. Just @ £19/night, we got a very nice room located somewhere not far from Birm's town centre. Even syafique questioned us why we stayed only for a night there. This is my 1st visit to Birm. I knew it is the 2nd largest city in England, after London. Indeed it is a very big & busy city with lots of huge roundabouts. The good thing about Birm is we could get HALAL food very easy. We had dinner at one M'sian restaurant @ Star City. I think it is a Malay restaurant even though it's written Pan Asian restaurant b'coz when I looked at the menu, the used 'kangkung' and 'kailan' terms. They also have Char Kuey Teow. Syawal ordered that. On top of that, they have 'cili jeruk' exactly like in M'sia & I actually had been craving for it. What a coincidence :). I ordered M'sian Mee Goreng but that not good, especially in the appearance. We also Halal Subway sandwich. Also managed to do little sightseeing @ Birm city. I think the city is quite modern.



We also went to syawal's cyber friend's house. This friend had remind us again and again, that to go to his house whenever we're in Birm. Not to dissapoint him, we went to his house. he actually asked us to stay overnight at his house but knowing syawal..it's very unlikely it's gonna happen. However we don't know, maybe in the future syawal might change his decision. besides, he has quite a nice house with xtra bedroom for visitors.

I've uploaded the pictures from the trip in my photoblog. You can find it here and here.

:):):)

Hmmm.... I am happy today & when I'm happy, I'm not in the mood to do any work hehehehhe. Yes, like what my friend said before, we should celebrate whenever we're happy. believe it or not... while typing this I still smiling. remember this entry?? Actually it was about the happy news that I just received this morning.

*******Picture: credit to Google Image Search*************

What make me happy???? Well... my research paper just been accepted & this time, the conference will be in Austria. Will I go there?? Hmm, can't asnwer that yet for the moment. Our visa is about to expire next jan & we haven't submitted our extension application yet. Will definitely do that soon as we just received the final document for the application today (FINALLY!!!!). But in the mean time I can do the survey on everything for our next holiday, hahhaahahahahha. Honestly....I am not excited for the conference. I am more excited for the snow experience. However, not to be over excited yet. All this will depend on our visa application :).

********Picture: credit to Google Image search*********

The truth is one of my wish lists is to go to any ski resort because I know there is where I could play with the real amount of snow. Build a snowman, rolling on them, etc,etc. This is the reason why I submitted this paper to Austria, hikhikhik. If I could get a paper to Switzerland that is much better but Austria is also famous with the snow. Maybe, I could ask Syawal if we could make a stopover at Switzerland during that time. Please pray everything goes well & we could go there.

Gosh... I am really happy :). Alhamdulillah. Anyway, I've celebrated this happy news with syawal just now by having cofee at Waterstones. He pointed out again about his conf in France this April that we couldn't go. Well, it's not I don't want to go we CAN'T go. If the baby comes out before the conf & my mother is already here, I really don't mind if he goes there.

money..money...money....

We just came back from our short break & this holiday is so exciting, interesting,etc,etc,etc. Lots of things happened during the holiday. Well.... how should I put this story. Hmmm. Let me think.... I guess I just type anything come out from my mind & see how it goes.

Ok.. a bit of our short break. Again, we were using sun holiday package. 4D/3N at 4 star chalet at Summer Lodge Resort, Newquay. The accommodation is a very comfortable self-catering 2 bedrooms at very nice area. We paid £73.50 for it. This is out 3rd visit to cornwall, so my planned was to cover north cornwall. Honestly, I didn't really looking forward for this holiday but since we got it, so we just went for it. This is also our 4th holiday using sun holiday pacakage & I think their package is worth the money. I even checked on the accomm's website & their standard rate is about £200. See... we did save a lot with sun holiday package. You just have to be x-tra hardworking to get their package.

Well, the holiday was from last fri-mon. However, something happened & we had to extend our stay for a night. That one night extension had caused more spending more money, huhuhuhu. What really happened was our car broke down that I think could be avoided if we take extra precaution. The car gave a warning sign to show something was wrong with the battery as early as we started our journey to Cornwall. However, I don't know what came to my mind & syawal, we decided to continue our journey. At first we thought to stop at Bruce's place (our regular foreman) to check, however not long after that the sign was gone so we continued our journey. Along the way, the warning sign appeared intermittantly. Alhamdulillah, after about 4 hrs driving non-stopped, we reached our destination safely. We didn't stop anywhere even when syafique complained he was hungry/thirsty.

The next day, the car was still ok. We went to our first destination Tintagel castle. Amazing, magnificent view. Nothing could explained how beatiful the place is. I am glad that we decided to go there first as we were contemplating to go somewhere else before. From there, we went to Boscastle harbour. Again, another amazing view. BTW... we still got the warning sign from the car again but this time I wasn't worry that much compared to the day before. From Boscastle, I wanted to go back to our chalet. However, syawal insisted to go to bodmin jail. Hmmm. As he wished, we went there & on the way, I found hays. I've been looking to these hays with easy access for so long. All this while, I couldn't get to them directly because there were fences. This time around, we just parked at the sideway & stopped for a while to take some pictures. Just pictures of me.....hehehheheh. Then we continued our journey to Bodmin & this was when the story began.

We reached Bodmin jail & about to decide whether we wanted to enter or not because it's almost 5pm and the place is one of the most haunted places in uk when the car gave us red warning. No longer orange warning. Even though I was scared to hell but at least we're somewhere in a town area, not at a quite area. Luckily we have AA membership & actually, this is the 1st time we used their service since we signed up for the membership. We had to wait for about 1 hr for them to come though. And.... it wasn't a minor problem. I was hoping it was just battery problem but it wasn't. It was the alternator & the next day was Sunday. No garage will be opened to fix the car. The AA man did give us a foreman's number & he would contact on Monday. Hmmm. He charged the battery & we headed back to the accom. He also followed us from the back until we reached our place, in case anything happened. Luckily he did that, because it happened again on our way. This time even worse because it was dark already & we had to turn on the light, so the battery consumption was faster. Again, the AA man helped us & to cut the story short, we reached our place safely.

On Sunday, we knew we couldn't go anywhere but thinking of taking a taxi. However, I was supertired that morning. Muscles ache everywhere because loads of walking & stairs climbing the day before. Even worse, syawal got pretty bad stomachache. I suspected the food poisoning from the fried maggi that he cooked that morning. So, we just stayed in the chalet until about 3pm when syawal felt bit better. Just looked around the area, taking pictures & surpirisingly, we did enjoy ourselves. Well... family bonding time :).

On Monday, the day that we should go back to soton. I finished pack everything by 9am as we've to check out before 10am. However, a called from the foreman changed everything. He couldn't get the spare part. We tried few other options & still the same, couldn't get the spare part that day & only available the next day. Again, we considered few options & the best one is we had to stay for another night. The foreman had confirmed that he could get the part on tuesday. Luckily, the cost to extend our stay at the chalet is just £30. Still affordable. The next thing to do was rent a car. We rent a car for 2d, costed us about £70. By 12pm we were ready to go out....yahooo. At this moment I don't want to think about the xtra money but for this extra holiday. Just let it be. I don't want to spoil the mood by thinking about this matter. Staying at the room will be much more stressing.

We enjoyed the day very much. From a treasure park to a lake, then to a garden & another photoshoot session with hays, it was indeed a great day. Final xtvty of the day was dinner. I wasn't in the mood to cook anymore so we decided to find fish & chip. We saw a brown signboard (which mean popular place) of fish & chip near our accom. Little that we expected that the place was quite happening. It is in the top 10 UK famous fish & chip restaurant. The food..... delicious & yummy2. The portion was very big & I couldn't finish my meal. Even the kid's meal was massive. We left the place with happy feeling & stomach too.

Tuesday..... I woke up with mixture of feelings. I really hope that car could be fixed. The foreman could only come after lunchtime. So we went to newquay town centre. newquay is famous with the surfing beaches. The beaches are really beautiful & the sea... crystal clear. However, the day was terribly cold & windy, so we couldn't stay outside for so long. Took some pictures (read: me & syafique were forced by syawal). Luckily by 12pm, the foreman told us that he will come about to 1. So we made our way back to the accom & he started fixing the car. Since the mechanic is a mobile one, so he doesn't accept payment by card & we didn't bring our cheque book. Another small problem came when we wnated to withdraw money. We could only withdraw £250 max from the card & we had to withdraw from the balance from the ccard. However, since the current popular issue here in UK is the ccard fraud, our card was blocked. Luckily, it was settled after few minutes & by that time, our car was done. Up & running again..Alhamdulillah. The mechanic took less than an hour to fix everything. The total cost of the repair........ about £360. Luckily, our allowance for the next 3 months just been debited into our account that day. Well you see, Allah sw.t is always helpful. Just pray & He always listen to you. He tested you & the same time he helped you. I am so grateful for everything He gives us.

Then we returned the rented car & about 2.30 pm we're on our way back to soton. reached soton safely by 7.30pm. Well, we did our lesson from this experience. 1. Never ignore any warning sign :), 2. Always bring your cheque book, 3. Bring your passport too & 4. whatever happen, cool down & dont panic.

The holiday was indeed a great one. One of my best holiday ever & I think this might be our last holiday too. In 2008 alone, this is our 4th holiday. Our holidays this year... Munich, Wales, Paris & Cornwall. Enough holiday for this year. Looking forward for never ending shopping spree during Christmas. Hope we still have extra cash, huhuhuhu. In other words...hope syawal is super generous :).

I did discuss with syawal what is the best option when we're in that situation & we thought our decision was not bad at all. However, if we have a AA relay membership, we could save more. Anyway.. just let it be. Ooooo... we've signed up for that membership.

BTW.... hundreds of pictures were taken during that holiday. Please visit my photoblog from time to time. Haven't uploaded them yet. Quite bz at the moment.