Moving on

I think postgraduate degree programmes in Aberdeen (or in UK) are always fast-paced and packed. Considering it is a one year course, much has to be done within a short period of time. But not without visiting the places around - of course.

Students here are very nice - and surprising as well. Its quite a shock at first but when you get the hang of it, I suppose you will enjoy it very much. In fact, Aberdeen has a lot to offer to students. Being a moderately sized city. It is easy to move around the place and I would say the transportation system is quite systematic. But, just like everywhere, I always have to be careful.

There are quite a mix of international students here, people from every parts of the world come to study here, with all the wonderful Erasmus students too, I seem to know new people every week. To meet new people, I just need to reach out my hand and be active. There are a lot of societies that students can join and the Chaplaincy provides excellent support to students as well.

Being in the UK for about one month over, I just feel so wonderful and thankful at the same time. So far Aberdeen is a nice city for me. :d

A view in Stonehaven

North Scotland

These are among the places that I have been to so far, well there are many other places but I guess there will be more pictures soon. :D

A few days after and after

Life in Aberdeen (or perhaps UK) is quite a revelation for me. They have bigger things everywhere than in Malaysia - exception are perhaps cars and houses (so far..). They have bigger portion of meals, bigger spoons, bigger flowers, bigger fruits, bigger plates, bigger chocolates, bigger money (of course) and even bigger paper staples ~ and the list goes on.

One of the most interesting situation here, is that, they use heater everywhere - in contrary to air-conditioner back in Malaysia. They also have two taps everywhere in the sink, one is for hot water and one is for cold water. It's always cool to be able to drink water directly from the tap - I don't have to worry about boiling water here.

The system is very systematic here. The transport system, banking system, healthcare systems and everything - tough that means much more appointments. But I think that's fair. One thing that I notice also is that people tend to thank the bus driver every time they go down from the bus. Which is quite polite and rarely seen back home.

Well, everyday seems to bring me new enlightenment.. Looking forward to face what is in store for me tomorrow :)

A visit to King's College Chapel

Ok very well then, I went to visit the King's College Chapel at the University on Wednesday after seeing the details given on the fresher's week pamphlet. The main entrance of the chapel is at the left at the above picture. Its the smaller door.






This is the inside part of the church where you can see all the beautiful tinted window created by a Scottish designer: if I am not mistaken by the early part of the 19th century to the early part of 20th century. There are of course window glasses at the medieval time period but they had broke and need to be replaced with a newer one - and more beautiful i hope.


This is the interior part of the church.



This is how you see it from the entrance.




William Elphinstone tomb. He is the one who founded the University of Aberdeen in 1495.


I had a very very deep spiritual experience here. Being in the chapel and know that it has been here for 500 years..its just awesome. By the way, there is a big pipe organ in the church and while I was visiting there was one guy who played the organ. It's just like out-of-the-world experience. Will surely visit this place again later.

Shopping at Lidl

My friends said dont buy stuffs at the shop located in the centre of Hillhead. Its expensive.
And by that words, me and my mauritian friends went to the nearest shop which is about 5 minutes walk from Hillhead Halls of Residence where we stay.

Frankly speaking, supermarket here is very different from the ones in Malaysia. Most price tags are written on top of the item instead of below them and there are plenty and plenty more stuffs not available in Malaysia. Cheese is quite cheap here an so do other items. Some items also are cheaper particularly milk and juices ~ and there are lots of choices too.

In short, I decided not to buy many stuffs at my first visit to lidl as I will surely be a frequent customer here - I am planning to cook for most of the time.

This is what I bought at Lidl.

:) and oh yeah I bought a pack of plums too..but I put it inside the refrigerator.

At the University and Aberdeen city

Since its sunny on my second day, me and my flatmate from Mauritius decided to have a walk to the Hub at the university. Its been an inspiring moment for me since I am really walking down the road I saw at Google Map. I mean I saw all this on the internet all this while and now I am really here.

The houses in Aberdeen are quite traditional and smaller than in Malaysian cities. There are lots of beautiful flowers and lots of spaces. This makes Aberdeen very peaceful.



I am so amazed when we enter the real university compound, all the buildings are so ancient and traditional and it does feel something that you cant explain by words.

at King's College Centre..the building with the small door at the left is the entrance to King's College Chapel.


It is really and ancient university.

After moving around for a while we decided to go to aberdeen city centre to buy some stuffs for my room. we took the first bus to the city and it costs 3 pounds for students for a whole day trip - quite a nice bargain if you choose to travel a lot throughout the day, and oh yeah its a double decker bus.


The City of Aberdeen is indeed a very peaceful and organised city. Not like in Keningau or Kota Kinabalu where I used to go. It's very clean and systematic. And as you can see from the picture, you can hardly see any modern design there. Its quite a different feeling to be here.



These are the UK coins and I think it is kind of amusing to see the 1 pence coin is very similar to 1 cent coins back in Malaysia.

First Morning

Ah..this is my first morning in Hector Boece court..its COLD man...I'm shivering as I am writing this. Last night my friend from India, Reddy said that it used to be gloomy and dark here..but waking up today I found a special treat! Its Sunshine!!



The View from my room window

and Its sunshine...hopefully its going to be a sunny day...I'm going to do a lot of shopping today and I have to open a bank account and all the required stuffs at the University.

Good Day Everyone!!

Surprising welcome in the room

I am so surprised to see this stuff on the table of my room..such a pleasant welcome for me! Nice job by the University of Aberdeen

Tada..this is the contents hahah...enough for one day survival ! :P

Finally I am here!!

Hello, it seems that this is my first post to my blog. and yes..I want to make this blog kind of a diary while I'm here in Aberdeen, Scotland (hopefully, I will post often here :) - and please excuse me if there's any grammatical error as I am not writing this for exam :P

First of all, let me tell you my journey. It started at 6am flight from KK to KL then 10am I flew to London ..till I arrived here at 3.45pm London time. So I was about 13 hours being in the plane - which is the longest I've experienced so far. Luckily the immigration process in Heathrow was smooth so I did not have much problem..except in the case when I was going to check in for flight to Aberdeen. Strictly, they don't allow you to bring more than 100ml liquid...so... in the bin my newly bought hair gel.. :( - and two items were also confiscated from a fellow MARA sponsored Malaysian student who is going to study her masters degree at Sheffield University.

I used British Midlands for my journey in Aberdeen. It is a three-seater row plane..so its kind of small. The special thing I noticed was, there was only one flight attendant in the plane..He is the announcer, the steward and did everything from arranging for the seats, closing the plane's door, serve food..and that He speaks so fast...I barely understood what he said...(have to get used to it)

At last, I arrived in Aberdeen at 10pm. I hired a taxi and the driver speaks even faster than the attendant in my plane..it cost me 15 pounds for my journey to Hillhead halls of residence where I will stay for the rest of my study in Aberdeen..I was greeted by a warm Freshers week representative at Hillhead..His name is Ryan and He is a third-year Medical student...He's been a great help...

Reaching my room at hector boece, I was very pleased and surprised to see a box full of titbits and coupons for students..and this is very nice indeed considering my journey from Kota Kinabalu to Aberdeen...I got to know my other flatmates, one from Ghana, one from Mauritius and one from India...there are two more coming and wishing forward to meet them soon..Its been a tiring day....at last after working out my internet connection -which is fast!! I slept at 12.30am UK time.