Busy ke?

Now, comes again the period of time where I move, talk, eat and sleep less.

I've just submitted my second assignment this afternoon and it's one of my three assessed assignments for econometric (which means lots and losts of statistical stuff!). So, I've done two, another five to go. Three essays, one take home exam and one sit exam.

Hannah, Shamel, (not in the picture were Muhammed and I) were filing up the submission form

And now it's also a 'peak' season for me too. Besides studying (yes, my friends... I do study and I don't travel all the time), I've been receiving a lot of invitations for birthday parties, get together events or requests from a couple of friends who wanted to come to Manchester and would like to engage me as their guide cum host.

And one of them is the the birthday party of my classmate from Poland i.e. Karina Jedrzejowska, which was held at the KRO Bar. In case you don't notice, Karina was also one of my travel buddies in our trip to Belfast in last January.

However, I didn't stay long because I need to prepare for my presentation the next day. It's a subject that is very close to my heart i.e. capital control and coincidentally, I was given Malaysia as my subject. Therefore, need to be 110% ready with my facts and figures. Oh yeah, I left the party at about 10.30 pm with Gill and another fellow Malaysian, Joyce.

I just realised that I've not been meeting my adik-adik for quite some time due to our study commitments. And in order to remain sane, I've invited them for a nice dinner at a restaurant in the Curry Mile, which specialises in Indian and Chinese cuisines.

Fendy and Ayap decided to share a plate of aromatic grilled duck and a plate of noodles, which to me looked like fried bihun. I can't remember what Dini had, but I ordered a plate of king prawn fried rice.

How was the food? It was not-too-bad, but I've tasted much better friend rice in my beloved country, Malaysia. In fact, food in Malaysia is second to none. If you don't believe me, please come to Malaysia and I would be more than happy to buy you a nice lunch or dinner.

And a few days after that, I came to Pink Garlic again but this time with my cousin Nurul and her husband, Wan. They came to visit me or should I say to show Wan, who has just arrived here, around. According to Wan, besides the Old Trafford stadium, there is nothing that interesting in Manchester. How about the Eye Manchester? Well, they have much more bigger one in London. Retail therapy? Oh, please... who shops in Manchester?!

True enough, comes Saturday evening, we've nothing else on our itinerary. Thank God, Nurul got this brilliant idea of going to Liverpool for a day trip. We took a coach at about 9.45 am to Liverpool and returned to Manchester with the 5.45pm coach.

I've uploaded most of the pictures (about 40) on my facebook, so I don't think I'm in the mood to spend a considerate amount of time to upload the same pictures on this blog too. Nevertheless, I would like to share with you some pictures that I've snapped inside the Liverpool Cathedral.

The cathedral is not as old as the one in York, Oxford or Belfast, but I find the last two pictures are a bit interesting. Don't you think so? Aren't those two paintings a bit daring for a place like a cathedral? Anyhow, I like the paintings very much. And you might say, who doesn't? Hehehe...

Oh yeah... I read a lot about the controversy surrounding the torch-running events organised by China and the Olympic committee. Here, in Manchester, there was a demonstration staged by a group of Chinese students. According to BBC News, around 1000 plus students held a silent demonstration (they just held placards and banners without chanting a single word) to protest the biased coverage on the current political scenario in Tibet.

Although I don't buy their argument, but I was amazed to see that the policemen have given considerate cooperation and assistance to these students to stage their protest peacefully and smoothly. I wonder if the police in Malaysia could adopt a similar approach in handling peaceful demonstration in Malaysia in general and in Kuala Lumpur in particular.