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So I was looking forward for my 1st beach holiday trip to Kota Kinabalu, however, it was such a dissapointment. Nothing wrong with the company, but the weather was crap when we were there, for the 3 full days there, it rained everyday!! Can you believe it?

At one point I was so sick of the weather, I just stayed in the room for a couple of hours reading on topics ‘buy gold coins‘ and ‘property investment’ whilst waiting for the rain to stop, so we could go to the beach!

Having said that, the one thing I was happy about was that we still managed to go for white water rafting!! Woohoo, finally done it! It was once in a lifetime experience, I was pretty nervous about it, and worried that our raft might collapse causing us to trap under, thank god all that didn’t happen. In fact, during calm water, we actually jumped into the river, to have a taste of the river water ~ yums not. haha

The hotel surrounding was serene, very nice to just chill in the pool. The sand on the beach was not of a complaint either. Seawater not as clear as in Redang or anything you can find in Sipadan. However, we took advantage of all we can, despite the rain, we still managed to have our bit of fun playing with the waves in the sea.

Last Saturday was my first time travelling to Dawlish for work! I have only visited Dawlish once when my parents came to visit few months ago. For the next couple of Saturdays, I will be travelling to Dawlish to work half day shifts.

It was such a relaxing day, because Saturdays are really quiet, and you get time to do all the odd jobs, the pharmacy was so quiet, I managed to spare some time to read an article on how to increase breast milk and use it as one of my CPDs (continuous professional development). That saves me from spending time at home doing all these boring readings.

I don’t mind going to Dawlish to work really, because Dawlish is a pretty little town, with a nice river with plenty of birds to watch. I enjoy the nice scenery whilst travelling on the train as well! Hopefully the weather will be nice and sunny tomorrow!

I can’t believe I never knew this place existed until last week, when I visited with my friends. I never liked to pay to go into palace, I always think they are waste of money, and many would look the same. But after visiting Hampton Court Palace, I thought it was worth every penny!!

I loved The East Front and Gardens the most. It was jaw dropping when we entered the garden, no joke! Very beautiful place, and is a must visit if you have seen most of the major tourist spots in London, and wish to see a bit more outside of London.

Hampton Court Palace is in Surrey, 30 minutes away by train only. Return train costs £7, and when you purchase the entrance ticket to the palace, just show your train tickets to get 2 for 1 rate, each person ends up paying £7 for entrance instead of £14. If you want to see the whole of the palace, you need a good 4 hours.

There is also a maze next to the east front gardens, but it is a disappointed, not as good as shown in pictures, we were expecting a lot more from the maze, we went into the maze, got to the centre, and came out in less than 10 minutes, so don’t expect much. The maze isn’t spectacular.

A highly recommended place to visit.

I went to London again during the Chinese new year weekend. We had a few spare hours on Saturday, so we decided to make a visit to the famous Brands Museum in Nottinghill, London.

I have actually read quite a few positive review on trip advisor before deciding on this place, plus, we only had to pay £3 each for entry because we had the 2 for 1 voucher. Anyone who travels by train to London, is entitled to claim 2 for 1 vouchers in most museums, theatres, palace, or tourist spots.

The museum is quite small, one floor, but very compact and has a huge collections of different brands of goods since the 1910s or earlier up till 2010. It really gives you a nostalgic feel when you see all those brands of products you used before 10-20 years ago, depending on your age.

 You will be amazed by their stuff there!

We spent 1 hour in there, because we arrived at 5pm, and they shut at 6pm. I would say 1 hour is reasonable, but if you don’t want to miss anything, then give yourself a good 2 hours to browse through everything in detail. We went during the off peak time, where nobody was there, but if you go during peak time, that place could be a bit packed as the layout isn’t spacious.

This place is definitely a must visit if you have seen most all the major tourist spots of London.

This is the first time I spent Chinese New Year in London China Town! It was such a great experience despite the crazy crowd!! It was worse than boxing day shopping in london! Almost as bad as New Year’s eve in London Eye. So you can imagine how crazy the crowd was.

Chinese New Year celebration in China Town was massive, there were lion dance, food stalls, stage performances, large TV screen, CNY Icons, Wishing Tree, that spans the entire area from China Town in Leicester Square to Trafalgar Square.

There were chinese leaves and red packet hanging on the door of each chinese store in China Town, the ‘Lion’ goes from one store to the next to collect its’ red packet, wherever there was a lion dance, the crowd echoed.

How did you celebrate chinese new year??

As you can see it has been snowing pretty badly everywhere in England during Christmas period. These are the left over snow that became ice. The snow in some parts of the country still hasn’t completely melted yet, don’t you just love the beautiful snow?

Well this market is situated in Nottinghill. Did you watch Nottinghill with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts?? If you liked the show you must pay a visit to Nottinghill!! The houses there looked colourful and very pretty. However I didn’t have much chance to walk around nottinghill, as I only visited the market.

This is a very famous market that specialises in antiques. There are uncountable stalls and even proper shops selling old antique cameras, collectibles, stamps, clocks, and even sewing machines! It is another market I found rather interesting after Camden Market. It did remind me of ‘Pasar Malam’ (night market back home in Malaysia) as the street is closed for visitors on foot only, and all along the street on both left and right side, there will be shops and stalls selling all these antiques, and towards the end of the market, there are plenty of food stalls.

Even if you don’t collect antiques, like me, it is still worth visiting

I am so ashamed to admit that I have never been to the world’s famous market in London – Camden Market after so many years being in England. Since my friend lived in Camden, it was an opportunity to make a visit! And I finally did!

 The market is huge, it consists of several sub-markets, and each of the design is special. I was most impressed with The Stables, the largest section of Camden market. This market is second to none. This is a very unique market, where you will find yourself shopping amidst statue of horses throughout Stables Market.  Well, the market is built in the former midland railway stables and horse hospital which served the horses pulling barges along the canal, thus explains the many statues of horses in the market.

These markets sell clothes, crafts, fast food, furniture, decorative goods, collectibles, and other things, but mainly gothic and cybergothic  clothing. They do have a mixture of temporary stalls and fixed stalls, so some stalls only trade on certain days. Weekends would be the best days to visit Camden markets as most stalls will be opened. However, do not repeat my mistake, I went there at 10am on Sunday, many stalls were barely opened, so I suggest you go after 12pm, where there will be more stalls and crowd.

Camden Town is known for its gothic culture, so don’t be shock if you see all the gothic and hippie hair styles, tattoos, piercing, and dressing styles when you are walking down the streets there.

This is a definite must visit if you come to England! You’d be thrilled.

I finally had the opportunity to go back to Bath once again! For those who don’t know, I did my 4 year pharmacy course in Bath. It feels like home whenever I go back to Bath.

Ever since I moved to Torquay for my pre-registration and work, I haven’t been back to Bath, so it has been more than a year now. Bath looks so much more beautiful now with the new shopping area; I remember when I left, it was still under construction, so it is a good time to visit Bath, if you haven’t been!

I have to say, Bath is my favourite place in the country followed by London. How about you??

A few of my university mates came over to Torquay from other parts of England for a visit last weekend. So I was their tour guide bringing them around Torquay, and snapping lots of pictures with them. When we were half way through walking along the scenic bridge by the seafront, guess what? My digital camera light started blinking, indicating low battery! I thought to myself, not again!

It seems like the battery life for my sony camera isn’t very long lasting. I think I need to get spare batteries and carry it with me since I always go travelling, and obviously I need to snap lots of pictures for my blogging too. How frustrating is that. Ever happen to you when it is the most important event, and your camera battery just died?