On a long, long night

Thunder rumbled. The familiar sound of rainwater hitting the clay roof tiles and the polycarbonate skylight soon started to reach my ears. It’s been a long time since I last heard that sound. I remember only one thunderstorm in Europe; that was last year, in Ghent, and the smell of the damp wood in Johannes’ [...]

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Everything Flows

My favourite-est food in the world has to be fresh fish steamed with soy sauce and all the variety of vegetables etc that goes into the dish. A huge freshwater catfish (Ikan Baung or Pak Sou Kong) was the main dish of my first dinner in KL after 2 years, and it was lovely, to [...]

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Add-On

The last post was meant to have some accompanying pictures; I wrote it last week and scheduled it to post at a later date, intending to put pictures in at one point. Well, I procrastinated and didn’t, and forgot about it until Tristyn wrote a fast comment and then I realised it was already published. [...]

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A year of Glasgows and Londons

On an extremely hectic day in late July 2008, we rushed to Glasgow Central train station late at night and took the Caledonian Sleeper to London Euston. We arrived in the morning, dazed, tired, and with too many suitcases and bags. Fogged with sleep, we made our way to Nicholas’ place in Belsize Park where [...]

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Leaving #4 Language

The first time someone asked me if I was “alright”, I answered yes and wondered if extreme distress was plastered all over my face.
After fifty repeats, I finally accepted that it was just the local way of greeting. It was disconcerting, and until now I must say I still feel strange when I use it [...]

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Leaving #3 Badminton

When I was in Belgium, I used to sample Ghent’s nightlife quite a fair bit, mainly due to the influence of my housemates and classmates. With the help of alcohol, meeting people was easy. Because of the massive language barrier, conversation in badly-broken English rarely went beyond who I was, where I was from, what [...]

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Capoeira in St. Albans

Now that the academic year has ended, the capoeira classes of the University of Hertfordshire’s Hatfield campuses has closed for the summer. Some weeks ago I went for the more adultish class at St Albans, which is even further away.
St Albans is an old, old city, complete with Roman baths and stuff. It was once [...]

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Discussing the Divine Comedy

This is  “Discussing the Divine Comedy with Dante”, an 2006 oil painting by Dai Dudu, Li Tiezi, and Zhang An. The title is lifted from Dante’s opus magnum The Divine Comedy, or divina commedia in its original language.
If you have ever shown a passing interest in literature or the arts, it’s almost impossible not to [...]

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Leaving #2 – Garden City Idyll

Last week came with a few of the most beautiful summer days so far this year. I had my regular badminton club night on Tuesday, and I left home earlier that evening to deposit some bottles for recycling en route.
It was still early when I arrived at the sports hall,  so I stepped out into [...]

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Look ma, slimy houses

A lecturer once told me (along with the whole class) that after a point in history where technological innovations in architecture and construction were leapfrogged by other industries reliant on the latest technology, later innovations in architectural technology had all come from those industries. His list of examples included aerospace engineering and the automotive industry.
Well, [...]

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