Sights of Nottingham: Spring at Wollaton Park

Note: High resolution images of all of the following photos are available. Click on the photos to view their higher resolution images.

[HiRes] Caught in University Park. These yellow flowers were among the first plants to blossom after the frosty winter. Note that the tree was still bare.

We don't get a lot of public holidays in UK, unlike Malaysia, where calendars are sprinkled with colourful boxes here and there. Instead, we get two month-long holidays -- Christmas and Easter Breaks. And of course the penultimate 3-month Summer.

[HiRes] Along the way to Wollaton Park.

Unlike Christmas, Easter had nice weather and many of my friends went travelling overseas, or at least out of Nottingham. While I didn't, I took the opportunity to visit Wollaton Park.

The pictures I have here aren't great, so I'll save talking about Wollaton Park until I publish better ones.

[HiRes] Flowers, captured in one of the gardens in Wollaton Park.


[HiRes] Country road. The sight of things like this sure makes anyone feel closer to nature.


[HiRes] Gate to Wollaton Park Golf Course.


[HiRes] And another.


[HiRes] Foursome sitting on a bench in front of Wollaton Hall. My favourite pic of this batch.

More on Wollaton Park to come. I have real awesome pics, I promise.

What I've Been Eating in UK

One thing about spending so many months away from Malaysia is how much I miss Malaysian cuisine.

Oh Nasi Lemak, how I crave for thy fragrant rice covered with spicy curry...

[HiRes] Nasi Lemak, sold during an event organised by Nottingham Malaysian Society (NMS). Imagine buying Malaysian food in UK price.

One would say it's a good opportunity to start trying some foreign stuff instead. I would totally agree, if not for the ridiculous price of things here. I ended up preparing practically every meal at home after failing to secure a part time job.

I have a feeling this post will answer mum's question of "what has my son been eating for the past 9 months" and save a lot of pointless worrying.

One of the dishes I serve most frequently is the classic fried rice.

One of my earlier fried rice. Doesn't look too bad, especially when you consider the fact that I've never ever cooked rice before stepping foot in UK.

Notice how the fried rice is in a food container? Well it was obviously one of my lunch packs. To save a few pounds (the currency, not the weight unit), I would wake up before 7am to prepare lunch if my lunch break wasn't long enough for me to travel back to cook. I kept this up for a whole year, which kind of amazed even myself. Perhaps that's why they say money is a good motivator.

Anyway, you can throw anything into fried rice so there's little chance of getting too fed up (pun?) eating the same thing over and over again.

A more Malay style fried rice, with Ikan Bilis (dried fish) and chilli. That wasn't a bad dish, actually, but I hated spending half my afternoon peeling Ikan Bilis one by one.

Congee (or rice porridge) is the easiest thing to do.

One of my earlier servings of rice porridge.

I used to hate porridge, but I've been eating it a few times every week for the past few months. It's the best when I'm busy. Just throw everything in and wait for 15 minutes. I don't even have to worry about burning it if I dozed off for a few minutes. And with Marmite (FYI, Marmite is English), it isn't actually that bad.

Another variant of my earlier porridges. I always use Marmite these few months.

Soup noodles ain't too hard either, but I don't like the idea of consuming artificially seasoned food regularly, and I'm just too lousy to make good soup noodles without seasoning.

And I've also made sandwiches/burgers!

Nope, not this one. These are from BK's.


My sandwich. It doesn't look good, but I assure you, its taste is far better than its looks.

Then there's sweet and sour chicken. Yum!

Learning to cook is perhaps one of the most significant accomplishments since my arrival in UK. The good thing about cooking is I get to control food portions. When my tummy was rumbling I'd probably subconsciously pour more rice into my measuring container. I'm also more confident with my food's hygiene than those prepared by grumpy strangers stuck in oven hot kitchens for hours a day. On average, a cooked-at-home meal costs about £1 to £2, at least twice as cheap as eating out. And most importantly, it's way healthier.

But no, I won't be cooking this regularly in Malaysia. What, haven't you seen a hypocrite before?

Web Gadgets: JavaScript Clock

See the little clock up there? Right above the big red seal? That's a little clock I wrote. Most blogs utilise Flash to implement clocks, but Flash is slow, resource hungry and doesn't work on mobile devices, including iPhones, iPods and iPads.

The clock I wrote, however, is pure JavaScript. Most browsers today have fast JavaScript engines, including mobile browsers, so it's guaranteed to run almost everywhere. It's actually very simple, a few lines of code do the trick.

<span id="clock"></span>
<script type="text/javascript">
update();
function update()
{
var now=new Date();
document.getElementById("clock").innerHTML=
twodigit(now.getHours())
+":"+twodigit(now.getMinutes())
+"_{:"+twodigit(now.getSeconds())+"}";
setTimeout("update()",1000-(now.valueOf()%1000));
}
function twodigit(ip)
{
if (ip<10)
return new String("0"+ip);
else
return ip;
}</script>

A little example. This example is hosted on a free webhost, so don't be surprised if it doesn't load. The one on top of this page always loads, though.

I sincerely urge users of Flash-based clock-gadgets to switch to a JavaScript-based one. Feel free to copy the code above and modify it, if you know basic HTML/JavaScript. Note that Blogspot blocks JavaScript codes unless they're in proper HTML/JavaScript gadgets.

Sights of Nottingham: Spring is Here

Every year before 2010, I celebrated Chinese New Year in Malaysia (or Singapore), supposedly marking the arrival of Spring.

This year, however, things were different. I didn't get to celebrate Chinese New Year. However, I did manage to witness the arrival of Spring for real.

While I personally enjoyed winter and the many photographic opportunities it has given me, many people don't like the frosty season (save for Christmas).

[HiRes] The gloomy weather of winter.

Daytime was ridiculously short. By 4pm it would be all dark. Like midnight. Even when it wasn't dark, the sky would be blanketed by gray, hazy clouds, making it hard (if possible at all) to locate the sun. The trees were bald, the shrubs had frosty white leaves and the colourful flowers no where to be seen.

[HiRes] Are these pinecones?

Come February, however, things changed. The earth thawed, leaves sprouted out of the bare branches and the grass became nature's colour palette.

[HiRes] Caught right in front of Nightingale Hall, University Park Campus.

It was simply amazing. It's like seeing life coming a full cycle. Heck, it IS life coming a full cycle.

[HiRes] Notice how the petals were scattered all over.

Herbs and flowers can now be found practically everwhere.

[HiRes] Near sunset, University Park campus. The way the light fell gently on the pale pink flowers was just plain magical.


[HiRes] Caught beside Sherwood Hall, University Park, where I spent my first two nights in Nottingham.


[HiRes] This is the only photo today not captured in any of the University of Nottingham campuses, I think. Probably the same specie as the one above, but definitely different location.

Even right beside the drain. In Malaysia, plants would rather die than absorb a single drop of liquid from the drains.

[HiRes] Even the drains see life flourish. This drain was even visited by the ducks occasionally.


[HiRes] One of Jubilee Campus's many Sails reflected on the surface.

Eventually, the bees came out. The bees here are huge. I've seen some bigger than my thumb. And my man-thumb isn't exactly small.

[HiRes] You have no idea how much effort was needed to take two mediocre pictures of the bees using my 5-year-old compact camera.


[HiRes] A bee stained with pollens.

Life. Amazing, isn't it?