I have just come back from speaking with the warden of my flats. I told her how unused to the darkness and quietness of the place I was, and that frankly, I had fears. She was very nice and said she could appreciate how I feel and that she understands what a big change it must be for me. I will have to speak with the warden of Clarence Dock next and hopefully she'll have a vacancy for me.

I managed to check my email today! I did it at a cybercafe near my flats. I had about 2 hours to spare before the introductory LLB 3 year lecture. I had already collected my Law Society stuff and my 1st semester stuff. The cybercafe was oretty expensive! £1 for the 1st 10mins and 8 pence for every subsequent minute. But one thing I thought Singapore should do was to follow UK's ruling on how 15year olds and under have to be accompanied by an adult! I sent a message out to my dearest too!

I visited Merrion Shopping Centre, which was where Morrison's supermarket was. There is a small Boots there and a really, REALLY cool shop selling lots of porcelain/glass sculptures of faeries, and there is even a faery collection! There were so many faery stuff, I think it'll take me all the months in the 3 years I'll be in Leeds to buy them all! Y'see, I intend to save some £20 each month so I can buy one every month. Cool idea eh? Some are quite affordable. £11 or so. Some are £30+ but are larger and very pretty. I even saw this lamp thingy where the faery's wings light up! Beautiful!

Did you know that my favourite classic paperbacks, which cost S$4.02 in Singapore, are less than a pound here? That's just S$2.70 or so. I'll have a ball of a time reading! Yippee! But of course, the savings here will be spent elsewhere. Heh.

I bought McDonald's for dinner today. They have som strange things and seem to eat a lot more. Their hotcakes meal includes a meat patty but doesn't come with hash brown. I think it's also more expensive. Everything is more expensive it seems!

Let me tell you what I did yesterday. I went downtown to the city centre for lunch. We stumbled upon a chinese grocery store! I swear I was never more enthusiastic or happy to see Asian food. Baos, siew mais, etc, all frozen and packed for you to steam and eat at home. They have all sorts of chinese sauces, even Singaporean ones, for sitr-frying, and authentic Japanese Nissin cup noodles! Relatively cheap too! Less than £1.

[Marks & Spencer supermarket]

Next we went to eat at Lucky Dragon, the Cantonese restaurant. It really looks "cheena", with all the ornate dragon carvings on the wall, etc. Looked like it came straight out of Hong Kong. The place was like a huge congregation of chinese people. Nearly everyone was Chinese. The food was good and we ordered salted fish and chicken fried rice (so simple, but tasted so good!), and chee cheong fun with prawn, and siewmai/hargow. I was like a mad person, frantically devouring all that I could. I have 2 pieces of siewmai and some hargow left which is in the fridge. I'll eat them for breakfast tomorrow. There were also some British who came to eat there. It was the first time I ever saw anyone eat siewmais with white wine or beef guotiao with lager. I also thought how the British didn't know how to use our chopsticks well, but we have mastered the use of not only our own, but also their utensils. I felt... superior. Heh. One thing tho', the menu on our table was in chinese! Not one English word on it! I think I'll ask for the menu reserved for the British the next time I go. I can't possibly depend on others for translation all the time. The prices aren't too bad either. It felt nice and satisfying to be eating Chinese food again.

We moved on to the city square where all the shopping is! I saw Gap and TopShop. TopShop here is far bigger and better than the one in Singapore. They ave go so many things! Tons of clothes! Two stories of it (excluding another floor of TopMan). And loads of accessories and underwear. I can foresee I'll be going there pretty often from now on. My mum and I also went to Harvey Nichols. There are only 2 in the world and the other is in London. It's super posh. Like Harrods. There is a doorman who stands outside in smart uniform and opens the door for you. There's nothing but branded stuff in there and super expensive stuff at that!

I remember we took a wrong bus too which brought us to the more rural parts of Leeds. No farms yet, but amazing scenery and beautiful, quaint little houses. With our one-week Green rider bus ticket (£6), we can travel in the central part of Leeds as much as we want.

I've still got to finish my chicken nuggets dinner, so I'll end here. Will be meeting my personal tutor tomorrow who happend to be a "butch". Really manly looking lady. She's the Head of Department tho'. Anyway, I feel alot better now that this accomodation thing is on its way to being settled. I hated the feeling of being in limbo. At least I know Devonshire is willing to let me go. Now if only there was a vacancy in Clarence Dock! Funny how my brother (or his name) comes to save the day again, as his persuasion to get my mum to buy the inflatable bed did!

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