2008 in London!

It took them 51 weeks of planning, months of design work and a week of night-time construction - when tourists are scarce on London's South Bank - to lay the equipment necessary to welcome year 2008 with a £1.3 million, ten-minute bang. Designed by a French pyrotechnic (the emperor of pyrotechnics whose previous triumphant displays include Millennium celebrations at Eiffel Tower, opening ceremony of Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and closing ceremony of 1998 World Cup in Paris) and his team from the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2004 Athens Olympics, this year's fireworks is probably the biggest in history. An approximate number of 700,000 people were here to witness this 10-minute show here at London.
Hence, that explains why this is probably the best fireworks I've ever seen in my whole entire life. Anyway.....

Heng Kai wishes everyone Happy New Year 2008! For my family/friends who are back in Malaysia or in other countries, wishing you all the best in everything you do! I know I'm a very terrible person when it comes to keeping in touch with others; and I do hope we (either me or you) will keep in touch more often in the future :)

For those who are studying/with me in the UK, may 2008 be another successful year for us! We shall strive to study, work hard and do better than last year.

All in all, I'm not writing down my resolutions for this year over here since I don't really have one. Personally, I think it's not necessary as I don't believe that it'll certainly come true. However, I do have my own targets/goal to achieve for 2008. If you have your own resolutions, I'll be more than happy to hear it out :)

Goodbye 2007 and together we shall welcome 2008.

See the fireworks here for yourself: (Taken from BBC)

EESoc Christmas Dinner

EESoc's Christmas Dinner this year was held at Kensington Marriott Hotel (yes, of all places, it's the one opposite big Sainsbury's). Somehow had an intuition that the food wouldn't be that great but it turned out alright. Roast norfolk turkey and glazed ham with cranberry was simply scrumptious! *drools* I'm actually still missing it at the moment.

Anyway, below is how the event went:

The gents from Flat 54 arrived ridiculously early for the drinks at 6.30pm (dinner was at 8).

Drinks served. (Champagne and orange juice)

Then, a while later..

(someone sauntered through the crowd)
DW: Isn't that Roy Keane?
Me: *blur a while* Roy Keane is here??
DW: Yeaa, I think I saw him

*DW = Deng Wei

I thought he mistaken Roy for someone else instead until Shin Hung confirmed that he, too, saw him.

Roy Keane was there since the Sunderland team will be staying at that hotel before their match with Arsenal (I think) the following day.

(Anyway, I'm not a HUGE fan of football like DW and Shin Hung but I recalled watching Roy Keane on field when he was playing for Man U last time)

Next up, it was dinner followed by a lucky draw.

The gents from Flat 54

Table 13 with Prof Peter Cheung

Ben, Chris, Megan and I

And lastly, guess what?

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TADA!

Yes, I was one of the lucky draw winners for the night (lucky number 144). Received a £30 gift card to Harrods! Not too bad eh?!

Alright, will be signing off now and I'll try to blog more soon!

Imperial Centenary Launch Day

30th Jan 2007 marks the Centenary of Imperial College London. It's a day of celebration for all the people at the College. Unfortunately, lectures were not cancelled and had to go on as usual :( Nevertheless, the celebration was rather impressive.

It all started off early in the day when the Queen Tower's bells were rung to herald the start of this momentous year for Imperial. Music was then played throughout the day. When I reached College, it was somewhat different to me. Not because there were balloons everywhere but I felt a slight change in environment. People were exceptionally jovial, excited and boisterous.

I had my lectures until 12pm and then, FREE to join the celebration! Lunch in SCR (Senior Common Room) was awesome. And, it's cheap!

Menu for the day. Only for £1.50!


This was what I had. I should have taken the Salmon! It would have been much better.

Imperial even has its own red wine :S

After lunch, we headed to Queen's Lawn and started taking photos. There were jugglers as well.

Me, Shin Hung and Deng Wei [At Queen's Lawn]

London Fire Brigade! This vehicle is maintained by the people from the Mechanical Engineering Department

And, the interesting part: They allowed students to enter Queen's Tower!
For your information:
The Queen's Tower is 287m tall. There are 324 steps from the ground to the base of the dome.

They lock Queens Tower for a very good reason: This is where students of Imperial committed suicide in the past.

We waited for about 2 hours to enter Queens Tower :S


We were all bored and decided to take more photos. LOL




In Queens Tower


Top of the Tower!


Royal Albert Hall from the top of the tower!

We had a free Centenary Cake!

Happy 100th Birthday Imperial!

Christmas Eve 2006

Christmas has never been a dreary occasion for me. I LOVE Christmas. Every year, my friends and I will come up with something; be it a countdown, party, or gathering. My parents are just too lazy to go out anywhere. They rather watch TV or sleep at home. They always come up with the same old excuse by complaining that they're too old for all these things. Hehe. Christmas 2006 is no different. Oh wait! I think it's slightly different this year: My parents volunteered to countdown in a restaurant-The Ship! They probably want to spend more time with me since I'm back for only 2 weeks. That's the advantage of being the eldest i.e. the first one to be away from home. Everyone will be delighted to see you when you're back! =) Anyway, they chose 'The Ship' for a very splendid reason: it reminisces the good ol' days! We (as in my lovely parents, Heng Yong, Jessica and I) will normally countdown for Christmas in 'The Ship' during our childhood days. That place really mean a lot to us. As for Caroline and Adeline, it will be their first time. They were really hyper and excited. It's really pleasing to see them brimming from ear to ear.

Flashback: Christmas Eve 2005.
I had friends visiting me, everyone wearing the 'Santa Hat', a Christmas cake and the usual Christmas present-exchange thing. Below are some of the pictures:

See the Christmas cake with 2 tiny marshmallows!

Christmas Presents

Christmas Eve 2006.
As mentioned earlier on, it's slightly special. Initially, I assumed my parents would be in their "Ahh. Christmas, I'm lazy to go out" mood, so I've already planned and promised a dinner with my friends. Hence, I went for dinner with them and then countdown with parents! =) Cool huh?! lol.

When I met my family in 'The Ship', they all had their party packs ready; waiting patiently for the clock to strike 12. Immediately when the clock struck 12, people started singing the Christmas Song and my sisters (the 2 younger ones) were squeaking and squealing away. The rest of us stood up; trying to join the crowd and looking at our dear sisters enjoying themselves. For that, yes! We are too old for it. We can't be squeaking like them. It'll be really odd. Hehehe. We really enjoyed ourselves though!

Gathering at Miin Lyn's place after the dinner

My Christmas Present!

My Family!
Top -> from left: Jessica, Me, Heng Yong
Bottom -> from left: Adeline, Mom, Dad, Caroline

Caroline suggested me to take this picture :S

Look at the amount of soft toys my sisters have! Crazy :S

And, of course....

My Christmas gift for my sisters!

P.S. There are some other 'interesting' things which happened in between of course but due to lack of time and laziness, I shall not elaborate further. Hehe.

Interesting Things that happened

There are just too many things going on recently and I'm really too lazy to blog about each and every one of them. I'll probably just include pictures and describe a wee bit about it =)

Friday(8/12/06)
Attended the "eat all you can" lunch at Pizza Hut with my friends. Supposed to beat the record held by the members of the Outdoor Club last year. This is how jobless we get. lol.

the 4 of us in Pizza Hut.

On that same day, I was supposed to attend my department's Christmas Dinner but tickets were all sold out :( couldn't go. Had curry for dinner in a Japanese Restaurant instead. Well, of course don't expect it to be as nice as the one back home. The curry tasted a little awkward but it's not too bad!

Curry Chicken Rice!

Saturday(9/12/06)
Had our first full dress rehearsal for lion dance. It was kinda cool really! Unfortunately, with the costumes, it's really difficult for me to perform the stunts. What more, the head is not exactly THAT light you know!!

Me doing the "2 leg stand". Cool right?!

Lion Dance Team

Later that evening, met up with Cindy and Yin Mei. Since Cindy will be flying back home the following day, we decided to go Harrods, have dinner and oh! I have to give Yin Mei the credit for this: She made red bean soup for the 2 of us and invited us over. That's awfully sweet of her.

Yin Mei, Cindy and I at a Japanese Restaurant (forgot the name, AGAIN!)

At a funfair in Leicester Square. Reminisces my childhood days.

Cindy and I

Yin Mei and I at her kitchen

Hmm, I think you'll get sick of us if I continue posting more pictures. Okay, next...


Tuesday(12/12/06)
My hall had a Christmas Party at 8pm but I had to stay back at college to do some programming since I'll be having test the following day. How sad right? :( Anyway, when I got back around 10pm, my hallmates cheered me up! They seriously made my day. I expected them NOT to know my name honestly since most of the time I'm out. By the way, they call me "Heng". Some will call me Heng Kai.

What happened was, when I actually stepped into the kitchen, they went "HENG!!!!! Surprise! Christmas present for you!" I stood frozen to the ground. I was astonished!

Nice right? Christmas tree in my kitchen!

My hallmates and I

My Christmas Present! :D

Wednesday(13/12/06)
Went to Oxford for a musical theatre - CATS! Since we had a test in the morning, we couldn't go there early and hence, arrived late (3.30pm). It was almost dark already by then :( Oh for those who don't know, in UK, when it's 5pm, it's like Malaysia's 8pm! Yes, it's THAT dark! Sun sets early here. Because of that, we don't get to take a lot of pictures in Oxford. We didn't get to go in to see the Radcliffe Building and others.

Me in Exeter College, Oxford.

In Oxford!


CATS Musical Theatre

Top (from left): Ambarish, Me, Stella, Shi Chian, Deng Wei
Bottom (from left): Audrey, Siew Ping, Jee Wayn

Hope you like what you saw! =)

And, FINALLY! I'm going back TOMORROW! Can't wait to meet up lots of people seriously. I miss my parents, relatives, friends and everyone related closely to me!! Hope to see you people soon. I'm excited.