My parents' trip to United Kingdom (Part 1)

Oh my, am I tired? It has been hectic and I will do some updates on the activities that me and my parents have done together for the past days. Anyway, let's start.

Day 1 - 17/07/2006 (Mon)

My parents arrived at Heathrow Airport (London) from Kuala Lumpur. I waited ever since 4.00 pm because I did want them to see my face first and not to get panicked or anything. The plane landed early and by 6:30 pm they were already at the arrival lounge. My dad hugged me. Well, he must be too happy to see me or to be in UK? Whatever that was, I was glad they were safe. I must thank MAS for the service, my mom was telling me (1000th time), that there was always a MAS person taking care of them throughout the journey. We took the coach to go back to Cambridge. It took us 2+ hours and then we hopped on a taxi to get to my house. They rested.

Day 2 - 18/07/2006 (Tue)

My parents at the The Leys School, the building at the back is King's Building where I used to spend hours learning Math.

The idea was to go back to my old school The Leys in Cambridge which is 5 mins away from my house. This is the school I spent 2 years at, doing A’ Levels. So the idea of bringing my parents to meet the Registrar, Mr MacGregor was great, so that he would go around the school explaining things, what I did, where I lived, the school food I hated and how much I liked to complain. Well, he did not really do that I guess. But I did remind him on something unpleasant done by Dr Jessop to me in the class - the fact that I could not answer one Mechanic question led to the delay of the whole class from having early lunch break! *ha-ha*

The wall was covered by drawings by this Hong Kong student at The Leys School, under the Art Scholarship. I think, his drawings are commendable and of high standard for A Levels.

My parents and Mr MacGregor, the person who used to take care of me for 2 years as Housemaster of Fen House, who was also my Chemistry teacher.

He covered almost all buildings from the headmaster's house, music school, pitches, humanity school to my old house - Fen House, which I was forbidden to go in since it is an all-girls house now. When we where in the Chapel, Mr McGregor did point out where I used to sit when I had to attend the mass/service every Sunday. We finished the school at about 12:30 and then we headed home since it was lunch time and we were all tired. I planned to take them out again, then I realised, they did not have the energy like me. So I planned to take it easy for them.

Day 3 - 19/07/2006 (Wed)

I read on BBC website that today would be the hottest day, with 37C to boil us all alive. I said to my parents let's start early, so that the sun would not be at its peak and there's be less people. True enough, there were less people and the sun was not as bright and fiercely shining.

We headed to Auntie's Tea for English breakfast where we had English Tea. Before that we stopped at Judge Business School since I needed to tell them that that's where I spent most of my time at. For breakfast we had scones and tea. Uh so much for the English Experience. The scone was great, that is the reason why I like to frequent the place. They enjoyed the breakfast.

Soon after that, we headed to Scudamores Punting Co by Magdalene College to start punting along the River Cam. The best part of punting with the guide was; he told us the history behind all the colleges. We passed St John's, Trinity, Clare, Trinity Hall and Queen's (I should have applied for this college! ha-ha). After we were done with the punting we did the college-hopping where I took them to St John's and it's famous Bridge Of Sighs (the bridge was replicated after one bridge in Venice connecting a prison and the death-sentence chamber. So the prisoners would pass through the bridge and "sigh" as they knew that that was the end. Similarly, as for St John's students, the students would "sigh" on their way to the examination block from their studies, as these two areas are separated by the bridge).

The ceiling at the entrance of St John's, I think it is simply amazing with all those intricate designs, and who'd notice that?

The college hopping went on, we checked out Trinity as well. My parents were so delighted to see such enormous buildings erected hundreds of years ago. And I managed to capture the apple tree that had inspired Newton to come up with his Newton's Law of Physics (gravity and the like). I would plan to take them to King's College and the famous Chapel, perhaps one of these days (this is is a must!). As for tomorrow, I plan to take them to Ely, as planned earlier.

My parents at St John's. On the right is Bridge of Sighs and on the left is another area of St John's (not the main court/quad).

Note: As I am updating this, it is 9:04 pm and my parents are fast asleep since 4.00 pm. I have adjusted the plan since they are not able to fight the jet-lag really. But I am happy that I have shown a lot of Cambridge already!