I got a temp job in Nottingham!!!

Hi there friends, its me again reporting from Nottingham. Let me give you a little introduction about Nottingham. Anyone who knows Robin Hood would know where he hides, right? Thats Sherwood forest which in Nottingham. Its a city full of legends, especially the Robin Hood story.

This place has a very comprehensive public transport network. We have punctual busses and trams here. Public transport are all linked together in a wonderful network to just about everywhere in town and residental areas. You will not need a car here unless you have some extra quids to spend. :P

As the networks are linked together, means 1 standard ticket for all forms of transport. Just £2.70 a day I can get to just about anywhere I want on any busses or trams.

Here is how the tram looks like:

Want to know how my current dossing place looks like? Here you go, its my aunt's house and its really comfy:

At times, we have to cook instant noodles...thats the cheapest food we can get. Easy, fast and hassle free!!!

I normally goes to the chinese takeaway where my cousin sister is working in. So happens that few days ago, her boss requires a counter boy to start work immediately. This is at the other takeaway branch somewhere in Hyson Green. What do you think I did? I agreed to start immediately without second thought. Its my 3rd day of work now, so far so good as this is just a temporary position until I secure an engineering post. I have got a few call from job agencies but they need time to search for the best position to suit my qualifications and experience. Rather than staying at home feeling helpless and bored, I decided to go ahead and start earning. Not too bad yeah!! Just 9 days after arrival and I have got a job! Here is how my work place looks like:

Want to what I do there? Well as a counter boy, I pick up calls from customers for takeaway. I sometimes need to wipe windows and sweep the floor. I also process orders from internet orders which is SMS-ed (text) together with customer details to our mobile phones. Quite busy at times but I enjoy doing it. Its much easier than kitchen work. Pay is about £200+ per week, not bad isn't it?

In case you didn't spot it. My chinese takeaway is called Chasing Dragon.

Well till the next time, here is all my update for now. Ciaozzz...

Days in Nottingham...

Just after arrival to Nottingham, my aunt invited us to have a welcoming lunch in a chinese restaurant. Really great to be having chinese food again in UK.

Next day, I took the gals to Victoria Centre in town. We took a bus there, which is quite convenient. There is mainly 2 major shopping centre in Nottingham here, one is Victoria Centre and the other one is Broadmarsh centre. We also did some preliminary sight seeing and getting used to the people there. At the same time, we even look for job agencies for immediate vacancies.

I got this Vodaphone Pay As You Go mobile plan. Basically its the same as prepaid mobile service in Malaysia. Topping up is easy with this blue electronic kiosk shown below, just need to key in our mobile number and then insert the desired amount of notes to top up. Its that easy! After which the amount will be automatically loaded. No hassle of keying in long top up codes!!!

:)

The next day we went to a chinese takeaway shop in the evening. My cousin sister is working there as a counter girl. Basically that means she takes all the phone and on the counter orders. We went there to learn about counter work as we might get such jobs in weeks to come. This is of course not permanent but keeps us going until we get better jobs. Most of all, we get free food from the cook. Not really delicious but at least its cantonese food.

Arrival to Nottingham!!!

Hi mates, its me again reporting from Nottingham. We took a train from London straight to Nottingham on 13th Sept 07. Its really a pleasant trip with loads of fast moving sceneries. Since we were travelling in group of 4, we manage to get the discount ticket which costed only 11 pounds each where the normal price can go up to 40 pounds. Here was how we looked with the massive luggages right next to us:

After the arrival to Nottingham, we have to travel on a cab to my aunty's place since her car was fully loaded with our luggages. Its a real cool thing to take a cab as I discovered Nottingham cabs are all equipped with GPS system, wicked ain't it? Here is what we saw from the cab:

My aunty owns a house in St. Anns, Nottingham. Its not really big, 3 rooms and 2 toilets, double storey with fully central heating system. Its the typical kind of English home where the walls look like bulks of well arranged red bricks. We have to stay here for sometime until we secure a job to fund our expenses and living. Only then, we will move out to a rented property.

The weather in Nottingham is a little cooler than London since it is a little further north from it. However, suprisingly, the sun is happily casting long shadows over us, just like a real warm greeting for us to Nottingham. So, whats next? Its time for job hunting!

Arrival to Heathrow Airport, London

This second flight is quite good actually, as we were served red and white wine. Nice and tasty.
Just fitting for the beef meal I had. The lunch meal was actually quite heavy so I had to spare a few bits for the garbage bin. Nevertheless, wonderful.



Finally its the afternoon of 9/11 at about 2.30 pm (GMT 0 hours), we touch base at Heathrow Airport. Thinking of all the great things ahead, well not so good after all when we saw this crowd (picture below) at the immigration counters. Massive crowd, and we were no way near the officers. I think its because of 9/11. My advise is not to travel on 9/11.

Its was a horrible wait of 3 hours at the airport, upon reaching the counter we were told to go for medical check up and chest X-Ray, so another 1 hour wasted. After the check, we got back to the immigration counter for an official passport stamping. After that, head off to reclaim baggage, which has long left the conveyor, so we had to look for it from the airline office. So far, at this point we have spent about 24 hours travelling with lack of sleep and water.

Its was all rush and tiring. However, it was all worth the wait and hassle as we got through just fine in the end of it all.

So you think everything should be smooth sailing up to this point? You were wrong! We had to carry the luggage loads all the way from the airport to The Tube(LRT in msia). I am the only guy on this trip, so what do you expect of me? Hahaha....my arms went totally numb after all the load and offload to catch the Tube. It was all a mad rush, as it was the peak hour when we took the Tube, massive crowd leave us little and sometimes no space for the luggage. To make things worse, the tube line we were on was having severe delays due to signal failure.

Everyone was getting real tired and stressed. We had dinner then with my aunt at Leicester Square (Chinatown) before heading our own ways to Belsize (North London) and Brixton (South London). Our group split into 2 then as we have limited accommodation space to fit all 4 in any one location. Thats all the update I have for all of ya, my dear friends!!!

Till the next round....its cold here...and its time to head on to Nottingham. :-)

UK!!! Here I come!!!

Finally, here comes my departure to UK. My parents sent us off to catch the 6pm bus, so we did all the hugging and goodbye kisses before boarding the bus from Bercham. Great bus I would say as all our luggages fits perfectly into the double decker.

Reach airport around 9.45 pm feeling all drowsy. Our flight will depart at 2 am so there were plenty of time to burn. We had a light meal in McD, some did the last minute calling to friends and family members before embarking on this long journey into UK.

Finally around 1.00am we found ourselves boarding the flight to Dubai, 6 hours+, as expected, the seats were tight and not comfortable at all. Even a toilet seat feels better to sit on as i could stretch my legs forward with ample space. So we reach Dubai around 4.45am(GMT +4 hrs). Waited in the airport for 5 hours before boarding another 777-300ER jet to London Heathrow airport. We took the opportunity to freshen up and catch some sleep while roaming around the duty free area.

BBQ party with friends

I took sometime off to barbeque with friends before going for my UK trip..here are some pictures. It was all great. I did the satay sticks BBQ, so it was definitely delicious. There were so much fun and food. We ended up giving out foods to everyone towards the end of it.