London Pass

During my recent London and UK trip I decided to get the London Pass to see the attractions around London. Got to know about this pass through the blogs online, so decided to post my experience using it so hopefully this can come in handful for others to plan their holiday.

There are 2 types of London Pass, 1 is just the pass and 1 comes with Travel card. With the travel card, you can have unlimited travel using the tube and bus around London for free during the length of the pass only. Its quite useful but i opted not to get the travel card cause I already have the Oyster card and I can have better control of the money used for travel. I bought my pass online from their site https://www.londonpass.com and got the physical card option cause wanted to keep it as a souvenir once I'm done. Collected the card at their collection center near Leicester square. Got the 3 day pass cause they were having a promotion of 20% if get 3 days compared to 2 days. 1 day pass is £59, 2 days is £79 and 3 days is £95, since had the 20% the 3 day pass is £85.50, which is £6.50 more than the 2 day pass. So it was a no-brainer to go for 3 days. Here is the breakdown of what I went for and how much it would have costs if you went without the London Pass.

Day 1
- Tower of London (£22.50). A must visit, get to see the crown jewels and Queen's Guard, lots of history in this place.
- Tower Bridge Exhibition (£9). Nothing much, only get to stand on the glass panel floor and looking down to the road and river below and see the Victorian Engine rooms.
- HMS Belfast (£16). Totally enjoyed this ship. Spent quite some time exploring and seeing how the crew used to live. Pretty sure most guys will enjoy this place, very metal smell inside and feels like living in a Hollywood war movie
- London Bridge Experience (£26.95). Horror movie fans should enjoy this as you get to feel walking around a haunted place with lots of jump scare at every turn.
- The Old Operating Theater Museum (£6.50). I simply entered here cause had time to kill and was nearby. Get to see a very old operating theater which was above a church. Medical people will appreciate this place more

Day 2
- Arsenal Stadium tour (£20). My favourite place, nuff said. Self guided tour with audio, so you can take as long as you want looking around the stadium.
- Westminster Abbey (£20). Beautiful place to visit, but kinda pricey. Heard if you go on Sunday around 5 or 5.30 pm they have some prayers or songs, so you can enter for free.
- Churchill War Rooms (£17.25). Nothing much for me as lots of WW2 history, lots of reading materials everywhere. I prefer to see old and beautiful things :P

Day 3
- Royal Observatory Greenwich (£9.50). Pretty much paying that price just to see the GMT 0 line and seeing some old clocks and astronomy stuff. This place is on a hill, so its quite a walk up, but nothing so bad, just take your time and enjoy the scenery around that place.
- Chelsea Stadium tour (£22). Guided tour at Stamford Bridge so you have to follow the tour guide, tour takes around 1 hour, so you cant spend time walking around like the Arsenal tour. Its always nice to see whats inside the stadium and where the players hang out
- Kensington Palace (£16.30). Nice to see where the Royals used to live before, pretty garden outside.

All together it would have cost me £186 for all the attractions above, but using the London Pass it was only £85.50, a savings of  about £100. If you're planning to get the London Pass, you will need to plan your journey and the attractions which you want to visit so you can maximise the time you have each day. The full list of places covered by the pass is at their website. As most places opens at 9 am and closes by 5 pm, so plan wisely. I spoke to a guy from my tour about the London Pass and he said it was a waste, cause he took the Hop on Hop off bus tour and it took up most of their time due to the jam. Since I was already walking around London on my own, I decided to skip the bus. If you look at my Day 1, all those attractions were nearby and walking distance, just be prepared to walk a lot, wear a comfortable pair of sports shoes and enjoy London :)

Reboot

These days, when things are not going as planned, reboot. We can see that happening to movies which are old and don't appeal to the current crowd/generation. This approach can also be done in life, reboot yourself. Throw or flush away the things which was part of your life which does not have any positive impact to you now and start back new, fill it up with something more current. Living in the past does not move you forward, it will always be something which will be holding you back from truly experiencing life and living it to its fullest.

As for this year,  Jurassic World and Terminator Genisys were sort of a soft reboot, where they continued the story with new cast while keeping the nostalgic part/scenes which we still remember previously. This approach does work as that is what we are familiar with and seeing those scenes again, we tend to feel nostalgic and that immediately catches our attention for the movie.

Well I was talking about reboots because I just went through all my previous posts from my past 2 blogs and wow, recalled so many things which happened before that I complete forgot about. I also could see how I was thinking back then and how spontaneous I could type a blog post. For these past 2 years, it's been hard to come up with something interesting to blog about. I blame this mainly on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you get it. With the improvement in technology, I realised that we tend to think much short term and our post become very short and to the point. Many bloggers I know also have all slowed down and mainly just come up with funny/interesting things to say on Twitter and Facebook. This is how the world is evolving, and I'm writing this post not to start back blogging or anything, I just realise that its nice to leave something imprinted here in the net where future me can see and remember how I was and my thoughts were at this moment in time.

I have to admit, since father passed, my life have been very much different. The first 2 years was coping and adjusting and then its been pretty stagnant and boring. Living each day as it comes, most days have been very routine and the next thing I know, a new year is upon us.  Easily 2 years have been like this without anything new/interesting happening in my life. I see my friends moving on in their lives and career and I am somehow just stuck and not moving. I have been trying to change but somehow things just don't work out. The only thing which has been the highlight for the past few years is I managed to save some money and travel few countries in South East Asia.

Now with lots more commitment under my belt, traveling wont be easy but its not impossible. For me, it's time to remember back the things which made me happy and the things I like to do and start doing things for myself. Time to find that ability I had to write short stories/articles which would make peoples day, make them happy, even for just a little bit. Looks like its time to hit that button and embrace any new challenge/opportunities life throws at me as I feel I am ready for a change. A reboot :)

Yearly

Yes, I still managed to keep my word. This is my yearly blog post, haha. Trying to at least do this so I don't forget the nonsense I've written in the past. It's always nice to look back at how my mind was few years ago. Have I matured? I guess so.
Feels weird to write a blog post now cause seems like even blogging is now something ancient. Previously I knew a lot of people who write good articles in their blog, seems like in time, the blog is soon to be buried in the vast and growing Internet Graveyard. Just like how Friendster is now 6 feet under :P

Lately what I used to write in blogs/articles, I'm just writing it as a short and simple Facebook status or in a meme picture which summarizes what is intended to be shared out there. Its faster, simpler and easier to convey the message while on the go.

I would also like to take this opportunity to have a moment of silence to all our once favourite internet services. I will truly remember all of you as you have played a very big role in my life growing up. To laughing like bloody fools in front of the pc chatting, to seeing when your crush is online, to sending assignment homework to friends and vice versa before submitting it the next day. Many many memories.

Rest in peace
- Hotmail email, now Outlook

- MSN Messenger

- Friendster

- ICQ (117715863, damn I still remember my ICQ number)

- mIRC

Ps - Seems some old picture link which I used are not available, hence the blank picture in certain post..

Before the end

From blogging once a week, to once a month, now it has come to this, once a year. Congratulations Sarv. Well I felt its best for me to write this post before the year ends, and if at all the world ends tomorrow. I shall try to post at least once a year from now on k, if we all survive our impending doom. ahaha.

Speaking of world end, I do believe it will end someday, but just now tomorrow. And it cant end in just a day, some series of events will take place and slowly everything will slowly start to collapse and the world we once knew shall be gone.

Since my last post last year, many things have changed. New job, people coming and going in life, some good, some bad. No matter what, if and most probably 2013 will be upon us soon, I hope it will be a much better year for all. It should be, because it has to be, because I want it to be (Yes, be positive)

In the mean time, this is the last time humanity have access to the internet, I want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year........ just in case 21-12-2012 happens =P

Transformers 3 in 10 seconds

*CAUTION - Do not read this post if you dont wanna know the movie's plot. Dont say I didn't warn ya.. =P*

This summer's biggest blockbuster is here. Tickets for Transformers 3 has been selling like hot cake since the past week, and I made sure I buy the tickets early cause I dont wanna delay in watching this movie. Main reason  --> people are gonna be posting how awesome it was on FB when I havent watched it yet. So yeah.. oh, that and also because it FREAKIN TRANSFORMERS  =P hehe..

And I made a promise not to post anything bout the movie on FB cause many wouldn't have watched it yet, and it would only make them feeling more miserable and suicidal, but I couldn't help myself.. I just had to post something..  This time, not because it was awesome.. but pretty much the opposite of awesome.. But how can a Transformers movie be not awesome?? Better ask Michael Bay.. Here are a few reasons:
1)  My wife (Megan Fox) not in it this time.. =(  her replacement, Rosie did ok i guess, she cant do much anyway, she is just there for eye candy.. I still miss Foxy =(
2) Story was all over the place..
3) Jokes were lame..
4) Action mostly during the ending, but that was like for a good 1 hour. Nothing special, seen most of it in the previous movies..

Here is what the whole movie is about. If I made this movie with its current script, the movie will only be about 10 seconds long.. hehe

- NASA finds Transformers crashed ship on moon. Send Buzz Aldrin to investigate ( yea, right)
- Optimus pissed cause humans never inform him
- Optimus emo
- Good guys bring back Sentinel Prime, turns out he bad guy.
- Sentinel and Megatron try conquer world.
- Optimus emo again
- Rosie calls Megatron Sentinel's bitch
- Megatron emo, then attack Sentinel, then Optimus kills both of them

There you have it, it took Michael Bay 2 1/2 hours to tell this story, which I told in 10 seconds.. hehe =P

I can go on complaining how disappointed I am with this movie, but I shall leave it to all of you to decide, cause so far, many have said the movie was awesome.. So everybody is entitled to their own opinion.. But in the end, your opinion sucks.. cause this movie sucks.. hehe =P

Even he was crying watching the movie

2011?

2010 is gone and we all welcomed 2011 with open arms. Never really liked 2010 though, been a real pain to me. And I know I promised I would blog more, actually I did, but was only during the beginning  of 2010. Then I switched job and didn't have as much free time as I used to. Before this, ideas to blog came while I was just wasting my time waiting for the KTM train, standing while being squashed in the KTM train for 1 hour or simply while waiting for the next KTM train cause the previous one was full.. So I had plenty of time then.

And after so long of not blogging, I have become rusty. Even as I'm typing this, the ideas are not coming out that smoothly. You see, I'm using words like smoothly now.. My English has become karat d. And Im not proud to say I don't read enough. Generally Malaysian don't read at all after school, except a few of them who I know cant keep a book away. Good for you, I have no idea how you can find the time and effort to pick up a book and read.. But who say Malaysian don't read, we read FACEBOOK.. I think the amount of time we spend each day stalking and going through all those status updates in a week, would be equivalent to a Harry Potter book la. We Malaysian are avid readers. haha

I think I shall continue to blog, but not so often, just to maintain this space. I realised that what ever posted here, will remain here until the world ends in 2012 or when internet is no longer used by humans. And its damn fun to read all those post which I posted a few years ago, kinda shows how I have changed through the years. Sometimes I even wonder why I posted such stupid stuff back then, but its all cool.. It shall be left as memories which can be viewed in the future. Speaking of memories, go and log into your Friendster account. Hehe. Its a lost world out there. Feels like you're walking around in an empty street (I am Legend).. Damn zombified place.. hehe.. But all the messages and testimonials are all still there. Back then testimonials were the in thing, now its wall post on FB. Imagine someone posting a testimonial on your FB wall now such as below:

"SRV is a nice guy, I've known him since secondary school and he is such a gem of a character. Who ever wants to know a great guy, this is the perfect guy for you.."

Yea, you get the picture.. So many things have changed in just a few years. Who knows what will it be like in the future..
Is Justin Bieber going to be the next president? 

The Finger of Doom

While innocently entering the office loo to do some important business, I came across this..

 Couldn't stop laughing.. The toilet pump giving the finger.. LOL..