Settling In Keele

5pm GMT 0 – 17 September 2011

Feels as if 2 days has come and gone, although it was merely a day. The 16 hour flight is finally over. This is the very first time I did not enjoy sitting down, especially if you have to do so for 17 hours in total. I didn’t really get much sleep in the first flight as it was just hard trying to adapt, eventually I gave up trying to sleep but instead tire myself out so that I may rest on the second flight and not suffer from jetlag.

Because of our late arrival to Doha airport, our second flight was also delayed, not just by 20min, but I believe by an hour. During that time I kept having the feeling that we were about to fly, hence I couldn’t sleep because I wanted to consciously see the plane take off. So at every interval of ten minutes, I end up waking up and sleeping, waking up and sleeping. Thus, when the plane finally took off, I had trouble trying to sleep for the next four hours.

So in total, I had 2 hours of sleep from the first flight, another 2 hours from the second, 3 breakfast meals, 2 visits to the toilet. And when we finally arrived at Manchester Airport, we were so exhausted that we were strolling to the arrival hall, the consequence of that - a very long queue. Plus an uncooperative nose was not helping the situation (even now I’m still sneezing and sniffing), due to the lack of proper rest. But nevertheless, I am waiting for the sun to set first before going to bed, to ensure that I totally tired to be able to have a good sleep on a proper bed this time round.

Today, after we finally cleared the checkpoint, a friend of Michael Spicer, Mike as well as his wife greeted us. They will be our tour guide as well as our scheduler for this tour to Keele University.

The temperature in Keele here is awesomely cool and chilly; it’s slightly colder than Melbourne though not as cold as Tasmania or China (though I believe it will get much colder as night falls). As of now in Keele, I already seeing smoke coming out of my mouth as I talk, but strangely, I’m able to cope with the whether even with just a polo shirt and jeans (only if it doesn’t rain).

Over here, a standard license should be able to allow you to rent a 16-seat van and drive it. This was how we were driven out of the airport today before it had to be returned. It was a pretty powerful van, only that it’s speed was limited to 600mph(close to 100km/h), but nevertheless, it got us safely to our hostel in an hour or so.

After we unloaded our stuff into a random conference room (since the hostels weren’t ready for check in). We had quite a fun time looking for a place to eat lunch today, the originally plan was to eat around Keele Village which was where our hostels were. The food outlets there were only a 20min walk away from our hostels. However, and unusually as well, the eating-place we wanted to go to was closed (and from what I overheard, will no longer we open on the weekends like it used to do). So we went to the other side of New Castle under Lyme to find another eating-place, only to realize it was not open as well!

So, as improvisers, Mike and his wife changed their plans and drove us down to New Castle On Lyme, where we found malls and many restaurants open. So, there were many options to what we can eat, from Chinese food, to fast food, to some Thai dish, of which we chose western food since it was hat we also came here to try.

So, we had our very first lunch in UK at a small bar restaurant named Yates’ (apparently they cater to children as well!). So yes, at first sight, the restaurant was quite a culture shock to me, seeing shelves and shelves of beer bottles and wine and even Carlsberg Beer dispenser. But thankfully they don’t just serve beer, they serve plain water too, for free and of course they have good food as well.

Should you ever visit this place, you should try their BBQ Chicken Melt. Though their quantity may be a bit small, but for the quality is really worth it. The unusual thing about this restaurant is the Two Meals offer (should you want to order a meal from this place, you should order two if it instead of just one). Take for example, a set of BBQ Chicken Melt cost 5.75 pounds but buying 2 sets cost 5.95 pounds with this offer! I wonder if the whole point of it was to encourage you to eat 2 sets all buy yourself. Given my capacity to eat and the severity of my hunger, I believe I was capable of finishing that.

And we sat there for 1-2 hours (I think), waiting for Mike to return to pick us up (because he had to return the van), and also waiting out the rain (which was intermittent). During that time I was pretty much tasting the difference between the HP Sauce and the tomato sauce, as well as taking pictures of the place and stoning on my seat (After-lunch effect).

It was not long before Mike arrived in the restaurant and he came to fetch us with a camper’s van - an awesome van that has it’s own kitchen build in it (Basically like a caravan only that the driver’s seat and the bed is all in one vehicle)! The catch was, it could only sit 6 people in total, and we had 12. Hence we had to split up into 2 groups where one group will leave first while the other waits for the second trip. I opted not to go off first because I saw that there were other people in need of rest than I was, and by that time, the rooms were I guess more or less ready to be checked in.

So seven squeezed into the van and left, while 5 waited. So while waiting, the five of us – Clara, Gabriel, Michael, Valarie and myself talked about our rough travel plans this week and had insights to Michael’s traveling experience in his younger days of how he had to be in different countries and even continents almost everyday, touring about with Redgum and his keyboard playing days and how he had been in most of the UK states except the central parts like Italy and Austria.

And so, the van came back for us to bring us back to the hostel. But our journey to the hostel was not a direct one. We had a couple of sidetracks and ‘distractions’ that made this journey back home more interesting than usual. Near the Student’s union, we met a group of Chinese students form China who were struggling their way uphill with two huge luggage. Having an urge to help, Mike stopped the van and offered to help them. So we loaded their luggage up the van and drove them to their destination at the Arts Center.

The next diversion was an interesting one, we happened to be passing by a building called the Darwin Mansion, and I don’t know if Michael request Mike for a tour of this place, but Mike stopped and let us take a few photos of this Mansion/Castle. Apparently, Keele University was build upon this Darwin’s Mansion and expanded to what it is today. Looking at this Mansion and the space around it seriously made me wonder how rich the Englishmen were, being blessed with financial wealth to build and live in one of these.

So after taking pictures of the building and it’s garden, we got back to our hostels to check in and to remove our bags from the conference room. We were told before this trip that we were going to share bedrooms with another partner, which meant 2 in a room. Surprisingly, that was not the case (I guessed they had enough rooms to house the 13 of us). We each had our own private rooms! What pleasant surprise that was.

I seriously thank God for his provision of a wonderful room here, you have no idea how much I love this place, The Mews. Firstly, because it is at the ground floor, so I won’t have to carry the luggage up the stairs (there was no lift).

Secondly, the room had sufficient provisions, a comfy and tempting bed (with two pillows (Y), one to sleep on, one as a bolster), soup and shower foams, towels, a water boiler, a cup and a tea spoon, a heater which actually works, a water heater of course, and a cupboard wit racks and hangers to store my clothes neatly. Other luxuries that came with it was a bath-tub (though I didn’t have a need for it), a tissue paper (that came in handy for my running nose), tea bags of different flavors, coffee powder, white and brown sugar, and an awesome chocolate abbys drink hopefully can bring back to show you).

Thirdly, I was close to everyone; hence visiting one another was just a simple walk next door or next floor. So I’ll be getting some cup noodles soon for our cup-noodle gathering, hopefully tonight or tomorrow night.

Fourthly, right next to our place was a wonderful lounge, where there is Wi-Fi for me to post these blog post, as well as chairs and tables to sit down and talk, and of course really hospital reception that would cater to your request where possible and show you around the Keele Management Centre. Hence, if anyone is worried if I coping well here, rest assured I am not just well provided, but maybe overly provided. (So much for packing so many things in the luggage, I end up only using my toothbrush and toothpaste.)

After a short break of 2 hours or so, I also joined Johannes and the rest – Sandy, Anna and Zheng Jie, to the gym. Well, yes there is a gym but it is in the campus, so it’s about a 30min- 35min walk down the street to the main entrance of the campus and into the sports hall. I didn’t join them to work out so I left early along with Sandy back to the hostel (you need to sign some safety forms to use them, if you are a student, you will need to book a time slot, but since we are visitors of a conference…haha, you know.)

Well, walking back and forth the place is worth it nevertheless, not just a good exercise, but at least now I know how to get to the campus from the hostel.

So yes, it is more or less time to go for dinner, so we’ll be gathering at the restaurant next door form here. Hopefully, the food will be just as great as the one at Yates’. :)

Stay tuned for more updates…