Firstly, I am confused why this city is even pronounced the way it is. They call “Lester”, which is rather odd cos what happen to the Lei sound? Then again many things in England are not pronounced the way they spell it. Situated in the East Midlands, its a nice place not to far from London. The bus ride took a little over 2 hours, and cos me £14 return. If I took a train is only 1 hour, but much more expensive.  I  left London at about 2000 and reached here around 2245, not to bad seeing the bus stopped to pick up passengers twice and that traffic out of London was rather heavy. As soon as I arrived I took a cab to Suzie’s place and we talked and talked and talked. The next morning we woke up quite late and then she took me to the city center where I visited this huge mall. They had some cheap stuff too so I bought a new pair of shoes and some leather gloves for my trip to Edinburgh. We ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant named “Oriental Buffet”, how original I thought, and we just ate and talked. Then we saw the European fair that going on right now, which had stalls from different countries in the Euro. There were mostly food stalls but a few interesting shops with skafts and stuff.

I come from a huge family. My father has 5 sisters and my mom comes from a family of 14 children. As such, I have many aunts and uncles and of course many cousins. I have a few living in England, and last Saturday I stayed over at my cousin Anu’s house in London and had a chance to meet her hubby and 2 kids. Its so nice to meet family and I loved spending time with my two newly discovered Nephew and Niece. The older Varon spend the day showing off his toys and played Nitendo Wii with me. The younger Aditi, was very shy for like 30 minutes but soon was very comfortable and insisted that she sat next to me at the dinner table and the breakfast table She played doll house with me, and showed off the gifts she had earlier gotten at Lucy’s birthday party. Both have been in England since birth I think and speak with a stiff upper lip ;P Its soo cute when they call me “Uncle Nicky”. As I left, the younger insisted that I come back her after I get home. I will definately visit them again soon.

On a chilly Friday evening, Ryan and I grabbed our bags and headed to King’s Cross/St Pancras station via the Nothern line underground and arrived at the place where you board the Eurostar. Went to the automated ticketing machine, inserted my credit card and printed out the tickets I had bought prior to the fire on the tunnel. At first I was worried that it would be extremely croweded and hard to get on board the train, but alas, it was rather easy. We arrived earlier than expected and then put us on an earlier train, which travelled slower because of the damage caused by the fire, but it worked out great as we arrived less than 3 hours after that. Immigration and security not unlike a major airport, but it was fast, and within minutes we were on the train all excited. We sat down, rested and then arrived at Paris Gare du Nord (or Stations to the North). My cousin Edwina met us at the station and then we took the Metro and reached her place in less than 20 minutes. I had never met this cousin of mine, but have always heard her name mention whenever my aunts and other cousins mentioned France. She is the daughter of my mothers oldest sister and was born the same year as my mother. Yes, you read that right. My mother was an aunt before she was even born. Anyway, my cuz has been living in Paris for more than 30 years now, and it was a whole lot of fun talking to her the first night.

Sara’s Aunty and Cousin were back from China, and we spend Sunday morning with them having breakfast. We decided to bring her nephew Anderson with us who stays in Cheras with his godparents. It was a great time of just talking with her family and baby sitting little 6 year old Anderson. The traffic on the weekend was terrible though, with road blocks almost everywhere, sigh.

At friday, Sara bought me a cake which we shared with my cell in celebration. It was a short but good time of fellowship with my cell members

Then came Saturday, the actual birthday. It started of early with Sara and I going to eat Tim Sum at Hong Kee Tim Sum, while we waited for the car to be serviced. It was then off to downtown KL, where I had a gym class. As I entered the gym, the kind staff realized it was my birthday, after swiping my membership card and they wished me! Then we had to settle some stuff in Kajang, and onwards to Church. After church, I had a simple dinner with the usual gang. End of birthday.

Then came sunday, where the same gang who celebrated my birthday last year before I left to Mongolia were present. Sara choose Checkers, a nice cozy place in Bukit Damansara, where the 6 of us feasted in amazing food and just chatted the night away.

It was a great birthday all in all, and I realized how blessed I am Thanks to everybody who wrote on my facebook wall and sms ed me!! Love you all!