Malaysia Hall

I first flew into the UK as a Government Scholarship holder in August 1990. It was a couple of weeks before Merdeka Day, which a bunch of us celebrated by visiting the High Commissioner at his home clad in our national colours. We also had an orientation week at Bedford School in between, for which we had the time of our lives. We were then placed at Malaysia Hall while waiting for the school term to open - mine was on the second week of September. The Hall then became our home.

Since I was in a boarding school - doing A Levels as a Sixth Former - we had three major term holidays, as well as mid-term breaks of a week in between. During this time, we would congregate into London again from our schools all over the country, and back to our base which is Malaysia Hall. It became part of our lives' routine, my life and all the students doing A Levels during the time. We were in our late teens and we bonded with each other - most of us were now Doctors and Professionals back home.

Seymore Sports Center where we played badminton and went swimming during school breaks. Located just round the corner from Malaysia Hall.By the time we were on our second year, we were a bit more clever. Rather than staying at Malaysia Hall, we rented apartments across the street at Edgwere Road. There were no curfew and we also had the audacity to cook for ourselves, and stayed up all night watching TV and stuffs. It was a big deal back then. We spent the day going out watching movies - that was where Whiteley's came in, bowling and the afternoon playing football down Hyde Park. It was grand!

I was in the middle row, in blue Baju Melayu and wearing songkok. This was 1991, as I was already wearing glasses.. Thanks to Mimi for this photo.The day I shaved my tache clean, a week before going to boarding school for the first time. 1990. I was on the back row, right most.I was pretty sure that this was on Hari Raya in 1991. I could be wrong though.There were also the little matter of Hari Raya where we would congregate in our best clothes for Prayers and visit the local Malaysians as well as again, the High Comm - he must have been sick of us lot by then. It was a coming of age for all of us, and we shared it amongst friends and Malaysia Hall.

That was why, I felt compelled to trace back the route I once took yesterday, by visiting the site that was Malaysia Hall, as well as Edgwere Road, Marble Arch and Hyde Park. I took a peak at a window where I used to escape from to get some ice creams from Edgwere Road after curfew - the main door was closed at 11 pm and most of us spent the evening at the reading room on the basement - and it had a window.

I thought I turned out OK in the end. Here during the MRCP PACES Course in Sungai Buloh earlier this year. I had become a teacher ..... of sorts!The site as it was yesterday was turned back into apartments. The bronze plague which read 'Malaysia Hall' was no longer there. The window at the basement was completely sealed. The famous basement cafeteria next door was also renovated. I must confess that I felt sad, and I was sure many generations of students similar to me felt the same thing. Gone were also the Friday Khutbah, when we could at least hear the sermon in Malay. That place was special to me, it was there no more.

Early Start

After my walk around town yesterday, I woke up charged. Full of beans this morning as I head down for breakfast. I then found out that I was a tad too early. The breakfast hall was only opened at 7. So, I enjoyed the free wifi instead before heading off to join the 8 am rush hour into the Exhibition Center.

It was just after the first series of talk when I drafted this entry. In severe need of coffee, but to be honest the speakers has been very good so far. As you can see from my notebook, it was getting a bit intense although disappointingly, most of the data were already presented 6 months ago at the American meeting. They ended up by updating what was available, but nothing earth-shattering were announced so far.

After this trip, I was invited to give a local update on the day of my birthday. The topic was multiple myeloma and I managed to get the details for my talk within the first session. I can now enjoy the test of the conference without really having much pressure.

Walk into Town

After lunch, I took the conference bag - all 2.5kg of them - back to my hotel room, FaceTime Anita and the boys before heading back out. Destination, Central London.

From Canary Wharf, I took the Jubilee Line - in Zone 2 - straight to Bond Street, changed to Central Line to Queensway and had lunch at one of the kebab house there. Just like the good old student days. There, I heard in the background a lady talking to her children in Malay. Sure enough, you would more than likely bump into Malaysians around here, being one of the hub for Halal food. I chatted with the husband later on, and they had been here for almost 2 weeks and would be flying home tomorrow evening. A nice school holiday treat foe their children I must say.

After lunch, I went to Whiteley's, where my favourite cinema from the student time stood. It has since changed company but it was still going strong. After lingering around for a while, I doubled back to Central Lie alighting at Oxford Circus, where I really started my journey. It was a nice sunny day and without the breeze, it was warm enough that I had to lose my jacket.

I had to make a confession here, amongst the first shop I walked into was the Apple Store, located at Regent Street. We were talking about a proper shop here, not the pretenders like Machine back home. I'll blog about that later maybe.

I walked further down towards Covent Garden where I got most of the shopping done for the stuffs to take back home. mainly shirts and bits for the boys. I stopped over at the Haagen Dasz for coffee, where during my student days, I went usually on the final night before returning to school with my friends, to more or less drawn our sorrow. None of us were really looking forward to return to our boarding house especially after a couple of weeks away, having a great time in London.

That was actually the first half of what I did, I after that, I returned to Marble Arch to further remember my student days, as well as dinner at Edgwere Road.

Day 1

So, the first order of business today was to get the registration out of the way. Luckily, after woken up in the middle of the night last night, I was able to get back to sleep after a couple of hours. Woke up this morning, and was full of energy. Unpacked, got the ironing done, answered the emails and headed down for breakfast.

After congregating with the rest of the group, we took a cab to the exhibition centre, 10 minutes away.

The exhibition centre, dubbed the ExCel, was a typical converted warehouse building, impressively big and was more than suitable as a venue with its huge hangar-like hall. Walking from one hall to another took a good 5-10 minutes, but the good thing was everything was under one roof and we did not need to go outdoors at hall.

The registration included discount cards for travel to Central London, as well as a delegate bag which included the abstract book which weighed easily 2 kg. It has a companion CD ROM dual as well, so the 2 kg documentation package would head straight to the bin.

The rest of today would be filled with satellite symposium. I planned to stay until luck, before heading back to the hotel to leave the bags and Mac Air. I would then head to Central London to do some shopping as I was not able to yesterday or the rest of the week. Will blog later then.

And yes, we get free fast Internet at the Conference Center as well!

Jet Lagged

Oh! Dear! It happened before and I think it was happening again now. I got one of those jet-lagged session where I was wide awake at the moment and it was 1 am London time, 8 am back home in Malaysia. One of the major drawback of being a morning person was, your natural rhythm was attuned to be hyper in the morning. I was suffering now.

What happened was, I got back to the hotel room at around 3.30 pm, took a shower and planned a nap for a couple of hours since we planned to go out to Covent Garden that evening. The next thing I knew, it was 1 am in the morning. And I was starving. Luckily I bought some food earlier from a corner shop nearby. Some biscuits and drinks. That tied me up overnight.

So, planning to get back to bed as I can't really be bothered to unpack yet. I would probably get up early for the hotel breakfast and head out to the Convention Center tonged myself registered. Today was the satellite symposium day, where the Pharmaceuticals would have sessions promoting their products. I'll probably stick for a few hours then head into town after lunch to sort out my shopping list!