I came back mid January, so been here just about 2 weeks now, and by 1st week of February, I would’ve dragged my giant luggage – my life in a bag as I call it, to Middlesbrough, Immingham, 2 hotels and 3 flats in London, which then the journey would finally end in Hoxton ish area, where I will be living for 2 months.

But the last 2 weeks has been quite a blast, since Neil, my buddy who also works with me, was also here traveling along on his business trip. Nothing too exciting happened, since Neil isn’t exactly the exciting guy to be around with hahah – I got him to eat seafood at least – which for him, was “adventurous”. His goals were drink as many different beers as possible, visit old pubs, and play some darts, so we did just that. I checked in to about 10+ pubs in 7 days, he had probably at least 15 different kinds of beer, and found one pub to play some darts.

The most interesting pub for me was probably Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet St, by Temple/St Paul area, it was pub (re?)built in in 1660s, it felt like a dungeon as you walked further into the place, went down the stairs, through with metal gates, and tall people kept hitting their head on the door frame cause people back in the days were a lot shorter I guess, and yes it was packed on a weekday.

The nicest pub was Gordon Ramsay’s The Narrow (of course) on Narrow St, sorta close to Canary Wharf I guess? I found this place thanks to Jen’s tweet on some Vancouver Sun writer’s London eats article. Right by the water, and resto section had all windows seats to look out to the place. I ordered bangers and mash, and will assume that it’s the best bangers and mash (at at affordable price) I’ll have. We also ended up in some random pub called The Grapes few blocks down, which apparently is partly owned by Gandalf – Ian McKellen.

Other notable things were:

• You can get massive portion of fish and chips at Rock and Sole Plaice (I think that’s the name) on Endell St for ~£17, 2 pc + chips
• For a fancy dinner I recommend Circus to everyone, you eat and watch a circus show, literally, if you wiling to pay
• 20 pc nuggets is only £4.75! I had 4 orders during the 2 weeks lol
• If you want to play darts at a pub, go somewhere further out cause obviously city pubs are all packed

Now I’m on a Tesco Meal Deal diet, where I go buy a sandwich, small bag of chips and juice, it’s been my last 4 out of 5 meal. For £2.50, I’d be stupid not to get it.

Eva Zeisel, The Late Modern Master, On The Hazard Of Too Much Innovation

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Web Design Trends in 2012

The 22 Best Infographics We Found In 2011

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The Value of the Designer Who Codes

What being a graphic designer means

2011 in review… nah, but this year was definitely quite eventful – people getting married, a new job, the up and downs of my personal life lol, more travelling, and the year seems to be ending with some unexpected but nice list of events as well.

I’ll be home for another couple of weeks, lot of people thought I was just home vacationing hahah, but in a way I came back home so I could do more work, not that i’m complaining, cause i did get to come back home ;p Did my shopping, got my haircut, found new luggages, soon it’ll be back to the UK life, I’ll be ready to take on Europe by then – Ireland, Norway, France, Italy, Germany, Morocco… everywhere!

…I just find a place to live first ha

Nevertheless, it’s good to be back home, I’m glad that I’m here for xmas and new years =) Happy holidays, and happy 2012 everyone!

And omg I literally just mega shopped at the airport at AllSaints, I hate british pounds and how expensive everything really is – probably gonna be close to 400 for a jacket and tshirt… and the worst part is im getting used to it (like I got a sandwich and coffee take away for breakfast, it was £5.xx, but really that’s like $8 cdn), so maybe I shouldnt shop as much this year

• slim fit jeans
• red / dark red shoes
• more anime figurines
• point and shoot cam like tx10
• beats by dre headphones
• one big luggage
• fancy travel adapter
• fancy luggage tag (i really miss my umbro one)

Bacon is everywhere here! and you can’t really complain about having too much bacon.

I started this post like 2 weeks ago, but never had a chance to finish ;/ How long has it been? It feels like it’s been more than a month or 2 already, but really I think it’s just almost one month ha (since branflakes’ bday pretty much), does this mean I’m enjoying the life in London or not? I don’t really know yet, but it’s definitely something new. I work in the day, commute on the tube here and there to work in london, or work in the local office near Essex, and I go home, eat, watch anime and tv shows, work more, sleep… doesn’t sound new at all, other than I’m just doing it in another environment. I did a lot of the touristy stuff the last time when I came over to UK and Stockholm, so now it’s just regular living, I met like 2 friends here in London so far lol, life is a bit tough depending on what you do, but you gotta make the most of it. By the way plane is a great place to meet people, just gotta remember to get their name and contact (I could’ve have… 3 or 4 friends!). I also had a chance to go up to Leicester to visit Katie, and I also went up to Leeds to visit the Snog guys Jonny and Will. Both were some awesome crazy party weekends, I kinda feel like I’m too old to hang out with these uni kids, but at least I look like one of them.

My intro to London

• Taking the bus/train sucks, tube all the way. It gets you everywhere in London, and comes every 3 – 8 min or something. Almost every time when I have to go into London, I wait 10 min for bus, and then i’d miss the train, and wait another 15 min, and then like a 30 – 45 min ride on the tube. But, the tube is dirty and hot, no air con, and gets super packed like japan, without the person pushing you of course.
• Driving here is crazy too, all these roundabouts took me a long time just to figure out how it works, and people will not stop for you if you jaywalk, everyone does it though, so my rule is – cross when someone else is crossing – hit one hit all.
• Everyone know london is expensive, I’ll give you some examples – I went to at least 10 pharmacies just to find the best deal on contacts solution, because I could’ve bought 2 big bottles + 1 travel size at costco for $15 back home, but instead I ended up paying £9 for a medium size 240ml bottle =( On the other hand, you can get a can of guiness or strongbow for about £1.05. The other day, I ate a full size sandwich and salad at a cafe for £2.60, but had a lunch at nandos for about £10 for a chicken wrap and 1 side with no drink. Also when you go eat fast food, eat in always cost most because you have to pay tax, but most places there’s no benches or a place to sit for you to eat out and save. Taking the train here is pretty expensive as well unless you book it like 3 months ahead, the train to visit Katie in Leicester was £50 for round trip, that’s like almost $90 for a 2 x 2 hr train ride.
• Most of the food here taste just fine, most of the time I’m eating a sandwich, cause it’s the easiest thing to grab and go The indian food here is awesome, and I found that a lot of english food just have no taste, pepper and ketchup to the rescue. Even bacon isn’t as good, but bacon is bacon, 90% of sandwiches have chicken and/or bacon. There’s lots of chicken and/or kebabs places here, and fish and chips are so great mm mmm. I also had one of the WORST japanese food in Leeds lol, jonny/will I have to take you guys somewhere else for redemption.
• They love their curry sauce and brown (hp) sauce.
• Sunday roast dinner is awesome.

Unexpectedly (is that a word?), I’m now coming home for xmas and new years, and I’m really happy for it actually. Now that I’m 5 or 6 years older than the last time I left the country to live on my own, my perspectives are quite different, one thing for sure is that, I really miss my friends and family ;p But, it’s not gonna stop me, cause I’m living out one of my life dreams/goals/whatever you call it (y). My fridge is just as empty as last time though.

Pictures speak for themselves, check them out on flickr

And yes I know emoticon doesn’t exist for post, and putting them in a blog seems a bit lame lol

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Quick little UI feedback tip

The overuse of HTML5 and CSS3

The Perfect Paragraph

21 Examples of Single Colored Backgrounds in Web Design

Web pages are getting more bloated, and here’s why

The economics of Christmas lights

Design With Dissonance

The Do’s And Don’ts Of Infographic Design

Why Stylesheet Abstraction Matters

The Social Network Paradox

How Gamification Can Make News Sites More Engaging

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What Drives Brand Sociability? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Now I am a big lazy bum and I can only learn things when forced, or else I’m either playing games or out. So this is the new thing I’m trying to do for myself, read something new everyday.

I hate reading too, maybe I should just go back to school instead.

Last week’s reads:

CSS3 Flexible Box Layout Explained

Why Does Interaction Design Matter? Let’s Look At The Evolving Subway Experience

The Guide To CSS Animation: Principles and Examples

Social Media Report: Q3 2011

Create An Animated Bar Graph With HTML, CSS And jQuery

From Vancouver to Salmon Arm, quick stop at lake Louise, up to jasper through Icefield Parkway, then straight into Edmonton, total ~1400 km, 5 + 11.5 hours (spent a night in Salmon Arm on Friday, 450 km drive after work wasn’t bad at all).

Coming back on hwy 16, straight through jasper to kamloops, then all the way in hwy 1 to home, another ~1200 km, 13 hours.

Squashed a million bugs on my car, unlocked the 150k mileage achievement/trophy, and that the summary of me and Greg’s road trip adventure to visit Phil last week.

Highlights

We took almost 2 completely different route going there and coming back.

Next time, bring a tent to camp.

Don’t forget to wash car when you arrive at the destination or else they’ll become part of your car.

There’s a million A&W through out interior of BC it seems.

I think I’d love working at a game company if they treat you nicely like Bioware – Phil gave us a tour of the office and I was like a little kid in candy land, and apparently it was nothing compared to the Montreal studio…

Always gas up when you only have half tank on the Coquihala – we almost ran out of gas driving to Merrit lol, somehow just under half tank of gas was barely enough to drive 140 km, I ended up driving on E for about 10th min at 90km/h, I had 4.5 litres of gas left hen I got to the gas station.

Icefield Parkway is one of the best drives EVER, even though it costed us $20. The scenery was so beautiful, the super blue lakes, the glacial (that’s slowly disappearing), the rare wild live sightings, even the forest and the rocks, so awesome. I love BC.

Alberta gas is the best – 1.10 per litre, and get gas at small towns like Hinton or Edson, it’s like 10 cents cheaper.

Shopping/going out in Alberta is also pretty awesome, even though I didn’t buy anything (except for a souvenir mug from Starbucks before we left) because of their super low tax, I mean, we ate like $50 and tax was only $2.50!

There’s a lot of bugs in Alberta…

JD + ginger ale is tasty.

It seems like I’m pretty good at Need for Speed Hot Pursuit.

Totally forgot to post this sigh and now all I want to write about is evo, so I’m just going to sum it up in one sentence for you here – when phil comes back, its a party

My buddy phil came back last weekend (see how behind I am with this post?), and when me and phil hangs out, there’s really only one thing to do. We met up on Thursday for all you can eat bacon, and then we “had” to go drinking because we had too much protein in us, after 2 of those awesome cold bamboo sake at hapa, we went to… phils old regular happy place, and it was great lol

And its not a weekend unless we go to Guu. So Friday it was mega mug day, I love guu, its one of my favorite drinking place, we’re pretty much regulars at the richmond guu, I think I’ve tried like 95% of the “todays special” sheet already, but someone stole my mayorship >.<

Next time its my turn to go (most likely drive, road trip!) out to edmonton, even though people keeps telling me there’s nothing there