OITP @ London (Day 2-8)

Day 2 (5 Mar 2012)

Places Explored: UCL Campus, Grant Museum of Zoology (UCL)

This was the official start day of the Overseas Industrial Programme! :) So in the morning, after our breakfast, we headed to UCL and met up with Mr Richard.

Everyday breakfast of Scramble Egg, Baked Beans, Toast, Bacon, Sausage, Sunny-Side-Up Eggs , Tomato & Fish

There's also 4 kinds of cereals for you to choose from...

The breakfast buffet

The dinning tables

Had a little chat then we were introduced to a UCL Singaporean undergraduate, Jack. Mr Richard left us with Jack to bring us around the campus and introduce us to other UCL Singaporean undergraduates. We joined him for lunch with his friends – Rachel & Daniel (also from Singapore) and had chats over at lunch. They’re really friendly and even told us about what we could get here (in London) that’s much cheaper than what we could get back at Singapore! After lunch, they brought us back to and around UCL campus. After that, Shi Jie and I decided that we would explore around the campus on our own to familiarize with the grounds.

Within UCL Campus

The 'Auto-icon' of Jeremy Betham at UCL

The campus ground of UCL is somewhat like SMU in Singapore, where the campus is located in the central of the city and the buildings are scattered around public roads instead of a closed ground. After wandering around, we came across the Grant Museum of Zoology (which is under UCL) and decided to went in! (Admission is free!) The museum isn’t a really big place, but it was filled with really interesting animal skeletons and specimens, as many as 67,000 of them including many of them which are endangered or extinct.

Human Skeleton @ Grant Museum of Zoology

Grant Museum of Zoology

Chimpanzee ( I think...) and Dugong Skeleton @ Grant Museum of Zoology

Elephant heart and skull @ Grant Museum of Zoology

London Red Telephone Booth!

The traffic light box thing... so different from Singapore ones...

Day 3 (6 Mar 2012)

We were roughly briefed about our project. Our project is about researching on some technologies which UCL Department of Management Science and Innovation can adopt for their staff and students. After the briefing, Mr Richard brought us to a classroom over at another building for a class session with MSc IMB Year 4 students. That lesson, we had guest speakers – Afotey Tetterfio and Ashley Brown from Capgemini.

After the class, we joined some of the Year 4 students for lunch so that they can bring us to the “Decision and Risk Analysis” lecture venue. (It’s so happen that they’re attending that lecture too). The lecture was very interesting and engaging, much like some of the lectures we had in SP. As it was nearing the examinations, the lecture we attended was a summary class (I think…). So anyway, we learnt how to make a decision and whether a decision is considered good or not and also assessing risk. The whole lecture was basically on a case study on a pharmaceutical company. I really enjoyed the lecture and it was really insightful though I may not have understood every single part… haha. It’s university level after all!

Nice sunset on our way back...

The 'Underground' tube sign!

Day 4 (7 Mar 2012)

Place Explored: Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology (UCL)

Attended a class and the session was a talk by an invited guest speaker – Glenn Poulter (Oriel). He talked about how he became who he is today and some tips about how we could make ourselves stand out etc. And furthermore, he did not graduate from University (as of yet) and yet he is able to be at his current position. It was really inspiring. There was also an interesting encounter before the class starts, a student from came into the class to actually gave a "speech" to garner some support for herself for the elections! (Something like the Singapore Polytechnic Student Union elections...)

Sam Page garnering support for elections

Banners that can be found around the campus...

We also met the teaching fellow/lecturer who teaches Marketing. And she told us that her students are now also doing Google Online Marketing Challenge! She was also rather interested when she heard that we did digital marketing (module: Principles of New Media Marketing). We also met many other teaching fellows in the department of Management Science and Innovation. :) They’re all very friendly, and we felt really welcomed.

Outside Henry Morley Building (Dept of MSI)

Don't think I see this in Singapore before.... :/

In the afternoon that day, we went to Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology next to the Engineering building. It was a really cool museum with the Egyptian artifacts, and I finally get to see an Egyptian Mummy Coffin. It was really amazing how some of the artifacts were made and they’re really exquisite.

Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology

Outside UCL Enginering Buidimg at Torrington Place

Day 5 (8 Mar 2012)

Places Explored: Tottenham Court Road, Oxford Street

Had project discussion in the morning and we went to Oxford Street for lunch.

We were told that Oxford Street is the place where you can shop till you drop. Anyway, we navigated our way from UCL to Tottenham Court Road then to Oxford Street. It wasn’t a very far walk and indeed Oxford Street is like the Orchard Road in Singapore, just that they are lesser malls and most of them are shops along the streets. The souvenirs sold at Oxford Street were seemingly much cheaper than those we found along Russell Square (near where our hotel is located at). We also got ourselves some free gifts that were given out outside Oxford Street HMV (if I’m didn’t recall wrongly).. Hahah! Oh, we also came across some festival (I think..) held by a temple and they were “parading” along Oxford Street.

Oxford Street

Free gift that we got! :P

Oxford Street

Found a restaurant that sells Singapore Cuisine @ Oxford Street

Oxford Street - Oxford Circus Station

Oxford Street

Oxford Street - The "festival" that we encountered

Postcards we got at Oxford Street! 15 for £1

After our lunch, we headed back to UCL and Mr Richard got us some maps around London and the “Oyster” card. The oyster card is much like the Ez-Link cards we have in Singapore. And using the Oyster card for transportation is much cheaper than without it (same as Singapore!). We then attended the "Law for Managers" lecture which the session was on the topic of ‘Contract’. Some of the things taught were rather familiar as to what I had learnt in ELAW (Ethics & Law of IT).

Oyster Card! The London version of Singapore's Ez-Link card...

After the law lecture, we headed back to the hotel and continued with the project discussion.

Day 6 (9 Mar 2012)

Places Explored: Regent Street, Chinatown

Church very near to the hotel we stay

Don't you find this car really cool? :D

While walking to UCL in the morning, decided to walk into Gordon Square Garden, and we found a little surprise there… :) There was a really cute squirrel that was hanging out at the bin. Shot some photos of it then continued our journey to UCL.

Gordon Square Garden

Squirrel @ Gordon Square Garden

We had project discussion in the morning, then in the afternoon, decided to head down to Chinatown to have our lunch. We made our way back to Oxford Street and then navigated our way across Regent Street to Chinatown.

Near Regent Street (Doesn't it feel like some attraction at USS?) :)

Near Regent Street

Postbox at Regent Street

Maps that can be found around London! :)

So anyway, we heard that there was this Japanese restaurant in Chinatown that serves cheap Japanese food in massive portions. It is called Misato. So Shi Jie and I walked around Chinatown (though it wasn’t really big) but we couldn’t find it! We asked around and finally found the way to Misato (it was only further down the road…-_-)

Chinatown

Misato @ Chinatown

One of the Misato's Menu - Can you see Chicken Teriyaki Rice? :)

I ordered Chicken Teriyaki Rice and Shi Jie ordered Curry Tonkatsu Don. The portions were really big, and in fact, just like the price (£4.50 and £6 respectively and that’s SGD$9 and SGD $12 for you), the portions (of rice, meat and salad) are twice of that of what you can find in Singapore! It was so filling and it was an achievement that we finished it! (or more or less… haha) Our first time eating rice in London! Haha!

Top: Curry Tonkatsu Don; Bottom: Chicken Teriyaki Rice

Can you see how big the portion is? :O

So after lunch, we walked back to hotel and continued our project discussion and research.

Day 7-8 (10-11 Mar 2012)

Discussed and reaseached on the project, and stayed in the hotel for the whole day.

S82 - DBIT.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

OITP @ London (Day 2-8)

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