Followup: The lost hike to Chelsea Habour

Written October 3, 2005 in Personal

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Ok, after finding Orient House, I was disappointed. I actually walked past the hall without realising it. In fact, I walked past it 3 times, before realising the small little round building was Orient House. After going into the hall, I had to waiting for about 30mins before I managed to talk to the administrator. I was hoping to be able to move in earlier such that I could slowly move my stuff into the room. However, the administrator was adamant that they were not ready to receive us and well, in short, I could only move in on Sat. So I left, and started walking PROPERLY back to campus. (Anyone who didn’t catch this joke should read the previous post. ouch.) Anyway, that took me 40minutes to walk back proper. So on the way back, I was contemplating many methods of getting to and fro from campus everyday.

Now that I’m back to my hotel, I finally checked in, and took a nice long overdue warm bath. I settled down, watched some lame British comedy and had some nice English coffee. So dinner time came, and I departed the room in search of dinner and whatever else. This is when my saviour Melissa came. As in, SAVIOUR.

Ok, first things first, who’s Melissa? Mel’s this fellow MOE TSO scholar who’s a year 2 in Biochemistry. I met her for the first time in MOEHQ building during our induction/predep programme and she was very kind to help us out and gave us some pretty sound advice.

So, why did she save my life? In the simplest terms possible: She offered me a place to stay, 7min walk away from campus, a single room, with 4 of her housemates. To put things into context: If I stayed in Orient House, and I’m studying in Imperial’s South Ken campus, it would be like staying near Zouk in Singapore, and studying near the new National Library at Bugis. Imagine walking to school everyday. Well, before Mel saved my ass, I was resigned to staying at Orient’s. Orient’s like staying along Clarke Quay, maybe more of Robinson Quay in Singapore area. It’s this BEAUTIFUL place. Other than the problem of distance, yes.

I was just happening to be walking along the streets, looking for a cheap place for dinner, when I heard a sweet voice calling me from behind. Turning around, I saw a very familiar face. I just couldn’t remember her name. We had some small talk, and she asked me where I was staying, and I happily replied. She gasped, “Eh, you sure you wanna stay there?” I mean, of course, I didn’t have an alternative. “Would you like to stay with me? I’m looking for a housemate.” Well, this is what I call fate. Godsend. Here I was, strolling along a strange street, hunting for food. And here came someone to offer me a place to stay…

So now I’m staying at a place called Cromwell House and below is my new correspondance address: