Happy Guy Fawkes Night and a visit to Windsor Castle!

Hey everyone! How’s life this week? Everything good? Catching up with studies? I know it’s mid term now so I guess most of you who are currently studying in Surrey should be busy with assignments and mid term right 😛 So glad I’ve already passed that stage. Could still remember the days when we need to stay up all night rushing assignments or revising for exams. Oh how I miss student life. 🙁 Work life is good in a sense that when we leave office/workplace, we leave our work life behind too and its your personal time after you go home. However, work life is much more stressful compared to student life as you need to deal with your colleagues, boss, and even clients and every little mistake that you make might affect alot and thus you need to be very cautious in every step you take, which makes life really tiring. But well, I guess that is a process of growing and learning as well right. 🙂 After working for more than a month, I guess I’m starting to pick up things faster and adapt into the work life and thus it feels much better. Hopefully I will survive through the next few months and I will update with all of you again on my work life here in London. 🙂

Well back to the main topic today. So, Guy Fawkes night.What do you guys thought of when you first heard of the name? Nothing? Well as Malaysia don’t celebrate this festive, I understand that most of you all won’t even know who Guy Fawkes is. How about Bonfire? That sounds abit more familiar right. 🙂 Okay let me give you all a brief history of this celebration here in UK. So the story begins with the event that happened on the 5th of November 1605, whereby Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot was planning to kill King James I by placing explosives beneath the House of Lords. However, his plan failed and was caught red handed while guarding the explosives. And thus to celebrate King James I’s survival from the assault, people lit bonfires around in London and not long after a new act was enforced, making 5th of November an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot’s failure. In present days, grand celebrations of bonfires and fireworks are still kept on the 5th of November every year to commemorate the day.

As for myself, last year I didn’t get to join in the celebration as I was away at Nottingham for the Malaysian Games. Oh by the way, just a short advertisement for the Malaysian Society, Nottingham games is an annual major event for all Malaysian societies in UK as they gather together for a day fun filled with games and Malaysian food. If I’m not mistaken, the Malaysian Society Surrey’s committee is currently recruiting for representatives to represent Surrey in the games this year so anyone of you that is currently reading and is interested in sports do contact the committee members! It will also be a good chance to meet up with fellow Malaysian friends that are studying in UK universities if they are also going, and also there will be loads of yummy Malaysia food that you miss back home there!

Sorry back to my main topic. So this year I was quite excited to see how British people celebrate Guy Fawkes day and coincidentally there is a big event for Guy Fawkes Night literally a stone throw away from the place I’m staying now and thus I decided to go and have a look together with my friend. We arrived at the venue at around 7pm whereby there are already alot of people there as there are also some carnival and games going on already. As they require an entrance fee and we don’t think we want to be get on any rides, me and my friend decided to just stand at the entrance of the park while waiting for the fireworks to go off. After waiting for half an hour, the fireworks show started and it was really amazing looking at the fireworks on the sky. It’s really grand and pretty! On the way walking home after the event, we also saw many small fireworks going off everywhere in the sky and that reminds me back home during Chinese New Year, Hari Raya or Deepavali where fireworks will be going off whole night during the festive! 🙂

Ain’t this pretty 🙂

On the next day after Guy Fawkes Day, I finally visited Windsor Castle! For those of you all that doesn’t know, Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world, whereby HRH Queen Elizabeth still stays at the castle occasionally and hold many official events there. It was a bright and sunny day although it’s freezing cold and I was really happy to be able to visit the iconic landmark of England after one year in UK. As my friend- Evonne’s mum is currently visiting her now in UK, she decided to join me and bring her mum together for a day trip out to Windsor.

It was already 11am when we reached Windsor and Eton station, which is the train station for Windsor town whereby the castle is located. As Evonne has already prebooked our ticket, it’s really convenient for us as we do not need to queue and get to admit into the castle after collecting our tickets. For your information, the ticket cost GBP18.50 for student which gives admission to the State Apartments, St George’s Chapel and Queen Mary’s Doll House. And to my delight, we were really lucky as there was also a fashion exhibition of the Queen’s wardrobe to celebrate Her Majesty’s 90th birthday, which is included in the ticket as well. The ticket could be extended to a one year pass at the end of the visit so do ask one of the castle warden on how to do that so you can go back and visit whenever you want for 365 days! 🙂

When I first stepped in into the castle ground, I was really amazed by how grand and magnificent the castle is. All the buildings are really well maintained and were really well designed, especially St George’s Chapel. However, as we are visiting on a Sunday, the chapel is closed for worship and thus we do not have a chance to have a glimpse of the interior design, which gives me a perfect excuse to come and visit again! 🙂 So we started of the tour by visiting Queen Mary’s doll house. As it’s name sounds, the doll house is basically a huge collection of miniature doll houses, with miniature furniture and fittings all designed and produce in such a delicate way. It’s really amazing to see how the architects design and make such tiny and delicate miniatures which are the perfect replica of a real aristocrat home!

We then proceed to visit the State Apartments. Again I am in awe admiring the design of the apartments especially the halls. It’s really remarkable to be able to visit a place that the Kings and Queens actually lived in previously! My favourite part of the visit will be the St Georges’ Hall, which have a really amazing interior design and looks magnificent! Too bad no pictures are allowed inside the castle apart from the castle grounds and thus I couldn’t share any pictures with you all but I would definitely recommend a visit to the castle as it’s a really beautiful masterpiece! 🙂

And oh, we get to visit the exhibition of Her Majesty’s wardrobe also to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday. It was really amazing to see how well kept is Her Majesty’s clothes as some of them dated about 80 years back whereby the clothes she wore as a girl guide was still in perfect condition! I would really say that the Queen has a really good fashion sense and all of her clothes are really elegant and beautiful. I even managed to spot an evening gown that she wore when she visited Malaysia years ago and its really stunning! I could imagine how beautiful Her Majesty will be in that gown. 🙂

So we headed home after finishing the exhibition. Windsor Castle is really amazing and I’ll let the pictures do the talking! 😀