2008 New Year's Eve

Well, what do you expect to do in York on New Year's Eve when the exams are exactly one week away? Not much, except to dig your heels in and study hard. But we still manage to find some time for a small gathering in my kitchen. Shown in the picture are students from Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, standing around the window to look at the small scale fireworks from the direction of Millennium Bridge. Guess who is from where?

With most students still away on holiday, it is still very quiet here on campus. Most of the students left are East Asian whose home are too far (and thus too expensive) to fly to for this short holiday.

But it is not a ghost town here in York. Between Christmas and New Year is the post-Christmas Sales season. This is UK's equivalent of the Great Singapore Sale, so York's city centre is decorated with Sales signs all around, and crowded with shoppers carrying shopping bags big and small. Any good bargains out there? Well, GBP has weakened somewhat over the weeks, but at 1GBP=2.9SGD, things are still almost 3 times more expensive here. Anyway, I don't really know as I have not been bargain hunting around; you are looking at someone who don't even go for GSS.