UK Grad Trip - Thoughts

Unlike my US trip, I won't be blogging in a chronological order, but just in a thematic way. Will just blog whatever random thoughts come to mind.

Seven
When I first asked the group whether anyone was interested in going on a grad trip back in end-2013, I had only expected the 5 of us - Wilbur, Nella, Amelia, Gerald, and me. The gf was tentatively involved in other plans, and honestly I didn't know where I wanted to go and wanted someone else to make the decisions.

Fastforward a few months, the group had expanded to 7 to include my gf and Rhoda, and plans were on the way. Air tickets were booked. Accommodations were booked. Oh crap. I was really going to travel with 7 people.

Travelling in such a big group has pros and cons. The most obvious con of decision-making being difficult was actually manifested in quite a different way. Instead of having too many conflicting ideas (which I had prepared for by just splitting up and going off with the gf), we had too little ideas - almost everyone in the group was a 'anything' person.

E.g. "Where do you guys want to go?"
'Anything!'
"Do you want to go to this place?"
'Anything!'
"Should we eat at that restaurant?"
'Anything!'
"Can you climb on the top of the building and jump off while yelling 'I am superman'?"
'Anything!'

Ok the last one was nonsense. But this was really pretty much the whole trip, which got really frustrating as I am personally also an 'Anything' person so nothing would be planned till the very last minute, when I can't take it anymore and I would just pen down a list of activities and assume everyone wants to do that.

Another con of 7 people is that it takes time to move. Getting ready was surprisingly quick, mainly due to the girls waking up ridiculously early (good as we leave relatively on time, bad as it wakes me up when they move around and make noise if we're in the same apartment). The problem was moving on from each place we went to. Some will be ready to go but others will want to see a bit more or buy a few more things, which resulted in a lot of delay. I think if I went alone with the gf we would have covered easily twice the number of places.

Planning
I made the mistake of not being involved in planning until much later. I saw that there were a few others more keen than me and they seemed to be brimming with ideas, plus I was involved in some other activities, so I was quite lacklustre in the stages of planning leading up to our trip.

This was a mistake as it resulted in, on hindsight, some poor decisions, such as spending an entire week in London (I think 3 days was enough to cover everything), not going to Paris or somewhere outside of UK, going to South Downs (we effectively only went to ONE place), buying the London Pass (I think we only used 50 pounds worth at most. It cost 100+ pounds).

I'm not saying that if I had been more vocal initially we would have avoided these mistakes. After all, hindsight is only 20/20. But I definitely would have pushed for going out of UK more, and not going to South Downs, or at least planning our time there better.

Musicals/Plays
Before the trip, the most anticipated moment was when we watched Les Miserables in London. The rest of the itinerary didn't seem that exciting or interesting to me (museums and shitz), but I thought I would really enjoy musicals and even made plans to watch several more such as Phantom and Mathilda.

In the end, we did watch Phantom as well but not Mathilda. And while I really did enjoy the performances - they were splendid songs, music, emotional singers, etc - I couldn't quite reconcile spending such a large amount of money simply to watch it. I paid 69pounds (about 150$ after booking costs) for Les Miserables... it was good but I couldn't stop thinking how expensive it was and how I was better able to follow the movie version (storyline-wise) which cost only $10.

I came to the conclusion that musicals were great for a first-time experience for me, but I wouldn't be SUPER keen to go again (definitely will not go for the same show-_- I dont' understand how some people are willing to watch the same musical again)

Food
I claim to live by the phrase: "Some people eat to live. I live to eat". I love food. I would gladly pay abit more to eat better food. I wouldn't call myself a foodie, and I'm not into fine dining at all. But I do love good food.

In the UK, the cheapest meal costs about 3 pounds, and is a pathetic meat sandwich or something. The average meal costs 6-8 pounds, while if you eat at restaurants it may be 8-15 pounds. (just double everything for SGD).

With such hefty prices, I was actually quite deterred to try anything special/new, and simply went for the cheaper options often. Furthermore, the food wasn't exactly special - fish and chips, burgers, sandwiches, english breakfast etc were things I actually eat quite often back in Singapore. Thus I didn't really enjoy myself, cuisine-wise, in UK, as compared to when I was in Japan.


Money
I think I really need to let myself go money-wise if I want to enjoy holidays. I came back from the trip with 25% of my money left, as I was constantly scrooge-ing and saving over there. On hindsight I think I would have enjoyed myself more if I had just assumed this was 'holiday money' and I was going to spend it all, and just ... spend.

In Psychology, we learn about a concept called hedonic treadmill. The gist of it is that we, as human beings, are great at adapting to our current situations, whether good or bad. Thus when we experience good (or bad) things, we adapt to them, and the happiness ( or sorrow) it brings us diminishes over time, and then it affects us less than before.

A simple example would be if I used to earn $100 a month, then a $10 meal seems like a big deal to me. But later if I earn $10000 a month, I get used to $10 meals, and I would start to desire $20, $50 meals, etc. Thus, it's like we're on a treadmill - we keep moving forward but never actually move in terms of our happiness - we just adapt, and our happiness returns to a baseline.

I bring this up as I think it's hard for me to adapt to a more well-off situation (i.e. now, when I am working). I was raised to be frugal, to save, to scrimp and save. It's hard to shake off 24 years of frugality and start spending more freely simply because I earn more money now. I wonder if Psychology will be right or I will be an exception.


What I Liked
I was fairly neutral about almost every part of the trip, apart from a couple of highlights - watching my first musical (Les Mis), making an impromptu trip down to Loughborough to eat soemin's yummy cooking and to spend a day with bestie, and the Emirates stadium tour.

Thinking about it, this was on in London! What about the first 7 days? Well, two reasons why they may have not been so enjoyable :
1) I'm a checklist kind of traveller - I like going to major attractions and checking them off my list (e.g. in the States I visited Empire state building, golden gate bridge, Grand Canyon, etc). If I had planned it myself, I would only have gone to London and perhaps spend the rest of the time bouncing around Europe. Or at least go around UK, instead of staying just in England.
2) SH had a tooth infection in the first half of the trip which really worried me sick. The thought of her possibly suffering some sort of permanent disability really broke my heart - everytime I looked at her and see her struggle to smile with her swollen cheek, I'm not sure if the pain was greater for her or for me. Thank God that she is better now and has sought appropriate treatment. I pray that she will recover fully!

Of course, the culture immersion was great - this is something I'll always enjoy about travelling even if I'm physically drained from the activity. English people are really nice and friendly! Literally every single person we asked for directions was patient, friendly, and remarkably detailed. Some even chatted with us briefly. They are like less forward Americans, but just as friendly! Of course, the British accent is awesome :D

The service staff were also very very polite and nice - it reminded me of Japan, but in a different way. Japan's service staff is more of a subservient kind of nice, while the English staff were more genuine and warm.

Key lessons
I guess some things I learnt from this trip were: travel in as small a group as possible; be proactive in planning of the trip (unless it's SH planning it... lol. I enjoyed our Japan trip despite planning virtually nothing. Maybe it's just the company); don't be afraid to spend - it's a holiday!