Trip to Newcastle Upon Tyne and London _Nov 08

This is a belated post. Back in Nov 2008, I was assigned to perform a technical due diligence for two companies - in Durham and Cramlington located in Newcastle, UK and in Dubai, UAE. We touched down Heathrow Terminal 1 and transit to Terminal 5 for connecting flight to Newcastle. My last visit to London was in 2007.

Since it was a day flight, my eyes still wide opened after took off from KLIA. I had been toying with the 10.4 inch LCD touch screen multimedia based in flight entertainment. For the first 6 hours I kept myself busy watching on board in flight movies, back to back Angelina Jolie’s such as Wanted, Mr. & Mrs. Smith,not to mention that I had actually watched both movies, In fact I had the DVD 9 & Blue Ray copies of the movies in my collection. After being entertained by Jolie, I slowly felt asleep in my comfy almost flat seat until my boss woke me up for 2 in 1 qasar/jamak solat in the plane and this is one of the reason the boss is the role model.

London Terminal 5 is a modern and quitter terminal, less chaos than Terminal 1. There was still fear among the passenger during T5 “big bang turmoil” last time when the airport was opened for business and everything was not in place.


KPI Board in London Terminal 5. Can KLIA display the same or better info?

We touched down in Newcastle about 10PM. This was my second visit to Newcastle. The last time was in 1996 which I had 2 weeks industrial training with Rolls Royce during my student era. I can only remember the famous Newcastle landmark, the Tyne Bridge which link Newcastle to Gateshead. When it was completed, in 1928, it was the largest single span bridge in the world. It was the model for Sydney Harbour Bridge, which was completed four years later. After 2 weeks orientation, I was transferred to Leeds to have experience with another Rolls Royce Company, Clark Chapman Limited. We had dinner just besides the new Millennium Bridge where we had been served with salmon and tomato soup.


Newcastle's Millenium Bridge is a beautiful footbridge over the Tyne.
It cost £22 million and opened to the public in 2001. It is 50m high and 122m wide, and has won architectural awards, including the 2002 Royal British Institute of Architects' Stirling Prize.



We stayed in Hilton Newcastle, a lovely and great hotel, good ambiance with wonderful view build right on the River Tyne.



Newcastle Tyne Bridge- view from Hilton Newcastle Gateshead

The Due Diligence were carried out for 2 companies, one company, a family business, fully owned by an English Professor, the other company was owned by a multi-millionaire Arab, both are capable but in different leagues.

Our next Due Diligence was in Dubai and our flight was from London. Staying in Hilton along Piccadilly Line give us nearer access to Edgware Road and Oxford Street, Marble Arch



London Marble Arc

As usual, I’ve a list of wanted item to hunt around Oxford Street. I’ve a bunch of chocolate list given by my wife, an ex-Londoner here for 2 years doing her ACCA that claimed the chocolate taste here were much better that the one in M’sia. As for me, 2 pair of Clark shoes were enough.

These shops just bring back all the sweet memories during my student time, when I fell in love with my first and second wife, the second being of course the Estima, yes the Previa that we had rented for £75/ day during our graduation day in Cardiff when I first met my in-laws. We drove the Previa all the way from Cardiff, Bristol and to the metropolitan city of London and rented studio suite there. From that moment I planted a vision that Insya Allah one fine day, I’m going to drive this baby in KL and bam! it took me 10 years before it become reality.