Stratford-Upon-Avon, England

  • I went to Stratford-Upon-Avon organised by MASSOC today. It was pretty good. We visited Shakespeare’s museum, birthplace and Nash’s house (great grandson in law of William’s home). Stratford is beautiful. There’s this river where we picnicked and played captain ball. The place was beautified with the falling leaves of autumn and obese geese and ducks with the swimming swans. Although MASSOC is a Malaysian and Singaporean society, other people from other countries went with us, for example, Hong Kong, Japan, China and oh yeah, Ian the guai lou (British guy). The town is quite small but seems cosy maybe because most of the buildings are Tudor houses. Some of the houses were turned into shops. There is this shop selling teddy bears. Outside the shop lies a teddy bear that is ½ head taller than me wearing a British guard uniform.
  • Speaking of Ian, he’s a friendly and funny guy. He never cease to amuse me. He calls himself guai lou (it’s caucasian in cantonese) and could speak Japanese. Apparently he picked it up when he was in Japan during summer. One thing I like about him is his friendliness. Sadly I would say MASSOC is a society filled purely with Asians (no doubt that everyone is asian). Ian didn’t even mind at all, he turned up with no regret. He thanked us as we were departing to our rooms saying that he treated him like a king today. sweet guy 🙂
  • Coincidently, there had a fun fair in the town. It made the whole town so lively! They even had fireworks weeee..! We went home at 6pm and we were given Nasi Lemak for dinner as soon as we reach Sheffield *yummy*
    Some facts I picked up.

  • Stratford is 2 ½ hours away from Sheffield.
  • William Shakespeare‘s parents were John Shakespeare and Mary Arden.
  • He was born on 1564 and died 50+ years later.
  • The higher the ceiling of a Tudor house the richer the owner is.
  • Insane people are classed as criminals during the 16th century till the 18th century. There were jailed and beaten up.
  • Nash married William’s granddaughter, Elizabeth. Elizabeth was 18 and Nash was 36 years old. Eventually Nash died and Elizabeth remarried.
  • Elizabeth never had any children from both of the marriage. Elizabeth was the last descendant of the William Shakespeare family.