Category: United Kingdom

Cumbria – The Lake District

Before the alarm clock rang, I was already awake. Wen Dee was screaming on the phone. Apparently, her boyfriend Billy forgot her birthday. I wanted to say something but she was still talking on the phone. I waited and within minutes I fell asleep.

We spend the whole day hiking. It was a long walk. We started off by hiking up a small hill that leads to a waterfall. According to the pamphlet that I was reading, it’s supposedly to be one of the most beautiful waterfalls around. But to me I think the waterfall back in Malaysia is much better.


Waterfall

The next destination was hiking up another hill by its muddy pathway. There were puddles of water everywhere. No one walked out from the pathway with dry shoes.


Roadside

The next thing we had to do is brave through sheep dung. It looks like pea sized black coloured blue berries. It stinks of course.

We had cross a farm in order to get to the other side of the hill that leads to the Stone Circle. According to historians, the Stone Circle is 1000 years older than Stonehenge. Stonehenge is fascinating. No one really knows it was built. But for Stone Circle, even I build one. Its just couple of huge rocks arranged in a circle.
The trip was almost over after the disappointing Stone Circle trip. We walked to the city to meet up with the remaining MASSOC members.


Beautiful hills


Me, Ian, Kf, Matthew on top of the hills


Me, Shane & Wendee @ the Stone Circle

It was time to go home but we decided to make a quick stop at Keswick for dinner. On our way to Keswick, we passed some beautiful places. I was able to take a close look at the snowy mountains from the foothill and we passed a town with crystal clear water running through the river-cum-drain.


Keswich

We looked for Chinese food as soon as we reached Keswick. There was one nearby but it wasn’t open. We ventured into the city but unfortunately there wasn’t even a Chinese takeaway. We ended up eating English food in a pub. I had a really bony smoked salmon.

Cumbria – The Lake District

Cumbria – The Lake District, is known as England’s most beautiful corner which is situated between the South West Coast of Scotland and Lancashire. Apart from being rich in history, wildlife and literary associations, it is also the home to some of the most spectacular and breathtaking landscapes, rugged fells and tranquil lakes. For those who in search of serenity, a cruise down Lake Windermere would serve best. Mountain walks and museums visitation are available for those who seek to edify themselves about Lake District. It is a place that every traveller who visits England will not miss.
We stayed in a huge Youth Hostel with a waterfront view. Khai Fei and I decided to share a room but there wasn’t any left. We couldn’t afford to wait as the activities start as soon as we arrived. We couldn’t care less and dumped our bags on the lobby and left.

The first activity was the ferry ride around the lakes. It was freezing but yet people stayed on top of the ferry to enjoy the view. From a distance, we could see the snowy hills of Lake District (I heard some people took a 3 hour walk up the hills just to play with the snow). Seagulls were circling our ferry, probably in search of food while the ducks and swans were waiting at the jetty for people to feed them.



MASSOC struck a deal with the ferry operators. They will charge us cheaper and allowed us to make any stops we want to.
We stopped at the Lake District Aquarium which apparently struck me with its beauty at the first sight. We paid the entrance fee impatiently and headed straight in.


What a disappointing exhibition. Everything seemed to be poorly designed and dilapidated. The only interesting sight is the tunnel crossing the aquarium. The ducks and the carnivorous fishes (ie sharks) lived harmoniously. I wonder why the sharks don’t eat ducks. We had a really sulky dinner at the Youth Hostel. After dinner, the bus drivers offered to take us to the pub but with a payment of 1 pound per person. Unscrupulous bastard bus drivers, we knew that they are going to the pub for a drink anyway but those arses charged us.
The pub wasn’t that great. All we had are just hot chocolates and left as soon as we finished it. We took a stroll around that area passing a graveyard and the lake.
Khai Fei and I were finally given a room to stay. However, we had to share the room with Wen Dee because there weren’t any more rooms left.
I unpacked my stuff and went to sleep. While I was happily sleeping, I was woken by a group of people in the room. They were singing “Happy Birthday to Wendee!” I was too tired to say anything or grab the cake they bought for WenDee to eat.

Trip to Leeds

  • I just got back from Leeds. MASSOC had another trip down there. It was a shopping and dinner trip. I bought a sweater from GAP 🙂 and a box of English tea for my mum.
  • I had to wake up at 6AM this morning and I slept at 4AM! I’m so tired! Leeds is only an hour from Sheffield. We took a bus down there. Basically, I didn’t shop much there and I spend most of my time walking around with my friends and took couple of pictures. Leeds‘ shopping area is much bigger than Sheffield and in fact Leeds has more branded shops than Sheffield, for example fcuk and Morgan. One thing I notice about Leeds is a lot of music playing around. They have people playing instruments in the streets. There was this group of people holding all kinds of drums and started playing them and it was pretty good!
  • Janet introduced one of her friends, Stanley to us today and he’s doing medical law 2nd year, pretty nice guy. We hung out together the whole day. Oh yeah, Ian, Gwin and Nakata came to Leeds too. He drove down all the way down from Sheffield! It was pretty cold at night and Gwin was only wearing a thin layer of clothing. I had to borrow him one of my jackets. It seems that it was too small for him and he was struggling in it!

    • 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.