More of England pt 2

after the salisbury cathedral we drove a short distance to Stonehenge, the mysterious monument. we past by the meadows of 'canola'..at first i was excited each time i see the yellow meadow, but then after a while, we see it like everywhere we drove..the excitement died down..




we paid for entrance and got our audio set and set off to see the stones. it is believed that the stones have been there for thousands of years and believed to function differently throughout the ages..

the isolated stone

another pic of us posing ..jake brought a tripod to the trip so when weather and crowd allows, he would prop them up and insist we took numerous shots to get his money's worth on the trip.

Following stonehenge, we drove to our Bath. Bath is famous for its naturally-occuring hot spring where the Roman built bath houses. Below is the bath house.

The city is also famous for its Georgian architecture. See pic below of 'The Circus' (circus is latin for ring, oval or circle) The building consists of 30 townhouses all set in a semi circle..(my picture don't do justice)

Our last destination of the day was Cardiff.We knew we had arrived when the sign started to show dual language.



It's interesting to note that we experienced almost 4 season in a day. First it was raining at Windsor, then it was a generally nice day at Winchester and Salisbury. At Stonehenge, it was very fine summer day and it started raining again in Bath. Finally Cardiff was freezing cold for us.



The City Hall.
Cherry blossoms.
Leon posing ..
Us with the sign Clock tower

Millineum Stadium

We wanted to try 'Welsh' food. We spotted many English and Irish pubs. Then we saw the HRM Prince of Wales. We decided to try it, but who knows when we got inside, it turned out to be an English chain, so we ended up with .....(see below)




Boring Sunday roast, fish and chips and nachos and rice.

Returning to London was quite exhausting...but I guess given our time limit, this is worth going.

More of England

We wanted to fully utilised the rental car so we planned a big day trip around England and to Cardiff in wales.

We started out with a visit to the Windsor Castle



I was approached by a castle guard who told me all about the castle. Windsor has been inhabited for nearly 1000 years ;) HEHEHE and he pointed out to me some quarters outside the castle which used to be the residence of the king's favourite mistress/concubine. it started to rain when he's about to wrap up his talk. we quickly went into the dollhouse and then started the tour inside the castle. anyways pictures are not allowed although we sneaked some photographs (like 1 ...and it turned out blurry)

anyways, the pics above were some of the selection i put together...started out with the eateries with names like King and Castle. i noted throughout Uk they have really fancy and amusing names for their eating joints. The 4th pic shows picture of the castle..again the famous tourist bus in every town..
more views of the castle from the outside. Some little shops in the area that stood out of nowhere. The plaque on the floor was the highest order of knighthood one can get in UK.
it is called Order of the Garter

More views of the castle ground. We were introduced to the charming element of the dried moat that encircle the castle to help defend the castle from intruders. in the middle ages, it was probably filled in water to further deter the intruders.

After Windsor castle, we drove to Winchester. have I already mentioned that everything in england is OLD. Winchester is an OLD city. The houses were constructed way back in the 1200s.

The gardens are immaculate..like any English garden.

Posing with King Alfred the Great statute.
High street..

pictures of One side of the cathedral. I read that the Winchster cathedral is the longest cathedral in Europe. It was constructed in 1079.

Posing in front of the cathedral...
Guidhall...

Another Tudor construction.

Following Winchester city, we drove to Salisbury ..again, there was a Cathedral. It's of the Gothic type construction.. and it boasts the tallest spire in UK at 123m.

Here's picture of the town of Salisbury. Again, another eatery has a fancy name (Slug and lettuce which I later found that it's a chain eatery)

The Slug and Lettuce eatery
High street
Old gate
Salisbury and its Spire

Salisbury cathedral was under renovation when we went.


the back of the cathedral.

The front of the Salisbury cathedral..

Oxford

Following Cambridge and Stratford upon Avon, we drove to Oxford. The famous place where our oxford dictionary was published :P I think Oxford is the oldest of the English speaking universities. We went to one of the musuem and walked around a little. It was pretty late in the arvo and most colleges are closed.

We posed outside the famous 'dining' room that was in the Harry Potter movies.

Above are just random shots of various shots of buildings and university lecture hall. (the round building).

Stratford upon Avon

Stratford upon Avon is the birthplace of William Shakespeare. We had an opportunity to visit on our way to Oxford. Here, a fake statue of the man himself :)

The streets were lined with 'banners' of all the works of William Shakespearer himself.

We took pictures with what I believed to be the 'characters' of his works. The lady likes my sunnies.

3 of us had to take picture with the famous residence of Shakespeare. Note, it is a tudor type architecture. Can you spot the crooked windows?

We took picture with dancers on the street.



Dancers dancing to the 'medieval' type music :)

UK - Cambridge

Blogger has lost its versatility to upload pictures to the position I liked ..but before I whinge any further, here's another load of pictures I like. karen told me about the history of england ie War of The Roses..for details, please ask our historian, Karen. 3 of us walking down the street. Me and Jake posing in front of a college, and then I posed in front of the 'residence' of Issac newton. I also can't help but posed with the 7 foot or was it 10 foot grand piano :P Finally it was the Bridge of Sigh...the one place that I had to go in Cambridge. The tour bus that operates in every 'tourist' place in England. There's also people punting down the river. Cambridge also has its own mall. Seen here are Fai and friends.

Cambridge is a beautiful town. It thrives on the student population. Lots of people use bicycle and the lawns were carefully manicured. There are lots of signs that forbade people from stepping on the grass.

Above were some pitures we took. There were tulips, streams, bridges and ducks...it all makes picture composition so easy. Fai and his friends were trying to find where all the buildings are by looking at the 3D directory. I can't help but posed with the hemp bicycle. Jake and Fai posed with the electric bus. We had Cornwall pasty for lunch.

UK part 1

We arrived at heathrow. The next day, we drove our little rental car to Cambridge. Cambridge has many 'colleges' and the buildings are rich in its design and architecture. We were given a quick overview by our tutor re the different types of building design, Karen *grin. Took pictures with the tudor building. Notice the crooked windows..Amazing how the building is still holding together. Then we went to King's college the famous college...it has a mixture of Gothic building and neo classical I suppose. Me trying to enter one of the bookstore which sells all cambridge paraphenalia. The buildings are very very old here. I don't think you can find anything younger than 100 years old here.

Our journey begins..

with late snack at the Koru Lounge. I can't remember what they are now. but they are pretty delicious and pretty to my eyes.

12 hours later, and many movies later (enchanted, Juno, etc) we arrived in HK airport. Went to the Thai Lounge to refresh.

I am so happy they serve bee hoon and char siew pao and some light dim sum. And i get to drink VITASOY! happy happy joy joy!

back from long absence

i am back from a really long absence this time. i wonder what i should write about. let's have a report about N then...

Pic below: N and his first tooth.

-n's eyesight has really improved, he can see us from at least 3 metres now, so we can't really hide now :P he will shout for us if we try to hide.

-n's really good at doing commando crawls. He recently graduated to real crawlings. tummy's off the ground...and his commando crawl is really quick now. if you don't look for 2 secs, he's at the other end of whenever you've left him

-N's also has his first tooth when he was 7 months old...another one pop up in about 2 weeks.-N's also has his first tooth when he was 7 months old...another one pop up in about 2 weeks.

-N is not a great fan of pureed food. he is a firm believer of 'if i am going to have anything, i shall be able to see it in its original form, and i shall be able to hold it and FEED Myself". hence the eating banana like the adults do..

-n's also a master at wriggling and rolling. Changing him has become the ultimate challenge..it can take 15 minutes with all the winter layerings. he wriggles and rolls and crawls at every opportunity. doesn't help either to have the button up stretch n grow...i could be buttoning the first one from one end of the bed and finish at the other end. (maybe i should pin him down somehow) but i have discovered that if I let him have his little sparkly book, he could actually stay still for a while..i just have to speed through with the buttons (which I now discovered that zip ups overalls is absolutely god send)

-n's also good at 'crying' his crocodile tears to get attention, or to get out or away from anything.
his crocodile tears can become real tears should we ignore him a little longer.

-n babbles from time to time. it is always pa pa that he babbles. we doubt he knows it means daddy at this stage but it made jake swoon..of course i try to get him to call mamamamama but he seldom do it yet.

-n can pull himself to standing in his cot too...*time to bring down the cot to a lower level so it doesn't become safety hazard.

-n could also bang with the flat on his hands. on good days, he will high-five with us.