Trip to the United Kingdom Day 3 (12/06/16)

I woke up at 4am the next morning and finally took a nice long shower before I started blogging again. I had a good sleep at the Travelodge and the bed was comfortable after our long day out and about. After I updated the blog, I went back to sleep again as we were not leaving the place early. We decided to go out really late at 10.20am as buses and trains were all delayed that morning due to some engineering problems. Instead of taking the bus to Salisbury, we took a taxi to the train station to get back to London. Before boarding the train, we grabbed some breakfast from the train cafe. I was still feeling hungry after P and I finished the sandwich we shared, so we bought more snacks from the roving train lady.

Quiet station and people were encouraged to travel only if necessary

Coffee smell really good everywhere in UK and they provide no calorie sweetener

Due to the train faults, we could not get to London Waterloo station directly and had to get off at Woking Station which was about half an hour from London Waterloo. We waited patiently at the waiting room for 35min for the next train to come, it was supposed to be the one we could board to London but all passengers had to get off from the train instead. It was a nightmare from there as there were delays and changing of platforms and it was getting crowded with people from two trains all stuck and unsure of what was going to happen next. It was bad with two young kids in tow. I must say that I was quite impressed they could travel with us for such long hours the previous day, I cannot imagine my niece and nephew from SG doing that! I started to miss Japan efficient rail as well, its always on the dot to the minute and no messy miscommunication like this. However, I dont see the British cursing or swearing in anger, either they were too cultured to do so or they got used to this. We finally boarded the next train and everyone practically had to rush and squeeze into it to get to London, so we did not get a seat unlike the previous train rides.

Some cheesy shots we took

We were all hungry when we reached London, so we grabbed some pastry thingy from the shops at the station we alighted all. P love cheesy romantic films and he wanted to visit the Notting Hill bookshop that appeared in the movie 'Notting Hill' with Hugh Grant and Julia Robert. I felt shy that we took those cheesy shots at the bookshop and even at the station, but it turned out quite cute. 

We finally found the bookshop

Sushi sweets in the shopfront next to it

We walked through the Portobello market to get to the bookshop and it was a nice feeling looking at the knick knacks and stuff on those streets. There were tourists like us who flocked to the bookshop to take pictures there.

Loved this picture a lot as its really cute

Wefie at the bookshop

Another closer shop and the bicycle next to us make the whole picture complete

Some random shop at the market

The weather at London downtown is the warmest so far and its the only place I could do without my jacket. Unfortunately, it also started raining when we got to the next few destinations. We stopped at the Big Ben to take a close up picture, I lost track of the stations we stopped at and transfer as the London tube is quite extensive. Funnily, P and I were in awe when we saw the Parliament House next to the Big Ben as it looked really grand, we even thought that it was the Buckingham Palace!

 

Closer shot of the Big Ben

The London Eye from this side of the river

We wanted to go St James Park to get a picture of Buckingham Palace, but the access was closed from the station as the nation celebrated the queen's 90th 'national birthday' the previous day and they were hosting some event. We decided to just walk around random and eventually got to Picadilly Circus which was very busy and full of shoppers. We stopped at KFC to grab an early dinner as we did not have any proper meal since waking up in the morning, and we had done quite a bit of walking. 

The iconic Picadilly circus fountain 

British flags lining the streets maybe due to queen's birthday

The KFC meal was quite normal, nothing much to shout about so I didnt take any photos. In fact, I think KFC at ph tasted much better and more filling with more stuff that I liked like pasta salad, brownies, rice with gravy etc. Anyway, it was quite late and almost time to head back when we finish, so we only walked to the nearby Chinatown for Dan to grab some ingredients before making our way back to Euston to take the train home. We did not get to explore much as it was already quite tiring for a weekend trip, but P and I decided to make our way back to London on our and stay a night to explore more in one of the coming days. 

The Chinatown 

Foreigners fascinated with durians at this shop

We got to London Euston station around 8pm and took the 820pm train back to Manchester Picadilly station. I fell asleep on the train ride but woke up again when I felt that the train had stopped for sometime. We were stranded due to lightning striking a cable along the way and causing some issues. Fortunately I slept the most part of it during the 35min delay, but our train ride of 2hours+ became 3hours and it was already 11pm+ when we got to Manchester. We were supposed to get onto another train but the last one already left. Dan talked to the lady at the station and she got us free rides on two taxis to get home. Delays and more delays on national railway today!

Trip to the United Kingdom Day 2 (11/06/16)

I woke up at 2am as I knocked out at 7pm+ the previous night. I started blogging about the first day, packed my stuff for a weekend trip with the family, slept a little more, took a shower and then we were off at 6am. It was really early but the sun was already up and it looked like 8am to me. The family had called earlier to book a taxi to bring all of us to the train station at 6am, there were some hiccups and the taxis only came at 6.20am. There was some tension when we were rushing off, I was crossing my fingers the whole time and was pleasantly surprised that the taxi ride was only 5min and we got to the station in time for the 6.30am train after all. 

Waiting room for cold weather just like Japan

Still early and the station was really quiet 

I really enjoyed train rides when we were in Japan, but I must say there was really a overdose of train rides for that day, we got to Manchester Picadilly station from Stalybridge in a short while and from there we transferred to another train heading to London Euston station. It was about 2.5 hours and we reached London at 9+. We transferred to the London tube and got to Waterloo station, where we took another long ride of almost 2hours to get to Salisbury. The snacks that the family had brought the previous day were really a saver, we had our breakfast on the train and they even brought cups for the bottled drinks.

Happy P and James fascinated with the gadgets again

They have activity packs for kids on board 

At Waterloo station, we had 50 min before the next train ride, so we went to get a preview of some famous sights around the station. At 10.20am, we boarded the train heading to Salisbury so that we can get to the nearest town to Stonehenge from there. We had an early lunch on board and it was sandwiches that Dan had prepared using the ingredients bought at the supermarket. Its really cost saving traveling with the family, but I felt bad as they had to carry all the heavy foodstuff on top of their own belongings.

The London Big Ben from across the river

The London Eye near to Waterloo station is long lost sister of the Singapore Flyer

At Salisbury, we walked around for awhile before finding our way to get to the Stonehenge. It was another nice little town with tourists milling around the town central. Unlike London, there were no high rise buildings and I prefer walking around these small towns more than the busy city. We found the Salisbury Cathedral while we wandered around the place, its a really grand building with very nice sculptures all around it, so we took lots of pictures there.

This looks grand enough but its not the main attraction

The grander Salisbury cathedral

Great workmanship on these sculptures

A random inn around the place and the building looked exquisite 

Road signs in front of the inn made the place looked so 'European'

I was feeling a little tired by that time, although it was only 1pm, we had an early stay for the day and long train rides. From Salisbury, we took a local bus to Amesbury, which is the nearest town to the Stonehenge. It is the cheapest way to visit the World UNESCO history site as tourists usually take up day tours from London as those are certainly more costly. We found a funky taxi aunty Jane at the quieter town and she drove us to the visitor center of Stonehenge. It was really fast and cost us only £12+, very soon we spotted the Stonehenge emerging from a long stretch of green grassland. We got really excited and noticed that at this point the taxi was moving more slowly as there was a long row of cars along the windy road leading to the heritage site.

The inter-town bus that runs every hour

First glimpse of the Stonehenge from far

Dan had been studying and living near London for most of his life but this is the first time he's visiting the Stonehenge, its a first for the whole family as well. The price of £17 per adult is kind of steep for some people, and they find it costly for viewing a pile of rocks. Its a good idea for them to visit Stonehenge with us for the first time and giving us a tour of London with the same trip. There's a big parking space filled with cars when we reached, it is next to the visitor centre where everyone get their entrance tickets and queue to board the shuttle bus to get nearer to the Stones.

My tickets and the simple guide book

The shuttle bus

There was a long trail of people and we walk in an anti-clockwise direction viewing the Stones from all angle and then leaving to board the bus again. Of course, we did it very slowly, spending more than 1.5h there. We've came a long way and that's a good reason to savour every moment we have there. The weather was pleasant but a bit too chilly for me, so I had my jacket on at Salisbury and never took it off.  The first part of the trail for viewing the Stonehenge was narrow but everyone got excited when they set their eyes on the Stones for the first time, therefore we took a long time standing there taking turns to take selfies and so on. I was certainly glad that it was not crowded like visiting the terracotta soldiers in Xi'An, there are many international visitors but the number is still quite acceptable, no need to squeeze here and there.

The first complete look when I got near enough

This part of the path is narrower and more crowded

Eventually, we walked on and realised that at the back of the Stones, there was a big grass patch and it was not crowded at all. There were lots of opportunities to take jump shots (P took from many angles) and individual selfies there, some even find that the Stones looked better from this angle compared to the previous point. The boys got tired by this time and we were all hungry, so we all sat down and had a nice picnic while viewing the Stones. Once again, I was glad that Jane and Dan made the effort to carry all that food around. The atmosphere was really great and quite enjoyable, I'll recommend everyone to visit the Stonehenge when they are in London and enjoy a nice picnic there, maybe except during winter, or maybe even during winter.

The view from behind

View from another angle

Finally, after a lot of fun and photo moments, we left the Stones behind to take the shuttle bus back. It was only 4pm but there was no queue and the shuttle buses were waiting for passengers. It was a long journey to get here, and we took a whole day, but it was all worth it. At the visitor centre, there was another exhibition area to explain where and how the Stones appeared at where it is now. It was really quite interesting and intriguing to know that the first stone had been here since 5000 years ago!

Me trying to move a stone at the outdoor exhibition area, it didnt budge

Mica with us

While waiting to leave the visitor centre, it started raining. Dan contacted Jane the taxi lady to come and pick us up and we were finally making our way to our hotel at Amesbury. It was a simple Travelodge but it looked comfortable enough for us to stay a night. We only had time to put down our bags and then headed out again as the whole group was feeling hungry, we really needed a early dinner. Dan was asking the taxi auntie and hotel staff for a nice place to eat (P asked for steak) and we decided to walk 2km+ to get to this pub call The Orchard. On Google Map it showed 30min of walking time, but I think we must have walked 45min as the road seemed to go on and on forever. Amesbury is really a small quiet town with no obvious city centre. We did not meet many people on the way and we only saw small clusters of shops here and there. I'm glad the weather is so cooling and this long walk was quite comfortable, giving us a chance to tour the truly 'English small town'. We finally reached the pub after much walking, I was expecting other cafes and restaurants next to it but there was only a food co-op next to it.

My dinner of fish cakes, prawn salad and fried fish fillet. Very yummy!

Jane's fish and chips

P baby back ribs

Dan's americano steak

Mica's dinner

Although the food took some time to arrive, the atmosphere at the pub was quite pleasant (more of family having dinner than drinking) and the taste of the food made us forget how long we had to walk to get there. The food came in big portions so we were really happy with our dinner. There was a 2-for-1 promotion going on at the pub so five main courses only cost £50++.

The small town was very quiet but the pub was half filled 

Glad to finally see the sign from far

Quiet and neat little town

After our dinner, it was still bright outside even though it was already 8pm. It felt strange to me and I only got used to it after a few days here, we also enjoyed the longer daylight to tour around. We popped around the corner to the food co-op and I bought a big bottle of shampoo (300ml) for about £1.50. The hotel only had shampoo/body wash in a dispenser and I wanted to get a bottle of shampoo after I saw how cheap the price was. Next, we went to a nearby playground that we passed earlier as Dan promised James that we'll go back there after dinner. The boys ran around happily and we had some fun too.

We had a go on the mini zip line

The big kids

We had much fun and Dan contacted taxi lady Jane to send us back to the hotel from there. We were all complaining that it was a long distance to walk and we did not want to do it again. The taxi fare only came up to £5 after we got back to the lodge. I was so tired that I could not wake up once my head hit the pillows again, I really wanted to take a good hot shower but my body was too weak to do so after the next morning. 

The Travelodge that we stayed

Trip to the United Kingdom Day 1 (09/06/16 & 10/06/16)

Our initial plan for this June is to go to New Zealand, we fell in love with skiing the previous trip to Hokkaido but didnt get enough of it, so we were looking for more skiing trips and only place we can do it in June is at New Zealand. However, as I got down to do research I find very limited resources about people to travel to New Zealand at this time for skiing, and most of the people there self-drive so there are also limited resources about the public transport there. It was not impossible, but much harder to plan compared to Hokkaido. On top of that, we were not sure if the ski slopes will be opened the period we are traveling as it depends on the amount of snowfall and varies yearly (typically by mid June). I remember it was during one of our dinner to Astons in April, I suddenly had the idea of visiting UK instead as the air tickets cost the same as going to NZ. It was a random idea but P agreed immediately with excitement, he had been wanting to visit UK for years, his sister is residing there and they had not reunite for 8 years.

We had to get P visa clearance before we can get down to book the tickets. It took us a few weeks to do that and it was almost mid May when we jumped around with joy with his visa approval. I had been researching about air tickets and monitoring the direct flights to London on SQ. When we finally got down to booking the tickets, we realised his sister is staying at Manchester and not London, and getting a direct flight ticket there is expensive and rare. Colleague Y told me about the UOB rewards website where we can get 6 miles for booking certain airlines and I went to check it out. Surprisingly, Etihad airways tickets to Manchester were very cheap! It was only $920 with taxes included and seemed too good to be true as I was expecting to pay $1.7k for each of our air ticket when I was monitoring the prices on SQ. Although I read lots of negative reviews about the cramped seats and bad service online, the offer was too good to pass, so I went ahead to book.

Finally the day came, and we got on our way to our first Europe trip!

Other than that, we did not get to plan much as it is more of a trip for P to reunite with his sister and everything else is secondary. So unlike previous trips when we got busy touring around and visit many places, I did not do much research for this trip at all. It felt quite odd and a bit uneasy for me as it seemed like a waste if we cannot get much out of this trip. However, I convinced myself to subdue the 'kiasu feeling' to and just sit back to enjoy whatever there is to come for this trip. This is my first trip to Europe (finally!) and I guess there will be more in future.

We were really crossing our fingers as like what was mentioned in the previous trip reports, we were always jinxed in some ways when we travel, especially missing flights more than a few times whenever we go for a longer trip like this. Since it is a 8pm flight, we tried to set off as early as possible just in case. Fortunately, our flight to Manchester did not have any hiccups and it turned out better than expected.

My first flight to Europe and Middle East

Touch screen IFE

I actually forgot about my worries about flying with Etihad airways as it had been more than a few weeks and I was glad the tickets were settled. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I stepped into the aircraft and realised my worries were unfounded. We had to transit at Abu Dhabi and our first flight was on a Boeing 787 which was new and the cool lighting made it look classy and posh. The legroom was sufficient and I was quite impressed with the high tech IFE, it was so much better than our flight on United Airlines last year. Since the majority of the passengers on both flights were Europeans, I guess the complaints were probably issued by these ang mohs as they were much taller and bigger built than us.

Glad that the seat pillow can tear open to become neck pillow

Looked cramped for these guys on my right but actually it was fine

Before my flight, I went online to book low caloric meals as usual and I was half expecting them to miss this out as nobody came to paste stickers like what they'll usually do on SQ flights. I looked at the menu and had set my mind on the pasta if my special meal do not turn up. I was a little hungry but had prepared some snacks for myself on this flight, we reached the airport quite early (at least 2h before flight) but went hunting for souvenirs for P's sister and family so did not have time to get any dinner. However, the LCML turned up and I actually enjoyed it.

Menu: 3 choices for main course instead of 2

Not bad for dinner

Snack before we landed

The IFE variety was not as good as SQ flights but I still had sufficient selection of movies to watch from there so I did not take out my laptop at all. Probably its harder for them to cater to all as it was a flight from Asia to a Middle East country and onward to Europe.

Quite impressed with the sleep pack that came with both flights

It was confusing when we reached Abu Dhabi as it was 11pm local time, 4am for my friends at home and 7pm for our destination. The transit time was about 3 hours, so we had 2 hours to roam but the hours are too odd for us to feel energetic. Abu Dhabi is the base for Etihad flights and the people working at the airport are all foreigners like Koreans, Filipinos and so on. Considering my previous flight to San Francisco was 17 hours including transit, this should be my longest flight ever, total 18hours including transit. A quick check online shown that Manchester is actually 3000km nearer to Singapore compared to SFO, probably the place of transit made it a longer journey. 

The second leg of our journey was on a older and bigger aircraft exactly like most SQ flights but it was not as comfortable. Probably it was the red eye flight at odd hours that made us really tired and sleepy, we slept through most of it and could not wait to land. We were given a snack bag when we boarded the flight. It consisted of apple slices, sesame bar, water and sandwich for my low caloric meal. I tried to eat the sandwich although I was not hungry, but it was hard to savour as there were only tomatoes and cucumber slices in there, it will be nice if they can get some meat or simply give me the vegetable salad instead of the carbs. I got tired of their steamed chicken breast meat (which was not too tender) as they served it for both dinner and breakfast, although it was a well fed journey with 4 meals.

Took a photo of the old school postbox and I realised this is the design at most places

We arrived at 7am at Manchester Airport and there was a full day ahead of us. A red eye long 18 hour flight like this is super tiring, and luckily we didn't have anything planned for the day. P's sister was there to pick us with her two younger kids and we made our way to their home to this town call Ashton-under-Lyne via taxi.

Love the design of the church

On the way back, I looked around and took in the view of the surroundings from Manchester Airport to the small town. I immediately fell in love with the place as it was really what I had in mind for a small English town, all the buildings were European style and quaint. If we only have one of these buildings in SG, it'll be a tourist attraction.

Taxi which brought us home

The taxi ride is most costly than Singapore, a 20-30min ride from the airport home was 26 pounds (>50SGD). Other than the airport, we do not usually see any taxi on the streets, so its quite impossible to flag down one, and people usually call or book them at no additional charges. As the family do not have their own transport, we take the taxi very often and I soon got familiar with it. There are seats (some foldable ones) behind the driver in two rows facing each other and it seems quite normal to book a cab to fit 7 of us, and its cost effective that way.

The neighourhood reminds me of US but UK style buildings are much nicer

P's bro-in-law had already fixed up a very nice breakfast for us when we arrived, it was a sumptuous English breakfast with Filipino style garlic rice. We had the breakfast and chatted with the family, I cant believe it was only 10am+ when we finished our breakfast. P sister and bil were very kind to give up their bed room for us during our stay here, I was lying on the bed and fell into a nap really fast. I woke up, took a good shower and played with James (4 year old kid) who got familiar with us really fast.

Cute and inquisitive James who got very interested with our gadgets

Reunion photo at the supermarket (us with Mica and James)

After awhile, we got ready to go to the supermarket in the nearby town center as we have long train rides going to the Stonehenge the next day. I was amazed at the amount of food we bought there, looking like it can last us for a week. It was raining heavily when we went out and the weather was cooler than expected. It was warm the week before we arrived so I didnt expect that I will need my jackets much, however I'm still glad I've brought them as it was chilly when we went out. Most of the locals are wearing coats/raincoats and jackets in town due to the heavy rain.

Nice buildings around the town

Lots of such well preserved old buildings in town

Many people had warned me about the high cost in UK, in fact most of them travel to London and its a cosmopolitan city. So far transport is quite expensive, but when we was shopping for foodstuff, the cost of foodstuff and groceries are actually much cheaper than SG. I dont mind being a more thrifty traveller and I feel really fortunate that I save a lot on accommodation and food with P sister and family hosting us this trip.

Very yummy donuts with filling at 40cts SGD

Trolley full of foodstuff from 3 supermarkets

Once we got back home, everyone was hungry as we skipped lunch. Again, Dan had prepared a very good dinner and I was so impressed that that was maja blanca (coconut pudding), a Filipino dessert. It was only 7pm after dinner but once again I knocked out once my head hit the comfortable pillow. I'm pretty sure I'm not having jet-lag unlike my previous trip to US, but it had been a really long day for us. 

Very delicious home cooked dinner for us, all thanks to Dan