25 February 2008

England-ed – London part

Day 5 (1/2/2008) – LONDON:
First day of February, it was time to treasure London, one of the world’s most famous cities…

So… football came first again…

After settling check-in to hostel, I went to Arsenal FC new stadium, Emirates Stadium… but unfortunately mana tau Arsenal only did 2 tour per day and I missed both already when I reached… and I get to know the next day tour schedule also not suit with our traveling plan… So have to give up taking a tour into the stadium d la… In the end, didn’t buy ticket to go in their museum… Arsenal only wat… stupid la… one day 2 tour nia… like so confident sure don’t have many visitors… but a bit disappointed also leh as didn’t have chance to have a clear look of this new stadium… After having some time in their All Arsenal Store, I left the Emirates Stadium and headed to Stamford Bridge, Chelsea FC stadium…

Emirates Stadium

This time Chelsea is much better…every hour got a tour… Though Chelsea won over Man Utd to get Premier League title twice before last season, but what can I say bout their stadium and service is they were truly amazing! The stadium look great though quite small, their ‘behind the scene’ facilities were very good, especially their home team changing room, I think even better and much classy than Old Trafford… But the best part was the tour guide was fantastic! This was the only stadium tour that tour guide brought us into good interaction between him and visitors… This was also the only tour (except Old Trafford) that I dare to admit that I’m Man Utd fans and the tour guide still serve us nicely… I truly enjoyed Stamford Bridge’s tour… Chelsea has gained mark in my mind d la, plus nowadays they are not Man Utd strong contender ady also :)

Stamford Bridge

In the evening, we went to London Eye and London Bridge… The wind at that night was very strong, so we didn’t spend too much time outside…


Day 6 (2/2/2008) – LONDON:

London City View

In the morning, we went to Tower Bridge, one of the greatest trademarks of London… Beside the Tower Bridge, it was Tower of London, which is one of the world heritages… Didn’t go in to visit Tower of London but took the exhibition trip of Tower Bridge… View of River Thames from Tower Bridge was very very beautiful…

Then, we dropped by at St Paul Cathedral a while… After that, strolling in the streets around the city before reaching Oxford Road… Oxford Road can be described as ‘upgraded Petaling Street’… so many foreigners were here and also various kinds of souvenirs’ shops…

In the evening, went to see Royal Albert Hall… Royal College of Music where we took their music examination for piano, musical theory etc was located somewhere there… but I missed the small road heading to that college and it was too late to turn back ady… Haih… wasted la couldn’t have a real look of the college that certifies my Grade 8 achievement… Aiks…

National History Museum was located somewhere there also… It seemed very large and interesting… But that time late ady…so didn’t go in to pay a visit too…

Day 7 (3/2/2008) – LONDON:
This was the final day of our stay in England… our flight was in the evening, so that mean we had only a morning to continue exploring London…

First of all, we went to Buckingham Palace… so damn big crowd there as it was the time for Changing of Guard ceremony… so lucky la us as we didn’t know the time of that ceremony before… but damn many visitors at there la and didn’t stay too long…

Then, had some time at St James Park which was beside Buckingham Palace before heading to Westminister Abbey… Westminister Abbey is a large church and traditional palace coronation and burial site of English monarchs…

Then, went to Westminister Bridge where Big Ben and House of Parliament were situated there…

After that, back to hostel to get the luggage ready and move on Gatwick Airport… It was time to end my England trip…


Some final words:
3 days in London was not enough at all… I think I just managed to cover about 50% only… Skipped lots of museums, even the famous Madame Tussauds Wax Museum have to skip also, then also Greenwich and some other else…

Anyway, it was a great chance to have a real look of England… Most satisfying was I had visited 5 football stadiums which I could only see them from TV before and of course that memorable live football match in Old Trafford…

In short, England was truly fantastic and wonderful, let alone the fact that everything there was expensive… ;)

Finally, hope you all enjoy my brief lousy report and also pictures… Wish that one day you will have chance to step on the land of England too, it’s just a matter of time…

Posted by Ren Geng任耕 at 11:31:00 PM |

17 February 2008

England-ed

Well… finally I manage to force myself back here… Time still flies… New sem has begun for 1 week already… According to seniors, this sem is among the most relax sem out of our 6 years here… Looking on the time table, not very pack also la…

Btw, Happy Chinese New Year! Though it’s a bit too late, but Chinese celebrates for 15 days right… That’s mean we are actually still in the middle of this festival leh… Anyway, not much special celebration here… This festival is fading away from my life already…

But I got a good ang-pau also la actually… During our winter break, I went to travel in England and experienced lots of wonderful time there… England is indeed a very great country. But everything was expensive there…

I decided to upload my photo to web album instead of posting at here… But I will write a little brief trip report to explain what we did everyday…

Before I kick off, here’s a reminder. It seems like we took quite a lot of pictures about football stadiums… Can’t help la… we were just too excited every time when we stepped into the stadium… But I arranged those stadium photos to different album, so if you guys not fancy of football, just skip it and view the pictures around the city ya…

26 January 2008 – Depart from Volgograd:
First of all, wanna tell on how we get to England… I went with Boon Ping… Just 2 of us… Actually travel with less people has some benefits, such as no need wait too long for each other to get ready and less trouble when need to make decision, but sometimes it was quite sien also la…

When flying to England, actually there were 5 people together in my trip… The other 3 were our malay friends, Sofwan, Ramdan and Yadie who took the same flight as us to London and then they flied to Ireland to have their vacation there…

We took express bus from Volgograd to Moscow which took about 16 hours…

Bus to Moscow

27 January 2008 – Flying to London
We reached Moscow Domodedovo International Airport in the morning…

The airline we took was Norweigian Air Shuttle. It is a European low-cost carrier that none of people here took before, I never heard bout this airline before too, but it was cheap, so just gave it a try. Our air fare was about RM900 sth for 2 way ticket… The flight was exactly like our Air Asia ( or should be say Air Asia operates exactly like them).

From Moscow, we need to transit in Norway Oslo Gardermoen Airport which we need to wait 4 hours there… Good also as we had the opportunity to hand around and shop at the airport… Heard that this Gardermoen Airport has the largest duty free shop area in Europe...

Few pictures at Oslo Gardermoen Airport:

Inside the flight:

Behind from left: Ramdan, me, Sofwan
Front from left: Boon Ping, Yadie

LONDON, Here I Come!

Then, we continued our journey to fly to London Gatwick Airport and we reached in the evening.
Later, we took National Express bus from airport to London Victoria Coach Station and took another National Express bus to Manchester at 1am. The journey took about 6 hours.
So, the next day was the beginning of our trip in England.

Day 1 (28/1/2008) – MANCHESTER:
In the morning, we reached Manchester Coach Station. After finding our hostel and drop our luggage in the luggage room there, we began our treasure of Manchester.

The first spot was Manchester Sportcity which was the main venue of Manchester Commonwealth Games 2002. Current Manchester City stadium, City of Manchester Stadium is located there. As when the time we reached the stadium, it still had 2 hour more for the next stadium tour, so we decided not to wait but took a short stadium + museum tour. Short stadium tour means without visiting the staff and player rooms or so-called behind the scene. This was the first time I stepped into a stadium of English Premier League. That feeling was absolutely amazing.


In the evening, we went to Manchester’s China Town. There were lots of Chinese shops and restaurants along the street.

Then, we went to city centre to see Wheel of Manchester which was something like our Eye of Malaysia. Didn’t go up coz very expensive la…

After that, we did window shopping in the shopping malls there before going back to hostel to call it a day.


Day 2 (29/1/2008) – MANCHESTER:
I think to most people, the word ‘Manchester United’ will be among the first appear in mind when talking bout Manchester right… and their stadium, Old Trafford had long been my dream destination… Of course I would never forget to go there… So, this morning, we went to accomplish our dream…

Old Trafford is actually located quite far from city centre… The place around the stadium was quite ‘ulu’… And that made the stadium so outstanding at that area la…

The museum and stadium tour of Old Trafford took place every half an hour and looked like every session also got visitors to join… Old Trafford has become one of Manchester’s landmarks already, some more this is the home of world most famous football club right... haha…

Everything was fantastic and amazing here… The museum was much larger than Manchester City’s one as Man Utd won so much of trophies in their history…
We spent for about 5 hours there, including the stadium tour, visit the museum and shopping in Megastore… Half day had spent at Old Trafford…


In the evening, we just hung around in the city, sometimes went in the shops that attracted us… I really enjoyed the pretty night scene of Manchester…

Day 3 (30/1/2008) – MANCHESTER:
Since the morning, we explored the city centre… There were various historical buildings around there...

We went in the Manchester Art Gallery, mainly because it’s free entry and we wanted to avoid the windy climate outside…

We had been eating simple since coming to Manchester, so since this was the final day of our stay in Manchester, we decided to have a big meal… We went to China Town to have chinese food buffet which was 6 pound for each person…

Then, it was the time for the most important moment and highlight of all highlights! Heading to Old Trafford stadium again for the match between Manchester United vs Portsmouth…. The match was really great and the atmosphere of watching a live football match in The Theater of Dreams was truly fantastic… Words couldn’t really explain everything I saw and felt there…

The match ended with Manchester United won 2-0… where Christiano Ronaldo scored both the goals; one of them was described as the best free kick in the history of Premier League…

(The match photos are included in the Old Trafford album)

Day 4 (31/1/2008) – LIVERPOOL:
Today, we went to Liverpool which is 1 hour bus journey time from Manchester…

First spot of our Liverpool journey was Anfield Stadium, the home of Liverpool Football Club… It was one of the historical stadiums in English football history… But I had to say that the service of their staff was worst, especially keep on cursing on fierce rivals, particularly Man Utd… the stadium looked lousy too if compare to other top teams’ stadiums too…


Then, we moved on to River Merseyside… Enjoyed the view along the river… Then went to Albert Dock which is located along the river… The Beatles’ Story museum was situated there… at first thought wanna pay it a visit, but then the entrance fee was very expensive so we gave up the plan…

After that, we went in Merseyside Maritime Museum which was quite interesting, got some displays on famous ships that have links with Liverpool, including Titanic… Then, we also went to TATE Art Gallery before ending our 1-day trip in Liverpool and returned to Manchester for the midnight express bus to London to continue our journey…


I not yet upload the pictures in London… So I will post them later… Just wait ya… Coz even I myself don’t know when I will have mood to start and finish doing it… :)

Posted by Ren Geng任耕 at 12:37:00 AM |

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