Manchester, and the Theatre of Dreams!!

It has been quite some time since my two trips to Manchester but the feeling and raw emotion that explodes from within will never be forgotten. Instances like the moment you first set sights on the stadium, the moment you first turn back to see the players on the pitch, the momemnt you realize you are literally a stone's throw away from the players, the moment when you realize Sir Alex Ferguson is within a 500m radius of you, as well as the moments when the ball bulges in the opponents' net, unforgettable memories like these are countless. Little details like the guide's sense of pride, the megastore's countless products, the illegal vendors, all add to the grandeur and awe of the place. Boring 1-0 win, exciting 3-2 win, the Theatre of Dreams is indeed a place of great joy, and sorrow. R.I.P. Munich air disaster victims. Words cannot describe this life-changing place, and dearest friends who are Manchester United fans, glory glory Man United!!

Apart from the obvious lure of Old Trafford, Manchester is also a very nice city with the university within walking distance of the city centre and many places. Dining out in restaurants may spring surprises like discovering Nani ate there too! Or seeing a bunch of Man City fans claiming that there is only one team in Manchester. HAHA, I guess there are referring to that which is in the Europa League. Poor thing.

One incident of note happened during or second trip (if i remember correctly), after the Carling Cup game with Wolves, both Alan and I were wearing our Man Utd jerseys under our jackets and had bags with the Man Utd crest clearly printed on it. In short, we were obviously Man Utd fans and we walked into this chicken/kebab/pizza store with lots of pictures in it. As Alan was studying the menu, I saw all these black and white pictures of a football team in it. To my horror, I realized in one of the colour shots that it was sky blue and Manchester City was clearly on it! I immediately told Alan that we should switch stalls!

Sadly, these Europa League bastards affected my stadium tour of Old Trafford as their Polish opponents decided to give Old Trafford a look. This huge gang of them banged us around as we were taking our pictures and had the audacity to hang their lowly club's banner atop our home dugout. I guess lowlifes have the right to dream too.

In short, best city of UK by far, and I will definitely be back!!

Posters of Traitor Tevez everywhere.

Alan and his university shots.

We ate were Nani ate!

Awesome indian food in Manchester. No wonder Nani ate here.


Stairway to heaven.


The life-changing sight. JIMP!

Berms in extreme cold. Stupid idea!

The long-sleeve jersey that I did not buy.

The Wenger stand.

Oh so true!

Stash of ice cream in Timothy's place.

Best bubbletea in UK so far.

SO NEAR!!!

Cutest mascot ever.

Newest statue at Old Trafford.

Twenty Ten Squared

This may be a birthday spent overseas but it could well be the one where I receive the most presents! I should probably always stay away. To add to Mindy's card, here are 2 more from Tong Wei and Celine.

Thanks Tong Wei. Somehow he managed to get a card for both Alan and me without us knowing and presented it to us together with 5 After-eights!

Thanks Celine. For hiding this book that is a gift to me other my mattress and only revealing it now. No wonder I had not been sleeping well..

Edgbaston Woods and nearby areas

The Biodiversity and Conservation Management lecture was spent visiting the Edgbaston Woods today and we are supposed to produce a management report on how to conserve it. It is a really pristine, beautiful and relatively untouched part of Birmingham. But I've got totally no clue how to go about the management report!!

London, yet again!

The trip to London started in the wee hours of the morning. I left for the city centre at 11:15 P.M. and spent the next few hours in the city centre Mcdonald's waitingfor my bus at 4:30 A.M. It was very tiring and along the way, I managed to complete one miserable reading as well as being chatted up by a true blue Brummie. He appeared like a nice guy, but the jackass of his clique, as his friends all asked him to ignore him. He also mentioned that London is a fantastic city, but the only problem with it was that it is filled with London people. Therefore, it would be perfect if one could remove all the people of London from London. HA! What a funny guy, with his warped way of thinking. It is pretty true though as the people in these parts of UK seem friendlier and more approachable as compared to the ones in London.

The megabus ride was spent sleeping on the 2nd storey of the bus and by the time I reached London, I was dead tired. Within 5 minutes, my contemplation of whether to stay in Victoria for 5 hours to wait for Yaw Vwee and Mindy ended. I decided to travel to Jun Yi's place and managed to get some much needed sleep there.

A terrible thing happened in this trip though and it was the fact that my trustworthy old Canon camera finally called time on his long career. Somehow, the pictures all come out super overexposed, in stark contrast to the previous Samsung camera that can only take pictures that are super underexposed. Weird! As such, there was only 2 photos taken during the trip before I decided to stop trying altogether.

Met up with Yaw Vwee and Mindy in the afternoon, together with Jun Yi, and we went to Borough market before catching Phantom of the Opera musical at night. Yaw Vwee and Mindy are their usual selves, not changing much from the last time I saw them in Southampton. We did not really spend much time together in this trip as everyone stayed in different places, and Alan was supposed to meet his other group of friends. As for Jun Yi, I found that we got along pretty well in this trip from the hours we spent Wii-ing together, and talking about morals. On a side note, I found Phantom of the Opera pretty good and the songs rather nice despite not being a musical kind of person. The new experience was not life-changing but it was definitely eye-opening. Jun Yi found it to be sub-standard though. What a cultured man he is.

The next day, I made the biggest decision and purchase hitherto in Europe. I bought a new camera!! Time will tell if this will be a worthwhile purchase. After that, the trio of Jun Yi, Yaw Vwee and me attempted to catch a movie but it was not meant to be. Subsequently, we split up and met up with Mindy to go to her friend's church service. The music was superb and the talk was interesting and funny at times, while bringing across the speaker's message very well. Somehow, all pastors, or speakers, at church services all seem to be very good presentors. Dinner was at Bayswater but the extremely famous and atas lobster noodles was fully-booked so we settled for a cheaper alternative nearby. Thank goodness it was unavailable as I did not know it was going to cost a bomb, at a hefty sum of 30 pounds, beforehand.

First shot of trip: Jun Yi's place

Second and last shot of trip: Mindy in her new coat to show her my spoilt camera

Thanks Mindy for the self-made birthday card!

Disappointing Futsal!!

Futsal was a major disappointment. Being one of the factors that pushed me to book a 4:30 A.M. bus to London, futsal was something I really looked forward to. Sadly, it was worse than the worse case scenario I imagined. I was one of three who were present for the session and there was no coach or even organizer whatsoever. Nevertheless, I just spent my time kicking a size 5 tennis ball with an ang moh and a middle eastern. It was more lame than anything. Lousy ball, lousy session! The only interesting thing was the air-pumped goal post and the fact that I walked home in my soccer attire. WOOHOO~ I feel like a hero walking home in dri-fit T-shirt and shorts while all the ang mohs around me are in long pants, jackets, etc. Surprisingly, it wasn't as cold as I imagined it will be. My theory is that with your whole body feeling the cold, the cold is less focused and you will not actually feel as cold as when you have cold hands in long sleeve. Having said so, this is a hypothesis I will not test.

OK, all the best to everyone who is reading this. I got to prepare to leave London now. Got to camp in the city centre for 5 hours, bus for 3 hours, then camp in London for 5 hours before the rest arrive!!

Pre-pump

Post-pump goalpost

Haven't seen my legs like this in the longest time

A visit down there.

Stony Southampton!! Just days after the Birmingham trip was our midweek travel to Southampton. The bus ride was almost 4 hours and I read my one and only reading I have done on it!! After that, I drifted off to dreamland before being woken up at Coventry and spending the rest of the bus ride listening to the Jay Chou's new album that Tong Wei transferred me. He still rocks. Say "see you" already, only to realize I cannot see you anymore~ What an emo line.

Upon reaching Southampton, we were supposed to rendezvous with Yaw Vwee somewhere in the city, wrong, town centre where he agreed to pick us up from. Mindy was having her project meeting and Yaw Vwee picked us up with the CAR. Woohoo~ Everyone was excited at the prospect of driving around in UK and the price was just about alright when split amongst us. Even Mindy, the one without a license, had a go at driving the car around a bumpy carpark. Alan was the craziest for attempting to drift the car in the stony carpark. He managed to half-succeed while dirtying the whole car with fine sand in the process. Despite our excitement and crazy antics, any damage to the car will cost a hefty £600.00!! This makes driving really stressed. Anyhow, the Peugeot 308 was a very nice car to drive as its clutch is very easy to control and the car is very stable even at great speeds. Only thing that got us all was the wipers and signals that swapped places. I guess the reason we all loved the car was that it provided warmth in the teeth-chattering cold weather and shelter against the strong winds.

After Yaw Vwee picked us up, we picked Mindy up from her campus before heading to the famous Stonehenge. Located right smack in the middle of nowhere, the Stonehenge is just a collection of heavily-weathered stones arranged in a peculiar fashion. It was supposedly the best time to visit Stonehenge and I could see why as it would be doubly cold and boring during winter. The white clouds, blue sky, green backdrop makes this an opportune time for nice pictures. Listening to the free audio guide, certain portions were interesting, especially the ones about the myths and legends of the place. Apart from that, I have to say it is a really well-marketed pile of rubble.

After the visit to Stonehenge, we dropped by Salisbury and visited its cathedral as well as a random park. Subsequently, it was getting late and we decided to head back to Mindy's posh place at Montefiore House for dinner. We bought some groceries which Mindy paid for (I guess she is feeling guilty for not preparing her "3 dish 1 soup") and whipped up a fulfilling dinner at her kitchen.

The next day, we woke up early for the long trip we had prepared! New forest and Jurassic coast awaited us. First up was New Forest and we went to a place called Bolderwood which was supposed to be a good spot for deer watching. Well, we were bashing through the woods and feeling cheated when we caught sight of not one, but two deers. The first was running ahead of the second, and constantly turning around or stopping to wait for the other. They seem to be a pair of love deers, running freely through the woods. Instantly, our hunter instincts took over and we began tracking the deers. We managed to spot them in a clearing not far ahead but it was at the same time that they spotted us and fled. As a result, we didn't get any good pictures of the deer that was worthy of the occasion. Poor us! We did get many shots of the typical cow and horses after that though as we travelled to various other spots in New Forest. I guess horses and cattle are more domesticated and used to humans than deers.

After that, we headed to Swanage, which was the beginning of our fling with the south coast of UK. The beach was freaking COLD with the winds constantly howling at you. It was the only cold beach we had ever experienced with the sun shining, at this point of our lives. Damn sua ku. We randomly saw some postcards and of all the postcards, the most beautiful one was a place called Old Harry's Rock which was apparently very near us, according to google map. Without further ado, we headed towards it. We hiked for approximately an hour to reach Old Harry's Rock and lo and behold, the view was breath-taking. The treacherously steep slopes and narrow paths to the edge of the rocks makes you envious of the birds who can fly freely to whereever they want. The strong winds and numbing cold makes it all the more dangerous to navigate the narrow path as the control you have over your body is reduced. It felt unreal to be at the edge of the UK (when referring to google map), and being at a site where you have only read from geography textbooks on coastal erosion. It definitely brought back memories of the awe and wonders of Mother nature that I first felt in Switzerland. Humans are but minute beings amidst our planet and simply one of the many organisms here on Gaia!

Sadly, 天下无不散之筵席! All good things come to an end, and after sending Yaw Vwee off, it was soon our turn to leave in the wee hours of the morning. May our student exchange programme not end so soon!!

Yes, I drove this car.

Stonehenge

Stonehenge during near sunset
The one who did not contribute to driving duties

Simple, yet nice. Thanks Mindy for paying for the groceries.

New Forest (Bolderwood)

New Forest (Bolderwood)



Old Harry's Rock rocks! Too bad his wife ain't around anymore.

Mindy's Home down there