Sheffield - Thirsk - Helmsley - Scarborough - Whitby - Middlesbrough - Sunderland - Coldstream - Edinburgh - Manchester - Sheffield - Malaysia

Yup. That was the trip I made in the past 1 week. Extremely exhausting I would say. The Sheffield - Thirsk - Helmsley - Scarborough - Whitby - Middlesbrough - Sunderland - Coldstream - Edinburgh - Manchester - Sheffield (which shall be called Leg 1 from here henceforth) leg was by car. And of course the Sheffield - Malaysia leg is by air.

This post will be focusing on Leg 1. I would say around 98% of it. (Apologies for the slightly blur pics as I shrunk them to save time uploading the whole lot)

OK, so part one of Leg 1. Sheffield - Thirsk - Helmsley - Scarborough - Whitby - Middlesbrough

Thirsk and Helmsley are small historical market towns. About 3000-5000 residents. Very small towns, nothing much really but at least it’s still a different scene compared to the cities.

Thirsk had lovely tearooms and fish and chips shops. LOTS of them!

The stone cross in the middle of Helmsley’s carpark.

Click here for a panoramic view of Helmsley’s market square!

The main road at Helmsley was pretty narrow but the pedestrian walkway was jam packed with tourists.

Next stop was Scarborough. We had tea there. A coastal city. Loaded with fish and chip shops. But we’re just too full to eat anything so we opted for a light and refreshing cup of English tea instead.

We spent approximately 30-45 minutes in each town before proceeding to the next town. After Scarborough, we stopped by Whitby. Another coastal town. Whitby is a lagoon where lots of yachts dock. For a full panoramic picture of the lagoon, click here!

After Whitby, evening has almost come to an end and it’s time to find some shelter for the night. We stopped by Middlesbrough to spend the night. There wasn’t anything interesting in Middlesbrough, it is said that the city is the dung of England. All the dirty industries are located there. Oh well, let’s fast forward to the next day.

Day 2, part two of Leg 1. Middlesbrough - Sunderland - Coldstream - Edinburgh.

First stop Sunderland. Another coastal city. We stopped there for some brunch and to restock our food supply for the trip ahead to Edinburgh.

We visited Sunderland’s Museum & Winter Gardens.

After Sunderland was the border town of Coldstream between England and Scotland. It’s on the Scottish side of the border.

We had high tea in Deakins Tearoom. Forgotten to take pics of the food because we were too hungry to wait for pictures to be taken.

After Coldstream, we’re off to Edinburgh. Starting from here onwards, I’m going to dump a whole load of pictures so I’ll just be describing the pics as I am just too lazy to tell you everything I did in Edinburgh.

The Royal Mile (Edinburgh’s historical stretch of road)

A medieval friend that we’ve met on the Royal Mile

One of many churches along the Royal Mile

Just another random road in Edinburgh

Ruins of St Anthony’s Chapel on the hills of Holyrood Park

The view of Edinburgh from the ruins of St Anthony’s Chapel. Click image for larger view.

Yours truly on Holyrood Park

Some swans at the pond in Holyrood Park, there were ducks too but they’re boring. Swans rock!

The National Gallery along Princes Street, I think that’s Queen Victoria sitting on top there.

Queen Victoria marks the end of Leg 1. Leg 2 of the trip, Edinburgh - Manchester - Sheffield wasn’t really eventful as we were rushing back to Sheffield to attend the convocation ceremony the following day and the trip from Edinburgh to Sheffield is about 5-6 hours.

Leg 3 was THE MOST uneventful leg of all 3. The pure boredomness of a 17 hour flight from Manchester to Dubai and then to Kuala Lumpur. Not to mention a 3 hour transit in Dubai. I stayed awake throughout the whole flight except for a short 30-45 minute nap on each flight which brings to a total number of hours awake to 36 hours.

Exhausted by the end of the flight and fainted on the bed for 13 hours.

Oh well, that isn’t news anymore. The news is that I’m back in Malaysia!!! Woohoo!! Food food and more food, here I come!

Last Remaining Hours

From now, I have 20 hours left here in the UK and 37 hours more to arrive in Malaysia. Been extremely busy the past few weeks and especially the past few days. In the previous post, I mentioned that I was going on a road trip to Edinburgh. It turned out fantastic and I enjoyed it immensely.

No time to blog about it yet but will once I arrive back in Malaysia and sleep off my jet lag. Lots of pictures to post too! *here is where you pretend to be very excited*

Until then, it’s time for me to pack and double and triple check that I’ve brought everything and not forgotten anything important.

Malaysia here I come!!!

Glasgow, Manchester, Chatsworth, Middlesbrough & Edinburgh

Busy busy schedule ahead!

Went to Manchester yesterday together with Karen to pick up her parents at the airport. Had a good dinner and today Karen finally got her black belt for Aikido! Woohoo! Congrats to Karen.

Today, we i.e. Karen, her parents, me and Ei Leen made an impromtu visit to Chatsworth. Since Karen’s dad decided to rent a car, we had more freedom to drive to wherever we want to. Chatsworth was about 40 minutes away from Sheffield and it’s the estate of the Duke of Devonshire. HUGE mansion and even HUGER garden. 102 acres of it! Go do your own calculation.

A panorama of the mansion and the surrounding garden area of Chatsworth. Click!

Beauuutiful!

And here are a few other random pictures.

Some of the paintings found on the ceiling and walls of the mansion

Pretty stairwell architecture.

The dining room.

I’m off to Middlesbrough and Edinburgh with Karen and her parents tomorrow and wil be back on Wednesday. Will be an exciting drive up north and I’m going to be their GPS system with the map.

I also went over to Glasgow a visit a friend, E Ling about 2 weeks ago. Splendid city. Very beutiful architecture and lots of people and shopping areas.

Here’s two pictures of Glasgow. Sadly, I didn’t really take many pictures og Glasgow. Totally forgotten about my camera in the bag because I had such a great time!

Glasgow City Hall at the rear and the war memorial in the front.

One of Glasgow’s many museums.

For more pictures, you can visit my Flickr account from time to time.

Until then, I’ll be back on Wednesday with more pictures of Middlesbrough and Edinburgh. Stay connected!

Various Updates

Yay! The holiday season has definitely begining to set in and to start the holiday season, we (housemates and me) went to Alton Towers, UK’s most popular theme park! Woohoo! I have to apologize for the lack of pictures because we decided against bringing any bags because we are obviously not going to ride roller coasters with our bags and we are not leaving them with anyone else. There’re a few pictures of Alton Towers there on the Wiki page. So go check it out.

In 7 hours, we managed to ride 7 rides. Not bad I would say. The 7 rides (in chronological order) are:-

1. Oblivion
2. Hex
3. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
4. Corkscrew
5. The Duel
6. Air
7. Nemesis

This excludes the ride on the Skyride (cable car), Ug Swinger, a walk through the Hanuted Hollows and Gloomy Wood, a failed attempt to ride 3 rides: Enterprise, Spinball Whizzer and Rita - Queen of Speed.

7 rides in 7 hours. It’s not bad. Of course looking back, out of the 7 hours, we spent 90% of the time waiting for rides. Waiting about an hour for each ride and only to experience 20-40 seconds of adrenaline. Things we humans do… Tsk tsk.

Oh well, all in all, I would say it was a blast and the top 3 rides according to me is:-

1. Oblivion
2. Nemesis
3. Air

Oblivion because it’s the world’s first vertical drop roller coaster (something like Solero Shot in Genting but shorter and faster). Nemesis because it’s the world’s most intense (according to the park management) and Europe’s first inverted roller coaster and it’s exhilarating. Air because it’s the world’s first B&M flying roller coaster (not scary but totally fun, 10X better than Genting’s flying roller coaster).

Sadly, I really wanted to ride on Rita but the line was longer than China’s longest dragon ever told in history and the waiting time was in excess of 60 minutes. *die* Rita starts off by accelerating from 0 to 100km/h in about 2.5 seconds. That would probably be the best part but it still looks very appealing. Oh well, hopefully there’s a next time.

Enough of Alton Towers! In othe news, friends from Birmingham are coming over today! Finally! After so many months of convincing them, they’re finally coming over. 3 of them. Kimberly and la boyfriend; and Wai Khang a.k.a. Wilken.

It’s going to be a blast. Lots of activities in store for them already. Busy busy busy!

Attached below are various POV (point of view) videos of several rides in Alton Towers.

Rita - Queen of Speed

Oblivion

Nemesis

Air

Corkscrew

New Years & Leeds

Woohoo! Back from Leeds and ’twas a great one indeed! Took lots of great shots too! (shots I meant photos, not alcohol :P)

Well, lots of photos coming up! I chose some of the best, there are just too many to post up here.

Somehow, this anchor caught out attention so we decided to pose next to it. It’s a bar/pub at the back named Drydock.

We also saw this graffiti drawing on a wall while walking along the road side in the city centre. Looks like it’s No Face from Spirited Away, the Forest Beings from Princess Mononoke and that weird in-my-opinion-a-soya-bean-with-an-afro-hair and whoever this Jesta is must be the artist??

Of course Leeds is a shopping haven for everyone and it’s a must for all Leeds-goers like us. Here’s a shot of one of their popular shopping street Briggate in the Victoria Quarter.

There were also countless other shopping centres around Briggate that satisfies everyone’s personal shopping needs. From budget shops like Primark to High Street fashion like Topman and H&M to departmental stores like Debenhams and House of Fraser and to high end poshy stores like Harvey Nichols and Louis Vuitton.

LOL. That’s Karen being overly excited. Sadly my hands were shaking due to the coldness at night but you get the picture!

Finally, this is a picture of ME and Karen in an Indian cuisine restaurant we were brought to in the city centre. Wonderful dishes they had. I had Vindaloo curry. ‘Twas top notch!

This a prettily lit building somewhere in the suburbs of Leeds called Parkinson’s Building.

This is actually the first time I noticed this sign in Starbucks. Rather interesting and personalised way to say two words i.e. NO SMOKING!.

The Leeds City Council also organized a new year’s fireworks event. It took place at 5.30pm so that it wouldn’t be too cold and also the whole family including little children can come along and witness that spectacular event. Here are several of my best fireworks shots. I took these pictures with my bare hands (no tripod :(), so they might appear a little weird.

Here’s just a random picture of the “four-of-us”.

And the final two photos will be me in front of the Leeds City Hall and Leeds City Museum respectively after countless failed attempts to self-portraiting.

All in all, I would say that the experience was great. And may thanks to Kaaj our wonderful host. Without her, we would be lost.

Happy New Year everyone!

Food

Being a Malaysian, life is all about food. When we eat, we talk about food. When we sit, we talk about food. When we shower, we think about food. When we sleep, we dream about food. Food, food, food! We Malaysians literally live to eat!

Today, had a Japanese dinner meal at East Ocean, The Moor.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t disappointing at all.

I had Japanese Chicken Bento and other friends had a Salmon Bento and a Gyuuko (beef) Tokyo set. I would say that their Miso soup was exceptionally good.

Sadly, they didn’t provide us with Japanese bamboo chopsticks. I was really looking forward to pulling apart the chopsticks. Well at least there were chopsticks. Some Chinese restaurants in this country gives only fork and spoons which is just sad. Very sad!

Here’s a picture of all the food we had. I have to apologize, the plate isn’t the whole “original” dish with everything in it. Couldn’t wait to eat so I started digging in before it hit me that I’ve not taken a picture. There’re supposed to be 3 sushis instead of 1, a few more chicken pieces and vegetable tempuras. The only thing that was missing from the dish is the Japanese bean curd in Japanese soya sauce.

Should start looking for more Japanese food outlets in Sheffield. Hopefully there are more and not only East Ocean. I really need more Japanese food! Actually I need more food!!

1.5 weeks

is all the time I have left in this lovely country I call home, Malaysia.

I am probably considered wasting precious time typing out this post right now as I should be outside enjoying my last few days here in Malaysia.

The people, the food, the company, the environment, the shopping malls, the driving and all other things that I might have missed out will be deeply missed and engraved into my memory throughout my stay there in Sheffield.

As I leave Malaysia for the 18 hour flight and transit throught Dubai to Manchester airport, I shall start all over again, a while new chapter of life in Sheffield Part 2 just as it was when I left Malaysia for Sheffield for the first time 1 year ago.

This time, I’ll be on the same flight to Dubai and Manchester. Same flight number, same airline, same time, same place, same airport, and the same people that flew with me with a few more friends tagging along this time.

As usual, I now have a new camera and of course, no one will be left out. Pictures will be posted here every now and then to update you guys on what’s happening around me in the UK.

I guess, the next post will most probably posted when I’m in Sheffield. Hopefully with pictures ready to be posted up.

As usual, here are some pictures for you to look in awe.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia in Pictures

Day 1.

We arrived in Phnom Penh International Airport at precisely 4.12pm, after going through immigration and customs, we were greeted with our guide-for-the-next-4-days guide. Instead of hailing a cab, he got us “tuk-tuk”s. A popular mode of transport of locals (and much cheaper than cabs - they only cost USD 15 for one whole day from 8 a.m. - 6 p.m.). People in Cambodia surprisingly use a lot of US Dollars to do business. Their official currency is Riel with an approximate exchange of MYR 1 = KHR 1000. Both currencies are accepted in all businesses and bigger businesses like supermarkets and restaurants operate using US Dollars.

Small, cheap, fast and windy! Phnom Penh is probably one of the dustiest cities I’ve ever been to aside from cities that lie near a desert like Beijing. Without the aid of super huge sunglasses that covers 50% of your face, you’ll be constantly blinded by dust particles blown into your eyes on a tuk-tuk. However, with shades to my aid, the ride becomes extremely interesting and fun too!

For dinner, we went to a Thai-Cambodian fusion restaurant. Interesting food too. Kang kung (Malay for a type of vegetable) is called morning glory there. I thought we were going to eat flowers but it ended up to be just an everyday vegetable we have here in Malaysia. Their cheese there is actually miso (a type of fermented bean curd eaten by Chinese and Japanese) and they have A LOT of sour soups. All kinds of appetizing sour soups. They even have banana flower sour soup but unfortunately throughout the 4 days we were there, all the restaurants we went to all ran out of it.

Day 2.

First place of the day isn’t really an attraction we would go to like in every other country. This place is called Choeungek Genocidal Centre.

Cambodia suffers from a very very turbulent past. A group of people called Pot Pol went on a killing spree slaughtering almost 2 million of their own people in fears of a rebellion against them. Men, women and children we killed without mercy. They forced everyone in the capital city into the country side to plant rice and made Phnom Penh literally a ghost town. One of the biggest concentration camps where almost 9000 victims were killed was the site of present day Choeungek. A shrine was erected on the site in memory of the dead.

Next was the second and last genocidal centre we visited is called Toul Sleng. It a high school converted into a torture and slaughter centre.

It’s saddening and heart breaking to read and learn what the Cambodian people had to go through in the past.

Anyway, sad stories aside. Next was the King’s Palace! It HUGE. Our Prime Minister’s new home in Putrajaya is still dwarfed by this palace. Here are a few of the best pictures I’ve got.

The architecture was amazing and the attention to detail was unsurpassed. No matter how close your look there are still more designs and shapes inside the already elaborate design. Sadly we weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside the buildings. The throne room was breathtaking. Rolling carpets, bright yellow decorations, detailed paintings on the walls and ceiling and amazing sculptures and furniture.

Next was the Russian Market. A tourist shopping area selling textiles, shoes, bags, perfumes, food of all sorts. I have no idea why it’s called the Russian Market. I don’t see anything related to Russia there. Anyway, everything there is super cheap (provided your bargaining skills aren’t rusty yet). We only had 1 hour and they were closing down at 5 p.m. So we postponed our shopping to the next day.

Day 3.

More shopping at the Russian Market. Shoes, clothes, textiles and more shoes were purchased. After shopping till we dropped, we went to Central Market to shop and drop even more. Another place similar to the Russian Market but this is more for the locals instead of tourists.

After having lunch, we went to Phnom Penh museum. The museum showcased Cambodia’s rich history during the Angkor empire’s rule (mostly stuff that we learnt in history books). Sculptures, statues, carvings, maps, furniture, small artefacts were among those showcased in the museum.

Day 4.

On our last day, we had some time to kill before our flight back to Malaysia at 4 p.m. So we headed to Wat Phnom (Cambodian for Phnom temple). This is the place where the city of Phnom Penh got it’s name from. A girl named Phnom Peng found a wooden Buddha sculpture inside a tree trunk that was washed ashore. She brought it to the very place and built a shrine and temple to honour the Buddha found inside the trunk.

Slowly the towns people began to build their houses around the temple and a millennium later Phnom Penh is what it is today. A bustling city of 2 million people. Those stone serpent like sculptures you see in the pictures are called Nagas. They serve as protection to the temple from bad spirits and auras.

After visiting the temple, we went for a boat ride on Tonle Sap, South East Asia’s largest fresh water lake. It only costs USD 10 to rent a big boat that could accommodate at least 20 people for an hour!

Too cheap to resist.

During the boat trip we get to witness how the river people whom are mostly fishermen or also known as Vietnamese boat people live their lives.

Cute tiny houses that float on water are their houses that they live in. They have dogs too that jump from boat house to boat house playing around.

The boat trip marked the end of our trip and it’s time to pack and go home.

All in all, I found the trip amazing. It’s something very different compared to other trips to other countries like China and Japan which are thoroughly commercialised. We learnt a great deal of their violent history, the amazing Angkor empire that once controlled most of Thailand, tantalizing and tasty food, and lastly their amazingly cheap stuff at their markets. Next trip to Cambodia, Angkor Wat, Siem Riep here I come!