Seahouses...

Well.. actually our plan for this weekend is to take a bus to Holy Island, which is 60 miles to the north of Newcastle, then spending the night at Berwick. We have already called the night before to make a reservation in the youth hostel. We also did our research on the attractions in the island. Well... it seems that somehow we ended in the Seahouses instead of the Holy Island...

It was 8.15 am and I'm all packed and ready for the trip. We are supposed take the 8.25 am bus at the Haymarket and reached Holy Island at around 10.45 am. Well, this is the only bus that goes to the island for today. It is not easy to get to Holy Island as the land connecting the mainland and the island will be submerged during high tide and we can only go the island during low tide.

Went up to Zhen Siong and Yusen rooms and only to discover that they just woke up only! Can't believe that Yusen can be late for 2 consecutive sat morning. We had to run to the Haymarket to catch the bus. Despite all our running, we still missed the bus by a minute. So, we are stuck at bus station and lost about what to do next. In the end, we decided to go to the tourism office to ask if there are other ways we can get to Holy Island. The tourism lady told us that it's not really possible to go there today as the next low tide is at 4.45 pm and there will be no buses connecting the mainland to the island by then. She recommended us to go to the Seahouses and also the Bamburgh Castle instead and this is how we ended in Seahouses.

It was a 2.5 hrs bus journey from Newcastle to Seahouses. Seahouses is located at the coast near Berwick so it is rather close to the English / Scottish border. The first impression that it give me is that it is like another Tynemouth. Being close to the sea, Seahouses is famous for their fish & chips though I din really had fish & chips for lunch. At first we were hoping to get a boat trip to Holy Island from Seahouses but they dun have such deals. In the end, we booked a ferry cruise around the nearby islands which include the Farne Island. According to Zhen Siong, seals could be see on the Farne Island. The cruise was great at the beginning and the view was superb but it gets quite cold with the sea breeze blowing against us. The cruise brought us to the Farne Island and we can see seals swimming in the sea and white baby seals packed at the coast. The sea became rough when we headed back to mainland and the ferry was shaking violently. Zhen Siong and I started to get a bit sea sick and he claimed that the fish he had earlier was at his throat. We managed to survive the cruise without vomitting on the boat.

The last bus back to the Newcastle is at 5.45 pm but it will be going to Bamburgh before making its way to Newcastle. We managed to talk the driver to dropping us at Bamburgh Castle to take some photos before sending us back to Newcastle. We are allowed to spend 3 min to take the photos of the Castle, so we make it a quick one before going back to the bus again.

The Match...

Managed to buy the Sunderland vs Arsenal tics at onli 5 pds. Well... it's not the EPL matches but the Carling Cup matches, so ticket prices tend to be cheaper. A typical EPL ticket would cost at least 30 pds, incredible izzit?? Yet there are still people willing to fork up the money to watch 1 match. It's a home game for Sunderland so we just took a Metro (similar to MRT) to the Stadium of Light in Sunderland. It was a 20 min journey and we soon reach the stadium. The place was crowed with people wearing red and white strips jersery, most probably the Sunderland fans. We had to queue for quite a long time to enter the stadium.


The stadium was totally packed with people. It's like another NDP in S'pore. We got quite a good seat, just a few rows from the field so it's kinda up close and personal. We are at one corner of the stadium so we could catch an even better view when the players take a corner kick. It is 7.45pm and the match is about to begin. The Sunderland players ran into the the field with the fan cheering loudly behind. This was followed by alot of booing when the Arsenal players came in. Well... that's the moral disadvantage for away team. It was a one sided match with Arsenal dominating the whole game. Arsenal had fielded in their youth players but they still managed to win the game with a 3-0 victory. It is really a good experience watching a live match with the fans cheering for their own teams.

After the match, we went to the casino. Well... we din go down for the gambling but for the FREE buffet. The casino is providing free food and drinks on sunday, monday and tuesday nights to attract a bigger crowd. They are even giving free DVD players if you visit the casino for 20 times in 1 month. The supper for that night is steak and it was superb, the best and most filling meal I had so far. Well...it's a pity that Regent, Zhen Siong and Yusen can't eat beef.

Refreshed!!!

Today is Sabbath day and I really look forward to this day where I can go to God's House and get renewed in the Spirit. I haven't been attending church for 2 weeks due to all the travellings and I'm feeling so bad about it. Finally, today I can quieten down my heart and come into the presence of God. Went to Juni's place at 12.45pm to meet Wenjin who is supposed to bring me to the new Bethsan. We then went over to Yanzi place before going to the church with her. The new Bethshan church is located very near to St James Stadium (well.. in case you dunno, St James Stadium is the home ground for Newcastle United FC) and the place used to be a methodist church. The church members are very friendly and came over to greet us when we entered the church, making us feel so much at home. The church is very big, about 1/3 the size of a concert hall with 2 levels. They got a great worship team and even have a group of dancers in front of the stage. The service is very good and I felt so refreshed after the whole service, never better before. The only bad thing is that there is a soccer match in St James Stadium, Newcastle vs Sunderland on that day. This seems to draw some of the attendance from the church.

After the service, I went back to play tennis with Regent, Yusen, Zhen Siong and Jonanna. Well, I'm not really good at the game. The last time I played was 1 yr ago. Anyway, being a badminton player, I tend to hit the ball too high and send it flying over the fences. After the game, the rest went to Regent's place to have dinner while I was stucked at home doing the lab report dued the next day *sigh*. Lab reports again!!! Seems like the life of a chem eng student is going to start again....

Edinburgh....

It is the weekend again and this time we are going down to Edinburgh! Jasmine was like "I want to go too!" when I told her that we'll be going to Edinburgh but too bad she's in Germany (sorry gal). Anyway, I have heard a lot about the place, its rich history and of course the Edinburgh Castle. Those who had been there always say that if you have been to Edinburgh Castle, there's no point visting the rest of the castles in UK. The unique part of Edinburgh is that the current city is built on top on the ancient city, so it'll be great to participate in the underground tours to see the ancient city. Keith had told me to go for the ghost tour where the guide will bring you underground and tell ghost stories about the place. All these make me all the more wanna go to Edinburgh.

Well, the day that I'm looking forward to is finally here. We are supposed to meet at 8am that day, take a stroll to the train station and catch the train at 8.45am. However, it was 8.30am and Yusen was not here yet. Went up to his room and found that he had just woke up only! In the end, instead of taking a slow walk to the station, we had to run there in the rain. Luckily, we managed to board the train and the train started moving like 10sec after we stepped into it. Xuejia and Joanna slumped into their seats immediately and couldn't stop panting. Not soon later, they dozed off. Well, Yusen was the one who kept reminding people not to be late and he himself was late.

It was a 1.5 hrs train ride. The first impression of the city when we arrived is that it's like another Newcastle. Well, it doesn't seems to be as impressive as the people had described it to be. At one look, the city seems to be divided into two different time zone. On one side are all the modern buildings and shopping malls while on the other side are the old buildings. The Edinburgh castle sits on a big rock in the middle of the city. This is the unique difference between Edinburgh castle and the rest of the castles in UK. Edinburgh Castle is built high upon the basalt remains of a long extinct volcano. People have come from all places just to visit the castle.

We paid 9.80pds for entry into the castle which is rather expensive (Well.. we have come all the way here to see the castle). The interior is rather disappointing, not as good as I expected it to be. There are many old Scottish houses in the castle, which have been turned into resturants and souvenir shops. There are also people dressed as Guards during the early Scottish wars. Edinburgh was once the royal residence of Scottish Kings and Queens. Over the next century the castle was used to hold prisoners of war during several conflicts including the Seven Years' War (1757-63), the War of American Independence (1775-83), and the Napoleonic wars (1793-1815). Recenly, the Honours of Scotland -- the Crown, the Sceptre and the Sword of State have been brought to Edinburgh castle from England. The Honours of Scotland now resides in the heavily guarded crown room. We had to queue for quite long to catch a glimpse of these precious items.

We wanted to go for the ghost tour after the castle trip. However, most of the tours are either full due to the weekends or too late at night, which we can't go as our train leaves at 7pm. Eventually, we found one historical underground tour which starts at 4pm. The guide allowed us to join the tour after our lunch as long as we came back before 4pm. However, when we returned, the guide backed out on his words and refused to let us join in. Yusen got so pissed off and started arguing with the guide but it's fruitless.

We went to our final destination -- the Arthur's Seat. It is located within Holyrood Park in the centre of Edinburgh. Arthur's seat are the remains of a volcano that erupted under water during the Carboniferous period. It is located 250m above the city. We had a hard time climbing up to the top of the hill as the hill is very steep and the path up is rather narrow. It was raining in the morning which makes the ground even more slipperly. Eventually, we reached the submit the view was superb. We could see the entire Edinburgh city beneath us and the sea. Well, it's a special day for us as we got to see a guy dressed in bagpipper, clothings proposing to his girlfriend at the submit. It's sooo... romantic.. *envy*

Autumn in UK!!!

The weather is getting colder each day and the temperature now is around 8 degree celsius. It has been raining for the past few days and according to the weather forcast, it will continue to rain for the rest of the week. Casper has told me that it is usually a wet season before winter sets in. Well, hopefully it will not rain this saturday as we will be going down to Edinburgh. We won't be able to enjoy much of the places if it rains on that day.

The rain drops in UK seems to be much smaller than in Singapore so you dun really feel the droplets hitting on you. In UK, the heaviest rain you can get is just a drizzle unlike in Singapore, which usually pour heavily for the whole day. The leaves are also starting to turn yellow and falling off the tree, signalling the start of autumn. I wouldn't say that it is a pretty sight with bald tree but it's something different which we dun usually see in Singapore. However, I really think that the sight of snow capped trees and snow covered ground is marvelous. I really hope that it will snow in Newcastle before I leave, though it only started snowing in Feb last year. Well, I gotta pray hard and cross my fingers about it.

Lake District....

Finally, we are going to embark on our mini adventure to Lake District. We have been planning for this trip 1 week ago, from sourcing of car rental to planning of the route to Lake District. This is going to be a rather exciting trip as we are going drive to Lake District and this is the first time that we are driving in UK! Woohoo! Well, the seniors have told us that most of the place in Lake District are rather inaccessible by buses and it would be best that we could drive there, so that we can cover more places.

We went to Europcar to pick up our cars, 1 black and 1 blue Nissan Micra. It was drizzling that morning so it wasn't a perfect day to drive. Our drivers for the first part of the journey are Zhen Siong and Yusen. As for me, being a non-driver, I was responsible for navigation. Well, reminds me of the topo exercises I used to have in SISPECS. Yusen hasn't drove a manual car for 3 yrs, so he had some difficulties trying to drive initially. After driving a few rounds in the carpark, we began our journey to Lake District.


It was around 1.5hr trip and the view along the way was fantastic. We reached Ullswater in the afternoon and the scenery was marvelous. Nice, blue lake with the mountains at the background. It was so refreshing when the cool breeze blew into our face. All of us felt so relaxed just by looking at the lake. It would definitely be an ideal place to stay after retirement, the pace of life seems to slow down by a few time in this kinda countryside area.

We then went to Aira Force. It is like Bukit Timah Reserve but here you get to see the temperate forest rather than the tropical rainforest in Singapore. Along the way we could see trekkers, both young and old, coming here to see the waterfall. It is a rather long way up the hill to where the waterfall is but upon seeing the waterfall, our tireness seems to disappeared.

We eventually had our dinner at an inn in Kirkstone Pass, supposedly the highest point in Lake District. It's a traditional English inn and also the only building on the mountain top. Had the traditional English sausage and hot chocolate for dinner which costs 9 pds plus. Finally, we spent our night at the Patterdale Youth Hostel.


The next morning, we drove down to Wintermere -- the most beautiful lake in the district and also most populated with tourists. The 2 major towns, Wintermere and Amberside are located at the coast of the Wintermere Lake, which accounts for the large number of people. Well, the lake really lifted up to their name. It was really beautiful and there are swans and ducks swimming in the lake. We took the ferry cruise from one side of the lake to the tip of the lake, where Amberside is. The cruise view was absolutely fabulous!

York....

Today is Wednesday and we are going to York!!! Haha... you guys must be wondering why right? The lecturers have cancelled all the lessons for the day and we have 1 free day. Hurray!!! So, we decided to go to York and bought the train tics too.

We left for York in the morning and reached there 1hr later. York is the epitome of Ye Olde Englishe Towne. It is a city of extraordinary cultural and historical wealth. We were so amazed that the city is actually surrounded by a magnificient ciruit of 13th century walls. At its heart is the immense, awe-inspiring minster, one of the most beautiful Gothic cathedrals in the world. The medieval spider's web of narrow streets are similar to those in Durham and Alnwick.

York Minster

We went to the National Railway Museum immediately after we dropped off from the train. This museum features a wide display of trains from the first train that was used to transport cattles to Eurostar which runs from London to Paris. It also depicts the history of the railway in UK, how it was constructed etc. The museum also showcases miniatures of trains and of the people constructing the railway. The workmanship is really good and all of them look so real.

Later in the afternoon, we went for the guided tour around York. The guide is a nice old fellow and started bringing us around, telling us the history of the place. We soon got bored of the grandpa and grandma stories and broke off from the group. Went to the York Minster instead. The York Minster is the island's largest medieval cathedral and Yorkshire's most important historic building. The Minster had been badly damaged by fire in 1984 and the government spent a huge sum restoring it.

We paid 6.50pds for a tour in the Minster and the undercroft. Unlike the Durham Cathedral, we are allowed to take photos in the Minster. We then started taking out our cameras and snapping shots everywhere in the Minster. The Minster is at least 1.5 times bigger than the Durham Cathedral. The interior is magnificent. Sinuous stonework surrounds a wonderful uninterrupted space. There are more than 200 expressive carved heads and figures. The main attraction is still the conical rooftop with no central support, which clearly represents the major stages of Gothic architectural development in the early 12th-century.

In the undercroft, we are able to see the treasury and crypt. The treasury houses 11th - century artefacts, including relics from the graves of medieval archbishops. The crypt contains fragments from the Norman cathedral, including the font showing King Edwin's baptism that also marks the site of Paulinus' orginal wooden chapel.

We ended our day at the Clifford's Tower. The tower is the precious little left of York Castle. We dun get the chance to go into the tower as it was closed for the day. However, we managed to capture some photos of the exterior before going back...

First Day of School

Finally, it's the first day of school!!! For the first time in my life, I'm looking forward to the start of school (am I crazy??). Maybe because I haven't been studying for a long long time, 5 mths already. Though I've been going back for lectures in NUS during august, it's just not the same...I'm like going back for a holiday (sorry guys).

Anyway, I attended the first lecture at 11am - Multivariate Methods. The class is only 7 ppl. Oh man...will definitely kena arrowed to answer questions... Anyway, the lecturer is very nice and she keeps claiming that she can't believe how organised she is for the first lecture, claims that she has always been very disorganised.

The next lecture is Human Resource Management which is only 1 hr per week. Half of the lecture goes to a guy who talks about the new HR text that has just been published, leaving the poor lecturer only half an hour to conduct his lecture.

The day ended off with a Process Intensification lecture. Well, seems like the first day have been rather smooth sailing and I hope that everything will go fine as the semester passes by.

Tynemouth & Sunderland....

Today, the S'pore society people brought us to Tynemouth. Well, it had always been their tradition to bring the freshers to Tynemouth to eat fish & chips. Yujin has been telling us about how big the fish portion is and making all of us drool. Finally, we can try the fish & chips for ourselves.

We took the Metro to Tynemouth and was immediately greeted by the flea market at the Metro station. Unlike the flea market by the quayside that only sell daily necessities, the market here sells alot of old stuffs and souvenirs. So, we spent 1 hr looking for souvenirs that we can buy back to S'pore. Yusen was deciding whether to get a tile with an old english picture which costs 5pds. In the end, he got an Abba gramaphone disc at 1pd.

Tynemouth is located at the coast of Northeast England and also where River Tyne exits to the sea. From the coast, we are able to see people sailing in the sea. The Tynemouth castle and priory stand on the rocky headland overlooking the sea. The promontory forms a defensive site above the river entrance. Robert Mowbray, the son of Robert of Mondrai a norman knight who had fought with William the Conqueror, built the first castle here about 1080. There is also a statue of Admiral Lord Collingwood, facing the sea which is supposed to be visible from wherever you stand at the coast.

We had fish & chips for lunch. Well, the fish portion, like what Yujin had mentioned, was incredibly large and I was trying my hard to finish my food. In the end, Shangyuan had to help me with the fish. The fish & chips we had is traditional english style and we ate it with pure vingear instead of tar tar sauce.

After lunch, we took the ferry from north shield to south shield, Sunderland. Well, Sunderland is a small town, and the street is just like that in Newcastle. Most of the shops are closed because it's sunday. I left earlier to meet Anthony to go his church. He used to be attending Bethshan Christian Community but they broke out from Besthshan to form the International Harvest Church. It is rather hard to find AOG church in Newcastle, most of the churches in Newcastle are anglican, St Mary, St Thomas etc. The congregation is held in a person's home and just around 20 people. The service is similar to the charismatic churches in S'pore, worship followed by sermon. Had a great time fellowshipping with the rest after service ended.

Alnwick....

It's the weekend again!!! Yeah!!! We have made it a point to travel every weekend during this SEP, so that we can cover as many places as possible. Today we are going to Alnwick. Alnwick is Northumberland's historic ducal town and also one of the site in the filming of Harry Potter. Well, Alnwick is a small town and also rather near to Newcastle, making it the best choice for a day trip.

We took the 10am coach and the journey is about 1hr. Eventually, we reached Alnwick in the late morning. The streets are rather similar to the ones in Durham, narrow and cobbled. The place is like a small maze and we got lost trying to go to Alnwick Castle. In the end, with the guide of the local, we managed to find our way there.

The entrance fee to the Alnwick Castle and Garden is 12 pds (Wow!!!). Being typical Singaporeans, we stood at the outside for a long time and discuss whether we want to go to both places. Eventually, we managed to get 2 more gals to make up a group of 14 people and get a 50p discount for each person. The castle was really nice and immediately all of us agreed that 11.5 pds entrance fee is worth it. The towers of the castle stood tall and grand, surrounded by nice, carpet green grass. We also came to the spot where they filmed Harry Potter having his first flying lesson.

The imposing Alnwick Castle is the ancestral home of the Duke of Northumberland. Until now, the Duke and Duchess is still staying in the castle, so it is not surprised that we can find plasma TV, VCD players and photographs of the royal family inside the castle. These people only move in during winter. The castle is thus opened to the public from spring to autumn. The interior is sumptuous and extravagant, with an incredible display of Italian paintings. Magnificent carving decorates the rooms, completed by the Florentine-trained Alnwick school.

A 10min walk from the castle brings us to another place of beauty - the Alnwick Garden. This is the garden of the Duke and the place is incredibly large. It's like a larger scale of botanic garden. An interesting part is the posion garden which features the different kind of posionous plants in Alnwick. The highlight of the Alnwick Garden is still the tree house. Well, as the name suggests, the whole house was built on the tree and it was around 2 storeys high. It was rather unique and they even have a chimney that emits smoke, which makes the tree house so alive making us feel as if we are in fairyland.