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.