UK and Dublin 2012

Cannot concentrate at all this afternoon to write my appraisal... therefore I'm writing a blog instead! I realize I'm those people that write best when it's either very late in the night or very early in morning... basically it's the same time frame when everyone's asleep and it's quiet. Can't believe I need to write 1000 words every 6 months for this job -.-" It's not like anyone's reading it afterwards!

What better way to encourage myself to write than to write something I want to write about!

Let's recap on my UK trip~ I had so so so much fun! It's absolutely amazing plus the fact that I get to explore a country that's I've never stepped foot on before (and I little bit of Ireland...) and seeing Heidie!! Pete also finally got to meet all my friends that matter to me. I think Pete and I are pretty awesome travel buddies. We're willing to try anything and that going off track is ok too. Although we did have a daily schedule, we did leave time for unexpected shenanigans. 

UK is classy, not afraid of showing their drinking habit and treats people well. I think I've been in a place where everyone's high stress and rude all time and UK was a nice change. Shops close at 5! In the city! In London! What?! Some people's kindness may be fake, but I don't care, at least it felt good at the receiving end. Cars were stopping at crosswalks even before I was going to cross. I dislike the fact the quality of life in HK is so poor and no one seems to care. (I got a work call today, a SATURDAY!, because my boss wanted something from my coworker by the end of the day and she wanted some clarifications from me since I've been working on the project longer ><!!!)

First stop: London

Pete and I should've arrive at the same time and I was to wait for him at my terminal. I've waited for him for almost 2 hours and I started worrying whether I incorrectly remembered where we're suppose to meet. Then I actually left my terminal to go to his. Worse decision ever. Thankfully I saw him at the intersection right before I reach the airport transportation. I don't usually believe in fate, but really, how much more coincidental can this be? If not for seeing him, I think we'd have spent the whole day at the airport searching for each other. 

We did all the touristy thing you can think of, including cycling to British Museum, visiting Tower of London (where Pete proposed afterwards at the Banks of River Thames looking over Tower Bridge), catching a show at West End, Harrods and Fortnum & Mason, Hyde Park, Covent Garden etc. Tower of London was totally worth the entrance fee! I would recommend anyone visiting London to go check it out. We also splurged on a dinner that's in a restaurant called Viajante at the city outskirt. You can only choose between 6 or 12 course dinner and the chef serves what he likes for the night. We watched the chefs prepare our food as it was an open kitchen. Creative food preparation but not as crazy as molecular gastronomy and the best of all, the dishes were so tasty!

Second stop: Bath/Oxford

We went to Oxford to meet up with Lillian, James and Dev. Oxford is... weird. Everyone's so pretentious and everything so expensive. I just didn't like it even when we have someone to guide us. I guess since I went to college in the States, I believe knowledge should be shared. But Oxford is the extreme opposite where one college's resources is exclusive for her students. If you need that, you need to get permission and they could say no. What kind of education is that?! If your college has no money, then your students won't have anything even if you're supposedly under the same university.

Bath was lovely! We stayed at an awesome bed and breakfast and got a room upgrade when we didn't know it! Haha. I love small towns and it's a classy small town. Their Roman Bath was superbly well executed. It was interactive, with many interesting stories behind their exhibits plus their re-creation and viewing of the baths were great. I just like it there a lot. We also went to Stonehenge as a half-day trip. Totally worth it albeit the extreme wind and cold. Haha. Super awesome place for anthro geeks like me!

Third stop: Edinburgh

We stayed at Cathryn's for the duration we're there. It was a smaller city than I expected but everything's just so Scottish! Even though Scotland's technically the same country as Britain, the culture there so well kept. Their food is so good! We ate our way through Edinburgh and ended up needing Gaviscon. Hahaha. We climbed Arthur's Seat not knowing that we're climbing it until we reached the top. The view up there was amazing and we saw a storm pass by right before our eyes. The only not very good part of this leg of the trip was Debbie. I don't even know what to say about her other than she's really irresponsible. If you don't want to see me, then say it, so we don't need to waste time and effort trying to get hold of you. I don't know, I just think she's lacking some basic courtesy in treating others when she's complaining how she's treated.  Learnt from Dev that she didn't get to see Debbie at all when she went, so maybe I should feel privileged?! I don't know.

Fourth stop: Liverpool

Met up with Heidie!!!! I don't think I'll go to Liverpool if she wasn't there, but it's an interesting place to stop by for a day. She told us that when she arrived there around 5 years ago, the city wasn't pretty at all. There are still parts of the town that's not so good looking, but it's improving. The last time I saw Heidie, she just graduated from Shatin College and I just finished my Freshman year. Ah~ Now we both have jobs, she's driving us around, have a house. So much has changed yet we chatted like when we were back in school. We did a Beatles walk and strolled along the dock. Too short for seeing someone properly but we didn't have time!

Fifth stop: Dublin

Other than Leprechauns, Guinness, and the potato famine, I really don't know much about Ireland.  We went to their goal famous for holding and executing their revolutionaries, and learned how the two Irelands came to be. We had the best tasting Guinness from the Guinness factory. 10x better than the canned stuff we get from supermarkets. (Did you know, a barrel is actually a size of a cask?) We had a show dinner of sort where we got to see Irish dancing and listen to Irish music. We also visited their 'Dead Zoo' Natural History Museum. It has some crazy taxidermy and the whole museum was the old school kind where everything's in a glass case with a small card describing what if there. No frills, no interactive. But the good part was that there was so many kids there! It's always so much fun watching kids pointing at and running to displays they find interesting. You can tell they're learning just from their faces. A kid mistook my legs for his mom's and wrapped his arms around mine. Hahaha. He still didn't understand why his 'mom' looked different when he looked up.

Dublin had that "broken window" effect. I didn't feel quite safe when I was there because most things weren't in good shape. I mean, I understand that Dublin used to be the poorest city in Ireland, but really, with so many tourists, you would think that some tourist destinations is more well kept.

Last stop: London

We flew to London and stayed for another 24hrs before we both flew out out of London for our homes. Had the most high-class traditional afternoon tea I've ever had at Dorcester. Waiters served us in full suits! Unlimited everything and homemade clotted cream. The tea was great too! So decadent~ We also tried out a modern Chinese restaurant Hakkasen. Still not authentically Chinese, but you're there for the atmosphere anyway. It reminded me of the Japanese restaurant Mike and his date went to in Monster Inc.

Leaving was sad, as always. But this trip for awesome and we got to eat each other for 2 weeks! Definitely spend less than I thought we would. It also led me to believe that we can travel to other non-English speaking European countries next! Europe, here we come!

Tips on traveling:

Book early. Pete's plane ticket was twice cheaper because he bought it early.

One thing we didn't expect when traveling by plane was that our 'foreign' passports can get us through security faster! When we were at Dublin and coming back, the line for UK/EU passports was 10x longer than that of 'Other' passports. Score!

Throughout our trip we traveled by train. We bought a Britrail pass that's only available for tourists and I think we made a good decision to get the pass. You will need to buy it before you arrive in UK as you can only mail the tickets to your address outside of UK. They have different ticket options and we bought the one for 8 days. Each day you travel by train counts as a day, no matter how far you go and what train you took. All you need to know worry is the train schedule. It's convenient for us because we traveled to so many different places and we don't need to buy tickets every time we want to go somewhere. We just go to the station, show our pass, and hop on the train. The pass is also valid for airport express too!