Woke up by Caucasians today at 4.30am. Bloody hell move in and out of the room. try to go back to sleep. Finally give up at 5am. Pack up my stuff, do some washing up. Had some tea and digestives. Left hostel at 6am, thought I was early. But by the time I reach Edinburgh Waverley, I barely need to wait long for the train. Met a Malaysian at the train station, barely managed a few words of conversation.
Damnit, I got a seat that’s facing the back of the train. Lousy seat. But the interesting thing about the train is they did label my seat electronically as reserved, for Edinburgh to Preston. Well, there wasn’t any scenery to see then. At 7.19am when the train left Edinburgh, the sky is still dark and nothing to see. Read up my paperback, but soon went to sleep. Was woken up by the train manager, it says so on his tag. Wanted to inspect my ticket. Since I booked a discounted ticket to be used with the Young Persons Railcard, I was prepared to pay for the difference, since I don’t have the card. But the manager didn’t ask for it! Damn heng, maybe the manager embarrassed that he woke me up, so he never ask for it. Haha, save 5 quid. By the time he woke me up, it was already light. Can see the surroundings. Damn nice. A lot of pastures with sheep, buffaloes and horses. Ok not maybe horses, I’m not really sure if I did see them today. And got different sheep, white and black. Black sheep are just black faced with black skin, their wool is still white. Buffaloes are brown! And their fur covers their face almost entirely, quite cute. The landscape is very chio, pastures after pastures of farmland. The train did bypass Lake District, but I never managed to catch a glimpse of any lakes. Like a burst dream.
Stopped at Preston. Changed for a smaller train to Liverpool Lime Street. the train ride is uneventful, fell asleep in intervals. Reached Liverpool Lime Street at around 11.45am, almost as expected. Zhenqiang, Evelyn, Jiaxuan and Joanne had already reached, and walk walk around already. Went to buy pasties, got a minted lamb and giant sausage roll. We walked to YHA Liverpool, our hostel. Never expect it to be this nice. Somemore, they gave us a surprise when we checked in. supposed to have 2 rooms, male dorm and female dorm. But they offered to give us a 5 bed mixed dorm! at the same price somemore. Wah seh, damn lucky. We went up to leave our stuff there, then picked up our hand carry stuff and started on our trip to Anfield.
Went to the bus station as told by the receptionist. Bus 26 at stand 2. Supposed to have taken a bus at 1.15pm, but the stupid bus stopped at stand 1 and left without picking us! WTF, we gotta wait again! Nabeh, the next bus is 8 minutes later. Cursing n swearing for about 5 minutes, the next bus came! Joanne and Evelyn started asking about student fare, which puzzled the rest of us. Eventually we show the driver our student cards and he let us up the bus without any charge! Amazing! After settling down, both of them told us there’s a sign that tell students to ask for student fare. Wow. Need to keep our eyes bigger.
Almost missed our stop. But it can’t really be missed actually. There’s quite a number of people alighting. Rushed down the bus, and marveled at the gate. Shankly’s gate. The famous Shankly’s gate. Whipped out our cameras and started snapping. Snap and snap and snap. Can’t stop. Went in and continued snapping. Especially at the Bill Shankly’s statue. Step into the building, the gift stop is right in front of us. On the left, there’s the reception. Got stuck at the reception. There’s a machine where u can insert a penny and a 50p coin, then the machine will reshape the penny into a momento coin. Busy digging out our change to make the coin. Turned around to ask for museum and tour ticket . but apparently, because of the 5th round Carling Cup match against Arsenal tomorrow, there wouldn’t be any tours. All of us paid 5 quid for the museum. We revived all our memories, of Bill Shankly, of Bob Paisley, of the golden eras of dominance. WOW. Then there are the replays of the glorious 2004/2005 UEFA Champions League Victory when we turned AC Milan around from 0-3 down to 3-3 draw. Under the eyes and cheers of the Kop, we won the League by penalties! The 5th Champions League/European Cup Victory! Never in the history of English football had a club been so glorious in its achievements. We were more surprised by the banners that the Kop made for the team. “Victory is momentous; Pride is forever”. There were also digs at Everton, like a picture of an astronaut on the moon, with a commentary that says, “Just like Goodison, no atmosphere.” Then there’s also the European Cups. The 5 different cups. Wow. Can’t help being proud of LFC. Of the Kop. Of the Scousers. “You’ll never walk alone.” In the museum there’s another of the coin minting machine. This time round it shows the European Cup achievement of LFC, the star studded trophy with a 5 on top. Next is the gift shop. Go in, like being in paradise. I grabbed a scarf, 2 banners, 1 for myself and 1 for Uncle Desmond, 2 keychains, 1 for myself and 1 for Darling’s brother. I’ll never buy for the Old Trafford supporting brother. Not for a rival. My scarf is a 1 with Liverpool FC on 1 side, the other side says “You’ll never walk alone”. Damn swee. Total spend 26 quid. Include the museum entry fee and the coins, I spend over 30 quid. Kaoz.
Now for the orgasmic part. We went to the ticket office to purchase our fan card. More like apply for it. All 3 of us, Jiaxuan, Zhen Qiang and me. Then, we wanna try our luck and ask if got any tickets for the 5th round League Cup match against Arsenal tomorrow. Guess what, it’s on general sale! Meaning we can buy it! The dream of a Liverpool match against another giant in Anfield is too irresistible to pass. No way. Moreover, 30 quid for a big match is cheap. On the spot, all of us agreed to (1) forfeit our National Express Coach fare to Manchester tomorrow evening, (2) forfeit our deposit with Manchester Hilton Chambers hostel since the match starts at 7.30 pm and will likely end beyond 9.30 pm. Zhen Qiang also forgo his train fare to London Euston tomorrow. Everyone’s plans for the trip suddenly change, with the highlights now on the match itself, right in Anfield, watching our heroes against a giant who used to have a Premiership record of 49 matches unbeaten run, inclusive of a Premiership title. On the bus back, I contacted Hlton Chambers to cancel our reservations, call YHA Liverpool to extend our stay, and went to dinner on a high note. The bus driver requires us to pay the fare this time round, £1.10 per person. But it’s ok, we were too high to take note of that. The girls had never seen guys so fanatic before. Ever.
We had dinner at the Liverpool city centre, at a pub. 3 of them had meatball penne pasta, I had fish & chips and Joanne had minted lamb burger. The orders came with a beer, and I ordered a Foster. Went to buy Zhen Qiang’s jersey after dinner, then I went to transfer money from my Flexisaver to my current account. But WTF, the fucking machine transferred money from my Online Savers again! I gonna complain to them when I get back to London. This is ridiculous. WTH.
Anyway, I went to the YHA reception to pay for our accommodation. Turns out that they are charging us 172 quid for 2 nights! That’s impossible! I bargained with the guy, then he came out with the expected 142 quid figure which I’m satisfied with. The rest borrowed Scrabble and Monopoly. After showering, we spent the evening playing a 5 person monopoly twice, once won by me and the 2nd won by Zhen Qiang. The 2nd game was particularly weird, since he had virtually no property to start with! Anyway, all of us are tired after all the changes in plans. Can’t believe so much happened in a single day. Tomorrow, we gonna go visit Beatles Story, World Museum, Mersey Maritime Museum, all of which are world famous, and most importantly, catch our match and a winning game against the Gunners. Be prepared to be gunned by us instead.
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