Woke up at 7am. All of us managed to pack and get ready for breakfast by 7.30am. breakfast is full English again, good and fulfilling. Guess the breakfast itself is worth 4 quid, which makes our stay about 11 quid a night, absolutely worth it. Set out for Liverpool Cathedral at around 8.
Simply amazing. Not even close to the cathedral, but can feel it majestic size by the view of it. It towers over its surroundings, usually cluttered by cottages and houses and terraces as well. As we close in, it gets harder and harder for our wide angled cameras to get the cathedral in its entirety. Simply big, huge, humongous. Whatever you can use to describe its size. Jiaxuan did say it looks like Mordor on the outside, ha. A red building, decorated with copper figurines and structures coated with a green coat of copper corrodes. Finally reach the building. Went to its main entrance, was mistaken that its closed despite Evelyn saying it opens at 8. Managed to find its entrance. Keeping my eyes glued to its architecture.
The inside is as amazing as its exterior, if not more. Can help devouring the sights I have in front of me. The ceiling itself would have enclosed a 5 storey building within. Beautiful tinted glass panels of about 2 or 3 storeys high lined the walls. Apparently, we arrived just after a morning service. It says so on the schedule. The tables and chairs within is arranged for the upcoming Christmas, the preparations are still on-going. We keep on snapping pictures. Can’t stop. The architecture is breathtaking in itself. Lucky that Jiaxuan and Evelyn wanna come to the cathedral, it would have been a pity to miss it. According to its records, its currently the largest Anglican cathedral in the world. Not surprising. With its size, even the Westminister Abbey would have look insignificant, if not for the latter’s royal use. Walk through the well, just can’t resist admiring how exquisite the internal sculptures are. Each detail encased in another. With the arrangement of chairs for the Christmas service, it’s grandness is overwhelming. Reached the altar. A golden yellow picture of about 2 stories high. There is a red tape forbidding closer look by visitors. Never stepped in a church much, but this view displayed how revered Jesus is by his followers. The kind of detailed art you find on the altar is no less than what I would find in a pagan ritual of Taoism in Singapore. Jiaxuan went up to pray in front of his Lord. Respect him for his piousness. Just when yesterday me and Jiaxuan were discussing about the different religions and what and how they manifest human kindness in their individual teachings and essence. There’s a graveyard just in the foreyard of the cathedral. Would have wanted to go in and look, if not for the fact that it’s 9.30am and we gotta go off for the coach station if we don’t wanna miss our bus.
We all slept on the bus. For a short while or for the entire journey. 55 mins of coach ride. Quite warm actually. A lady who was sitting beside Joanne offered to exchange places with me. In turn, I offered to exchange with Evelyn. She declined. Haha. Well, for once, I gladly know that they are not inseparable, and they don’t mind my presence. Hehe.
Manchester is simply a industrial and modern city with no feel of the past. We enjoy Liverpool, proud of their history and culture. But Manchester is different. What we see here is like a replica of London, maybe London has more old and aging buildings than Manchester. It does remind me of Singapore in a cooler climate. Even the temperature here is warmer than anywhere else I’ve gone in my UK travels. We went to the train station to get a local map, but surprisingly they had none! Can’t believe it, especially when they had so many ‘i’ symbols signifying information counters. Not a single portable map. Evelyn managed to ask someone about where we wanna go, he pointed us in the right direction. Arndale Centre. Walking there is straight path, without any turnings. The store that captured our eyes is Primark, no doubts. Its famous low prices and mediocre quality items is a major attraction. We agreed to spend an hour there before lunch.
The girls disappeared into the ladies section. We went for the men’s. Jiaxuan tried on a leather jacket which he bought eventually with a sweat internal. 17 quid for the leather. Not bad. Most leather goods in UK would have cost a bomb, certainly not a price like SGD 50. That’s about the price I paid for my leather jacket from Singapore. I got myself a beanie for a quid, and sweat internal to layer up for the winters. Zhen Qiang got his sweat internal also, with a long sleeved top that look like he supports Celtic. Ha, green and white. On our way out, I spotted a 3 quid umbrella. Got it straight away, it will be useful. While queuing, Joanne was there. Offered to help her pay. A bit weird for a man to be holding an electric pink lady’s top with a small umbrella. Paid for them, then told Jiaxuan and Zhen Qiang I got an electric pink top for myself. They don’t believe me. Show them the top. They had a very puzzled look on their face haha, even speculating I’m getting for my girlfriend. I told them I wanna cross dress, which made them frown even more. What a laugh. Called Joanne and they came out to meet us. Then I passed her the top, finally see a moment of revelation on the 2 guys’ faces. Went for lunch at Arndale. A so-called food court, except that it sells fast food like KFC and pizza hut here instead of the Chinese food we have in Singapore. We got ourselves the family feast from pizza hut, and had a good chat about how cui our halls are. Ha.
The next 4 hours after lunch was supposedly exploration of Arndale Centre. The guys went straight to the market, but soon sat down. Bought some big Fuji apples for a quid. It’s expensive, but a luxury like this comes only once a blue moon. The 2 of them decided to go for a haircut, I offered to look after the bags. Tried reading, but soon grew tired and was gonna fall asleep. To keep myself awake, I thought maybe I can start on my travel log, but on a stroke of luck, there was free wireless internet access at Arndale! With only an hour left on my lappie, I browsed through my backlog of emails for the past 5 days. Check out on the match that we missed too, its re-arranged date and time. There was a guy working at a café stall next to where I was sitting, he came beside me and ask “is there internet access in here?” It’s so puzzling, he’s working here yet he didn’t know there’s internet access. Somemore a strong signal. Pretty fast also. Haha. The 2 of them returned soon. Earlier I had smsed them about the changes. Soon we started checking out the National Express Coaches and NatRail timings and fares. Incredible fares for train and coach rides through the night. 94 quid for a trip from Liverpool to London at 11pm, moreover it’s a 6 hour train ride! Unbelievable. We couldn’t decide on anything till we discussed with the girls. The 4 hours on our own is unbearable, keep counting down to the hour.
Met the girls at around 6 for dinner. Walked back to the station, deciding that we’d grab some dinner along the way. Bypass Wetherspoons. Again. For once again, we are tempted to grab the curry offer for Wednesdays. Would make a big joke, that we had been eating from the same chain for the past 3 days for dinner. Finally, we agreed that we had the choice of choosing something else. Walking further led us to Subway. That’s where we’d have our dinner. Jiaxuan, bugging us for the past 2 days to have Subway, finally gets his wish. Ha. The funnier part is on the Subway staff. For us Londoners, we had Subway discount coupons for students. But apparently the Mancs don’t. The staff were having exclamations when we displayed our coupons, despite accepting them. ‘99p for a meatball sandwich!’ ha, can’t help laughing over their ignorance and expressions. Train ride back was rather uneventful, though I got myself a giant sausage roll before our journey. It cost £1.80, when the same thing cost £1 in Liverpool. Kaoz. Manchester suck.
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