A lonely silent Christmas in London.

No white Christmas! It had stopped snowing after Monday 21st Dec 2009 heavy snow in the evening.

Upcoming trip in Dec

5 - 7 Dec 2009 - Budapest Christmas Market
11 - 18 Dec 2009 - Zurich, Paris & London.

Lake District - Windermere

It took close to 5 hours to reach Lake District - Windermere from London Euston.
I can already see Mountain and Mountain while on the train from Oxenholme station.
The weather was great on my 1st day, I pray for good weather for the next few days.
At nearly 17km. in length the biggest in England, Windermere is a fine sheet of water with numerous, mainly small, uninhabited, wooded islands.
Some walks to do around Windermere -
Walk 1 - 2.25km Orrest Head Viewpoint
A very short but quite steep little walk, often a revelation for first time visitors as the views from the top, at 239m include much of the glory of southern Lakeland.
Walk 2 - less than 2km Cockshott Point
A very easy level stroll, partly by the edge of the lake, with good views of Belle Isle and across to Claiffe Heights.
Walk 3 - 6km Windermere shore and Rayrigg Wood.
A well varied short walk combining woodland with a very attractive section of lake shore. View across the lake to Claiffe Heights.

As usual, I'm ambitious. I did all 3 in a day for 6hours counts myself lucky with GREAT weather!

BBQ in UK

I had a bbq session and is very much different or abit different as compared back home.

BBQ in SG - charcoal, fire, everyone join in or you wait to be serve but no matter what you'll end up smelling like a 'honey marinated chicken wing', not too bad huh? We have load of foods - chicken wings, sweet potatoes, crayfish, corns, fish fillets, mashmallow, well basically anything you want. Most of the time we will head to ECP or maybe park with pit.

BBQ in UK - electrical bbq pit, fire, 1 person bbq the food, the rest chats and wait for food to be ready on table. Foods include corn, salad, varieties of pork sausages from local pig farm - Stilton sausage, apple sausage, apricot sausage, chicken thighs & potatoes, ribs, etc. Usually bbq is at their backyard. The guests and hosts will sit around the table and chat all evening, foods were passed around the table. Serve with ketchup, hot chilli ketchup, salad sauce, mayonnaise, lastly what I like is I will not smelled like a bbq chicken wing.

Sept/Oct 2009 Travel Plan

Booked my train ticket to Lake district - Windermere 13-17Sept
Book my train ticket via the National railway

Next up will be plan for Italy and Germany on 21st Sept till 8th Oct.
Italy 21 Sep - 1 Oct
Booked flight to Naples 21st Sept - £25.94
Naples Accomodation est. 3nights - ???
Reading up the following to plan my trip.
Still undecide where to go in Italy.
Tentative plan
21 sept Naples (3days Mt. Vesuvius, Pompeii, Herculaneum)
25 sept Rome (3 days incl Vatican)
28 sept Florence (2 Days Cin Que Terre highly recommended by Lisa & Pisa)
30 sept Milan
1 Oct Venice
More about Italy
About.com Top of Italy
TrenItalia - Intercity train in Italy
*Note: Get Italy intercity train ticket in Italy will be cheaper than online purchase.

Germany 3 - 8 Oct
Booked return flight from Berlin - London on 8th Oct. - £14.15
Tentative Germany Plan/route by Yanto
3-4 Oct München/1/2 day trip to Schloss Neuschwanstein (Night train €29)
5 Oct Baden-Baden(Black Forest)
6-7 Oct Berlin
8 Oct - Find my way to Berlin Airport.

The Tempest at Tolethorpe Hall

I won't believe I get to catch Shakespeare - The Tempest at England home ground with great natural backdrop - the Forest, the real crescent moon, truly a great experience!

We went to the play with thick blanket, fleece, jackets, it isn't just us, everyone brought along cushions, bathrobe, winter jacket. It is consider outdoor but it has a tentage so we are sheltered. Imagine those actor/actresses only put on thin clothing. The play began at 8pm and end at quarter to 11. We had our dinner at home - Peterborough own breed pig farm - sausages with apricots and another with Stilton cheese to go along with morris crunchy salad make up of thinly sliced carrot, little red raddish, rasins, apples and salad sauce - Extra virgin olive oil, 2nd stage of olive oil, Tahini (sesame seed sauce) and spice oil. Definitely yummy.

Too bad my camera unable to capture nice, clear image of the play but manage to capture video!!!

During the interval, we ate our homemade chocolate cake made from my overdose of Amaretti Cookie fridge cake. The cake doesn't taste too bad! I quite like it.

Kings of Leon Concert @ O2

Unbelievable, I'm at O2 catching a POPULAR ROCK CONCERT!

Peterborough

After staying in London for 3 months, I think is time for me to see other part of England.

Here I'm living and staying on in Peterborough for the next 3 months. It is a quiet village but I find it peaceful and it has all the friendly people here! To visit Peterborough.

Bath Spa 四人行!!!

Upon arrival, we booked our tour to Stonehenge at the train station for next day. Phew! We were lucky to get a tour which I guess was pretty last minute. The friendly lady at the counter had suggested another tour to Lacock where Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows was filmed hmmm maybe a minor part where Harry Potter's parents were killed but well the 3 girls are a HP's FANs so I don't mind heading there too cos the price difference was only £2.

The friendly lady directed us to our hostel which is easily spotted along the main road. The hostel is really near to most of the tourist spots. We dropped our backpack and head to Saint Abbey, a beautiful church though I m not a very church person. Oh Bath is a relatively small village with alot of historical building especially the Roman Baths.

Some facts about Roman Baths - The Romans made Bath their base, staying here for nearly 400 years. They built a luxurious spa with baths of varying temp, a sauna, exercise rooms, a Turkish bath and cool plunge pools. Spiritual needs were catered for by the construction of a temple, devoted to the worship of their ow goddess Minerva, and the Celtic idol, Sulis.

Get a better Panoroma view of The Circus and Royal Crescent here. There are 33 houses in the architect John Wood's Palladian-style Circus which is bettered only by the magnificient curve of Royal Crescent, designed by his son, also called John.

The Stonehenge is another iconic tourist spot in UK. I felt a sense of serenity, it is a great vast land and i felt FREEDOM!!!! The strong wind make me feel like flying though my foot are firmly rooted on the ground and with friends around, we had forgotten about the freezing wind! =)

Total cost include train ticket(return), meals, accomodation 2D1N, package tour to Stonehenge( £15) - £95est.

Accomodation is at Bath Backpacker, if you're budget go for this, if you want a better bed quality go for other hostel. It was rather noisy when someone is walking up and down the stairs, I couldn't sleep at all the whole night. I slept better on the train than at the hostel. =)

To get around UK & Europe

Some tips on travelling around UK and Europe.

Explore England can refer to visitBritain.

To check out public transport around England, this is quite a good website to refer to, it provides you the latest traffic update from underground, bus diverted news.
Public Transport.

To explore around UK, it will be cheap to travel in bus than rail. So here I recommend a cheap bus trip:-

- Megabus
- For Railway - National Railway


To get really cheap air ticket to Europe, you can try the below websites. The air ticket fluctuate up and down. It will be good if you BOOK early, the cheapest you can grab is £9.95.


- Aerlingus

- Easyjet

- Ryanair

- Pegasus Airline (To Turkey - Istanbul only)


By Rail, Eurostar only serves some area like Paris, Brussel, Lille, Calais but you can get really cheap ticket at £59 for return if you book EARLY!

- Eurostar £59 value


After settling your transport, you gotta find accomodation, you won't want to sleep in the COLD, WINDY street. =)

- Couchsurfing

- hostelworld

- hostelboooker

Do update me if there is any cheap tour around and I'll post it here too.