Next up, Southampton, aka Soto. (Spring Break)

So, from Manchester, I took a red eye train to Southampton, to visit my dear friend Tremayne :)
The train was pretty nice.
Here's a look of the inside. As it was a red-eye, it was rather empty, eerily empty.
My ticket and my planner.
Tremayne is an amazing tour guide! Thanks man! I reached Southampton at about 10am, and we caught another train to go to visit the Stonehenge rightaway. (Because of time constraint, I was carrying my close to 40 pounds backpack with me all the time.)This is Tremayne. (He's on my blogroll too... Single and available, interested? I can be a matchmaker...) LOL... (pic taken by Tremayne)
(pic taken by Tremayne)
Listening t0 the audio tour at Stonehenge. (pic taken by Tremayne)
Again, it was really windy... But, perfect weather otherwise. (pic taken by Tremayne)

Amazing, isn't it?

Look at the white dots on the field. They are sheep. :)

After the tour to Stonehenge, we went back to Southampton, and Tremayne took me around downtown for a quick tour, pretty nice harbor town.

Early next morning, I took a bus to London Heathrow Airport, and went back to Ann Arbor to get ready for the 2nd half of the semester energized. :)

And, below showed pictures of my 'harvests'...
Everything cleared from my backpack onto my bed.

Something for St. Patrick's Day. (less than two weeks from the day I got back from Europe)


And, some leftover foreign currencies (Euros, and Sterling Pounds) ... One thing I learned about Euros and Sterling Pounds. You can have 20-30 dollars worth of coins in your pocket. So, when you want to spare some change, do think again. :) Imagine a 2 sterling pounds coin, that's 4 dollars!

That's about it. My trip to Europe was definitely a great one! An eye opening experience. Also, taught me a lot about traveling alone. Really, huge thanks to Chee Han and friends, Zhi Hui, the Barnacles bunch I met at Dublin, Ireland, Kim Tat, and last but not least, Tremayne for making my trip to Europe an amazing one! "There's vacation that you will remember, and there's vacation that you'll never forget." (quoted from a TV commercial) This was definitely a trip that I'll never forget!

Time to clear things up... Manchester (Spring Break 07)

OK, so, now that I have so much time, and also, I'm bored and need to kill my time, so, I'm gonna blog more. And there are a lot of posts for me to catch up, some dating back to my Spring break in Europe...

So, let me continue with my Spring Break... I think I left off at Dublin, Ireland.

After Dublin, Ireland, I took a flight to Manchester, to visit my friend Kim Tat. After a flight and a train ride, I met up with Kim Tat where I crashed 3 nights at his room! :)

So, Manchester is a great place, a very nice place with a lot of shopping malls, and good chinese food. The Chinatown is huge, and I saw a number of really nice cars (2 Ferraris, a Lumborghini...) I had some really good dim sums, and spent a lot of time walking around searching for jerseys(for my bro, friends and myself). Also, I spent few hours walking around lost after visiting Old Trafford, home of the great Manchester United Football Club, which I spent so much time in there, following a tour, checking out the Megastore.

The side entrance of Old Trafford.
I spent about 40 minutes walking around the Museum before the tour.
As I was traveling alone most of the time, some photos were taken with an extended right arm. Hence, the result. :)
As I followed the tour on a weekday, it wasn't that busy, and the tour group was about 20 of us. The tour was rather comprehensive, and the tour guide was amazing. Well, he had been working there for more than 25 years and worked during the regular football season.
I managed to get another person to help me to take this shot.

Ok, that's ugly... :)
The home players' changing room. :)


Me getting comfortable in Sir Alex Ferguson's seat.No comments... :)
In front of the main entrance. The Megastore as background.
This is slightly better... (oh yar, it was rather cold and windy that day...)

Some shot sI took while I was lost.

And, last but not least, a very amatuerish panoramic of Old Trafford.

I went back to Old Trafford for a second time because I couldn't find the third jersey elsewhere.
My bro's jersey getting personalized.
Well, this time, I went back with Kim Tat, and he took this shot. :)
And after that, we went to Trafford mall (i think), which was a really humongous mall, bigger than the new 1 Utama, and the decoration was amazing.
Also, here's a picture of me in front of U of Manchester.
Also, Manchester was the host of the 2002 Commonwealth Games, and this is the aquatic center, just outside Kim Tat's dorm.

And that's pretty much of my trip to Manchester, England. The very next morning, at 5am in the morning on Saturday, I took a train to Southampton, my last stop of my trip to Europe.

Dublin, Ireland revisited...

Hey, so this post is all about my last day at Dublin, Ireland - 28th Feb - Tuesday.

So, as stated in the previous post on Dublin, Ireland, I couldn't sleep, or you can say that I woke up early.

I hopped onto the hop-on, hop-off city bus tour. I took a bunch of pictures or cathedrals, churches, old architectures, and all. After about 30 minutes of bus ride, I arrived at the most visited tourist spot in Dublin, Ireland. The St. James's Gate Brewery, home to the world famous GUINNESS(R).St. Patrick's Cathedral
Trinity College
Some random shots.

The St. James's Gate Brewery
Water is an important ingredient... And I look 'funny' in this picture.
Testing the taste at the taste-testing lab.
I was also "selected" to launch a batch of brew. Not really selected, I waited.
Me filling in some personal information. So, brew 4083 is MINE. Well, I wished, it's launched by me.
Launching the brew!
There we go, it's in the Mash-Vessel. The very first stage.
Malaysia is the home of one of Guinness breweries in the world.
Me leaving a note at the brewery. Click on it, and you should be able to read the entire note.
Enjoying my Guinness at the Gravity bar. Great 360 degrees view of Dublin.
The complimentary pint, the perfect PINT. Look at the head! Also, the BEFORE pic.
The AFTER pic.
Also, this is the admission ticket for the tour. It's a paper-weight, and it contains one drop of Guinness.

That concludes the Guinness Tour.

On the way back from the tour, the 2 chimneys, that's the Guinness brewery.
Just thought that it's interesting. I think it's the millennium bridge or something. Sorry for the blurry spots, it was raining.

O'Connell street.
Me, in front of Barnacles. the hostel.
in front of THE Temple Bar
In front of the convenience store that we got food at 3.00+am after our first night out.
Sorry for the lines. Me, over River Liffey. That's the temple bar side behind me. It was really windy. And, damn, I looked like a bunny.
Told you it was windy, look at the straps of my backpack.
More bunny look.

That's about it, I had an OK Italian lunch, before catching the bus to the airport, where I will later fly to Manchester.

Check back soon for more.