Weekend in Sunderland

It was 22nd May, which is back dated around 3 n half months ago. Few days after CCK visited me in London for few days, I decided to buy coach tickets to visit Sunderland once again. Most of them are having their exams while CCK was feeling bored all the time as he had long finished his final exams.

That day was my last day working in Pret so I had a long weekend not working therefore I had time to go on a short weekend away from London... It was around 9.30pm when I arrived Victoria Coach Station. It was my first time using it though.
There it was.. the time of my coach departing for Sunderland... I waited for around nearly 2 hours for boarding...
As if some of you may be thinking why am I taking the night bus... Well, I was thinking of maximise my time in Sunderland really. If I took the night bus, I can sleep the whole way and arriving Sunderland at around 6.30am in the morning. Unfortunately, I was not sleeping very well in the bus for the whole way... The bus was stopping half way around 2am for toilet break and there I took this photo of the bus.
As the bus engine rumbles stably... clock ticks away slowly.... it was sunrise. This photo was taken at 4am. It was summer back then that's why.
Half an hour later..... gorgeous isn't it...
but that means I didn't really slept at all for the whole way.... 2 hours later I arrived Sunderland... really really quiet in the morning, luckily it was exam day so Jefferey woke up early for preparation so he got me the keys for his room, which was my room when I was back there. After 30 minutes in the room I straight jump into bed to catch up my sleep... Until then still only Jefferey and CCK know I was there in Sunderland.

At noon, I went out with CCK to fetch Laiyee as they all finish exam. Everyone was surprised by my presence but didn't really talked much. As most of them buzzed off, CCK, Laiyee, Jeannie, Felicia and I went off to Ashburne campus to see a very interesting exhibition.

If There Ever Was - Exhibition of Extinct & Impossible Smells
It was indeed very special and no fancy colours whatsoever..... just smells!!!!
Click the photo to read what the exhibition was about.
This little fan thing here produces the smell which is written on the wall, 1 for every type of smell exhibited. It is hidden inside this black stripe just in front of you and it will generate smell when you approach to read the descriptions on the wall.
This is how the whole exhibition looks like. Special? Anyway, the smell included fragrance of perfumes to the smell of sun to the rotten smell of the Mir Space Station and others. I think the worst smell should be the rotten smell of Mir Space Station though.
After finish the short exploring of the strange exhibition we went outside to have a walk as the weather was lovely that day.
me with the stick....
and Jean with the unusual obsession of doors....
nice stone carving?
That ended my first day in Sunderland really. Not much but it was something.

Angel of the North

CCK and I went to Gateshead, Newcastle for the Angel of the North the next day. As it was one of my "mission" for that trip, and CCK doesn't have chances to go yet, we went together as others were preparing for their next paper.

It is just a very big steel sculpture which stands at a road junction, but it is so special that it represents the north of England and it is one of the landmarks in England. It has 90,000 visitors every day and 33 million visitors every year!! Imagine that!!

We took the "Angel Bus" which passed by the sculpture located beside the main road and has nothing around, well, just some random houses. The work of the steel sculpture started at July 1997 and was assembled 7 months later at February 1998. It weighted 200 tonnes and has height of 20 metres and wing span of 54 metres.
Click this photo to read some facts on it...
I can say this is the highlight of the visit.

Next day, Sunday, I went to church with Jeannie and ended up in my room transferring photos and some cam whoring...
In the afternoon I went out with CCK to buy some stuff... and God knows what that burnt marks on the ground was... Did CCK sat there?
Well this photo was actually taken before our visit to Ashburne Campus. We were waiting for the campus bus, felt bored so we went into David Goldman Informatics Centre at St. Peters campus.
Monday, 26 May around 6.30am I went to the bus station again...
I left Sunderland around 7am and that was my last trip up north....

CCK Visits London

Date: 18 May 2008

CCK came down south to London from Sunderland by coach to visit me. I actually forgotten how many days had he came down as I only actually accompany him to come out for a day as I was working back then. It was Sunday. I brought him around London to visit various places and did crazy stuff.

At first we went to Brick Lane which I thought should be nice to show him but in the end he didn't really liked it so I cancelled my plans to bring him to Borough Market. I brought him to the O2 then the fun begins. I didn't actually took photos for the journey we walk from O2. At first I thought it was not far to walk from O2 to Cutty Sark but in the end we keep on walking according to the sign boards at the side of River Thames for more than 2 hours!! Passing by old docks, smelly factories, streets and etc we finally reached Cutty Sark, we went down to the under river passage to walk across River Thames and took DLR to Central London. Weather that day was not fabulous as it was cloudy and drips were falling all the way when we were walking.

Anyway, reaching Central London, CCK wanted to visit 30, St. Mary Axe a.k.a. The Gherkin, which is one of the landmark in London.
It is a commercial building which is very expensive to rent and the companies in it are all very big organisations.


It was so quiet at that area as that day was Sunday. Some visitors were around there as well visiting this marvelous architecture.
Just around the corner, there is the other special building, Lloyds Tower. It really does look like a factory but in fact it is an office building. As far as I know Lloyds is a big souvenirs company and there is one small shop at the building.

And just down there a bit is the Leadenhall Market which is featured (if not mistaken) in Harry Potter movie.



After visiting Gherkin, I brought CCK towards London Stock Exchange (LSE) at St. Pauls Cathedral which he really really wanna see. I didn't took any photos of LSE myself, so, can't show here. We went towards the cathedral at the back of LSE.

Just down the cathedral, we walked towards the Millennium Footbridge.
It is headed towards south bank which the Tate Modern with the tower is situated. From south bank, St. Paul's Cathedral looks stunning.
Continuing our walk at south bank, we walk towards Big Ben to end our day out...
This place is quite famous among the skaters...

I definitely like this photo. It's well taken with the Parliament House as the background.

After that day, CCK didn't really had a good time as I didn't have time to accompany him and he went out alone, with long and tiring journeys, so he decide to go back to Sunderland 2 days later. Then, I decided to visit him that weekend.... which will be mentioned in the next post... stay tuned...

Views from London Eye

So I went to the London Eye with Sarah & Andy. I never went up before after seeing so many times so last Sunday I decided to jump on the famous wheel. I got my ticket, £15 for around 20 minutes ride.




This is the wheel mechanism which drives the whole thing. It's actually 4 truck tyres by each side of the wheel frame. I wonder how much is the power of the machine to drive the whole wheel.
The shadow of the wheel on the field with tourists at the pavement.
This is London Waterloo Train Station behind the front square building and the field. Click to enlarge to see more clearly.
Andy, Sarah, me on the Eye.
Buckingham Palace behind the trees on the left. Click to enlarge.
Big Ben & Parliament House.

The following 3 pictures are required to be enlarge to see clearly as the size is too big. I tried to minimise the size a bit so the file will be smaller to upload. I stitched the photos together. The photos were views around from the London Eye. You can see landmarks such as The Gherkin, St. Paul's Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, BT Tower, River Thames, and etc. Try to spot it.