April 13th - Stonehenge - Day 9

We are finally going to Stonehenge!!!

On our last day in Bath, Peg decided to take a picture of the breakfast at the Annabelle's Guest House, which we've been having for the second time today. As you can see, the breakfast served focused mainly on toasts. But they do have cereals, cookies, tarts, fruits, yoghurt and delicious scrambled eggs.

After breakfast, we checked out and proceed to the pick-up point of our tour bus. On the way, we dropped a couple of postcards off, sent to our family: A gift from Bath - postcard of the Roman Bath and Postal Stamp of Bath!!!

I've just realised that neither of us took pictures of the purple bus, the one that is going to take us to Stonehenge!!! Oh, well... The journey was pleasant, with lots of greeneries to see. And although we did not stop, there were a few famous things to watch out for - The white horse chalk carving, an unusual road sign, reap seed fields etc.

Stonehenge!!! Beyond words. There are no strong feelings towards it, but one can't help being mesmerized, unable to take one's eyes of it's magnificence. And our camera just cannot stop looking for a good angle of it. Thankfully, it was a brilliant day with a good deal of sunshine.



My hands have felt it (there were tester stones that we can touch), and my feet had stepped on this sacred ground.

Back at Bath, we spent the rest of our time before our train departure walking around town, and Peg insisted on an ice cream. Although it was sunny, it was really cold. And yes, I think Peg is crazy. But, why not? She insisted on treating me.

At about 16:00, the journey home started. We got the train back to London, then the underground to Victoria station (Peg insisted on sending me off), then went separate ways, as I head Cambridge on couch and Peg heads Leyton on tube. About 21:00, the amazing journey ends, when couch 010 let me off at Parkside couch station.

April 12th - Bath - Day 8

Easter Sunday, a beautiful Sunday. Unfortunately, all tours to Stonehenge were fully booked. We had to abandon our plan to go to Stonehenge in the afternoon, and just spend the day in Bath. We did manage to book places for Stonehenge in one of the tours tomorrow morning.

Having done reservations, we proceed to the Roman Bath, an attraction we have missed yesterday because of a long queue. It was quite early when we got there, so there weren't many people. We spent about two to two and a half hours at the Roman Bath, listening and looking at the history of the Roman empire and the bath. These wonderful pictures are our fruit of labour at the Roman Bath (Ha ha ha ha...), they should show that we had a wonderful time. We can see the Abbey from the bath because they are just next to each other.




The pictures in the second row is a model of how the Roman Bath looked like back in those days. There's a temple, with a courtyard, where the religious gathering were held, and the big bath is next to the temple. My hand and foot, in the pictures in the third row above, marks my presence. There's a little pond, at the exit to the bath, that was lit beautifully - it's beauty beyond words. It was made into a wishing pond, but we did not make any wishes or make any offerings. We did really enjoy it there.

After coming out from the Bath, we had Cornish pasties for lunch. Peg's had mushroom and cheese while mine's traditional. My pasty made me feel a little too full for that afternoon, because the smell of potatoes, onions, pork and what looks like carrot stewed together is just a little bit too strong when they have been baked in a pasty.

After lunch we went to the Circus and the Royal Crescent. The Circus consist of 30 houses arranged around a roundabout of beautiful old trees. I took picture, starting from house number 1, in a clockwise manner, until house number 30, and pieced them together in that long string of photo. I was standing at the doorstep of No. 30, the Circus when I took the pictures. As usual, my hand and foot, this time my whole body too, marks my presence in the beautiful place.


The Royal Crescent was just about next to the Circus. And it consists of houses arranged in a semi-circle, instead of a circle, compared to the Circus, facing a green green park.

We then took a long walk uphill, and found St. Stephen's Church. Dinner was Vodka and KFC, what a pair. According to the girl working the counter of the liquor shop, we look 18-ish, so she had to look at both our IDs and make sure we're old enough to be buying liquor. Dr Nyon scores! We rest early to charge energy for Stonehenge tomorrow.

April 11th - Bath - Day 7

Day 7: My lucky number!!! And a trip to Bath today!!!

To catch the early train of 9:30 at paddington, we left Peg's house at 8:00. We met Paddington bear at Paddington station, as seen in the picture on the left. We reached Bath at about 11:00 in the morning and stepped down from the train to a very very cold morning in Bath.

First stop after dropping our bags at the guest house is brunch at Sally Lunn's. Their Sally Lunn's Buns are world famous. And they are very delicious, soft and fluffy. I like mine, which is toasted with cinnamon butter, although the butter is slightly too rich. Our tea below, and the buns.

After the heavy brunch we went to the Bath Abbey and bought tickets for the tower tour. The next tower tour was for 15:00, so we decided to do explore other places before coming back to the Abbey in the afternoon. The Roman Bath, which is just next to the Abbey, had a long queue, so we decided to skip it first. We came to the Postal Museum to explore the history of the postal services of England. there, we had the chance to porforate stamps and dress-up as postmen. Ha ha ha...

We went back to the guest house a little while just to drop things and freshen up before going back to the Abbey for our tower tour at about 15:00. Here I document my foot stepping on Abbey grounds and my hand touching on the Abbey stair pillars. For that, I must mention that I copy the hand technique from Soon Joo. And Peg's staring to complain about me taking too much pictures of my stupid shoes. Ha ha ha ha...

On top of the tower, we took a lot of pictures of the Bath town and the Abbey walls too.



We walked around Bath town all afternoon, looked at this and decided to skip that. We went to the Jane Austen's Museum and decided to skip it. Then, Peg wanted a drink and we found a pub that turns out to be a famous tourist attraction. We stayed until about 17:00 when we went back to the Abbey for an organ recital. After one song, we both were too tired and sleep-stimulated, so we left the Abbey and went back the the guest house.

The restaurant that Peg's got a 2-for-1 voucher for would not take the voucher on a weekend night. At that being too expensive for us, we found a bistro that serves two-course dinners for £9.95. Here's our dinner (in a top to bottom, left to right order): Peg's starter of hummus with pita bread, my starter of deep fried brie, Peg's main course of baked aubergine with goat cheese and vegetables and my main course of beef with orange stew and mustard mash.


After dinner, I spent some time exploring my camera's function at taking the night scenes. Peg laughed at me trying to hold my camera very still for 8 seconds when I used the Nightscene preset option. But she gave me some tips about night scene shooting controls, i.e. ISO, aperture and shutter speed afterwards. Here's one quite successful shot of Bath's night scene on the right (the after shot) of Pulteney Bridge. The one on the left is the before picture, shot with the Nightscene preset.

So ends a beautiful day.