Southampton

Last week Des and I made a short trip to Southampton to visit a friend.

This was our first ever overnight trip since we arrived in March this year. We planned the trip about 2-3 weeks before and was very excited about leaving home for the first time.

We booked our bus tickets via online and it cost us about £12 for two persons for return tickets. It was supposed to be even cheaper (about £2 per person for each return), but i guess they ran out of the cheap ones by the time we booked. We were going back and forth as to whether to book accommodation, but at least we managed to convinced a friend to let us stay over at his place for free :P That saved us up to £50 for a night's accommodation, which promptly went into our food expenses for the trip. Hehehe...

We took a bus from the city and arrived 4 hours later. It was quite an uncomfortable ride actually, not because of the seats, but the rules that says seatbelts is compulsory. I swear, the belts are so tight it felt like I was strapped to the seat as if I was to be propelled out of the bus.

Bar Gate, Southampton - Front View

So TaDah! We were in Southampton around noon and guess what! Apparently, the day we arrived was the hottest day of the year! I really dun know whether its a good thing really, the fact that the weather was absolutely glorious with loads of sun (unlike the Bath trip which was threatening to rain) or it was just plain hot.

Bar Gate, Southampton - Back View

So apparently, if you are not familiar, Southampton was the place where Titanic took off for its maiden trip. And I only found out about this when I arrived +_+

I took lots of pictures of explanation of places/statues so that I wont forget

Guess what we're looking at?

Shopping Malls!!! Who would have guess that a small town like Southampton would have more than THREE Shopping Malls!?!?! London only have, like what, ONE?? (I only know Harrods, and it doesnt even count!) Obviously, it is nothing compared to our MidValley and OneUtama lah, but still, SHOPPING MALL!!

For those of you who are suprised at our excitement, shopping mall is a GREAT place to shop! Cause you know why? When the weather turns bad, you can STILL shop while getting away from the rain/sun! Oh yea, I havent told you how miserable we are when it was raining and there is no shelter along the shops...

So we walked along the walls in which Southampton is famous for...

Shade, glorious shade!

Walls, walls and more walls...

This was apparently where in the olden days people point their weapons out from the walls to shot at their enemies wor...

Obligatory tourist picture - Refer description in picture below.

Some memorial...

We walked the whole day finding our way with a map of Southampton FOC. Yea, we are suckers for free stuff now...

Found and old church.

Doest this picture reminds you of Bukit Tinggi???

Yeap, this was how wonderfully glorious the weather is. Shesh...

Then we found a memorial for those perished in the Titanic...

By the time we arrived at this place, it was past noon and we were both very tired and hungry. So we rested for a bit and hunt for food...

Remember the £50 we saved from accommodation? This is where a huge chunk of it went. We went past some restaurant and settle for this small Italian rest. While we were waiting for our food, Des called up Stephen and told him we were in some Italian rest and he mentioned that he had wanted to try out the place for some time. So I guess we choose the right place then!

I, on the other hand, has picked up a very bad habit. I'm (finally) learning to love beer. Beer here (in UK, in general) have absolutely NO bitterness in it! Seriously, the only thing that keeps me from beer back home is the bitterness. But here, there is ABSOLUTELY NON! Since, I have been happily ordering my beer. But I still havent managed to master the art of finished the entire pint by myself... :P

After the food, we continue walking and found the quay where the Titanic has took off(?)

Yea, we only managed to go until the sign only. Any further we're not allowed to.

We hopped into the Titanic museum, but no pictures allowed inside wor. For £2 per person, it was quite worth it cause since we came all the way and it was kinda eerie and sad too looking at all the memorabilia and stuff.

A picture from a carefully balanced camera on top of a beam...

For something nearer to heart, we found Mint Casino. Membership was free, but it was a very VERY small place. Smaller than Starworld, smaller than International Room, about the size of the common VIP room but with less table, more slots. Get the idea? I think they only have like 3 roulette, and 3 card-game tables and the rest is slots. And we contributed £5 to your yearly bonus, so please say thank you! :P

And we also found Maxims the next day! But unfortunately, it wasnt open, so we couldnt get it. How dissappointing...

Presenting Mr Stephen Lim! Who graciously allow us to bunk at his place for a night! Thank you very very much! You come London we make you aubergine dish ok?? *wink*

A view of the hostel

So we met up by dinner time and we even managed to cook dinner at his place! After the dinner, we went out again to catch a movie. Bad thing about being in UK without a car is that you'll have to figured out how to get home if you ever stay out later than the last bus. And so, we walked back to his place after the movie, in which during the process came to realized that a 20-min bus ride equates to 1.5 hours of walking *pengsan*

The next day, we continue our trip to explore the town and came to a quay.

And apparently, this is Queen Elizabeth-dunno-number-what-told-by-some-bus-driver-dunno-correct-or-not.

A picture taken towards the end of the day while we were waiting for some free bus service that loops around the town (legs cannot take it already).

And our bus back to London was around 4pm, so we're strapped to our seat again for the trip back home.

And so that was the end of our trip to Southampton. It was really very good, good to be able to finally go for a short holiday and taking a break from our work.

To sum it up, actually, a day trip to Southampton is sufficient. But with our 2D1N trip, i think we pretty much cover EVERYTHING in the town area, so that is good enough. Plus it gives you more time to walk around and an opportunity to revisit the places in case it was closed (in which our case, all museum is closed on Monday, so we had to go again on Tuesday). There were apparently markets on the weekends, too bad we missed it. Perhaps, there will be next time...

As usual, the compulsory update. I've officially quit my three-month-stint data entry job in Universal (yes, I was with Universal Music, but I really don't think it is gonna make any impact at all in my resume). I've found another similar job (but hopefully more challenging) and is due to start next week. It pays much better, but money wasnt the thing that makes me move cause I was ready to settle for something much lesser anyway. Yea, for someone who insist that money is very important to be considering a lower paying job, you can really imagine what kind of job I had.

So meanwhile, I'm taking this week off to rest (not like it was stressful prior to this anyway) before starting on Monday. So wish me luck, hope I'll be able to start the new job next week and I'll be happy with my job!

Des on the other hand is still doing good. Someone screwed up his scheduled and he is stuck with midnight shifts for almost two weeks now. Which totally sucks cause I'm at home for whole week and when I wake up, he comes home to sleep the day off. He was supposed to be working day shifts this week! Anyway, perhaps, next week he'll be on day shift and things will be better.

Also, because of the sudden change, his whole schedule is all messed up and we now are stuck in a situation where BOTH of us do not know when we'll be going on leave! Hence, we couldnt plan anything for now and RyanAir was giving away free flight tickets and we couldnt book any cause we have no idea when we'll be available! How frustrating, since the EVERYTHING (bus/train/flights) works very much like AirAsia, the earlier the booking, the cheaper it is (remember our Southampton tickets?).

So yea, this is it for now. I'll try to keep up and post at least once every fortnight, so at least it will keep you all up to date with whats going on, ok? So take care all of you and until next time!