Trip to York, 03 May 2008

What have I done besides lingering about in this bustling city of Newcastle? Well I have not been up to much of things really. I have taken the chance to really unwind and rest – besides daily ritual trip to the city centre pointlessly. Faris is finishing off real soon. It is now his high time for shopping, and all the stuff that he wants to shop and ship home. So I was there as a catalyst for him to find the word YES to almost everything – you know I love it when people spend :) But he has spent his money on nice stuff.

We went to York the other day. It was on 3rd May. It was fantastic day. The sun wasn’t entirely out but the forecast was promising. I have been wanting to go to York for some time now. Finally it was granted.

York is really nice place actually. It reminds me a little of Cambridge. There is old section that is well preserved, where we could walk on the old little tiny narrow lanes and the shops are all for midgets so to speak. It was nice experience. We did what tourists in York normally do – checking out the minster (cathedral), went to the castle to realise that we are lazy bums of not having the guts to climbs the steps to really check out the old castle. Well after seeing thousands of old English castles in my life, they are all the same I guess.

Faris’s colleague, Jane, did encourage us to check out Bettys. Apparently, they serve the best of scones, tea cakes, food, tea biscuits etc. All about English food indulgence and Jane did even caution us on the queue we need to get into in order to get in. The obstacle was itself to find where Bettys. It really bothered me for the image of Bettys was stuck in my head throughout the whole trip. "We must end up in Bettys!" – that little voice kept on whispering into my ears.

Well, we stumbled upon it by accident and we quickly got into the queue (true enough there were about 20 people in the queue already, and the restaurant was full). We were hungry enough to immediately decide that we would have lunch instead of just tea/scones. Upon being seated, we settled for English tea, grilled salmon and nice English tea. It was an experience indeed, it felt like as if Jane Austen was there recording every movement of ours to be translated into a book. Nah, kidding. It was an experience on its own – having tea the English way (what’s new, as always).

So I must now let the pics do the story-telling. Tarraaaaa!

+ The entrance to the train station

+ An old fortress/chapel by the garden entrance

+ A chapel before heading to the real cathedral

+ Cathedral that York is famous for