Back to London…

Well this was interesting!!

I’m reminded of why I left in the first place!! I always thought I’d do well to go back as a tourist after not really liking living there!!

Got way too caught in the drone of living and working that I burnt out quick and wasn’t til I got out of London that I refreshed again!!

Just a bit too busy for my liking to be honest 😱😂

Navigated through the picadilly circus, Trafalgar and Leicester!! Buckingham and London eye again!!

Out to arsenal as well…didn’t have a lot of time for much else though.

Haagen Dasz is gone though!! 😭😭😭😭

Exploring Manchester

Towards the end of our stay we met a couple of guys at our hostel who it turns out one of them I grew up with…that was epic!! The four of us basically just hung out and went sightseeing for the next few days!!

John Rylands Library, gay village, shopping,chilling in the parks and games and movie nights in the hostel!!

It was a good fun few days!

It’s amazing to meet new people when staying in a hostel and omg what is the chances of staying in the same hostel as someone not only from your country but who you went to school with as well 😱🥰🎉

Cathedrals and Synagogue

During our exploration we stumbled across some pretty cool cathedrals and even a Synagogue Museum!!

They look quite similar in respect that they both have tradition pews, an alter of sorts and Steine glass windows but there are some remarkable differences.

In cathedrals there are people all over the windows, saints, Mary, Jesus, disciples and nativity stories.

They also have statues of Mary, Jesus and various saints as well as any large benefactor of the church itself.

Some also have sarcophagus in them too.

Occasionally you will find an organ in the heart of it and in England you will usually find candles dotted around in lighting stations where you can light a candle in honour of a person or a saint etc.

In the Synagogue there are stunning landscapes on the stained glass windows and no people. As we are made in Gods image putting people onto a stain glass window isn’t a done thing. You are there for worshiping God not the people on the windows. It’s sacrilege as they would be considered idols.

The men worship downstairs and the women upstairs.

They have an Ark (where the alter would be in a church) which holds their Torah Scrolls ( it’s incredible!!)

These scrolls are covered in beautiful wrappings depending on where they are from. Each region has their own way of covering them. Some in silk, wood, metal etc

The Torah is taken from the Ark (which has stone tablets with the 10 commandments in Hebrew written in it and a light/lamp above it) and taken to the rabbi box at the back of the room where he uses it for worship.

If the scroll is in anyway damaged it cannot be used for worship. As God is pure and perfect what you use for worshipping such a God must also be.

Science and Industry Museum

This was a pretty exciting museum for us both to visit! Sarah is pretty into science and the like to she was super excited excited…I enjoyed the experiments when I was in school and was alright at biology (mainly genetics) and chemistry so we were both looking forward to this.

As you enter you see A full functioning replica of Baby! The not so baby first computer… fully functioning which is incredible especially imagining the amount of work it must take to look after it and maintain the whole thing!

Coming back around we entered into a textiles factory. Here bales of cotton (handpicked from the trees and cleaned) are put into a machine which flattens it and turns it into thick sheets of fluffy cotton!

It’s then taken from there and put into another machine where it’s split into thick fluffy lines or cotton which is collected into long narrow tubes. The tubes are then placed at a machine which feeds the thick cotton into it to make it into the thin cotton we use today on our sewing machines (in different thicknesses depending on the machine) 🧵 😍

It also houses that the first and oldest railway station…Manchester’s Liverpool street!

Walks through being built, the struggle they went through to create it all…building the train lines and buildings. Also what the coaches were like back then especially in comparison with the stage coach.

It wasn’t cheap. Tickets were the equivalent of today’s £160 which was more than what a cotton spinner would make in a day. (I feel like that’s not a bad sum to make daily though)

The first class carriages were enclosed with windows and protected against the elements whereas the second were open to the weather… and then there was cattle class which literally house the cattle and animals. (These days is economy class lol) how things have changed!!

It was very interesting think that only about 150-200 years ago people from much different circumstances and class would be purchasing tickets and awaiting their train to wherever their paths would take them!

Dressed to the nines in their latest fashions with their spouse at their arm and their children in tow… what would they think of all of us if they could see what has become of the world they left behind and we created? Have we done them proud?

National football museum!!

So next to the cathedral is a football museum!! Get in!!

It was amazing…of course at the entrance is the cups (naturally with Man City in there)

Couldn’t resist to get a picture with them 😍😂🎉

And then ventured on up to the interactive floor where we played some games, did a not so live commentary (thank goodness it wasn’t live-I need a bit of practice lol)

It was good fun though, learnt a few things though!!

Crystal Palace was a massive grounds back in the day and one of the games (royal cup) was attended by King George V

Sadly once war broke out the game was never held there again!!

Also did you know that of all the teams who have won the FA Cup…Aston Villa is the only one to lose it!! They lent it to a shoe maker who put it on display in his window and it was broken into and stolen!!

£10 reward was offered but it wasn’t until they won again that someone came forward claiming he melted it down for crowns…no one knows if this is true but Aston was fined £25 for their recklessness!!

Cathedral and gardens

We came across a gorgeous Cathedral and it’s surrounding gardens!!

Had to wait a day to make it in for a visit to the Cathedral as it was closed when we got there late.

It’s beautiful and has plenty of stain glass windows along with a few chapels!!

We were taking photos before realising that it cost a £1 for a permit (oops) so went and asked for one lol

Well worth it though!!

In World War Two someone decided it would be a good idea to bomb it as well so part of it has been recently refurbished. The wood is slightly lighter in the refurbishment but I didn’t take photos as only found out after I took them all.

The gardens and nice and relaxing as well, beautiful area to just chill out nearby to a water feature or two

f

Westlife!!!

Westlife concert was so worth the wait!!

They were amazing to say the least. Quite a few people had never been to a concert before so it was nice not to be the only one!!

It was a blast, they were interactive and funny fooling around!

Came down to get a selfie with a couple of little old ladies who had been to 47 concerts before 😱 insane!!

And then some chic decided to pull them up coz they ‘stole’ her picture for instagram…if you’re gonna post a pic with them tagged at their concert they are potentially gonna use it!! They actually tell you to post them at the concert for a chance to be featured…I guess she just wanted to get a selfie lol

They open with Hello My Love and closed with An encore of flying without wings and world of our own!!

Can’t wait for their new single Dynamite!!

Coming out soon 💖💖

Sadly my camera doesn’t do great justice!! I was in the back so couldn’t get pic closer than that lol

Walking tour around Manchester…

I managed to get an early night last night and actually fell asleep quickly. Jet lag, three time zones in a week, walking around all of the shops and trying to keep myself awake so by the time I got to sleep I was just about out straight off.

Was woken up a roundabout 5am coz a bloke was walking down the street screaming at the top of his voice and then his mates joined him 😒😒 that along with the sunshine pouring in the window(no curtains or blinds really) didn’t help. Think I’ll be turning my pillow to the other side tonight in hopes of less sunshine directly into my face in the morning lol

We did a free walking tour around Manchester today, our tour guide was Michael, really nice guy.

Learnt a few new things and found a few places to go and visit this week. Tried the Neapolitan pizza place and it was amazing,

Was amazing to have Italian pizza again!!

We went in search of the gelato store that we saw yesterday but couldn’t find it and found hard rock instead…

It was amazing!!

Asked the bouncer to take our photo for us 😍 super cute he also took a selfie 😂😂

Queen Victoria has a statue in Piccadilly Gardens and Prince Albert in Albert Square…they were supposed to be the lovers facing each other across the city but the architects were never told which way they were supposed to face so they are both facing away from each other, lost lovers 💖 💔

Midland hotel is super nice, building is stunning as with a lot of buildings in the Uk. Posh and Becks had their first date in the French restaurant. Beatles were kicked out of the hotel. Rolls and Royce met and started up their company there as well.

Hitler wanted to use it as his administration office 😒

We came across a bunker that was built to house 40 people from a nuclear bomb blast for up to 6 months, only polish workers were hired as in theory ‘they couldn’t speak English ‘ and it was top secret. So much so that a local construction worker climbed over the wall to investigate knowing that something was going on and fell 100ft to his death. No one was told about it!!

They discovered that a hydrogen bomb would kill you if you were in the bunker which pretty much defeated the purpose of having it so they turned it just into communications. No one knew about it until 2004 when a homeless man found his way in and lit a smoke…which set fire to the comms and the phone lines, internet etc all dropped out in England and Scotland. Also part of Switzerland dropped as well (not sure how that works)

its used now as a a BT hub.

Manchester

After boarding when we were supposed to leave Hong Kong last night we slept a little on and off on the plane overnight flight!!Getting I to Manchester early morning and easily breezing through custom’s much to our exhausted selves delight!!We picked up a cab outside after failing to find decent Sim cards at the airport…this Cab was so much better than the hong Kong ones and much smoother too!Left our bags at the hostel and showered before heading off to explore and buy Sim cards. We roamed around for a few hours. I spent a while at the bank to try to close down my UK account which is proving difficult for some random reasons😔😔We scoped out a few coffee shops testing their worth against new zealand, will see how we get on with them.Found a few things that we liked, Sarah got a new pair of vans and I’m looking at a superdry jacket. Also nose piercing when I’m back from Birmingham next week.We are both insanely jet lagged and our body clocks stuffed from jumping around three time zones in a week so hitting the sheets fashionably early tonight after we had a quick drink on our way home tonight.We had a chilled half hour in Piccadilly gardens this afternoon enjoying the sunshine and watching the fountain and the pidgeons trying to eat food they had scavenged from people nearby.