We went to small town also not far from Lowestoft called Norfolk. We rented a boat for a short cruise on the river. In the halfway, Mr Sloan provided me the chance to drive it, and I drove it almost the whole trip from that point. It was a very interesting and unusual experience.
After dinner, we said goodbye to Kevin, Tracy and the kids who were still staying for the entire week. It was a great weekend in the countryside that a believe very few from my country have been to.
Pleasantwood Hill was the destination of the day. It's a theme park with a few crowd-attracting facilities. Mostly, they were very similar to the ones in Taiwan, but there was a roller coaster ride called Wipeout which I wouldn't dare to try by looking at it but still got on for the experience. That was quite exciting, but it also made my stomach feel being turned upside down again.
We also took the cable car that provided the view of the whole park. It was very cool.
We met up with Steve's big brother Kevin and sister-in-law Tracy as we were gonna join Mr and Mrs Sloan in Lowestoft, a bayside town south to London. They went the previous day with Steve's nephews Alex and Matthew. We arrived just after noon, then we went to the beach and spent a lovely afternoon. It was actually a bit chilly without the sea breeze.
We went to the parade afterwards. Apparently, it's their annual festival season. The parade groups, unfortunately, were mostly tacky and weird. But they could be cute in a way.
In the evening, Steve's uncle and aunt Mr and Mrs Sharpe came visit. We went to the nearby restaurant Old Sailor's for a Sunday special carvery dinner. I was really stuffed by the chicken, ham, sausage and yorkshire pudding which I've wanted to trying for a long time.
Because we're going to Steve's best friend Claire's barbie party in the evening, we simply stayed in and get prepared. We called a taxi to take us to Romford where Claire's house is at.
As expected, we were the first to arrive since we were being very punctual. Claire dressed up as Batgirl, and her boyfriend Mike was a super hero. The weather wasn't friendly at first. But it got better as soon as everyone gradually arrived. It was obvious that it's a mixed party since I believe even Steve didn't know a few of the guests. We met Claire's little sister Becci, who was Lady Gaga, and her husband Ken. There was also Steve's other best friend Gemma and her boyfriend Steve(the other Steve). It actually was some sort of couples's party I admit.
The food was great. We had a lovely time. But I couldn't help feeling tired because of the drinks and the unadjusted jet lag. We said our farewells around midnight.
Another big trip out to London. Today's destination was the famous British Museum. We got there around 12.30 and started the tour. There were definitely a lot to see, and we actually spent totally more than 4 hours in it. 4 hours!!! But in order to avoid the rush hour, Steve showed me around the central part, we walked along Oxford Street, including Piccadilly Circle and a square which I forgot what the name is. We were quite exhausted from walking all day long.
After got back, Mr. Sloan prepared a seafood feast with fresh raw oysters, a lobster, calamari, jelly eels(better than I tough actually), fried anchovies, sweet prawns etc. It was a very satisfying dinner. Thanks to both Mr. and Mrs. Sloan!
After "A Fistful of Dollars," Mr. Sloan showed me another one from his favorite collections, "First Blood." It was very stupid and unreasonable but full of action fun nonetheless.
Because we spent quite a fortune in town, we simply stayed in and lazing around. But we did take a trip to another town in Essex to get the rental fancy dresses for the upcoming party at Steve's old neighbor's. It was such a hassle to pick the right one, more than I could've ever imagined. After going thorough Indiana Jones, Zorro, Dr. Evil(yes, it's the Dr. Evil), I finally decided to pick Sherlock Holmes(in the old style). It was a decent choice, but Steve's Robin Hood outfit suits him so much better. Each dress costs 25, quite a bit! Anyway, it's sorted out once for all.
We didn't really make ourselves couch potatoes but took a walk in Harrow Park just right next to Steve's house. It was a large lot with a playground and tennis courts(and a new basketball court according to Steve). We saw a good flock of swans and geese, they're very lovely. But unfortunately the squirrels seemed were still taking naps.
Mrs. Sloan got very nice fish and chips back for dinner. The fish(cod) is so much better than the ones I got in Taipei(dah!). Afterwards, we just sat down and watched comedic shows.
After breakfast, we set off for London Town around 11. For a person who goes there for the first, I was not as excited as I've always thought I would be, but it surely was something I looked forward to very much. The first stop was St. Paul's Cathedral. Steve said it used to be free, but apparently they've started to charge. It was 12.5 per person! But the inside was pretty amazing. The point views definitely worth the efforts of climbing the stairways. Gorgeous city view can be seen from up there.
The second stop was the Tower of London. We got trapped by the sudden pouring down, but thankfully it didn't last for too long. It was already 3.00 when we got there, so we had to rush it and grab a bite before going in. The box office clerk was very nice to let me get the student discount ticket even I don't have an ID on me. We were just in time for the tour guide at 3.30. Then we had to get in an insanely long line to see the royal jewelries. The armors in the white toward came the second. And due to the time limit, we ended the visit in the torture tower.
Before setting off to the third destination, we went for a proper supper in Wagamama, the popular local noodle chain store. It was pretty good, but the price is definitely not appealing to Asian tourists. The train took us to Waterloo bridge, where the BFI National Film Theatre is. It looked really nice, we got the tickets and waited for about 40 minutes to get in. It was very pricy at the price of 9 each, but how often do you get to see Tarkovsky's "Stalker" on film and especially one you've never seen. It was practically and psychologically long as predicted but a thought-provoking film with carefully designed visuals nonetheless.
It was already almost 11pm by the time we walked out of the theatre. The temperature did drop quite a lot in the late evening. But we got to see the night view of the south bank, including the famous Tower Bridge and London Eye viewpoint. It was a tiring but fulfilled day trip.
We got up around the same time as yesterday. After the breakfast, we went out for Steve's passport renewing right away. Because Mrs. Sloan got the second half of the day off, we decided to take a trip to Cambridge, which is definitely one of my must-gos and also where they hadn't been for 5 years. It was mostly very warm in the afternoon. A lovely day to walk outside. Firstly, we went into King's College," a mini cathedral with beautiful painted glasses and informative historical royal profiles. We had a late lunch in an italian Restaurant called "Don Pasquale," we got a very nice carbonara pasta and an also nice spicy cheese pizza. We walked to the riverside where tourists do punting, but taking all opinions in consideration, we didn't try to get on one but only watch people enjoying there time on the boat.
Due to some traffic jam, we got back around 6.30pm. After dinner, Steve was curious about the Wii his parents have. So we played it for 2 hours. There were table tennis, bowling, basketball and frisbee etc. It was no doubt a great evening.
Because of the jet lag, Steve and I woke up before even before the time 9am as planned. Mr. Sloan very kindly made us breakfast which was with bacons, sausages, toasts, an egg and some coffee. We went to the Tesco in the neighborhood to do some shopping. Afterward, Steve decided to show me around the shopping center of the town. Once again, I lost my mind in HMV and searched through DVDs one by one to choose the ones worth collecting carefully, and that made Steve waited for about 1.5 hours. I felt terribly sorry to him, but he's just nice and patient as always. We kept walking around a little bit, and he showed me some good restaurants and a cinema in one of the malls.
We started to walk back at around 4.30pm. I began to drink the Strongbow cider which I'd heard about for quite some time. It was really quite good but also made me blush right away. After Mr. and Mrs. Sloan got back, I got another glass of nice white wine, but I could only drink it very slowly. Mr. Sloan made very nice Shepherd's pies. That was a large portion, but I somehow incredibly managed to finish it.
Mr. Sloan suggest to watch "A Fistful of Dollars" from his DVD collections which was one of the classics I'd always wanted to watch. It was surely a great work and lived up to the distinguished status of the original "Yojimbo" by Akira Kurosawa. It's a nice, relaxing first day in UK. But I've found myself feeling as being back in Taiwan since I felt that there were a lot similarities between the two places even they are far from each other.
After 15 hours of flying and transferring, Steve and I finally arrived at his homeland. Besides that I made us get into a tense situation of catching the flight when they announced the last call by hesitating on choosing camcorder and got in the wrong line at the UK custom which made me wait for 40min, everything went very well. The custom officer surprisingly only asked me a rather simple question: What's your purpose of coming? I answered: Uh… sightseeing. And he stamped on my passport right away. That was fantastic! Our luggages were the last two waiting to be acclaimed on the rotating track naturally, and Steve's parents had been waiting at the arrival exit when we finally got in the country. I felt embarrassed about keeping them waiting so long. Thankfully they are so carefree which I've heard of for a long time.
After nearly an hour of driving, we stopped at a restaurant called "Liberty Bell" for dinner. It was a very nice place. I had an order of Mussels with chips on the side. Stella Artois was the side drink. It was already 10pm when we got to Steve's parents' house. We, of course, felt exhausted. Especially me who had too much to drink(plus a glass of red wine), so we called it the night at 11.30pm(I know, it wasn't that early).
