w(h)ale of a time

on saturday, i woke up at an incredibly early time of 630am. considering that even during school days i wake up at 730am earliest, coupled with the fact that it was a saturday, 630am is just darn early. i had to drag myself out of bed and get ready because i had to catch the 830am bus to cardiff.

so after snapping out of my half-zombified state, i took a 45-minute walk down to the coach station. the dawn had just broken and the streets of london were still empty. obviously, since no one in their right mind will be gallivanting along the streets at 730am in the morning. but it was good. i dun particularly like crowds.

anyway i reached the coach station 15 minutes early. out of the five of us going cardiff, four coincidentally reached at approximately the same time, within seconds of each other. the last guy, however, was nowhere to be seen. we hung around, waited for him, made a phone call, only to realise he was about 2 tube stations away 10 minutes before the coach was to depart. so we sort of panicked, and wondered if he could make it on time. fortunately he managed to board the coach at 833am, 1 minute before the coach departed. good thing for the tardiness of the bus schedule.

after enduring a 3.5 hour bus journey, we reached cardiff, the capital of wales. somehow cardiff seemed more like what i expected london to look like, grey and wet with a persistant drizzle. anyway the first place we visited was the millenium stadium.

the exterior of the stadium

okay technically we didn't visit the stadium since it was closed so we just walked on the outside along the river. then we wandered around the streets of cardiff, which were filled with quite a few arcades. shopping arcades, not the daytona/para para/king of fighters kind of arcades.

cardiff castle shopping arcade

we then decided to pop by the national museum since admission was free. free admission is always good for the budget traveller. en route we passed by the cardiff town hall, where a wedding was taking place.

clock tower

town hall

actually the national museum was just beside the town hall. apparently there was some geology fair going on in the national musuem, because everywhere there were kids playing with rocks, from whacking big rocks with hammer and chisel to examining rock particles under the microscope.

child miners
overheard a random conversation "i thought they abolished child labour?"
"apparently not in wales"

the museum interior

after a quick tour of the museum, we decided to pop by the cardiff castle as recommended by one of the museum guides. the only problem was that admission costs 7.50 quids, which is rather expensive. nevertheless, since we were already in cardiff, we decided to just heck it and cough up the money.

when i entered the castle, i was actually pretty disappointed. firstly, it didn't seem very big. apart from the two ancient castle buildings and the newly constructed information centre/gift shop, there were no other structures to be found, just green fields.

structure 1: the norman keep (prison)

structure 2: the castle quarters

i couldn't be bothered to take a shot of the information centre. secondly, the elevation was not very high, so it was impossible to get a panoramic view of the city and surroundings.

the many colours of autumn

along the castle walls

thirdly, there were no museums in the castle to explain its origins and interesting stuff like that. in short, the 7 euros i paid for the hohensalzburg fortress was much more worth it, since it was large, high (which provided a super good vantage point to get a view of the surroundings), had many musuems and our ticket included a free ride on the funicular down to the city.

so i wondered to myself, "what did i pay 7.50 pounds for?". i got the answer to that when i went for a guided tour of the castle quarters. unlike the tour of the hohensalzburg fortress, this one was conducted by a live tour guide. our tour group was pretty small, about 9 people, which was good because it felt more personal (and less crowded). we toured the different rooms of the castle quarters to see the different interior design preference of the different owners of the castle. some rooms had victorian deisgns, some gregorian, some middle-eastern. the amount of effort put into the woodwork and wall paintings were phenomenal. there was a room that took 23 years to construct. along the way, as part of the explanation of the various interior design features, we also got a brief introduction to the history of wales and english, its kings, queens and wars. the most interesting thing i heard though, whilst touring the nursery, was the hidden meaning behind one of the nursery rhymes called "mary, mary quite contrary". which reminds me, the wall paintings in the nursery was quite freaky. i wouldn't want my children to sleep in a room where there are paintings of men carrying chopped off heads of giants (jack the giant killer). unfortunately photography was not allowed during the tour.

following that, we took a bus down to cardiff bay, which is abit like the esplanade, alot of restaurants by the water-side. there was some sort of fun fair going on as well. and of course they were selling burgers and hotdogs. the smell of food wafting into our noses did not help our hunger.

no idea what it means

view of the area

another clock tower

the view of the bay was amazing. the sky had already turned dark, but still retained the faint pink hue of sunset, and the lights along the shore were alit. it seemed super romantic, the kind of setting where a guy would propose to his partner. too bad my camera couldn't capture a good shot of the scenery.

anyway we soon left the bay to catch the bus back to london. another 3.5 hour bus ride. another 45-minute walk back to hall. another saturday that has come to an end.