UK Trip: Bristol and Stonehenge

I have a pretty short post today, just 6 pictures. We visited two places on the way back to Peterborough from Wales, Bristol and Stonehenge. Our plan was actually to get up pretty early and try to get a ride, but that didn't work out. They wanted something like $200 per person to ride, and then the weather ended up being normal England weather, so we just stopped by to see them. There ended up being a carnival there, so that was OK.

3 hot air balloons

At the carnival there were bumper cars (called Roger's so we got a picture of Roger in front). It was pretty slow, so the only three riders were me, Summer, and a small kid. It was pretty awesome.

Summer and some cotton candy

Our next stop was stonehenge. I think everyone will be pretty familiar with it because it's pretty famous, if not from the desktop screen included in Windows98. Once again, it was traditional English weather, so the pictures don't look too great. I like stonehenge with it's ties to astronomy and the mystery of who built it, but the setup is pretty stupid. You have to pay like $15 to walk close to it and listen to a guided tour. So in summary, you pretty much pay that much to walk around in one circle.

This is what you get

I like the green moss

The connector kind of looks like a boob

See you next time!

UK Trip: Bath, England and 3 Peaks, Wales

So this post is a bit out of order with the others chronologically. Roger, Summer, Marlene (Roger's Mother) and I took the trip out to Wales, as mentioned before. This post is about a stop that we made in Bath, England on the way to Wales, as well as one of the walking tours we took to Three Peaks in Wales.

Loyal readers will know that I have an obsession with signage:

Plumbing is important

Bath was a nice place to visit. On our trip we spent maybe 3 to 4 hours there, but we could have easily killed a day there. The city is filled with some great classic architecture. Some of the more ancient features date back to the days when the Romans controlled the land. This stuff isn't from then:

Typical Bath street

Everybody take photos

A decent church on the main square

We ended up taking a tour of the ancient Roman baths. That's right, Bath is called that because it actually contains baths. Pretty cool?

A view of one of the ancient baths. The pedestals along the edges used to support a roof in the Roman times.

This one isn't too exciting, I just love that it demands to be touched.

Of course, the tour included two actors portraying ancient Roman workers. Here, the man on the left has a puzzled look. I can't remember specifically, but we probably just mentioned something like a telephone.

"Ipod? Sheep are my entertainment."

A great view of the skyline of Bath from down in a bath

After the tour, we had to jet out of there because we were a little behind schedule. Maybe we shouldn't have stopped for tea so many times, but whatever. It's England.

Roger leads the way

As mentioned before, we made it out to Wales. We stayed in a more rural part of Wales, which offered mostly walking tours. We did probably half a dozen walking tours, but they were all great. One of the best was a tour we took to this place called Three Peaks, which also had a ruined castle on top of a hill. Unfortunately, the only way we saw to get up the hill was to scale up this steep, sandy slope. My shoes were filled with sand by the time I got to the top, but the castle was cool.

A ruined castle

More ruins

A view of the valley from on top of the hill. This is what I imagine England and Wales looked like a few hundred years ago.

Scottish thisle, I believe. Don't ask me what it's doing in Wales.

And finally...Three Peaks

UK Trip: Peterborough

It's finally here. The beginning of my series of posts about my trip to the UK that happened in August of 2011. If I properly blogged that entire trip, it would take about 25 posts or so. Instead of doing that, I'm just going to post my favorite pictures from each city that I visited. That will be much easier.

With that, I'm going to get it all started with Peterborough, England. The city is actually pronounced more like 'Petahbrah' to the locals. It was our home city, in a way. Summer and I stayed there for a while with Roger, a friend we met in Korea. He was nice enough to let us stay with him in England, and he also drove us around the country. It was really nice of him.

We stayed at his house with him and his mother. When we were there, the neighbor kids almost constantly were knocking on the back door to come and say hi and see what we were up to.

This is Summer enjoying a juice box while walking around the city.

Just a random building in Peterborough.

This was a pretty great Chinese restaurant that we ate at run by a man from Hong Kong.

Summer always did the ordering when we went to Chinese restaurants. She would usually order about 5 dishes, including appetizers, soups, and main courses. It always ended up being way too much food.

Peterborough has a pretty impressive cathedral. I don't remember why Summer is laughing here, but it made for a nice picture.

One day we went for a walk along these train tracks of an old timey train.

Here is a boat with a pub in the bottom of it and a Chinese restaurant on the main floor.

I'm not even sure why, but I like this picture of the sky on the day we went to Roger's son's wedding.

Here is a picture of Isobel, you may remember this picture from when I posted it as a painting.

A lot of confetti was strewn about while we had drinks and socialized in the yard outside of the wedding hall.

Roger, dressed in his salsa dancing outfit before he performed during the reception.

Summer, dressed in her salsa dancing outfit before she performed.

A picture of our pint glasses at the Peterborough Beer Festival. It was a nice time, and over 300 'Real' ales were available for drinking.

This the immense wine aisle at a Tesco. Tescos are all over the UK. The larger ones, like here are a bit like Walmart on crack.

UK Paintings, pt.10

I'm going to try and finish up these painting posts, so I can get on with some other stuff. I have three trips during my recent vacation time that I would still like to post some pictures of. Then, more posts are sure to follow as I go back to...wait for it........Korea. Keep reading and I'll keep writing.

This painting is from a wedding I attended in Peterborough, England. The groom is the son of a friend whom I met in Korea. The bride, pictured is attempting to remove the part of her dress which got caught in a chair while walking down the isle. It made for a great photograph, and a decent painting:

I love how all of the texture turned out in this, but her face came out way too dark. I kept trying to put some yellow color on her face, which caused it to turn out green. Oops.

UK Paintings, pt.9

This is my favorite painting from the set. This painting is of my girlfriend, Summer. She invited me to go on the trip to the UK, so she's the reason I went. Here she is blowing a dandelion seeds into the summer breeze as we walk along the Thames River in London. This painting just came out so well and I really love it.

UK Paintings, pt.7

This one is a fairly famous site in England, Stonehenge. I think that the grayish rocks reflect the grayish sky nicely, though I changed the rocks to liven up the color.

UK Paintings, pt.5

It was another rainy day in London, probably the 400th of that year. I think it counts twice if it's rainy then sunny then rainy again. The guards at Buckingham Palace still had to guard it, though there was no changing of the guard ceremony that day due to the wet weather.

UK Paintings, pt.4

Roger smiles, he is at the Peterborough beer festival. Over 300 real ales to choose from, and he has the secret weapon in his pocket.

UK Paintings, pt.2

I wanted to put this one up because it turned out really well. This picture was taken from the front row of a double-deck bus on the way to London Bridge.