Manchester

I returned to my hostel after 5am and carefully opened the room door so as not to wake up my roommates. After having fun for a night, I only slept for four hours and my eyes were so dry that I couldn't wear contact lens. I had a simple breakfast in the pantry, where I learnt from a Taiwanese girl that there were expensive tickets selling outside the stadium yesterday!! I could have watched an excellent game!!

I started off to the home stadium of Manutd, Old Trafford Stadium, at around 9:45am. Metro and bus were the main transport in Manchester City. Old Trafford was 20 minutes away from city centre, yet the stadium was pretty far away from the metro station, it's already after 10 when I arrived there. The bar outside the stadium looked official, but I believed it's not. The 68,000-visitor stadium looked grand and modern, with names of famous manutd players marked on the pavement opposite to the stadium. I wanted to scream! I'm finally here!! I hurried to the customer service desk and bought the Museum Tour ticket. The Museum Tour started later than expected, so I gave up plan to visit dockyard. While waiting for the tour, I visited the souvenir shop! Wow, I couldn't see the whole shop with my first sight, no wonder it's the largest souvenir shop in the world. Cheap products were not my cup of tea whereas my favourites were those much more expensive items though (wahahaha my taste level is so high). At last I bought a necklace, which is practical and within my budget.

After shopping I was delighted to start the tour which was led by a tour guide, and unexpectingly, I met two South African students who were staying in the same hostel as mine. The blue sky and the green pitch formed a beautiful picture. Even dreaming about watching a football match on the bench was already fantastic enough. Next I followed the others to visited the restaurant, press conference room and changing room which was the most unforgettable to me. The changing showed specifically where players change their clothes and undoubtedly it's the focus of the whole trip. After the stadium tour, I visited the Museum, where cups including the European Champion in 1999 were displayed, telling the tremendous history of the club. It also showed the development of the club, information of famous players and players' shirts, of course. When I left the museum it was already 12:30, so I had lunch in Red Cafe, the official restaurant. At the back of chairs printed the surnames and their number in red background, making it look like a real home team shirt. Lovely~~I sat down by the window, and soon a waiter gave me a menu. I thought the buffect would be expensive, but to my surprise, it was actually one of the cheapest among all, so I ordered myself one. Frankly speaking the variety of food was quite narrow as a buffet, but if you followed the normal three-course dining order, the food there was enough to fill up your tummy. Among all, I appreciate dessert the most, especially the carrot cake, so delicious that I wanted to get another piece. I paid the bill at around 1:15. The buffet lunch with drink only costed me around 8 pounds, the cheapest I've ever had.

After a marvellous time at the Old Trafford Stadium, I returned to the city centre by bus. First stop in the afternoon was Museum of Science and Industry, which was another focus of the city. Looking old and ordinary, the museum showed the past Manchester, when it was enjoying its proudest time. Besides steam train and hydropower machine, you can also do experiment and look at the operation tools. A pity that I didn't have enough time to visit the plane hall.

Next I went to G-Mex on foot. I looked at the map for a while. No matter how I compared the surroundings with my map, I still couldn't find it. At the moment I was about to give up, I found a similar shape which looked like G-Mex on the map. The name "G-Mex" was only a short name actually. Then I realised it was just an exhibition centre, where there should be nothing special to visit.

I walked along the street where G-Mex was located at, and came to the Central Library at St. Peter's Square. This over-a-century library was one of the oldest buildings in Manchester, which was divided into five storeys (including basement). All books were put in first to fourth floor, with a super quiet study room (much quieter than those in HK) on the toppest floor. At last I went down to the basement, where, to my surprise, there was a small theatre, complement well with cultural atmosphere. Leaving this dome-shape building was just like going back to the present from the past. I took my map out again and looked for my next target: Town Hall at the Albert Square. Town Hall was another old building in the city, and is still the office of the local governement. Indeed, Albert Square was linked together with St. Peter's Square, but I was so stupid that I went round from Town Hall's back and missed its entrance time. >.<

Then I travelled to Victoria with metro. There were about 10 stops but it only took around 10 minutes. Unbelivable! The district was a representative of urban renewal. First was the old Victoria Station, which looked like the one in Harry Potter and kept the ticket office of the past, telling its long history. On another side, there was a ceramic tile map on showing the train routes in the northern England. Besides Manchester, there were also cities like Leeds and Liverpool on it. Then I left the train station, passed Arena Point and Chetham's School of Music, and arrived at Printworks again. Printsworks in the daytime (it's already after 5pm in fact) was a white building that maintained traditional English style. Nearby there were also Royal Exchange Shopping Centre, one of the earliest commodity exchange that had been changed into a shopping centre and also named as Exchange Triangle because of its triangular outlook, Next (a larger shopping mall) as well as the modern and unique Urbis. In front of the Exchange Triangle there was the Millennium Wheel. Comparing with London Eye in London, the Millennium Wheel, of course, was not a large one, yet it still looks good, and I especially love the purple light on the wheel. They shined so brightly and looked awesome under the sunset.

At about seven, I bought microwave ready-to-eat food and a bottle of 1000ml cranberry juice before I went back to my hostel. Later I found my juice was, well, CONCENTRATED!! No wonder it was so cheap. Sigh, foolish again...

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Part of trip: 2007 Europe Trip

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