Kirkstall Abbey

It is incredible sunny and hot (about 25 degrees) in these two days, and it feels like properly summer with the hot heat. We decided to walk down to the canal and had a picnic in Kirkstall Abbey museum at the weekend. The Abbey was built in 12th century, and sadly was destroyed by Henry VIII when he reformed all the Catholic churches in 14th century.

You can see that the church was enormous, but only half left behind and preserved it, so I needed to touch the stones and felt I touched something so old and valuable. It was really nice to imagine how did normal people live in that era?

It was so peaceful and natural surrounding by the canal and parks. People were sunbathing, and enjoyed the great day of summer with their friends. What a wonderful weather and a fantastic day!

Visiting York for a day

Since we moved to Leeds, we haven’t got time to explore North Yorkshire yet. It was warm and sunny yesterday, so we decided to travel to York for a day, and to enjoy the Spring weather.

York was founded by the Romans in 71 AD, so is famous of its nature beauty and historical heritage. It is a wealthy small city with a lot of historical churches, buildings, and houses in every little corner. The picture I took in the front cover was one of the churches properly had knocked down by Henry VIII in 16th century.

We also went to see the famous Jórvík Viking Centre and experienced how the Vikings’ lives were in 866 AD. It was really authentic experience and they said you supposed to smell of the Vikings’ cooking too. It was indeed a really fun experience. At lunch, I ordered a famous ‘a taste of York’ roast belly pork sandwich and was incredible delicious. After lunch and few cup of tea, we went to see the Railway Museum and to see how Britain was so powerful and rich when it had discovered the steam engines and the world was changed after it.

York is really a nice place to visit and I am sure we will return it next time to discover more castles or scenery nearby York as well. Here are some pictures we took.

从搬来利兹之后,忙于各种各样的东西,都没有时间去旅游。昨天太阳高照,我们决定去出了名历史悠久的约克城市观光下。约克大概有1千9百年历史,果然是历史悠久的城市,所以你到处可以看到很多15-16世纪的教堂啊,18世纪的房子。象伦敦一样,路上的每个砖头都有历史味道,当然,以年龄来说,约克比伦敦老很多。约克曾被称为当时的英国首都。约克是一个蛮富裕的城市,可以感觉到以前或现在都是蛮有钱人住的城市。一个蛮小休闲的城市,居然很多名牌都部落在街头,感觉游客们个个都穿得富贵华丽,街头也有很多名贵的豪华车,不愧是以前的首都。

封面的照片应该是16世纪亨利八世反对天主教然后毁灭掉的教堂。我还走过去摸了摸1千多年的教堂石头,教堂的毁灭真的蛮可惜的。我们还去体验了北欧海盗侵入约克的时期,地学研究家把海盗们在约克的生活点滴都用假人雕磨出来,假人还会动也会和你说话,虽然有点毛骨悚然,不过还是蛮真实的体验。

中午时候我点了约克最老最有名的烤肉店,我点了烤乳猪肉三文治,超正超多肉 - 真的吃肥死我了。喝了星巴克Latte充实精力后,我们去参观了英国铁路博物馆,看了许多旧的火车和汽车展览,体验了英国蒸汽时代英国的繁荣和如何成为不落日帝国。蛮有趣经历的。

我相信下次我们还回去约克玩,开车去约克周边的城堡啊,坐下小船之类的。等大家来,带你们去约克玩。点击这里我们照了有些约克的照片!

Road Trip – Canterbury, Dover, Deal and Sandwich

day-one

Day one

As we planned to travel some cities in the UK with friends during Easter Holidays, so we chose Canterbury, Dover, Deal, Sandwich in the first day. These four places are all located in South East England. First day, John drove us to Canterbury as our first stop to see the famous Canterbury Cathedral. Then had some pizza in Strada for a quick lunch. However, we had planned to have a boat trip in Canterbury, but we ran out time. Canterbury was a small pretty town, peaceful, and people were friendly. I like Canterbury a lot.

The next stop was Dover – the famous White cliffs. It was peaceful and open, facing the ocean. It supposes that you can see France through Dover, (the funny thing was Ricky received a message from O2 saying – welcome to France, even we were standing in Dover! That’s why you can see they were very close to each other) Unfortunately the weather was a little bit foggy, so we were unable to see France. I like Dover beach and able to see English Channel.

The last stop was Deal and Sandwich town. They were a small little town, so we just took some pictures and because everyone was tired, so we drove back to rest and ready for the next day. Here some day one pictures.

第一天路游 - 坎特伯雷 / 多弗和三文治郡

和朋友们决定放复活节时一起开车去英国几个城市玩。我们选择了第一天先去东南部的坎特伯雷,多弗和三文治郡。开车一个半小时,到了著名的坎特伯雷教堂,本想去乘小船参观的,但我们闲逛教堂太久了,就只能放弃,下次罗。去Strada意大利餐厅吃了超级大的pizza,然后就去下个站。我蛮喜欢坎特伯雷的郡的,漂亮,静静蛮悠闲的小镇,人们也很和蔼。

多弗最著名就是它的白粉质的峭壁, 好天的时候,你可以站在英国的多弗看到法国。我们到了多弗,面对的广阔的海边,看着英吉利海峡, 感觉很开阔和舒服!可惜优点雾,看不到法国,但好笑的是朋友居然收到电信发来的信息说:欢迎您到法国。多弗很漂亮,好天气的时候,可以周末三五知己对着海,晒着太阳,在海边野餐,蛮休闲惬意的!

最后一站就是Deal和三文治郡,我们吃的三文治,我听说就是古时候一个君主喜欢赌博,但边赌博时候又饿了,叫人搞个面包中间加点肉,但不知道怎么命名,就索性叫他们的郡的名字。我们的三文治就这样来的,约翰超级喜欢三文治,就说我们要去下,郡很小,我们就开车过了,大家也累了,就结束了我们第一天的旅游。这就是我们第一天的照片

A Day Trip to Kent

kents_day_trip

Regardless how stressful of school works, I am glad that Melanie came to visit us in London on Friday, so we decided to drive to visit Maidstone in Kent City, which known as the Garden of England. There are some areas dating back to beyond the Stone Age.

Maidstone is 32 miles away in south-east of London. It is a pretty historical town with many 14th century churches and museums. We walked around the town centre and drove to see the Leeds Castle.

Leeds Castle

First, we went to Lehman village for some lunches, and then drove another 3-5 miles, we arrived Leeds castle. £15 for entrance fee. It is famous for next to a lake, and it is huge, peaceful, as well as astonishing beauty of the castle and the garden. It might take you at least 2-3 hours wondering around.

The castle was a royal palace for many generations of Kings and Queens. Unusually, there are several black swans and peacocks walking around, and apparently they like tourists’ attention. We might return there on summer holiday. Here are some pictures.

肯德镇和利兹古堡

快期末了,不说学习压力如何大,约翰的妹妹(梅乐琳)周五来伦敦公干,顺便看我们。我们带她去吃点心,然后周六就开车去东南部肯德镇(自己的翻译),它离伦敦32公里,开车1个小时左右,天气很好,觉得好像小时候的春游。到了市中心,很多14世纪遗留下来的教堂,博物馆和很多古色古香的木房子。它是一个小镇,但满热闹和漂亮的,大家都很和蔼。当我在照相时候,一个青年帅哥说:要照我吗?然后就摆个姿势。超级搞笑!

先去另一个小镇吃三文治先,然后开车到利兹古堡,入门15磅。据说古堡名字起的好怪,古堡不在利兹城市,但却叫利兹古堡。古堡因它的美丽而出名,坐落在湖边,在一个超级大的花园,有一个足球场大,至少可以逛2-3个小时才走完。建于1119年,之后是很多代皇室家族的宫殿或花园。真是奢华!湖边有黑色天鹅,花园有几只孔雀。它们都自由自在的生活着,享受着人们的关注,过着明星般的生活。你可以想象得到多么诗情画意的画面。由于时间关系,我们只游走了一半,可能我们夏天再去拉。这里有最新的照片