Loughborough, Nottingham, Leicester

Written May 1, 2006 in Travel

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I arrived on the night travel to Loughborough at about 1022h, and I called Gavin, and he said, “SIAO LIAO, HOW COME YOU NEVER CALL BEFORE BOARDING?!?” So he ran all the way from campus to pick me up. Hey, it wasn’t my fault, he didn’t read his text messages. Over the next few days, we toured Loughborough, Nottingham and Leicester city. Click on (more) to see everything. To save my bandwidth.

Loughborough (Pronounced Laff’buh)
Loughborough’s this quaint little town in between Leicester and Nottingham, with a large university. It is mainly an industrial/university town. The University of Loughborough is 2nd in the UK for engineering, just a notch behind Imperial College. It’s also the top university in terms of sports and its facilities, and a not bad business programme.

On Saturday, we woke up at about 11, and we hit the bar for breakfast, before hitting the maintown area for the morning street market.


^The main street in Loughborough^

^Market on the streets^

^ Cash Converter strikes! ^

As I said, it’s a small quaint little town, so there are plenty of small cafes like this around, good for morning, tea and chilling in the 10 degree wind.

After the tour of the town, we hit the main cathedral of Loughborough. For the uninformed, having a cathedral in a town signifies *ALOT* in the past. It’s like being given a title to the towns in England…

^ The Cathedral of Loughborough ^
Nottingham
We made our way to Nottingham for a day trip after the noon in the market and the cathedral. Nothingham’s a large city north of Loughborough, about 15minutes by train away. It’s famous for its forest, occupied by the famous Prince of Thieves, Robin Hood. Yep, it’s the home to the Sherwood.

^ Firemen at work! ^

^ Nottingham Municipal Hall, I think ^

^ Old clock tower ^

And a show of how much the Brits love to come out on Saturdays…

Woah, packed. Anyway, Nothingham’s a large town, with good shopping, but shopping’s the boring part, cos London’s so much better, so we hit a few of the parks and nature reserves in the area. The scent of SPRING!

^ SPRING SPRING! ^

^ Commander-in-chief and the flowers of Spring ^

Anyway, we got lost. LOST. Right. We walked and walked and walked, through the gardens and parks, away from the city centre. Maybe for about 2 hours? Then we decided to walk back, and followed this sign that said ‘Town Centre’. What we didn’t realise was that the word above it was attached to it, and it said ‘MANSFIELD’. Great, and we got lost. We did however, finally, managed to get back to the city of Nottingham, and caught sight of the castle. Eh, what castle!? Also got this ENGLAND’S OLDEST INN! So excited…right. YAWN.

They also had this beautiful new waterfront development that looks like the one we have in Chelsea…

And we headed off for dinner, at about 7pm, all hungry and tired.

Leicester (prounced Les-Ter, not lei-chest-er)
Sunday we hit Leicester, a city south of Loughborough. Smaller in size compared to Nottingham, but nearer. First thing that came to my attention was…
^wah piang, what’s the difference? Leicester and Nottingham stations! ^
Anyway, Leicester’s so much quieter, but I think it’s cos it’s Sunday. Brits love to move on Saturdays, only. How quiet? Like this…

On a SUNDAY. Britons are one of a kind I tell ya. We had our share of ruins, walls and castles here as well, but the history of this city is much richer.


^ Castle, King Richard III and Roman walls.. ^

Something else that got me was….

ADULT EDUCATION? IN WHAT?! *cough*

Anyway, back to the city. As I mentioned before, the status of a town/city is often determined by the presence of a Cathedral, and with a history as rich and exciting as Leicester, you definately find one… Pretty well maintained and impressive as well.

I just love spring…

Full Photos available here

« My bite is worse than your bark.
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1 comment on ' Loughborough, Nottingham, Leicester '

  1. Whoops have been away from ur blog for some time =P Glad that u have been hving fun and got some great plans coming up! Not sure if I will be able to meet you this June though since u are running off somewhere but I will let u know when I know when I am down in London =)

      Written by cheez~ on May 22, 2006 at 3:42pm

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