Winchester & One week to Holiday

Good Evening (or) Morning everyone!

Sorry for not posting anything here for quite a long time. Apparently, I have been a bit busy doing nothing. haha.

As the title suggest, I will be talking about my current Winchester Trip with my fellow housemates and the excitement to holiday. (Why do I sound like writing a school essay?)

Meet le Housemates!

Okay, first of all, let's talk about the trip to Winchester. It was held on 8th of December (today), organised by the Student Union. The ticket was really cheap. I should probably look into their activities more often. Me and my housemates (almost all of us) bought the ticket and have been planning for it for months now. Haha, see how excited we were.
We departed around 9am and arrived in Winchester about 1 hour later. It was pretty near to Surrey and apparently near to Southampton as well. ;)

So, let me give you a bit background of Winchester. According to our 'supervisor', Winchester was once the capital city of England before it moved to London. Therefore, there were a few historic places relating to the UK's history situated in Winchester. When I say few, I really do meant FEW!

Look out for this building for the City Mill

We started our exploration to the Winchester City Mill. It was appropriately small and very easy to missed it if you do not pay attention to the sign board. We went in to the shop and there were plenty of souvenirs and jams and perfume and yada yada yada. I regret not purchasing the city postcards. However we did not went into the actual city mill, you need to pay for it and it appears that all of us are really 'stingy'. haha. If you happen to go there, do check the place out. It looks interesting from the outside so I bet it must be worth the money to go in. ;)

Abbey House

Ducks in the park

Scary >_<

The Great Winchester Cathedral

Then we made our way to the Cathedral. We went through the park, the Abbey house (Mayor's house) and some tomb/grave to get there. The Cathedral is so huge in size, it was used as a place of worship for over 900 years. Jane Austin tomb is in it! You can take a tour around the Cathedral with a fee of not more than 10pounds, cheaper if you are a student. We did not went to the tour as well for the reason, you know why. haha. Around the area, there was a German-inspired Christmas Market. They were selling jewellery, food, nuts, chocolates, christmas decorations and many more. It was a bit crowded since it is the weekend but still bearable. To top it, in the middle of the market, there is an open ice-skating ring. :D

Look! The chestnuts stall.

Cupcakes!

People playing ice-skating outdoor

2 lovely lady wrapping cotton candy

The brother behind the chocolate counter

Just us posing in the middle of the market.

Afterwards, we went up the high street and found the West Gate and The Great Hall. The place was astonishingly beautiful. There was also a round table (have no idea what that is) in it. The hall was the only part left from the old Winchester Castle which used to be the largest and the finest in England. There is also coin transformer machine, sort off, so I used it! ;)

Me and Annette infront of the West Gate

Have no idea what I just sat on.

The Queen's statue in the Great Hall

The 'thing' on the wall probably
is the Round Table example.

COIN TRANSFORMER MACHINE!

Later, we bought some lunch and went strolling around the area. There was a City Market, so the streets were crowded with tons of people. There were also musicians, dancers, street artist, and people singing Christmas carols just to get season's spirit hyped up. :)

It's a real MAN!

They sell veges.

There were not many places to visit or things you can do in Winchester. The town itself is very small (almost the same size of Guildford town) and as youngsters, I must say, it is a pretty boring place. I mean it in a way if you are gonna be there from 10am-6pm, it is relatively quite miserable! The shopping mall is not even a mall. You can count the number of shops they have using just your fingers on your hand. Most of the shops are on the High Street which was almost impossible to go to since there were plenty of people there.

Crowd of people watching youngsters dance

So, my conclusion for this trip is - just OK.
I won't suggest people to go there for the whole day, but if you would want to visit it, just plan your trip to make it last only up to 4 hours max. Cause if you stay there longer than that, you are gonna suffer, man. Seriously. =_="

Me with the not so big Christmas Tree

Enough with the trip. As for the coming holiday, I AM EXCITED! Well, we do have to come back after the break for exams and stuff but until then, I am going on a Holiday people! haha.
Where to? You'll see. I am sooooo gonna brag about it early next year. haha.

As for those who are already on the holiday mood, have fun. For those who still have a week of classes to go, good luck! As for those back in Malaysia, have fun eating Durian and Rambutan for me. Oh and Happy Newlywed! I know, there must be thousands of couple ending their single life by now. ;)

Until next time people. Have a great day!