26 May 2016
A real city
Heading from Warrington to Manchester for dinner
Finally I managed to get to a real city. Manchester, which is Englands second biggest city, for those of you who have no geography skills at all.
This visit was made possible by a lack of a long commute at the end of the work day, finishing on time, and managing to sprint directly onto an express train to take me there in under 30 minutes from Warrington.
Before we get to Manchester, at work today, lunch was provided, I was amused when in addition to very plain sandwiches, little bags of chips (crisps whilst you are here) were provided.
I declared to the room full of people that this was a very English thing to do, a few of them looked puzzled at this statement, and then one guy said 'I dont think I have ever eaten a sandwich in my life that wasnt consumed with crisps'.
Onto Manchester, the journey there was much quicker than I thought, which gave me heaps of time to wander around and look at stuff. The city seems to have almost completed its redevelopment, with the central train station having been removed and replaced with convention centres, and replaced by a very modern tram system through the city centre, which has no cars allowed.
This made it appealling to me, there were lots of shops and things to see in the centre of town including a huge modern shopping centre, but also many very large impressive old buildings. I feel as though they are larger than those that are in London on average.
Tomorrow I am going to London, assuming I manage to return my hire car and make it onto the train in time, which requires coordination because my meetings are 90 minutes away from the car drop off point and are due to finish with just enough time for me to make the train!
Up early again, and I found that Warrington has another train station. Also nothing to get excited about.
Due to my local work location today, I was able to walk through the local shops after the cleaners unlocked the door. This proves they do actually at some point open for business. No one here now though.
This has been my hotel for the week. At this stage I was wondering what I might take photos of later.
And this has been my chariot for the week. I enjoyed its sonar cruise control. I hate its stop start diesel engine. I also hate British roundabouts.
Later in the day now, and this is on the Warrington train platform. Its a bike repair station with tools.
They let you park your bikes on the platform outside the fat controllers window, so he can be entertained as drunken idiots kick the crap out of them.
Then they provide you with tools to fix your bike with.
Redundant photo of Warrington central train platform.
Now I have arrived at Manchester Oxford Street station, nothing to be impressed about.
Would you think its wise to build a train platform in England without shelter from rain?
But the buildings surrounding the station were great. It was often like being in hogwarts or whatever thats called.
Another old building with a new tram line under construction.
The old contrasted with new, the shopping centre is called Arndale. I feel it was genuinely very large, but despite Thursday being late night shopping night, most things were shut.
Tram and a modern building. The English Football museum. You can go here if you want to get into a drunken fight to add to the cities proud history.
Me.
I think this is the inside of an old printing press, which has been converted into pubs and restaurants for civilized folks. A few streets away were real pubs with bald headed guys in track suits.
Manchester also has open sewers.
Finally I felt at home.
Like any good Chinatown, the main streets were clean and lit up, the alleys were dark and filthy.
Manchester Chinatown is 100% Canntonese, and the food on offer was terrible, most places were doing banquets. I avoided.
This is the town hall, with some guys in orange hazardous chemical protection suits.
I got excited when I found a food court, I got more excited when it had a spud bar, all hopes were dashed when I saw what Mancheterianites put on their spuds. I fled in terror.
Redundant shot of the inside of the shopping centre.
Eventually I decided on pho. Its the most I have ever paid for pho. It had lots of nice herbs and things, but the beef was not raw, there was basically none, and the broth was almost flavourless.
Thankfully they had a few kinds of chilli to add.