Road Trip UK Day One

What is the best thing to do when you are on a vacation in England, ROAD TRIP.

I got about 6 hours of sleep last night and woke up around 7 am, wide awake. My body is still confused as to what time it should be, Tokyo, Seattle, or London. I continued the wake up cycle by having tea and reading my Kindle, no wireless connection over here but still a great device to read on.

After my sister got back from the gym we packed up and left the house around 930. We stopped by a grocery store Sainsbury's for supplies and most importantly STARBUCKS. They do not have White Chocolate Mochas here, instead they call them White Cafe Mochas. Similar but something about it is different. The nice thing is that extra shots here are around 21 cents. I got a BLT sandwhich from Starbucks to offset the lack of a real breakfast. After walking up and down the isles to see at the strange food, we arrived at the tea isles, finally an isles full of tea, most excellent. After picking up a bag of Rowntree's Fruit gums it was time to check out.

My credit card company recently had a breach in security and lost a bunch of information. So they closed a bunch of accounts and didn't tell anybody. I found that out last sunday after a while on the phone I got a straight answer. So luckily my not paying attention to people finally paid off. Before I went to Japan on my last trip I stopped by my bank and apparently signed up for a credit card. So that is the one I am using over here. Anyways back to the check out.

The cards over here have a built in chip and it must be scanned, so no swipping. I used it twice today, once in the grociery store and once at the gas station. Both times the checker was amazed that I was able to swipe the card and it worked. The power of MasterCard.

We drove for about an hour north and stopped at Oxford. We walked around a while before stopping at a Pub to get lunch. This pub served Thia food, strange, but it was good. I had a green curry with vegetables, my sister went with the tofu. After lunch we walked around Oxford taking pictures of different colleges around the town. After getting another round of Starbucks, it was off to the road once more.

The destination was York, which would normally take around 3 hours. But with traffic and a pit stop it took 4 hours no problem. On the way up we saw two Nuclear Power plants. I also saw a very strange construction sign, which read "Relocating Bridge", I asked my sister, shouldn't that read road closed?

We arrived in York around 1830. After checking into the hotel and parking a mile a way we lugged are bags to the hotel. Didn't really think that one through. My sister treated me to a ghost tour. It lasted for around an hour and we walked through about 10 blocks of York learning about gruesome acts which had happened in the past. I guess that is what happens when a place has been around for over 17 centuries, lots of history. The hotel which we are staying in is the Guy Fawkes Hotel (around 500 years old, with WIFI), he apparently tried to off the king back in the 1600's by using gun powder to blow up parliament, but apparently it was a little soggy and his plan failed. He got hung for his efforts, the ghost walk guide said that he was the only person to ever enter parliament with honest intentions. That is pretty funny. On the tour we saw the last Roman column from the outpost which was on the grounds of what is now York Minster. It is a very beautiful cathedral. After the tour we headed back to the hotel, which is just across the street from the Minster.

We ate dinner in the Pub, I had bangers and mash, my first real British meal. All in all it was pretty good. After dinner it was off to upload pictures and get some rest before the next day of the road trip.

Pictures