Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Train to Sheffield and Chapeltown

Early the next morning, we made our way to Oxford Road train station. We were going to visit our friends Trish and Tom in Sheffield. This was the only reason we were stopping in Manchester first before heading to Scotland. When trying to figure out how to get to Sheffield, I realised that Oxford Road is such a common name that I was scared of booking the wrong ticket! The only Oxford Road I knew then was the one in London. 

We got to the station early and managed to explore around the area. It was probably around later 7-ish in the morning, so there weren't many people around. It was nice and cold, and we manage to take some photos of old pubs at the small alley near the train station.

I wasn't planning on exploring Manchester much on this trip, so I can't stay I've done much researched on it. So it was nice to see whatever interesting sights that came my way. So seeing street arts or decorations on the wall like these were a plus for me. 

I also love wordings that looked like it came from old English books, as well as pictures. It's strange, I find there are a lot of art and beauty in advertisement and don't really mind wondering around looking at it. Some people find it boring. I don't really go to cities to shop, but more to look at the buildings and decorations there. And shop displays and shop fronts are pretty fun to look at for me.

I've also learned that there is such a thing call Cask Marque, a kind of a seal of approval for a pint in UK? I guess this is similar to a Michelin sign, or a Good Restaurant sign in Korea? Strange how 5mins walk in the alley and you can learn some new things :)

Since my husband was into cycling, I also took note of cycling related facilities at the station. They have a cycling hub where cyclist could stop by. Bicycles are allowed on the train, which I think it's nice. It does save on public transport if you could ride your bicycles anywhere. I would love to be able to, if only the streets in Singapore was safer for cycling on. I personally don't. I think I can only cycle on country roads, provided it's not a narrow one next to a ditch!

Finally we went into the station. It was easy enough using our QR code from our tickets. We bought all our train tickets via Trainpal app and find it reliable enough that I am doing the same thing on my trip in 2026! 

While waiting for the train, my next favourite activity was looking at trains! When booking, I have no ideas the type of trains that I would end up on. All I knew were the names of the train, which doesn't really tell me much. 

 

We boarded our EMR train, and we had to transfer at Sheffield's as we needed to go to Chapteltown, south of Yorkshine. Yes, there are more than one Chapeltown in UK too! So it's really confusing for me. And whenever there is a train transfer, there is always the risk of getting on the wrong train, or missing the train, or not getting off in time etc. The anxiety of it all! So as much as possible, I try to book a direct train, or one that has at least 30mins of transit time.

Inside the first leg of our train trip. The train was pretty modern. I mean, I wasn't expecting much from the exterior look for the train. But I was glad the inside looked like a modern train with seats and even tables. We didn't bring food on our short trip to Sheffield, but we sure gonna do so in longer trips! 

The view of the country side was really relaxing. It was probably common to the locals, but I love looking out the windows whenever I'm on train and just watching the world go by. It's such a different world than mine!

Looking at sheep or goats grazing on the field, it looked like something out of a story book for me. We were also fortunate to see such lovely blue skies on that day. I was prepared for gloomy weather and rain, but it was just lovely.

Seeing chalk dividers like these also reminded me of Discworld where Tiffany Aching lives. It's just  magical for me to visit places like these were it seems I can relive the stories I once read about. It's the same in almost every country that I visit. We always have some perception of a place, and when we are actually there, it's nice to see how our perception held up. 

Finally, about an hour in, we reached Sheffield and waited for our connecting train to Chapeltown where our friends would pick us up from. I wasn't really sure what to expect!

Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Manchester Museum Dinosaur Collection

 

I saved the best exhibition hall for last, and that is the Dinosaur hall! And I wasn't disappointed either. Although the collection was small, the main central piece was stunning! It made me felt like I was in a scene from The Night at the Museum. I was kinda surprised that there weren't more people here. Perhaps dinosaurs were pretty common in western museums? 

So here is the main piece. I think it's a T-rex from the built of it. And his name is Stan. Google says he is a cast, so perhaps just a replica? So although Stan is a replica, there are other real dinosaur's remains at the museum. 

But whether it's a replica or not, I was still fascinated by it. I always thought T-Rex were smaller.... This one was huge! And his posture looked like he was walking inside the museum hall itself, which made it kinda life like.

Here is the front view of Stan, doesn't he look like he is walking? 

Apart from Stan, April was the other dinosaur that was quite famous here. April is a complete real skeleton remain, and I guess it should be more famous than Stan who is a replica! If you search dinosaur of Manchester Museum, April would appear as the main star. But due to the size of it, I guess everyone likes a T-rex better :P

They also have dinosaur eggs on display, which wasn't very impressive cause they just looked like bird eggs. But it's cool they have them. The potential of cloning these to become the real thing! That alone made this special :P

They also have just a very limited asteroid on display. Compare to the Natural Science Museum in London that has a whole hall of rare rocks, this was a rather small collection. But asteroids are still cool in my book! Imagine, something from outer space! Seriously, I don't know why people don't visit the museums more and be fascinated by all these things! It's almost as closed as you'll ever get to a real life alien!

To end our museum visit blog, here is me with a selfie with Stan :)

Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Manchester Museum Egyptian Collection

 

Moving on to the Egyptian Collection. There was a room dedicated to these, and I it was the first place I went in search of in the museum. We did visit all the other exhibit, but mainly just walking pass them. But we lingered here cause I have a fascination with mummies and Egyptian stuff. I recall the first real mummy I saw was at the British Museum in London. The second one was in Taichung Natural Science Museum. So here is my 3rd one. I'm turning 50 soon, and I hope I will get to visit Egypt and see the pyramids one day in my current life time! For me, there is just so much places on Earth that I want to visit and see!

I guess mummies are just coffins. And I am always visiting graves and cemetery, so I guess it's only natural that I love mummies. I don't find it frightening or eerie in any way. I find that it's just so well cared for. So much thoughts given to the dead in their culture.

I also find it strange that United Kingdom has so many mummies in their museums. I would have thought the British Museum was the only one. I guess they took back a lot from the past during their 'exploration'. Fun fact, there is an Egyptian exhibition happening from now till 31-Aug-2026 in Hong Kong museum, and I am wondering whether I should go pay it a visit. Problem is, I am only free after May, and June to August is the Typhoon season in Hong Kong.....

Back to the Manchester Museum, above are mummies for animals, maybe pets? At first I thought these were organ jars, cause they often separated out the organs of the dead and put them in separate jars. But after reading the description, and maybe by the hint of the head-likeness of the animals, I should have guess too, lol. I just find these so cute!

Of course there were also text and mention of the book of the Dead etc etc etc. I didn't spend much time reading the details as we were slight off our timezone, having just landed in the morning. But looking at these beautiful artefacts made me somehow happy :)

Look how beautiful these are. yeah, I think the southern hemisphere of the world has cooler civilisation stuff, temples and stone art like these are mind blowing. I  just feel that I'm too whitewashed with western culture and civilisation from my early education that I missed out a lot learning about these cooler ancient civilisation. 

Love the drawings on these tablets. 

Kind of reminds me of Angkor Wat and all the beautiful carvings there. It's like so much dedication was put into these things, and such a wonder that it lasted till today. There is just something about being there with these pieces that made me feel happy, being connected to another civilisation through what they have left behind. Every time I travel, I'm always learning little things here and there about different culture, different people and their different lifestyle. It's just fascinating for me. 

I leave you here with a photo of a collection of Shabtis. These are figurines that, like the Chinese who uses paper figurines, are servants one sent to the after life with the dead. Ok, maybe the Chinese have non-paper version too, aka terracotta soldiers! Lol. I hope to see those in 2026 in Xian! Hmmm, I kinda wonder, why are my travels often related to the dead? From mausoleum, to cemetery, to mummies, to catacombs! I seems to have a morbid love for the dead!

Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Manchester Museum

 

We next headed to the Manchester Museum. It was free to enter, and I was expecting a smaller scale museum as compared to the British Museum. The building looked fantastic from the outside though. I've done some researched about the place and basically has two exhibition that was on my To-Do list: Dinosaurs and Egyptian Mummies! These where items hard find in Museums where I came from :)

The museum is about 3 storeys, and run across maybe 2 or three buildings joint horizontally together? And the grand central piece was this whale skeleton hanging in the middle of the hall. I can't remember if Singapore National Museum used to have one of these too. But it's always such a wow factor when I see giant skeletons in museum. Hence that's why I love seeing dinosaurs in museums! There is a current dinosaur exhibition at the Singapore Science Center, but you have to pay to go in. Here in Manchester, I can see them for free, so yeah..... I think I'll pass for now on the Singapore exhibition. 

Here is a close up of the skeleton taken from the 2nd storey. Didn't realise that it's mouth part is so long!

The Manchester Museum was kind of a generic museum. It wasn't really a natural science museum, but it does have a section on the animals and birds found in United Kingdom. And along with the animal skeletons and taxonomy display, was a cabinet of humans skeleton, showing the evolution of our skulls as compared to apes and our ancestors. I was rather fascinated with it. Here was a cabinet that relates to us! It's like seeing your family member's bones in the museum!

At the taxonomy section, there were animals found in United Kingdom. But what caught my eye was how they displayed the animals, along with some popular stories or legends. So here we have wolves with Little Red Riding Hood, and bats with a Vampire, lol. Or Nosferatu. Interestingly, in 2025 I also managed to visit Transylvania, now known as Romania, and actually visited Bran Castle. More on that another time.

I am also fascinated but all things surreal, and saw this in one of the small room in between the halls. The room was closed, with a clear glass window where you could look in. But the words on the glass caught my eye " The centre for the Study of Surrealism and it's Legacy"? How cool! 

This is what the inside of the room looked like, and I love it too. It's like a slice of life of how a scientist or a professor who is studying surrealism's work place would look like, whatever that may mean :P

I also saw this poster which I thought was interesting and educational! It's a nice way of telling people no food and drinks inside the museum, but in a very subtle way, and full of information too! Well done museum!

Manchester/Scotland 2025 - University of Manchester

 

The beautiful museum building to the right, and lovely blue skies ahead. Our initial target was to visit the Manchester Museum, but as we walked further to explore the beautiful building, we found that the University of Manchester was just next to it. And since the gate was opened and there wasn't any signs that says you can't enter, we decided to walk in and explore. This would be my 2nd entry to a British education center. I've previously visited Oxford before, like 14 years earlier.

Above the grand entrance to the university? Actually I have no idea how big is the place. I suspect we only saw parts of it. And perhaps the whole city of Manchester is the whole campus. It was those opened city university with faculties spread almost everywhere around the area. Perhaps this was just an original smaller part of the campus. 

Walking in, it was indeed like what you would imagine an old university would looked like. Instantly you are transported back in time. I think I really like the lack of colours in my surroundings. It's just so peaceful and blended nicely with the nature inside. 

So like in Harry Porter movies, and probably in every schools, there is the concept of houses? And each house has their own slogan and mascots and badges. I guess this may be one of them?

Here is a more close up look of what one of these badges looked like. The colours are really nice. And I guess those words are latin? 

Inside the compound, Wow! A very conducive environment for studying, or getting inspiration for greater things in the universe! I came from a rather modern university in Singapore, and we don't have such grand old buildings like these in our campus. I also stayed at a place called Sheares Hall in campus, which has since been torn down. We don't seems to treasure history that much in my university. It was big and grand, but it wasn't as beautiful and elegant as this here.

A different view. You could almost imagine carriages and horses riding up the path to deliver some students to the school. So beautiful! And what a lovely day! 

One of the houses was covered in crawling plants on its facade and that made it looked even more interesting. The super huge glass windows reflecting the sky and sun light also adds to it's charm. I really like this whole segment of the campus.

There was also a clock tower-like building inside the ground, and you stepped closer you could see....

Years and names of previous people who have probably worked or studied here? I wasn't paying much attention, but I thought it was a  nice touch. In Easter Confucius schools, there are always tablets and name scrolls of previous scholars. 

One of the building has a purple sign outside. Those signs usually indicate what faculty this building was. I again, wanted to go in and take a look, but I chicken out. This was my first day in the UK, and my courage needed some warming up. So we didn't enter. It was probably an office building or something. 

Here is another faculty building, which was just a random townhouse building along the road outside. The sign says "The Confucius Institute of the University of Manchester"!. Ha!  I thought that interesting. Recently I've also been following Inverness City Centre's Facebook page since I will be visiting it later this spring, and I was also surprised when I saw an announcement for Taiji lessons on the page! Chinese are everywhere! I hope that means I would be able to blend in there :P

A small corner view of the old building with it's church-like windows. I just love the colour scheme of this photo, just so natural. And the leaf-less tree branches above, framed with the bushy paddy like plants below really adds a nice touch, don't you think?

The next two photos were not taken at the ground area, but from the museum building next to it looking out. Isn't it lovely? It I have a room in my house that looked out to a view like this, I would be sitting in a chair next to that window daily. The sunlight shinning in also add such warmth to the whole place.

Here is another window view outside. When you visit a museum, don't forget to look out it's windows when you are inside. Usually the view outside is quite something! That is something I've learned while travelling around. Museums are usually situated in nice central location, and usually have multiple levels as well. So always try looking out from their windows, or if you are in Scotland, look out from their rooftops!

Wefie of us outside the glass-vine building :)