Cotswolds - The Slaughters

6-November-2010 (Saturday), we were sent to the Slaughters! Well that's the name of the village. Scary, I know. Our bus dropped us at Lower Slaughter, and we took a lovely walk thru town to Upper Slaughter. It was a lovely afternoon walk, and only took us 10 minutes.

Lovely cottages and  small farms can be seen everywhere, as lots of berry trees as shown here.

There were some homemade jam, jelly and chutney for sale by the villagers being placed unattended outside some cottages. You can have a look and take whatever you like, and just drop your money at the mailbox. How trusting! Apparently lots of houses does business this way in the Cotswolds. I saw some selling vegetables, fruits, and even wood and charcoals!

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The Slaughters

Cotswolds - Stow-on-the-Wold

6-Nov-2010 (Saturday) our first encounter with a Cotswold village was called Stow-on-the-Wold. And where did we head the first thing we landed? To the cemetery! Ok ok, nicely put, we were headed to a historical church - St Edwards church, but with a very very peaceful simple cemetery. Very traditional. And at the front gate of the church a sign says "Church Open", as should all sign on churches (instead of other signs that can be found on some churches in Singapore....).

We didn't manage to go inside the church as the inner door was closed. But we did walk around it, and discovered that walking over glass land of dead people in the rain (yes, it was raining lightly), could lead you to a paradise, here referring to a wonderful little stream flowing gently along at the end of the cemetery. Yes, one of my favorite photo was taken from here :) Everything was so peaceful, so serene that I feel that I could have sat there forever in bliss amiss a land of dead bodies. I'm a morbid romantic, I'm sorry, but like I've said, this is just the start of it.

We managed to walk around the small charming town after that, and had lunch at an English pub called  "The Queen's Head". Liver and bacon anyone? More on that in the food section of the blog later :)

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Stow-on-the-Wold

Cotswolds - Intro

6-Nov-2010 (Saturday), continuing on our morning tour with International Friends, we headed towards Chalk country! Yes! Chalk is real! It's a description of a kind of soil or stone in Great Britain call the Chalk Formation. (See Ref link below). And all these while I thought Terry Pratchett was pulling my leg! And it was amazing to travel through the Chalk known as the Cotswolds, a beautiful landscape of English country side, with charming English cottages! I'll blog on each little town we visit as we went along. And to think I never intended to visit Cotswolds! Stonehenge lead me here! I knew Stonehenge was magical!

 

I could just imagine the scene where Tiffany Aching live and grew up in, not too different from the photographs shown here! She probably flew past these landscapes on her broomstick. And more picture to come as we visited the following places in Cotswolds: Stow-on-the-Wold (I kid you not!), The Slaughters (upper and lower, I kid you not again!), Bourton-on-the-Water, and Bibury.

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Chalk Formation
Terry Pratchett
Cotswolds 
Tiffany Aching

Oxford

In many ways, this year's backpacking trip was planned by fluke. For instance, I never knew Stonehence was even remotely near London! How naive of me! But when I did found out, I immediately google a day tour to get there. And since everything was so expensive in England, I source for the most value for money tour, even if it means a 2D1N tour out of London that cost me GBP159 (SGD330) with the International Friend's Tour Group (see ref below), that was gonna bring me to Oxford, Bath, Cotswolds and my final destination - Stonehenge. Here's a picture of our tour bus.

So on 6-November (Saturday), I board their bus at Great Portland Street and one hour later I found myself in Oxford! Oxford, famous school bla bla bla, sorry but I'm not too crazy about it. But here's an interesting fact "Oxford: Bodleian Library, and the Great Hall of Christ Church College, was used in Harry Porter and the Chamber of Secrets". Woohoo, I was there!

 I do however like the motto of Oxford shown here. It's like, God is on their side! Nice touch.  

For a more overview of what Oxford looks like, please refer to the ref below. You know I hate posting photos that are already available elsewhere :P O, btw, this photo was taken in Oxford. I love this photo, there's bicycle in it, and sunlight! Two of my fave things in photos! What is there not to like???

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Oxford
International Friends Cotswolds, Oxford, Bath & Stonehenge Tour
Stonehenge
Dominus illuminatio mea

British Museum

5-Nov-2010 (Friday), first day in London. We landed via British Airways at Heathrow Airport at around 5am, got ourselves an Oyster card each (GBP 15 per card, or SGD 30), and took the underground tube via Piccadilly Line to Russell Square where our cheap hotel was at. Couldn't check in till 2pm. So we left our bags with the hotel, and went for breakfast before headed to the British Museum, which was around 800meter from our hotel County Hotel, London.

The great thing about London is, the museums are FREE! And you could spend the whole day there. It's a total information overload. The British Museum was a good introduction to the history and culture of the country we were visiting. But I was there for the folk lore, so here's some photos taken of divination tools used in the past! Top part are a set of old Tarot cards, just 4 out of a full deck of 78. Nice drawing huh? I wonder if I could replicate the tarot cards I have at home and make them into art pieces! That would be so cool. Bottom are a set of divination stick used to make prediction, and I think they are made of ivory.

I also like the miniature carving of religious (mainly Christians) blocks of wood and/or ivory. It's amazing the details they put into those items, and the time and devotion in making one of these. Somehow, arts in the past looks a lot more pain staking then modern arts today. I'm also wondering whether I can replicate these....

And strange enough, anything from Egypt was extremely popular! I've never seen a real mummy before, and was excited to visit that section of the museum. I was not disappointed. In fact, I was amazed at the numbers of mummies they have! But at the back of my mind I was thinking, if all these mummies are laying here, are there any left in Egypt? Still, it was an amazing collection.Was it scary looking at wrapped up dead bodies from centuries ago? I guess so, cause they look quite fleshy, especially those wrapped up ones. But those in bones I'm totally comfortable with.

 

Lastly, just for old time sake, a photo of  the Lewis Chessmen carved from walrus ivory! What a beau!

 

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British Museum
Tarot Cards
Lewis Chessmen 
Heathrow Airport

Oyster Card
County Hotel London

Credit: All photos taken here are from Jaxon's camera, except the Tarot Cards.