sticky toffee trip #05

i am churning out posts like some factory 0_0...
i love the way you can eat food off the tables (the floor even... if no one has walked around there)... and open a bag of chips and leave them there without them going soft in London.

day 4 in lake district:

our itinerary for the day
-wake up 0630, get ready, have breakfast, catch 0732 bus to Ambleside
-reach Ambleside at 0745, find the place and take a walk around the falls
-1130 catch bus from Ambleside to Windermere to get our bagpacks
-1145 catch bus from Windermere to Keswick
-reach Keswick ~1230 tour: castlerigg stone circle, walk around the lake, browse shops
-1700 catch bus from Keswick to Penrith
-1800 arrive at Penrith, have a good dinner
-1920 take the train back to London

cos the buses appear once every hour...lol.

catching the first bus we met a super nice bus conductor... who helped us save money! i thought we'd take tickets for each ride, but our last ride to penrith would cost 9 pounds... the cost of a day pass! (yay favour!)
the falls (or fells... as they said in edinburgh) were pretty! i went climbing off the track and down the waterfall to take a picture... hehe.. but in the picture you can't really tell that we actually had to climb... except that the waterfall was right next to us =P... tried to continue climbing down but realised that there was no way back up on the other side... and no way to go all the way down either. bah.

tried crossing the stream a little ways down from the waterfall using the stones... hehe. got a 'i can't reach the other side!!!' picture of us (me xinyi meifang) in the middle. so i was testing this possible rock... it was slanted at a 45 deg angle, water was actually rushing over it but we couldn't tell how deep it was till i put my foot in... into the cold cold cold water =S *brrr*. we found our way across eventually =). stayed on the other side trying to skip stones. which exasperated disong so much that he decided to get off the bridge and cross the stream using the stones to teach us =P

on the way back to the other side (cos there was no way to get back to the path from where we were) i stepped *again* on a treacherous rock =(( first my left foot slipped... then i got a hold with the left but in doing so my right slipped... at one point i think both my legs were in the water somewhere past the height of my shoe. bleh. COLD. getting wet is no joke at 5 deg =S. haha that got weichao off the bridge and down to try pull me out cos i was in this super unglam position... spreadeagled on a rock cos my shoes kept losing grip =P. when we were all safely across i took off my shoes... could actually pour the water out and wring my socks 0_0... (and those were aasics shoes... gosh). then we went back down to the town. and we were early! 945... too late to catch the 930 bus and too early for 1030... so guess what we did....

we went in search of lunch! heehee. got nice toasted sandwiches from a takeout place =P

went to ambleside.. fell asleep on the bus lol. where xinyi said she couldn't really sleep cos she was afraid that disong would drool on her (gross.) and realised we didnt have enough time to do long hikes after asking the people at the tourist centre. so we just found the laundrette to dump our bags and walked to the lake (albeit slowly.). passed a park on the way with green green grass... and super flat spongy ground... and couldnt resist doing strange things on it! haha. then there was a wishing well charity thing... and we were all such failures in spinning the coin down =P only disong managed it. weichao's one actually jumped and fell in without touching the sides (i think he has too much of a basketball touch)

reached the lake... tried to lure the ducks with potatochips and failed heh. then realised the time and practically ran back to catch the 1445 bus up to castlerigg... in the process playing stupid games [around the world in eighty days... johnny whoosh... open close... how many meh meh jumped over the wall... you know the like] where xinyi and weichao got so annoyed that they created one and made us guess LOL.

castlerigg was... well... a stone circle. some crest of some hill with stones that were left many years ago by someone forming a circle... boring much. not to mention cold =P so after a few photos we left for the walk back. (me telling my life testimony to weichao on the way) with a cramping right foot cos all the water was happily evaporating and leaving it (both feet actually) frozen. heh. grabbed our bags and caught the bus to Penrith. On schedule! wonder of wonders. after dilly-dallying all the time for the last 3 days! we all fell asleep on this bus. again. but thank God woke up just in time to have the bus pull away from the stop we were supposed to get off at (and thank God for lovely bus drivers who don't mind stopping away from busstops)

last meal in lake district... (we hadn't had our fill of sticky toffee pudding yet) so we walked to the town centre, bags and all, in search of a nice restaurant. found a fish and chips place with a super friendly owner (i think he was owner waiter and cook at the same time or somth) mmmm. great food... and for dessert Sticky Toffee Pudding. joy! haha. walked back to the train station and found the other group people in an indian restaurant waiting for takeout. said hi and passed by (cos they had a car and we didnt =S) on to the station where we stopped at macs to warm up and use the restroom >.< heh.

i was hoping by then to get a direct train back... but our tickets showed that we'd have to change twice =S reaching London at 1240am. so i thought aiyah live with it. but staring at the trains showing i realised that i didnt know how the train changes worked... asked weichao who asked the stationmaster... and praise God! he changed our tickets and put us on the delayed direct train to London... which came about 5 min after we asked him! - a crazy ride back to London - with us doing a 'i'm a little teapot' song with actions and ethan videoing =S... xinyi getting slapped by wenyuan (accidentally.)... story telling and picture viewing - and reached London Euston one hour ahead of the time we would have reached on the other train!

and there concludes the adventures of the sticky toffee gang on their sticky toffee trip.
where i spent 180 pounds... excluding the amount that disong paid to book stuff =P worth it though. good food!!