Visiting Birmingham, England/Carlos Pueblo

Visiting Birmingham, England/Carlos Pueblo

Birmingham is located on the east of Manchester at the heartland

of England. Several years ago, I met Dr. Laow of the head monk of

a Thai Buddhist Temple at Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire at the

campus of the Oxford and very like to visit him. Birmingham is very

closed to his temple. Finally, after several e-mails exchange, I did

make my visit and he even took me to visit a Catholic Cathedral at

nearby Lichfield township. I also made to trip to visit to the township

of Rugby famous of the origin of Rugby sport and the Eton and Rugby

rivalry of ancient time. I also visited the campus of the University of

Birmingham. I have been very impressed of the city for its traditional

and contemporary set up city center.

During this trip in England, I decided to take train as my major needs

of transportation. It’s different from what I am used to travel among

Germany, Spain , or Japan. I need to purchase the pass outside of the

prospective nations in order to get the discount for foreigners. I bought

a senior pass good for one year because I am coming back in the spring

of 2019. Rail systems in U.K. are sublet to individual companies; therefore

the fares are various, expansive or cheap according to the time of travel

or advanced reservation. Because of my longer stay at one place and

the closer distance travel, I might come out a better cost overall.

Rural England is green and pretty. Because of fall season, I couldn’t see

clearly what the farmers grow but lambs, cattle, and horses, etc. I saw

hay rolls piled up on farms to save farming labor that I assumed. The

small train stations split out the field among cities. I had had ride between

Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Burton Upon Trent, etc. seeing some

factories still in operation. The train business is still very popular in

England.

Every morning, I would walk quite a distance from my hostel to the main

station passing by the Cathedral Park at the city center and coming back

from the train station then bought my grocery at markets closed by the

station. I could cook a meal at the kitchen and then met a young lady from

Malaysia who spoke Amoy language better than my adult children at home.

Pei-ven is an architect freshly graduated from Birmingham University and

going back to Ping Nang to work for her dad who owns a good size of a

construction business.