It has been raining the whole day! When I woke up and looked out the window, I saw that annoying drizzle. When I got to York, it was still drizzlinf, when I arrived at home, it was ALSO drizzling! It's horrible weather I tell you. And cold too, but thankfully, I was prepared thi time, though my hands still felt as though they were frozen.

York really is a medievalish town! It still has most of the medieval walls surrounding the old settlement. It's amazing how they're still around after over 500 years. I visited the York museum. There was a "Walking With Dinosaurs" exhibition. Really interesting.

I mean, a T-Rex's mouth-span is over a metre! It could take off little less than 3/4s of me in a bite! I really DID feel small. There were other things on display of course. Stuff on the Romans and the Vikings who lived in York (previously called Jorvik). One interesting thing about the museum was that it very cleverly incorporated the ruins of the monastry (I think) which was located on the same grounds as the museum. I think they built the museum around the ruins, which was cool, and they made it look like what the monastry probably looked like a long time ago, inside the museum.

[York Castle?]

We took the York Tour, another one of those bus tours which let you get off where you wish. It took me to the Castle Museum which was having this exhibition called "Births, Marriages and Deaths through the Ages" - starting from the Victorian to the present age. They covered everything from the breast pumps of the past to the wedding gifts of the present. There were also period rooms which had furniture and stuff arranged to look like it probably did during the respective periods. They were my favourite! I want a room like the Victorian one I saw today!

There was also a chocolate exhibition. Very strange and out of place if you ask me, but it must be for the kids I guess. There were streets that were built in the museum that looked straight out of the past, with little shophouses displaying old things in the windows, and a horse and carriage (the horse was fake!), and cobblestone flooring (which incidentally made me trip many times). Very nice, but a bit quiet (maybe because they were closing soon) and also a teeny bit scary. Lotsa dark corners.

The York Minster was a beaut! It is such a lovely old cathedral! And the choir sang so well!

You'll be filled with awe the minute you step through its thick wooden doors and into the great hall with a very high ceiling and stained glass (some dating back to medieval time) windows. All churches should be like this! It's hard to describe a place of such beauty! The feeling of wandering around and reading the inscriptions on the stone slabs and intricately decorated tombs (?) is also very difficult to put into words. All I know is that I've touched things that were made some 800 years before I was born. Wow.

[A dark pic of a period dining room]

[Mum's fave fruit gums! Exhibition in Castle museum]

On a lighter note, I've just realised there are no ants here! I've not seen a single black or red (or whatever other colour they come in) ant since arriving in Leeds! YAY! I can eat in my room without fear of an infestation! Maybe it's too cold here. I don't blame the li'l fellows. I myself feel close to freezing sometimes. Imagine their tiny itty bitty bodies. Also, I'm starting to wonder if it is possible to tell whether a person comes from a cold country or a warm one by what he/she eats.

It was just something my mum said about how the Chinese food we've been cooking for dinner is not sufficient in keeping us warm, but the English food (mostly meats?) are. Hmm...

P/S: I have finished the 2nd book of the Josephine Bonapart trilogy. I read fast. I'm starved for the 3rd one! But I can't find it anywhere!

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