It has been one heck of an exciting weekend! I've visited 4 places in 2 days! Over the weekend, I've gone to Harrogate, Wakefield, York and Scarborough. I wouldn't have been able to go if we hadn't gone and rented a car! On Friday night, I was asked by friends if I wanted to rent a car with them. The next thing I knew, on Saturday morning, Darren, Jason & Marcus came to pick me up in this tiny red two-door car, and off we went to have breakfast in Harrogate at a place called Rat & Parrot. Harrogate isn't very far from Leeds. It's only about a 15 mins drive away. It's such a nice place though! So different from the city centre of Leeds I'm so used to now. Harrogate seems to be a more affluent area - we noticed that there were a lot more cool cars. The weather was nice and sunny, although still a bit too cold for me, but convertibles had their tops down. Harrogate's a good place to live after retiring I think. Quiet, relaxed, beautiful town.

Anyway, to move on, we went to Sainsbury, a huge supermarket, to do some gocery shopping. We spent a while there - the place is huge! Those 3 fellas spent about £130 on food altogether! Later that night, we drove to Wakefield for dinner. Again, Wakefield isn't very far from Leeds. We passed this little Thai restaurant by chance and decided to give it a try. I can't remember the name of the place in Thai, but the name means "a land of a million rice fields". It's run by Thais, so the food was rather authentic and was quite good. Tom yan chicken soup in UK! Had a couple of drinks after that back in Leeds, then headed for home.

Today, we went to Chapeltown for lunch at an authentic Italian restaurant (run by Italians) called Casa Mia. Food was good. I swear I've not eaten so much since I got back to Leeds from Singapore! We had an interesting garlic bread which looked more like pizza with garlic-tomato sauce on top. Asparagus, artichoke, ham & mushroom pasta, seafood salad and a chicken dish, plus we had dessert after that! Chocolate mousse cake, strawberry cake and strawberry gelato. Very filling! We ordered and shared all these dishes. We shared everything because as Marcus always says "variety is the spice of life!".

Next, we went to York. I've been there once before, but it was nice to see it again - quaint, medieval little town! Ate at Betty's, nice cafe, a bit expensive but terrific strawberry preserve! Scones never tasted better when spread with it. Those 3 wanted to go to church so we made our way to the same church in which Guy Fawkes was baptised in (St. something of Belfrey?). But, the nightly ghost trail in York was more appealing to them I think, so we left after attending the church service for 10 mins.

A lot of people gathered for the ghost trail. The guide was dressed in old 18th Century Victorian garb, complete with top hat and walking stick (which was broken. It met with an accident involving a little girl and a dog, or so we were told). We walked around parts of the city centre listening to his witty humour, and his chilling tales of ye olde York. Quite a bit of fun, but we were freezing our hands and legs off because it was dreadfully cold and we were wearing only 2 layers - shirt and coat.

After having driven so much, we still had half a tank full of petrol and no way were we going to return the car with so much fuel! So off we went to Scarborough, which is on the east coast of UK mind you. That's right, we went there to see the beach and the sea. It was great! There is even a Scarborough castle which overlooks the ocean. Lovely seaside community. Hopefully it's more bustling in the day because at 10pm it was like a ghost town. We stopped at an amusement centre for a while to warm up. Played Beatmania there! Yay! It has some casino games too. Ate again after that, then they dropped me off at Clarence Dock. It was about slightly over an hour's ride back to Leeds from Scarborough.

This has got to be the most exciting weekend I've had since I first arrived in UK. Fantastic! I love new experiences and exploring new, diffrent parts of UK like this is great. I got to see so much over this weekend. Definitely an eye opener. Terrific experience. I want to do it again!

[Photos of this trip can be found in "Picture Perfect"]

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