Day 45 - 3/4 Machas in York

I almost forgot that I had booked train tickets for this trip while in Cambridge. As a result, I had to change my flight ticket back from Athens, in which i wasted money on processing and administrative fees (ouch to the power of infinity).

Anyway, Royce, Nardev and I decided to visit York for this weekend, since we have heard so much about it. Keng Rui has done York before, so he didn't come along. But his advice was "It can be done in a week".

Coincidentally, it was after we booked the train tickets did we realise that that weekend will be a Viking Festival in York. It's quite good apparently, according to the Brits. So boy are we lucky!

York train station. It was the largest at one point in time.

Old Castle Gates. Somehow, the York crests reminds me a lot of Cambridge's crests.

We went to the Jorvik (pronounced as your-veek) Viking Centre, which is apparently a popular Viking Museum. Boy was it popular - the queue was long! It started off with a "Time Machine" Presentation, where we all sat in this room. As we were "transported back in time" by the decade, the characters on the screen change their fashion too. Every decade we move back, the chair will shake a little. Royce commented jokingly "Skali they do this all the way back to 800AD" (That's when the Vikings came to York). Turns out he was right.

Then we took this amusement-park-ish ride (see picture above), where we were taken around, shown different facades of actual life during the times of the Vikings. So there were manequinns who moved, talked, defecated (with the smell), while the narration is played from the speakers at the back of your head. Thanks to Royce's playfulness, I get to hear it in Spanish or Japanese sometimes.

And when the ride ended, all we saw is some museum display of Viking archaeological finds found on the site of the museum. That's all. Thought it is a family friendly place, but not very sophisticated (read: boring) enough for young adults though. We suspect the museum had a lot of budget to do all these time machine shaking chairs thingy and amusement park kind of rides.

People wearing Viking costumes and zooify themselves.

Exoticisation of the Viking culture

Next we went on to Clifford's Tower. It is apparently another key attraction of York. But when we arrive......

Its so small???

Well at least the view on top is good. But having been to larger heritage sites like Barnard Castle, it seems quite small. Oh I bumped into Deborah there!

Eh Nardev! you didn't take me with the Minster!

Much better!

We spoofed Keng Rui while taking this photo from the tripod. Hehe.

Some Abbey ruins. There was a demonstration on some Viking's customs, as part of the Viking festival. What was it? A "viking" laid on a boat motionless, while another person explain their beliefs about afterlife and funerary rituals. 6 minutes later, end of demonstration. =.="'

So we walked to our B&B, which is about 2km away. Somehow, all our repressed tiredness came out and we all napped till 6pm. Ventured back into the city centre to meet Nardev's friend for dinner.

Yorkminster at night.

Some of the Yorks dressed in Viking costume. Or as Jonathan will call it, "Medieval Cosplay".

We passed by the meeting point of the Ghost Tour, which we decided to give it up in the end. What we saw was green lighting, with a "ghost" as the guide. And that's the scariest part of your tour? Well, the pamphlet says that it's voted the "Best City Tour in York", but what other city tours are there in York? Thank goodness we gave that a miss. It's not like York is filled with horrifying history, like Scotland.