I was in the UK visiting ARM Ltd from 9/14 to 9/21. This is my 2nd business trip if last year CMU recruiting trip counts. Business trip is always good, everything is paid for except I don't get to choose where to go. The ARM headquarter is in Cambridge but unfortunately the debugger software team that we are visiting is in this boring Blackburn town. Hence I rated this trip 5/10:( oh well, it's free.

Blackburn is about 30+ Miles north of Manchester. I flew from SFO to Manchester via Frankfurt Germany. These european airports look old and outdated, nothing compared to all the modern airports in Asia.

On my flight going to Frankfurt, i was sandwiched by bunch of old Germans. The old guy sitting next to me, once found out I am from Malaysia, praised that Malaysia is a very nice country and the people are very friendly. I wonder if he was just being polite on the "friendly" part. How come I myself don't find malaysian friendly? My idea of friendliness is more like, saying hi to you on the street, holding door if you are following through, driving disciplinarily, or simply clearing up the table at McDonalds. All these could be easily practiced but sadly I don't see Malaysian doing it enough.

Anyway, after meeting my manager at Manchester airport, we rented a car and drove towards Blackburn. I am the designated driver because British drives on the left side, which is opposite to the US but same as Malaysia. The car we rented is this little 1.4l small car named Corsa made by Vauxhall, a british car makers. And according to wikipedia, most current Vauxhall models are right-hand drive derivatives of Opel brand. My dad used to own one Opel i think.

Driving in the UK is pretty crazy (or fun). Most of the cars on road are small size, about 1.5l but they drive so fast! By fast I mean easily over 90 mph. With such a small engines, i guess everyone pretty much floored the gas pedal on freeway (or motor way as known in the UK). Now i feel much safer driving in the US:) After 40 minutes drive with the help of Garmin GPS, we arrived at our 120 GBP/night hotel at Blackburn.

The hotel named Mercure Dunkenhalgh. Guess what, this 4-star castle-like hotel is a 700 year old building. If it's is in Malaysia, the building would have been classified as historic landmark. The fact is that everything in the UK is so old that being old doesn't carry that much value. My room is not that great though, definitely not worth 120 GBP/night.

For the next few days, we were just going through some software training at ARM. After work, we had problem finding restaurant to eat dinner. Blackburn is a small town and doesn't offer many choices. Worse, most of the places stop serving food after 7 pm. My manager likes to drink beer so we spent a few dinners at local pub, eating the famous England fish and chip, which I don't really enjoy. Nonetheless, no matter how small the town is, you can always find a chinese take-out. I had 2 nights of chinese fried rice costing 4.00 GBP each, probably the cheapest food in the town. Having said that, if you don't convert the currency, things in the UK is actually cheaper than in the US. There are also many indian restaurant around. Apparently indian food is famous in the UK. A dish called chicken tikka masala is claimed as the country's most popular restaurant dish that I can find it in England pub menu, listed together with sausages, fish and chip and the like. Weird isn't it?

The ARM training was initially scheduled for a full week. We finished early on thursday, and hence we have friday and saturday off for sight-seeing. I searched online for tourist spots but not many choices to my liking. Anyhow, I visited 2 castle: Chester Castle at Chester and Beeston Castle at Cheshire. Both places are very closed to Manchester. After all the UK isn't that big, 2-3 hours of drives can cover quite a bit.

Chester castle was built around 1069-1070. That's almost 1000 years. It's really not much about it apart from being old. As I mentioned, there are probably too many old building around the UK that no one cares about this 1000 year castle. There's no other visitor when we were there. Furthermore, it's situated in the middle of the city so it kinda lose the old-fashion castle feel.

Beeston Castle is more interesting compared to Chester Castle. It's built on a hill top around 1220. We have to do a little hike to get there. The castle shape are still pretty much preserved but the internal structure had already been destroyed. The view up there is actually not too bad.

stupid tractor spoils the view

bunch of cows as viewed from hill top

Next stop: Manchester United Old Trafford Stadium. A visit to Manchester without a stop here would be incomplete, just like Disneyland in Florida (nightmare). It would be a dream comes true for a soccer fan but unfortunately I am not. In fact, I haven't followed soccer updates since I come to the US. But still, it's MU! The stadium tour costs 12 GBP. It reminds me of my last stadium tour at Madison Square Garden in NY. The tour guide is pretty funny which makes the 1 hour tour quite entertaining. Nothing much really, just snap a few photos so that you can boast to friends that you have been here.


On the next day, i drove to Liverpool which is about 40 miles west of Manchester. You can pretty much guess what's there to see in Liverpool. Just a week before i arrived here, there was a match between Liverpool and Manchester. Liverpool won the game.

The Liverpool Anfield Stadium is not that grand comparing to Old Trafford Stadium. In fact, the surrounding area of the stadium looks kind of ghetto with many abandoned houses and broken buildings around. My initially thought of this area was all modernized and prosperous since such a famous soccer club and stadium are situated here. My good impression on Liverpool had been tarnished and that's why I decided not to pay money to enter it.

broken buildings around Anfield Stadium

Two castles and two stadiums, that pretty much concludes my visit in the UK. Pretty boring isn't it? The trip would be more interesting if it's in London. Towards the end of the week, i was kinda eager to leave the UK. Part of the reason might be I am travelling without friends. Having a friend to hold a camera for you will definitely make a difference. A girlfriend in companion will be even more interesting:)