First day of travel to Paris（last December 26, 2010）

From December 26 to 30, we We went on a trip to Paris with our friends from December 26 to 30.

At first we planned to go to London by National Rail. But two days before the first travel day we knew the National Rail won't run on Christmas day (25th) and boxing day(26th).  （∋_∈）
We had to change our plan...we booked a parking near St. Pancras (International Rail Station) before we left. Fortunately, we could get to there by car without trouble. 

And then we got to Paris by Eurostar♪

There is the St Pancras International Train Station in part of this building.
It looks like a castle, isn't it? I don't know if the building has some offices or something.
It was really beautiful building !!!

It was a terrible  terribly cold day. But we had plenty of times in there.

We left our house not a little fast time earlier than usual because we thought the road will be overcrowded.

Inside of the St. Pancras was not so huge The station was not as big as I thought but it was new and clean.

Inside the station We we decided to spend a time in a warm cafe and ate our breakfast(o^^o)♪

There are were so many people were waiting for depart Eurostar while we were waiting for our train's (Eurostar) departure because the day it was boxing day.

Almost all of the England's train is older than Japanese one. Eurostar was no exception.

The seats are like this. It was clearn and not so old.  We also had also a table. 

They are our good friends(o^^o)　We had a great fun time with them.

It takes only two and half hours from London to Paris. 

I knew the train went into the tunnel and I thought it would be more exciting ... but that was ... actually just another tunnel with some lights.

Finally ! We're in Paris ！！！ 

We made the switch to / transferred in the "underground"(subway). That was not under the ground its just subway.

At first I saw this view of the Paris. This was my first view of Paris. I couldn't feel what is the different difference from between England and Paris. / I couldn't feel what is it's difference from England.
But I felt some things in the evening or later...

We took a walk to the Eiffel Tower after we arrived in our Hotel.

We could see the Eiffel from our room.

What a an awesome view !!!

Sometimes the lights of the Eiffel was changed to be twinkling suddenly twinkle.
It was difficult to took a picture. Can you image imagine of that?

We saw many people who were selling some very small stationary articles of Eiffel Tower or some toys. Smaller stationary article of Eiffel was only one Euro... Just one Euro.

And they They stood close to each other even though they are for sell selling the same goods.

How many stationary articles should they sell ... ? I saw a part of Paris in this night. 

Burton-on-the-Water in Cotswolds area ( in September 3, 2010 )

We had a visitor who is a professor of my husband in university at the 3th of September.
→In the 3rd of September, my husband's university professor visited us.
He had an experience with living in London about six months last year.
He has conducted the joint study in London University.
→He used to live in London for about six months. He also conducted a joint study in University of  London.
He came to meet my husband in Southampton !!!
I met him in Yamaguchi prefecture, my husband was born and grew up there, before we left Japan. So that was the second time I met him.
→I first met him in Yamaguchi prefecture ( the place where my husband was born and raised ).
We went to the Cotswolds, very popular area with him.
→The three of us went to the Cotswolds, a very popular area for tourists.

We had a long driving time during we arrived the destination.
→It took us a long time to arrive / get to our destination. He and my husband were talking about PC? system? or something... I couldn't understand what they were talking about. But I it was OK♪　I love to travel / traveling♪
Our destination was "Burton on the Water". It's very famous place. It took us about one and a half hours by car away form our flat to reach it. / It takes about one and a half hours by car to reach it.

There is a silent clean river and , some old bridges, flowers, yellow houses,
and many visitors. The typical of an architectural style are pitched roof , stone mullions dormer windows, and warm yellow Cotswolds stone.
Our town's houses made by baked mud. So I felt quite deferent impression like I came another country.
→Back in our town the houses were made from baked mud, so seeing this place gave me a different ( but good ) impression about England.
This area has many visitors like my home town ( Kyoto Japan) . But I didn't feel busy , hurried atmosphere like Kyoto... Time was slowly. That was nice feeling.

We found a lovely pottery shop in this small town.

I bought a plate to where I can place a my rice paddle and a pot for milk when I drink white tea.

It is ... I don't remember her? his? its name.
U..n maybe ... She was sitting on the paper that was used to wrap up goods items when that customer buy them.

The craft potter was had a very kindly face. 

He picked her the cat up and put on placed her comfortably on a chair... But she quickly went back to sit on the wrapping paper quickly again (o^^o)

She was cute !!!

He requested her sitting to sit on the chair. Then she didn't move from the chair. and from then on she didn't move a bit.

She understood his request. She was genius cat.

And then After buying two items from the pottery shop,

we went to a another place that where reduced scale of this town. we found a smaller version of the Burton-on-the-water.

There are were three same smaller town small scale models of the town. Do you understand what  this I mean?

I am not so sure this town is how reduced scale small this model is...

But this is the largest of the three models.

And smaller...

And the smallest...

These had correctly positional relation. That is amazing artifice.

→These models were exact images of the REAL town.

 Its on the tip of my tongue. They were amazing architectural pieces.

And then we went to a Maze.

 A small paper that has some hints and a pencil was given to each other of us.
Let's start!!!

The wall that made from plant was higher than us. And the maze was huger bigger than I had expected.   

The maze had fourteen clues like the one in this picture. So we had not to found find all fourteen flagstones and solve the puzzle for us to find just the way out.

And we can get an find the answer of the maze if we write wrote down all the words from the fourteen clues flagstones words and can make a sentence in this picture's area and then complete some sentence.  

We spent to read answer about about one and a half hours for this maze to find the way out of the maze.

That was extremely fun.

You should go there if you go to Burton of the water.  

World's No.1 tennis player, Rafael Nadal (in November 26, 2010)

We watched the world's no.1 tennis player ,Rafael Nadal''s , in his wonderful / magnificent game play on live in the O2 Arena , London.
He was powerful , confident, brave and cool♪
But we couldn't took take some pictures of him. Because because some staffs / personnel of the ATP asked / requested us to stop using our video camera .
We brought a video camera , but A a member of the staff said you we shouldn't take use the video by it. while inside the arena.
We understood the reason why he they said that, so we said ... would not allow us to record a video of the game. 
we want to take some pictures by video camera. That is not video...But he said NO!!! Why???
→Then we explained we just wanted to take photos without taking video but still they didn't permit us to do so... Why???


An Another woman of from the ATP staff came and said same things...  We were not a good feeling. quite disappointed about this..
We saw some people who took video by using their cameras. Maybe the staff they didn't know that those cameras can also take video with the same quality as video camera's one.has.
And we were bad luck.. We were sitting on the end line of lower area. The staff can come close us..
→We were not so lucky because we sat at the end row of the lower area near the aisle where members of the staff were standing and could immediately call our attention if they see us using our camera..

 I post some pictures  The following are photos of  the O2 Arena. 


These are some pictures of the entrance. I like Roger Federer♪

This is the dome of O2 Arena. It's quite huge!!!

Some pictures of Inside.
→These are some pictures of the arena's interior / inner section.

Can you see Nadal on the court? I took this picture by using i-phone.

We will buy the tickets of this match next year sooner than this year. 
Because we want to get better seats.
And we will bring our camera !!! not video camera(-.-)
→For next year's match, we plan to buy tickets ahead of time / much earlier so we can have better seats and this time perhaps we should bring a camera instead of video camera(-.-)

It was snowing!!!

Two days before yesterday night, I noticed it started to snow.

And then..
I was surprised when I saw the view of the outside yesterday morning.
Oh, I can do skiing here if I have ski implement equipments♪
It almost looks like near a mountain of for ski area, doesn't it???

My husband couldn't go to his office yesterday and today.

He was working in our flat.

We went to a supermarket on foot yesterday afternoon.

We spent two hours to shopping for some ingredients and we looked around for furniture. 

We had a relaxed nice time(o^^o)

Almost all cars have the nomal tires. Maybe the snow is rare in this season.

But they were driving on the icy road.

We saw some cars slipped.

A car hit another car...（;´_`;）　It is was very scary...

Netley Abbey

I went to "Netley Abbey" with my friend by car in September first.
→On September 1st, I went to  "Netley Abbey" with my friend. We went there by car.
This abbey is the most complete surviving Cistercian monastery in Southern England.
I didn't know of this important fact when I watched it before going there.
I only learned about it after our trip. 

(It was a nice weather).
The weather was nice, so I was able to take great pictures. Some pictures of them would even look like they're from the booklets picture, don't these they?
The abbey is in the housing estate.
We can come close to the abbey by car.
→Since the abbey is in a housing estate, we could come close to it by car.

That was It is an amazing building made built from stone. (or It was an amazing view)

Parts of the building has have designs, it likes similar to carving.

If I were to live in here there, I will would see like this the view with

 cake and tea everyday...?(o^^o)? 

We ate sandwiche beside a river for lunch.
→There is a river near the abbey, where we ate our lunch before going home.
　We had sandwich for lunch.

That was the my first try attempt to drive in UK, without my husband in UK.
I got a little scared to drive. But , but I was fulfilled got sense of completion when we were able to came back to my friend's house safely.

My favorite fitness club ♪

These are some pictures of my favorite fitness club.
We can get there about 10 minutes on foot away from our flat.
→It is ten minutes away from our flat on foot.(It is better because of redundant)
I go to there almost everyday regularly for exercise.

There is a large gym with many machines and two studios, one inside swimming pool, one outside swimming pool, tennis courts, changing room with shower, restaurant...
→Inside the fitness club, there is a large gym, which contains different kinds of fitness equipment.
There are two swimming pools, one is inside the building and the other one is outside.
There are also tennis courts, two studios, a restaurant and a changing room with shower.

This is the picture of the gym from the reception area.

In At the gym, I usually use treadmill or cross-trainer for aerobic exercise.

And I also use some iron dumbbells for weight training.

There are no people because I took this picture at night a while ago when the fitness club was about to close.

There are two studios in the first floor. 

I join the pilates class twice a week for to conditioning conditon my body posture. 

The inside pool inside the fitness club has blue lights in the evening. Fantastic！！！
I had met a my first friend in UK when I joined the aquqafit class♪
Her name is Margaret.
When The first time I joined the class first time, she came aside of went beside me and said something for to me.
She is very kind and friendly.
And she always does is even a volunteer of a charitiable group which helps victims of calamities.

The most special things of about the club is that it has fourteen tennis courts.
Ten of them these are located inside the building. What a nice environment for us !!!
We can also play tennis inside especially during winter there if the when daytime become short shorter.

We found some friends to play tennis in the fitness club.
They also love to play tennis.　We are lucky♪
→We feel lucky because we have found some friends there who also love to play tennis.

Fireworks at Rose Bowl Stadium (Guy Fawkes Day)

Last November 5th in night 5 at nighttime we saw many fireworks in my our town.
We went to Rose Bowl Stadium(Cricket stadium), it's 10 minutes on foot away from my our house, to watch the "Fireworks Party".

Do you know about "Guy Fawkes Day"?
About 400 years ago, there is a Gunpowder Treason Plot in UK.
Rovert Catesby and other 12 people men prepared 36 casks barrels of gunpowder in at the basement of the Westminster to kill assassinate the King of Great Britain(James Ⅰ). One of them, Guy Fawkes was lieing lie hidden in the basement of the Westminster for ignition to ignite the Gunpowder.
But the plot was nipped in the bud and Guy Fawkes and other people was men were arrested.

Nowadays children would drag a doll of Guy Fawkes doll and mooch to ask some money from people around so that they could buy fireworks. ( But I didn't was not able to see a child who has  carrying a doll ... an article say like that. I 've just read it in an article.)
People make bonefire to burn the dolls and they have a lots of fun time to shoot fireworks at Nov. 5th during that day.


The picture is This picture was taken inside of stadium. There were so many people in there.
I thought I have never seen such a large numbers of people in West End.

And Finally the fireworks was started with a popular music♪
The fireworks fit in goes well with music. Wonderfull!!! Amazing!!!

It was a fantastic scenery. And the people in the stadium sing a song with music as well.