The Ballad of Faizal & Anna in Liverpool.

Hi all,

Apa khabar semua? As we promised before, kalau tak ada aral, we'll be posting the story from Seoul. So, here you go...Before Iceland, we went for 3 days 2 nights trip to Liverpool from Derby. You can easily get cheap train or coach to Liverpool. One of the websites that we used is thetrainline.com But the trick is you have to check the prices daily because it changes every day.

On that day itself, we almost missed our train because of sibuk sangat borak with my auntie sampai terlupa time train berlepas. It took us almost 2 hours to get to Liverpool Lime Street plus 1 stop at Crewe. In Liverpool, you can choose to stop at Lime Street Station or Liverpool Central, but I think Lime Street is more convience because it is centrally located.

From Lime Street to our hotel, Premier Inn, Albert Dock (best hotel ni!) its 10mins by taxi (5pound) or half an hour by foot. Don't get us wrong, we chose to stay in the hotel because the price of the hotel almost the same as hostel. Why not? Backpacking is not all about hostel, it's all about cheap and convience! Right? It was 60pound per night, but for non peak season it can drop to 30pound a night! The night we stayed, there was a match between Liverpool & Napoli, luckily Liverpool won with Gerard kicking hattrick! But we only watched it in our hotel room because we couldn't get the ticket. Actually it wasn't in our plan, anyway!

Tapi the best part was, the hotel is very well located just next to The Beatles Story Exhibition and underneath our hotel room is the Fab 4 merchandise store! Giler, beb shopping merchandise! Tapi harga memang tak dapat diungkapkan mahal tapi dah sampai apalagi pejam mata sebelah la... Sebelah petang around 2.30pm after check-in, we joined The Magical Mystery Tour (14pound), you can't imagine how excited Faizal is because in Liverpool it's all about him! The Beatles and Liverpool Football Club (he's a fan of both ya..). Unfortunately, during the tour it was rainning and drizzling but who cares! Redah jugak!

Eventhough I'm not a big fan of The Beatles but I could feel and see why they were being admired by the whole world. The tour started with their childhood homes, schools, hangout places and journey to fame! Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields were among the songs title that we visited. Similiar to Elvis Presley, The Beatles created their own phenomenon, The Beatlemania. The tour takes around 3hours depend on the traffic. Eventhough the tour couldn't tell you the whole story but it makes you feel and imagine how would they strived and created madness that spread to whole world! Amazing!

The tour ended at Mathew Street, where the famous Cavern Club is located. I'm sure you have heard about this club before. Lots of famous act have played here like The Rolling Stones, The Yardbird, Artic Monkeys, Oasis and even our Malaysian band Search for their 2010 UK Tour. Memang teruja especially when you have to walk all the way down the step to officially enter the club stage area. (Btw, oppsite this club is their sister company called Cavern Pub). After 53years in business with lots of up and down, Cavern Club still survived and remain as one of the "must visit" club in UK. Thanks to The Beatles, i guessed? Why? because the fans always remember it as the place where all the magic begin and be inspired, especially when Brian Epstein (their manager) first saw The Beatles performing here. The rest is history...

From Mathew Street we walked futher up to Liverpool One, the largest shopping area in the heart of Liverpool City Centre. This newly developed state of the art building consists a total of 160 shops that includes everything from shopping, entertaiment, food to the bus station and a park. (Apalagi we all jadi rambang mata la kejap!). Sedar tak sedar, it's almost game time. Both Napoli & Liverpool fans started to rush to the stadium. Like we mentioned it earlier, we only catch the game in our hotel room but before that we managed to grab our dinner at McDonalds (Filet O Fish la...). Suddenly Faizal said "Wow! rasa macam mimpi.. I'm watching a Liverpool game in Liverpool."

The next morning, while waiting for the Beatles Story Exibition to open, we walked around the Albert Dock's area. This “brick” building was built in 1846 and has been used as warehouse, a dock and a base (during 2nd world war) for ships and boats. After its been re-developed, by keeping the structural and architecture of the original building, Albert Dock is now one of Liverpool tourist attractions. With its stunning view as a background, Albert Dock has other attractions like Tate Liverpool, International Slavery Museum, The Pumphouse, Echo Wheel and Hotels. Now we understand the feeling of Otis Redding song "Sittin on the Dock of the Bay".

Admission fee for The Beatles Story Exhibition is 14pound per person but it covers two exhibitions, 1). at Albert Dock and 2). Pier Head. Both offers different kind of exhibition. We spent more than 2 hours inside and Faizal was really excited and satisfied with the exhibits. Kebetulan, this year is John Lennon 70th Birthday (if he's still alive) so there is a lot of special tribute and event to remember him. I won't tell you much but you can see some of the exhibits inside.

After check out we went to our next hostel (not hotel..!) at Mount Pleasant, not far from Lime Street Station and also well located. Its more to students area and easy to get Halal Food. There are two restaurant/cafes nearby our hostel, where became our saviour plus Tesco also close to our hostel, Hatters.

Since it was Friday night, the room cost 57pound almost the same as the hotel. (See?) but they have breakfast! We took a bus from Liverpool One station to Anfield Stadium. Here in Liverpool advisable to buy a day pass (3.10pound) if you are travelling a lot, otherwise one way will cost you 1.80pound.

Eventhough it was raining, Faizal and I tak kisah redah jer. Dapat jugaklah Faizal penuhi impian dia nak pergi Anfield Stadium. Tapi actually kat sini kalau tak ada game rasanya macam ghost town je, dekat dengan housing area, tak perasan pun dah sampai. Sama dengan Everton@Godisson Park. Walaupun Liverpool dah tak berapa tinggi raking dalam EPL tapi orang tak putus-putus datang melawat dan shopping merchandise, padahal tak murah pun cuma yang confirmnya "Original". He..he..Tapi kalau datang during autumn/winter cepat sangat gelapnya, baru nak happy2 dah gelap padahal baru pukul 5.00petang. Tu yang kureng sikit tu. Macam biasa, lepas balik dari stadium kitaorang ronda2 lagi kat Liverpool One area, memang best la tempat ni! Sempat jugak pergi satu lagi exhibition The Beatles kat Pier Head.

Kalau you all nak tau, hari last kitaorang kat Liverpool baru lah cuaca best! Dari pagi sampai kitaorang nak naik train balik ke London cuaca memang superb! Apalagi pagi2 dah ronda, dapat jugak tengok historical buildings and my favourite place is St. George Garden. Mula2 ingatkan garden, rupa-rupa memorial park padahal posing dah tak hengat! Tapi tak rasa seram pun agaknya dah lebih 100 tahun dah diaorang pergi. Disebabkan tak tau bila nak datang lagi, kitaorang pergi sekali lagi kat The Cavern Club, kali ni cantik sikit nak ambil gambar!

Lebih kurang pukul 2.30petang, kitaorang ambil bag kat hostel tu and headed to Lime Street Atation waiting for our 4.30pm train to London. Perjalanan yang non-stop lebih kurang 2 jam tu membuat kitaorang teringat-ingat jer pengalaman kat Liverpool tu. Rasanya kalau ada rezeki, boleh datang lagi tu, kali ni Faizal akan pastikan dia dapat tengok game Liverpool. Kalau ikutkan budget di Liverpool ni, tak berapa mahal dan taklah berapa murah tapi bolehla...

Train to London : 38pound (one-way) per 2 person

Hotel : 2night 117pound (ini yang mahal sikit ni)

Makan + bus + admission fee + tour: 3 hari (120pound)

Total : Lebih kurang 275pound untuk dua orang (Itupun tiket train from Derby to Liverpool, ada orang sponsor..he..he..Thank You, Chik Ain & Uncle Glenn)

Rasanya kalau pergi time tak ada musim bola akan lebih murah kot, tapi Life is too short! Kalau berkira sangat2 tak jalan pulak rasanya... Anyway tepuk dada tanya selera!