Day Tripping To Manchester

It has been years and years since I last went to Manchester, to the city centre that is and probably 10 years since I got on a train in the UK, so I really did feel like a tourist. I started off tying to buy a ticket and the ticket lady told me it would be 20 quid for both of us if we caught the next train but if we waited until the one after it would be 12 quid for 2. Of course we waited and then when I went to buy the ticket and asked for a return, it was still 12 quid, so that is 12 quid for a single or 12 quid for a return! Confused? I am!

Anyway, we got there in the end. Ebi-kun was happy taking blurred pictures of half frozen sheep and the journey wasn't too long.

We had a couple of hours to kill before we were meeting my brother so we had a wander around the shops and of course had to go to the Lego shop! I somehow got talked into doing the fill-a-tub thing, you get a big plastic cup and then it is like pick-a-mix and you can put whatever pieces in the tub that you like. It is a flat rate price of 11pound and we managed to jam pack the tub full so I reckon we got our moneys worth! Next was the build a person, you pick the head and other bits and build your own people.

After denting my purse in the Lego shop we went off to meet my brother, he works in the centre of town and managed to wangle a few hours off. We decided to go and check out the German outdoor markets, it was a beautiful day but bitterly cold.

Here is Gary Barlow with the nutcracker and Ebi-kun (he will kill me for putting that up!) The market was great, lots of lovely things for sale from felted bags to chocolate to artesian cheese and woolly hats.

We wandered around for a while then met up with my cute little nephew who is 7 months old, poor little babe was poorly sick but still surprisingly smiley, I didn't get any cuddles but we will be seeing him again soon so I will have to have double next time.

After lunch Ebi-kun insisted we went back to the markets for a toffee apple, it might take him until Christmas day for him to eat it, it was massive and very messy. My brother Tom, had to head back to work, so we made our way back up to the station. We decided not to stay long since we had both been awake since 3am and both of us were pretty tired, it was just long enough to be a good day out. We are planning to head in again in the new year to meet up with friends and hopefully hit on of the museums.