Bodhi Bum

So it's the weekend and Saturday and a beautiful, grey, cloudy day. But what's new in the great British winter. Work is done and the weekend is here.
Woke up early this morning with the plan to hop the train from little Knutsford and go out exploring the great wider area of semi-Northern England. Haven't done much exploring cause I've been too busy at work. So I planned today to play a Scouser and explore the local Manchester culture, but found out pretty quick that Scouser is a less than polite term for Liverpudians (aka from Liverpool). I guess that would make me a Mancurian (not to be mistaken with Manchurians, aka Japanese China circa 1941).
The local UK slang is tough to grasp, but from what I can see most Brits don't get half of it themselves either.

Good day out today and had a good tour of Manchester. It was only 40 minutes from Knutsford on the train, and an easy ride. I got off the train at Piccadilly station, walked out the front door and had no idea how far anything was. It's a big city and I could have been five miles off High Street for all I knew. So I hopped on the free bus (it said Free Tourist Bus on it) and took the ride downtown. Turns out Manchester city centre is not all that big and I hopped off after three blocks. I tried to find the river which runs through the town and the so called wharf, and liternally walked right over it and kept going without hardly noticing, cause it's more like a little stream than a river.

By the river is Manchester Cathedral which like most old English Cathedrals is pretty impressive. Although, this one didn't quite measure up to Salisbury Cathedral anywhere close, at least this time I figured out how to take indoor pictures with my camera (* use the MUSEUM setting).


It's not a huge city, but the city centre is pretty much one big department store. Apart from the Medieval Manchester area which is what you usually think of with old English towns with their history. Manchester may have history, but the Mancurians seem to have decided they prefer the 21st century and skyscrapers and department stores are better. I honestly think there is more shopping in Manchester than any city I've ever been in. The Arndale shopping centre takes up about ten city blocks and is about a quarter of the whole downtown. I was talking to a local and she said that after the big IRA bomb in 96 they pretty much started over downtown and rebuilt it all brand new.

The one thing that stuck out was the styles there. Seems half of the kids were total goth or punks. And the girls were mini skirted tarts, or Slappers as they like to call them here. I've never seen so many girls in 2 degree weather wearing a micro mini skirt, belly shirts and a half pound of makeup. The girls were out on a Saturday afternoon looking like they were done up for a nightclub. I saw a lot of that up north in Newcastle, and was warned about the Geordie girls, but it's worse here.

In all, it's just another city, albeit an easy one to walk around with a fair bit of history and a whole lot of shopping. Had a good day and caught the Rugby Six Nations, England V Wales back in Knutsford. England won.

Not much else to report.