I N F U S I O N: Easter Holidays: Part 1

Had been a very busy few weeks prior to these Easter holiday. Yups... it was a holiday last weekend... from April 6th to 9th, it was a long weekend, so we decided to make a few short trips around to looksee. We headed to Oxford (feeling a bit intellectual... ahaha)...

Anyway we've switched cars and right now we're using the Chrysler Grand Voyager. A huge gas guzzling van (we call it a bus actually), extremely bad turning radius, very difficult to park... BUT... it has a real cool GPS Navigation System. It can direct you to anywhere in the UK with a digital lady voice instructing where to turn and stuff. I imagine if they were to produce one in Malaysia it should be in Manglish... "You have overshoot la. Please gostan"... or something like that... =P

Navigation System: Off Road (means it doesn't know where it is... =P)

Anyway after a 2 hours plus drive to Oxford we parked at the outskirts of Oxford and board the bus (Easier to travel around and avoid the limited and expensive parking). They call it the "Park and Ride". Most major towns would have this facility. Sat on my first double decker bus. You'll be amazed how these drivers can drive this huge buses through small roads... here am I complaining about the van.

The "Park and ride" Bus

Oxford is city famous for it's colleges and it's history stretches to over 800 years. So our first stop was Trinity College as it was the only college that opens it's doors to visitors at that time. It has a small beautiful chapel within it which was built in 1691. The college was originally built in 1286 and was known as Durham college, however it was later bought over some guy and Trinity College was established in 1555. The 4 female statues at the top of the tower actually represents Astronomy, Geometry, Medicine and Theology.

Trinity College with 4 female statues at the top

Front Portion of chapel

Stained glass and intricate carvings at the top in chapel

Back/Top portion of Chapel: Pipe organ, carvings and painting at the top.

Next place that we headed to was the Ashmolean Museum. There's a nubmer of interesting things on display and the major themes are Roman scultures, Egyptian History (there were mummies on display too!), and of course English history and culture. As it is a museum. So not many pictures were taken but it was a real eye opener.

Lost in Oxford

The Ashmolean Museum

Up next is a short walk to one of the main landmarks of Oxford, The Radcliffe Camera. It's a circular shaped building built in the English Baroque style (same period as the Baroque period some of ya guys learn in music history)... took more than a decade to built (1737-1749). Currently it is used as part of the Bodleian Library. Nearby is the University Church of St. Mary, which portions of it were built since 1280. We didn't manage to get into the church as there was a service going on and didn't wanna disrupt it mid-way. However we climbed to the top of the tower to get a beautiful panaromic view of the City if Oxford. The stairs were pretty steep and narrow... and yea... I was pretty out of shape... =P.

The Radcliffe Camera

St. Mary's University Church

Panoramic view 1

Panaromic View 2

Finally we ended our trip at Christ Church Cathederal, one of the film locations of the Harry Potter series, located near the river Thames. We didn't go in the cathedral though. (As u all can see I'm getting lazy to describe stuff... so since a picture paints a thousand words... nah...)

Christ Church Cathedral