My first castle... and live soccer!

We arrived in Cardiff kinda early, and took a little walk from the railway station to our hotel for the night, The Big Sleep. It might just've been the streets that we were walking on, but, there certainly was a lot of dog poo on them. 

We headed out to the busier area of the city; popped by the tourist information centre and got us some useful brochures before making our way into Cardiff Castle. The entrance fee cost us 9pounds each; student concession rate. And we spent 2 hours or so roaming the castle grounds, snapping pictures and at the same time, trying to listen attentively to our audio guides.

#1 Norman Keep

#2 Castle Apartments

#3 a little closer...

#4 and guess who was there too

#5 bo liao things we did before making our way to the top :p

#6 stop. we reached the top.

#7 out-of-place

#8 up.

#9 picture

#10 tourist 1

#11 last look of the Keep.

The steps to the top of the Keep were high, and not only was it windy up there, the rooms were grey and bare. It didn't look like the most comfortable place to live in from what we saw; but according to the audio guide, the rooms were kept warm and insulated with the thickest of mattresses, blankets and crackling fires back in the olden days. The audio description sure sounded much more inviting than the actual view...

#12

#13

And that was just the first part of the roaming.

#14 West Gate? or was it North? or South? Heh can't remember...

#15 looming

#16 pose

#17 pose some more.

We went into the Victorian House/Castle Apartments (from the picture above), and looked at what the interior of it is like. There were a couple of rooms with very impressive styles, lots of stained windows, a 'fake' library, and... that's about it.

#18

#19

Oh and on a very random side note, did you know Cardiff's the 2nd largest city in England?

#20 dining room

After our castle walk, we got ourselves a sandwich each from Greggs, found a sunny spot in the park and settled our bums for a quick lunch. Over lunch, we noticed that nearly everyone around us were smoking; even the super old grannies.

Wandered around the city and we came across the Millennium Stadium. Once we were in, we headed straight for the field where all the action was going on. There was some sort of inter-school soccer competition going on and the place was filled with children who looked like anything from 7 to 12.

#21 Millennium Stadium

#22 friendly red-shirt boy

#23 is it going to be our turns soon?

The friendliest bunch of kids were waiting for their turns behind where we stood, so... 

#24 thumbs up!

#25 game for a picture anytime!

#26 had to ask for teacher's permission for this photo :x
ooh and the girl standing beside F very cute one; she said "sure, we are all very photogenic!" when we asked if we could take a picture together.

We were running out of places to go in the city, so we looked at some evolutionary exhibits and local art pieces at Cardiff's National Museum. I was kinda worried the whole time that I might just crash into some really expensive piece of painting in my clumsiness.

Had a cheap dinner at Burger King's, but not before we shopped at Primark and got ourselves a coat each for only 10 pounds!