Historic Town, Bury St. Edmunds

Last Sunday I visited Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, next to Cambridgeshire.
It takes just over 30 minutes by car from Cambridge, and this town has quite a distinctive atmosphere. The famous spots in this town are the ruins of the old abbey, the cathedral, the smallest pub in the UK, the sugar factory etc.

In the abbey, which remains as the ruins now, nobles and barons had meetings to create the draft of Britain's first legal charter 'Magna Carta' (also called Great Charter of Freedoms) in 1214, then Magna Carta was officially issued in 1215. The reason the nobles and barons made this was because they were fed up with King John and they tried to obtain some rights from him to secure human rights of people.

Although unlike many other countries there is no written constitution in the UK until today and they use many institutions, conventions and traditions to manage the country, I think Magna Carta is a sort of constitution.

the stela that mentions nobles and barons gathered near here to create 'Magna Carta'

Anyway, the ruins of the abbey are now just sticking out of the ground, which is quite a strange scenery I feel, but there still is a sacred atmosphere.

the ruins of the Abbey

The cathedral is also famous. There is a nice garden behind the cathedral, and it is full of flowers in spring. Just beautiful.

(this photo is from Wikipedia)

Also you have to visit the smallest pub in England, called 'The Nutshell'. This pub is really really tiny and if there are 10 customers in the pub it's absolutely overcrowded. There are notes from many countries stuck on the ceiling, as well as a mummy of a 400 year-old cat! Must-see.

the smallest pub in the UK, the Nutshell

the mummy of a cat!

This lovely town has a market as well, where many different kind of food, fabrics, daily needs are sold. The market in Cambridge is nice, but one in Bury is also attractive.

So, now you want to visit this town? If you visit Cambridge, I recommend you visit these kind of small towns such as Ely and Bury St. Edmunds as well. Feel the air of old historic town!

Valentine's Day Cake

Tomorrow is St.Valentine's Day. Each year I give some present to my partner, and this year I prepared tickets for a comedy show. Then, I stupidly put them on the bookshelf and my partner noticed and looked at them, finding out those were the Valentine present for him...grrrrr....

Anyway, on Valentine's day people give chocolate to their lover as well as a card and a gift or flowers. So, I baked a chocolate cake this year.

The chocolate I used for the cake is Terry's Orange Chocolate, which is quite popular in the UK.
I don't have a sweet tooth and am not a huge fan of chocolate, but if I was allowed to eat only one chocolate in my life, I would choose this Terry's one. It's orange flavoured and really refreshing, in spite of its sweetness.

I tried a bit of this cake after it's done... Really soft inside and well-orange-flavoured....my goodness, this is yummy......I am almost tempted to eat it right away...No, not now! I told myself. Wait until tomorrow...Well, the cake is not for myself anyway...lol.

Every year my partner gives me some flowers and a box of chocolates, and we go to some restaurant for dinner. I don't know what happens this year. Might be a drinking night after seeing the comedy show in town tonight, then we may suffer from a heavy hangover all day tomorrow. What a fantastic Valentine's day it would be...ha ha ha. Let's keep fingers crossed, please, I don't want a hangover Valentine's day!

Photos of London

I went to London with my partner last Sunday, taking his colleague from India who came to the UK for the first time. We walked around the main tourist attractions. Although I've been there several times, I found these places were still really nice to visit and the view of London was absolutely stunning.

Piccadilly Circus

My favourite Dali's sculpture and Big Ben

The Statue of Eros

China Town

Street signs

The Tower Bridge in the evening time

It takes only 45 minutes from Cambridge to the outskirts of London by car. I thought I would go to London more often and find more of this city's beauty...

Cambridge in Snow

It's snowing quite hard in Cambridge today. When I got up this morning, my partner told me to look out of the window. Yes, I jumped like a small child to see the white world.


Cambridge is located in East Anglia in England, where the climate is fairly nice, and it's rare that this city is covered with snow. It snows about once a year, but not so heavily. Today, the fresh snow on the ground is 10 centimeter deep, which means it's 'heavy snow' for us...maybe people in the continents that have lots of snow will laugh at it though...


Of course I made a snowman (well actually a snow cat...)! When I walked into town, many children are playing in the fields as well. Great day for kids and dogs. The old architectures in this university town have got an unusual visage too, wearing a pure white make-up.

Only once a year... what a precious day!