The bus was 10 minutes late (runs every hour or longer), quite a few were waiting when I arrived. I got off at the airport luggage area. This bus (124) doesn't go to the airport when the lightrail runs.
At SeaTac airport, no one was working at any counters before 4am.
At the baggage drop-off counter, the employee insisted to put the tag on my pack itself, so he put my pack into a huge airport plastic bag. That's nice.
At SFO, I had a lot of time to kill before my next connection to Heathrow around noon. Read a bit of my Kindle. My friend P.S. arrived around 10. The flight to London was uneventful. I only managed to nap for a couple of hours.
5/21 Sun. landed at Heathrow ~6:40am.
Walked to the bus station in the next building. The on-site ticket vending machines are all for National Express Bus. The 2 machines of Megabus were in a rebooting mode. Checked with an airport employee there. Had to buy online. There is free WiFi at the bus station, so it was easy. The Mega Bus to Cardiff at 8:5am5 is the fastest and cheapest. There is a National Express Bus leaving at 8am, but it would arrive around the same time.
Arrived at Cardiff, the capital of Wales, around 11:30. Dropped off our backpacks at Sandringham Hotel (£50x2). According to the hotel, it is the only locally owned hotel in the city center. Every one there is super nice and local. It's cheap, centrally located, and has 2 beds. Highly recommend it.
Walked to Bute Park. It is nice with manicured lawn and a fake stone circle, plenty of flowers blooming. There's River Taff, where people row their kayak, and there's supposed to be a cruise, but we only saw the advertisement, no the actual boat. Water is very shallow. It's a bit brown. Saw some browner fish swimming. There's a plant sale at the nursery. Outside in the park, no labels for the plants.
We circled back to town center through the compound of Cardiff Castle (walled in).
A large red dragon,
a small castle ruin atop a mount surrounded by a moat,
a large old stately building, a bell-tower.
£14 to get inside these buildings.
The rampart south of the castle has different animal every few feet: Animal Wall.
It is lit at night, but the doors are closed, so you cannot go inside of the walls.
Bought some apricots and grapefruit from a fruit stand, very cheap. Washed them in the hotel. Went to the big lawn in front of the city hall to have an early picnic dinner. Took an easy day, walked around quite a bit to stay awake. We should have checked out national museum of Cardiff. It's closed on Mondays.
Around 9:30pm, I walked around downtown to see the city in lights.
Not very busy. Not a lot of lights, nor people.
PS retired for the day.
5/22 Monday
Went to the city market at 8 when it just opened. Almost no activity. Very disappointed.
The hotel guy said they are usually ready at 9.
The lady said I need to try their freshly made Welsh Cake.
(recipe).
So we went back at 9. Still disappointingly empty.
PS bought a sandwich. I bought 2 Welsh Cakes with current (the traditional one) to try.
They were still warm. Not too sweet, between cake and biscuit. Good.
We decided to venture out of the town to St Fagans National Museum of History, recommended by the hotel guy. I didn't like the idea, but ended up enjoying it very much. At the bus stop of 32, we met an employee of the Roman site in Newport here for a training at St Fagans. He told us an outdated information on bus 32A, which never came. So we all wasted an hour. While waiting for the next bus 32, PS and I went to check out the train station for tomorrow.
Bought a day pass from the bus driver (same price as 2 trips).
Bus 32 dropped us off right in front of the main entrance to the museum.
They unrooted many old houses (as old as 15th century) all over Wales and reconstructed them here.
Each one has an interpreter to answer questions.
I asked many stupid questions.
Some highlights are:- Braided straw mat for the ceiling in one house. We were told that only 2 places now in the world can make these mats.
- A cock-fighting ring (see the photo above).
- iron age round house (two adjourning houses), whose wall and roof were made to our modern speculation.
- An 18th century Union hall (coal mining). Completed with a library, a theatre. Apparently a lot of money. We were told that they raised a loan to pay off the construction and finished paying back the loans only a couple of years before all was nationalized.
- Prince court. Nicely painted. Very high ceiling.
- A church before reformation
- Talked to a 54 year old employee. He was thinking of going part-time when he turns 55, some special pension scheme.
- A group of old ladies making rug mats. One of them is from Tacoma!
- black tall hats of the traditional outfit. Very tall. Both men and wemen.
.jpg)
Next to the compound is a castle. Not terribly old. It has leaking roofs, so the upstairs were closed. Will cost 10s of millions to fix.
Very nice ground with a long pool.
Took bus 32 at 2:30 to come back. The large parking lot has little shade.
Got off in Llandaff and walked 15 minutes to visit the cathedral. Not bad.
Next to the cathedral, part of the cathedral school, we saw this sign: Roald Dahl was a pupil here.
This delighted PS. Years ago, he read Dahl's books to his kids.
Back in Cardiff, we took a different bus to the waterfront, about 1-2 miles south. More modern.
I especially like the open Parliment Building. Soaring ceiling.
My second favorite is an old one: Pierhead Building of the railway. The red stands out.
We walked around the bay.
A patch of nice flowers, and this giant cement book of Dahl.
A lot of restaurants and houses. Seems more people than the actual downtown.
We didn't stay long. PS had a dinner date with a friend he met last year on his walk of Camino de Santiago. I bought some food from local grocery store and ate in the hotel. We'll start our hike tomorrow.
