Mermaid Quay & St. Fagans Museum @ Wales Attractions

This is my 2nd and final post for Wales as it was a short but eye opening trip for me. It was my dream to see, feel and breathe the Welsh air besides drinking the pure sweet mineral water in Wales. I also had the chance to hear the Welsh dialect slangs in between the English being spoken by the staff at the Holiday Inn Cardiff and a restaurant. The 2 full days were not enough and I would love to return to Wales and explore other exotic places.

We stayed at Holiday Inn because of its central location within minutes walk to the Railway Station, Cardiff Stadium and the historical Castle. This is the best hotel for its location and very fabulous breakfast buffet spread that earned so many 5 Star ratings by the hotel guests. Sedap giler! Sorry no photos.

This Cardiff Stadium is famous for their rugby matches which has the biggest sports followers here.

I love the river banks of the stadium that overlooks the traditional Welsh homes. I was told that many foreign immigrants live there.

This red bus is so eye catching with their Welsh Dragon icon.

This is the traditional Welsh Cakes. It was freshly baked and so nice to eat them right away. The taste was familiar and reminded me of the English Scones. So this Welsh Cakes are just like smashed to flatten scones. Perfect to enjoy with coffee!

At night fall, my friend Yvonne from Swansea kindly drove us around the small city to look see. I love their neat and spacious looking city with a Mermaid Quay like an ocean front with lots of seagulls. The above is a prominent landmark called the Pierhead Building. It was built in the year 1897 with a clock tower that looks like The Big Ben in London. So it has been nicknamed the "Baby Big Ben" of Wales and it belongs to the National Assembly of Wales.

This is a unique and contemporary architecture which is the National Assembly Of Wales and it overlooks the panoramic Mermaid Quay and the Pierhead Building. In our native country, we would call this a State Assembly or Parliament. 

That night we walked around the whole Mermaid Quay to look for a place to have dinner. It was quite happening place and offers many culinary choices to pick. It reminds me of the famous Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco due to the sea frontage and wooden platforms with hundreds of big white birds gawking away. Finally we decided to eat at The Dock. The food was fabulous and we ordered few jugs of free mineral water that was served right from their clean taps! Their drinking water is very clean and has natural sweetness which was our first time trying after hearing Yvonne's bragging. Princess Diana of Wales had drank it, so have I. Please do so when you visit Wales someday.

Yvonne knows that I love to see anything very old, spooky and ancient. So she drove us to this ancient St. Fagans National Museum of History. It was an eye opener to see this unusual museum that was scattered across a huge piece of castle land donated by The Earl of Plymouth in the year 1946. It shows how the lives of the ancient Welsh and their native farmers were like.

It was cold, dark and almost closing time, so we had to hurry our visit to this museum and chose to see the ancient houses and farms instead.

The sheep and cows ran away when they saw a Chinese man armed with his mobile phone! I had a good laugh!

This is the interior of the old house. It was so eerie with so many shadows creeping all over the place. It made my hair stood up on its ends to see the rocking chair started to rock slowly by itself! 

I wish I could chop logs for the fireplace like how the Welsh do.

 

The cows and I.

I nearly dropped dead when I saw this flyer at the lobby of the hotel. It confirmed my fears when I saw so many shadows and figures walking all over the places. Now they even offer guided tours to scare the wits out of you. The flyer shares the same photos of mine too!!! Wooohoooo!!

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