I am playing catch up a bit with my blog. I guess the idea that I am leaving UK in less than a week has spurred me on to be up to date.

The reason I went to Liverpool was to have a visa interview. But as I no longer qualified for the visa and could not get a refund on the air tickets and accommodation, I went anyway. You would have read about the stop over in Dublin. The nature of cheap Ryanair flights, all stop overs are in Ireland. Anyway I had 2 nights in Liverpool.

I landed quite late from Ireland, so the first night was really just a wild taxi ride to my hotel from the airport (John Lennon Airport). Liverpool is obsessed with football (soccer) and the taxi driver had his ipad on the seat next to him and was watching the game while driving me. So a high adventure taxi ride. Note to self, arrive in Liverpool when the team are NOT playing a game. My hotel was a series of Georgian terraces that had the internal walls knocked through in places. So the directions from the reception to my room were:

1) through the first 3 doors and a quick left and right down a corridor to the Nautical wing. Then go round to the right and down the stairs on your left and through the door at the bottom and look for N2.

This was one long instruction that came out of the mouth of a Liverpudlian. What I heard was.

1a) thoooo da fooost 3 doors right, rund the cooornooor n dow da stairs etc Ringo Star George Harrison blah blah John Lennon I am the walrus n it was all Yoko's fooorlt yellow submarine.

I got lost, tried to go in Suite 2 and had to back track to reception for the one on one guided tour to my room. My corridor was decorated with Titanic pictures. I was getting a sinking feeling about my room. But it was a nice room, though small with 2 single beds pushed together to make a mahoussive uber double. So after a brief adjustment to the heater I got a pleasant environment and slept.

So Friday was my day to explore Liverpool. I was determined to find more to this city than the Beatles and Anfield (for regular un-obsessed people, Anfield in the name of the Liverpool FC ground) For the record I did not visit it. So first stop after breakfast was the Albert Docks. Here I saw the Billy Fury statue and the Echo and the Bunnymen dedicated sculpture cow. Cool 2 bands, a rabbit and a cow and no Beatles, I am on my way. First touristy activity was to catch a 'Ferry cross the Mersey' as a pilgrimage to Gerry and the Pacemakers. And this was really fun and cold. I only went across to the first stop and back. This stop was an industrial part of the Everton side of the river. Also an uninteresting soccer reference which I paid little attention to. Even the ferryman said there was nothing to see and I may as well stay on and go back to Mersey side. This I did and got some great photos of the Liverpool river front and the world heritage buildings.

Having covered 3 bands and no Beatles, the draw of Mathew Street and the Cavern Quarter was too great. However this is a very small part of town and I followed all the signs and manage to walk around it twice before I found it. It really is an over promoted single street in a sleazy part of town. But I had a coffee in the Cafe 31 which is dedicated entirely to the Beatles. Funny though I walked in and they were playing a Bowie album, very cool I thought.

I briefly looked at the souvenir shop under the cafe and decided that there was a plethora of tack-a-rama that I decided did not reflect the Beatles for me. So I took a photo of myself on Mathew street and went to the centre of town to look around the Radio City area. And then it started snowing. This topped off my day so far and I enjoyed strolling along the Liverpool high street in the snow.

I made my way back to the hotel and asked the reception guy to recommend a good Thai restaurant for dinner. He was new to Liverpool so Googled trip adviser that suggested a restaurant in the Liverpool One complex. A modern shopping centre built by the Duke of Westminster. Obviously he is rich enough to build a modern shopping centre for himself. But the restaurant was fantastic and the food superb. I had vegetable tempura, but rather than dipping each piece in batter they were cut into circles and skewered and the whole skewer was dipped and fried. Really interesting way to present tempura and really delicious. Followed by a vegetarian massaman curry, a couple of glasses of red and walked away very satisfied. Also the decor of the restaurant was brilliant with table lamps hanging upside from the ceiling.

I stayed in town into the evening just enjoying the atmosphere of Liverpool. But eventually headed to my hotel for some sleep and pack ready for the last stage of this mini break adventure, which was to the Isle of Man. So I spent the morning strolling around taking a few more photos of interesting buildings and off to the airport, past the yellow Submarine, bought a Yellow Submarine Tshirt and checked onto a large empty plane (21 passengers) to the Isle of Man.