my train was scheduled at 7.18am on Friday morning, i woke up at 5am, got myself down at the bus-stop by 6am, only to discover that the first bus arrives only at 6.40am. so i stood there in the cold and snow.

my dad asked why i didn't take any pictures of the snow (i was too cold) a few nights ago and here's something to make up for it. the streets were still quiet in the morning, but an old man yelled out 'good morning!' while he was walking his dog.

we had to abandon our plans for sightseeing, given the snow/rain/looming clouds. we had to shop. we went to the two major shopping centers at Oxford - Westgate and Claredon, but nothing special, the shops are about the same as those in Newcastle. i managed to get a really funky and colourful top for 5 pounds from a corner shop along the street. the shop actually has pretty good clothing, i really liked how vibrant their collection was but the sale it was having - was a closing down sale. sigh. (and i look really tired out from my train journey)

Covered Market - we thought it would be huge but it wasn't. we saw seafood (lobsters, crabs, mussels, clams, fish!) and it was tempting - but of course, the steep prices managed to effectively put us off.

i think yiyu will be devastated when she sees this picture - dead rabbits hanging from a bar. i was disgusted myself when i saw this. but i dont think i've tasted rabbits, yet.

The Cake Shop at the Covered Market has fantastically decorated cakes and we were amazed by the intricacy of the wedding cakes. the more amazing photos are with dawen, i will update accordingly when i receive the photos. meanwhile, visit the website above to have a look!

on yd's recommendation, we tried Ben's Cookies. we had the white chocolate one, and went back for another peanut butter cookie. the soft cookies were heavenly, and the white chocolate practically melted in our mouth. sigh. this is much better than Famous Amos.

this cute little dog had all the girls going 'awwww' each time they saw him. dawen feed him some cookie crumbs and the cute little thing actually wagged its tail vigorously after that! :D

we tried to do some sightseeing after that. but after after walking for only 10 minutes, our feet and hands went numb, so we gave up. but, this is Oxford's take on the Bridge of Sighs.

we walked all the way to Cowley Road, where dawen checked out his JorDunks, hemmed and hawed over whether to buy them, before we finally left the shop (without any purchase) and looked for dinner. we originally wanted to have dinner at Il Principle (an Italian place recommended for its good pasta and pizza) but we soon discovered that it only served takeaways. so we settled down at AK City and had king prawns fried with garlic and salt...

...and chicken with cambodian spices. yum. we had to compromise a little on food - during the week dawen dines mostly on English food from his catered hall, while i normally cook Chinese with Michelia. so we resolved our differences by agreeing to have at least one Chinese/Western meal every weekend.

we were supposed to go the Oxford University of Museum of Natural History & Pitt Rivers Museum, but they were not open for another 30 minutes so we decided to walk to Holywell Street to check out the restaurants for lunch. having read the rave reviews about Edamame online, we were curious...how would it compared to Wasabi Tei back home?

we originally wanted to dine at the restaurant for dinner, but we couldn't resist the cheaper (and more scrumptious) lunch menu. this is dawen's karage chicken.

and my 'very fresh sashimi' (as according to the menu). ahhhhhhhhhh, the salmon was so good, it practically melted in my mouth. the wasabi here seems to have been tampered with though, haha.

right, with our stomachs satisfied, we returned to the museums.

we had a lot of fun looking at the exhibits (clumsy me accidentally hit the dinosaur display with my handbag, and it swayed dangerously),

trying to take funny pictures (dw made me do this),

and touching the exhibits. its really a kid-friendly museum, a lot of displays had the 'please touch' sign! and CS Lewis used to look at the dodo birds exhibits with Alice, right here at this museum.

next up, the Bodleian Library. we had to pay to tour the library properly, so we didn't, and looked at the free exhibition instead.

what i enjoyed most was this small space dedicated to Harold Macmillan, and the witty letter that Eisenhower wrote to him.

the colleges look beautiful, don't they?

but unfortunately, this was often how we viewed them, behind the gates. :(

Christ Church, where CS Lewis stayed (the long queue of tourists waiting to pay to get in),

and Alice's Shop, now filled with Alice paraphernalia but previously where the real Alice used to visit.

it was the Modern Art museum next, but they only had one exhibition on show, the museum was installing the others. and we had, pretty much, nothing to do from then on. sigh.

we had an early dinner at Posh Fish (again, another web recommendation) - easily the best fish & chips we tried here, given that the previous two were extremely lousy and the portion was huge. we should have just ordered one.

we returned to our hostel early, and had a really long chat with this couple we met - Patricia from Lyon (France) and Jens from Hamburg (Germany). they're moving to Oxford to look for jobs, and to improve their english at the same time. midway through our chat, we took a peep at the club opposite and there were people queueing up, in the cold to get in. hur.