chalknchowder: Brighton - Sunset and Pebbles

The weekend following Oxford saw me heading down South to Brighton - a coastal place known for being pretty in summer. I'd had my reservations because of what ppl were saying, but it turned out that it's not so bad in the autumn after all.

Cheap train tickets (£10.40) meant leaving early and returning late. Hence, I was up before light and on my way to South Ken station at 6:45am. When it's that early on a Saturday morning, you get a really different view of the station underpass compared to normal.

Felt like a zombie RPG.

Brighton itself was at first a rather sleepy place, but that's our fault for going too early. Shops don't open till 10 plus and so we hobo-ed around till then, taking some time to stroll in a loop around the neighbourhood and even go into a playground for some childhood fun. [This playground really reminded me of the one at Pasir Ris Park. The one I used to play in, with the spiderweb (a much smaller version here) and the wooden shaky bridge, which are both long gone now.]

10am. Shop opening time! And we were right in saying that here, 10am open really means "set up shop at 10am", not "prepare to receive customers by 10am". But differences aside, at least the shops were finally open, and first up, Open Market, where I found myself being extremely tempted by quite a few finger foods. [Having bfast early also means getting hungry early.] Bought some cheap flavoured cheese in the end, while D left with a bag of 10 pork pastries (which we all got to pinch ^^).

Trombone squash that got tired trying to climb out and simply ended up hanging there.

It was raining on and off throughout the day, but it was heaviest when we were walking through Brighton's North Laine (I think), so we took shelter in a small shop with a turnstile entrance. Only it wasn't a small shop - turn a corner and the shop actually spread across a few lots, and even had a second level. Talk about a deceiving front, but we happily browsed all round the second-hand everything-also-have shop until the cloud went away.

Good for browsing without objective.

When the skies finally cleared, we headed to seafront where we ended up spending the rest of the day (or should I say daylight). In the UK, the sea is a rare sight unless you live in a coastal town, so this was a treat:

After we were done behaving like tourists, all it took was a short stroll for us to arrive at Brighton Pier. For description purposes, it's like a giant jetty loaded with many recurring fish n chips and waffle/crepe stalls, and oh, an amusement park right at the end. I think we were dying of hunger by then, so we simply walked up to a random fish n chips stall and ordered. Three of us were happy with our scampi/cod n chips, but poor D's adventurous mindset left him with a rather pathetic meal. None of us knew what a saveloy was (in defense, it does sound like a species of fish), but he ordered one anyway, without chips. Turns out that a saveloy is a single, thin, slightly-long sausage.

With lunch done (after much donation of chips), we took a walk around the amusement park and it brought to memory the Escape theme park. [I'd only ever been there once when I was 7, weird since I lived so near... But it closed before I was old enough to drive the karts on my own - which I'd been wanting to do since my only visit there :(]

Fast forward a little and we were ducking for cover again in a fishing museum. It's a good thing that the heaviest rain comes in spurts here, and we were out on the beach again in no time. The beach is pebbly! Having never been on a pebble beach before, the sensation of walking on the beach was a bit strange. At least the shoes didn't get any granular intruders. Ah, and being on a beach where everyone was in jackets and long pants was weird too. Disregarding that, there were many nice photos to be taken coz the sky was such an amazing blue! We all were commenting on how the colours look better in the photos than in real life hahaha.

Trudging along on the pebbles got a bit tiring, so we retreated to the pavement and continued walking parallel to the sea. Some 30 mins later we arrived at the colourful houses (actually I think they're more like storerooms for equipment) that C had been looking for. They were cute. And I think no two houses were the same colour.

Despite being only about 4pm at that time, the sun was due to set soon, and the crepuscular rays were about to show. [We'd had quite a nerdy discussion on that thanks to D.] It was quite a nice end to the day, with four of us squeezed onto a bench facing the sea, watching the sun get engulfed by the clouds. There were no break in the clouds for the anticrepuscular rays to be visible, so we headed back the way we came from, for dinner (so cheap and filling compared to London!) and the train back.