Oxford

I went to Oxford over the weekend and I met KJ! Yea, it’s like 1 month since we’ve last seen each other, and it’s really great to meet somebody that you’ve known for so long in a foreign land.

Well, I will say Oxford is really old. When you are walking around, visiting all the colleges, you can really feel that you are walking on grounds that are like 700 years old at least? Of course some are even older, since Oxford has been in existence for over a thousand years! Yupz, and we even saw a 1000 year old church!

Harris Manchester - KJ's college

Hmmm, Oxford is like super big compared to Cambridge! However, I think that their colleges’ grounds are relatively smaller, and seemed to be much more unfriendly too as their gates are like always shut. According to the guide, the origins of the college system was to ensure that the students do not have any brawls with the rest of the towns folk, thus ensuring that there will be less blood shed. There was even a period of time which students of the university was killed by the townsmen! Hmm, it does makes me wonder whether Cambridge college system had that objective in mind, but our gates are like so much friendlier!

Hertford College Above

Main court of Christ Church college

Well, the most amazing college I’ve been to in Oxford is Christchurch college. It was truly lovely and huge! Ok, it’s like the size of Trinity in Cambridge, and they had a really nice cathedral! But the dining hall was what impressed me the most – yupz, they filmed Harry Potter there! I was really shocked to see the college having guided tours of its dining hall! Hmmm, I don’t think any other college around the world can lay claim to having that.

Christ Church Cathedral

Harry Potter's Dining Hall

Oh, the other impressive college in Oxford is Magdalene (pronounced Maudlin, same for the Magdalene in Cambridge) college. It has its very own deer park! A pity that I couldn’t go in and take a look as it was closed to visitors. Haiz.

I actually saw a protest in Oxford. It was a protest against the setting up of a animals testing laboratory being build right now. It was pretty interesting, for there were police officers mounted on horses (no kidding! On the main roads as well!), there were people carrying banners and stuff and passing pamphlets and of course tight security by the police to ensure that nothing goes out of hand. A pity that I was on the phone then trying to find Andrew if not I would have snapped photos of the protest!

On the whole, Oxford is really much more bustling than Cambridge. The McDonalds in Oxford was actually opened until midnight, unlike the one in Cambridge. Just a note, the Burger King in Cambridge closes super early, like roughly 1730? Yup, Cambridge is a really dead town especially after 8p.m. Maybe that’s why people just go pubbing or clubbing or worse come to worse, they mug…

All Souls' College - just for fellows

Radcliffe Camera - part of the Bodlian (University Library). Totally awesome right?