Sheffield, UK

Prior to my study camp in Denmark, I spent 3 days in UK – 2 days in Sheffield and 1 day in London. My experience with Heathrow airport is not pleasant. The plane took an hour to land after arriving at the airport. Queues at the immigration were extremely long. The officers there asked a lot of questions and it took approximately 20 minutes. No wonder people estimated 2 hours just to get out of the airport.

After collecting my luggage, I headed to Victoria Coach Station via tube. In the train, spaces between the seats are very narrow and the ceilings are low. There were no air-conditioned and the windows are slightly opened. There were free newspapers (Metro) on the seats for reading. As it was busy hours, the train was packed. The lights went off at times and it seems to be a norm. I was rather surprised to see a lot of Punjabis, Indians and Africans in the train as I have the impression that a lot of British are pure English.

As I go out of the train and headed towards the tube exit, my first impression was “oh my god!”. There are so many staircases! I was lucky to have met some helpful young chap. They offered to carry my 16kg luggage up the staircases and I was really grateful.

Please note that the Victoria Station is different from Victoria Coach Station. Victoria Coach Station is for express bus and some airport concept applies. There is an information center for enquiries. Depending on your bus schedule, you will need to take the bus from the respective gate. The difference is, there are plenty of gates and they are allocated near to each other. The station is crowded most of the time. Instead of people going around shouting as the bus arrives, there is a flat panel television at each gate, displaying the bus arrival time, bus company, destinations and status (e.g. boarding). Details of the next few buses will be shown as well. If you are hungry and looking for something to eat - no worries! There are plenty of small shops in the station selling sandwiches, snacks, drinks and newspapers.


The bus that I took is Megabus, heading to Meadowhall Station in Sheffield. The express bus there is not as comfortable as the one in Malaysia. There are 4 seats in a row and the seat is hardly moveable. I was very tired as I got there but happy to see Jimmy, my long lost friend. Jimmy will be my tour guide for my 3 days stay in UK and he did a very good job. I would like to compliment him for his helpfulness, flexibility and map reading skills. In addition, I have met a number of nice people in Sheffield and they made my stay in Sheffield memorable.

Unlike London which is very busy, Sheffield is less crowded and more relax. Finding a Malaysian and kebab shop there is very easy. According to Jimmy, Sheffield is an industrial city and land of origin for stainless steel.

What’s nice in Sheffield? The people, the food and the place. There are many churches around the city and many of them are abandoned. Yet, they look marvelous to me from the outside. Many old buildings here have been converted to pubs, restaurants and even lecture halls! It will be hard to imagine having classes in a church.


Shopping in Morrison is a good experience. There are so many varieties for juices, desserts, cookies, fruits etc and the price is reasonable and comparatively cheap for certain items. My favourite would be the strawberries, blueberries and raspberry cheese cakes. We got it at around 1-2 GBP per item. According to Jimmy, the older people in Sheffield like to address people by “love”. But, I did not manage to catch that word in their conversations as they talk very fast.

Peak District is a place not to be missed if you are visiting Sheffield. Well, it’s not exactly in Sheffield but nearby. It is the first national park in the British Isles and covered quite a huge area, including counties of Lancashire, Great Manchester, Cheshire, Staffordshire, South and West Yorkshire. The place that I visited in Peak District is Castleton. It’s a beautiful, clean and quiet small town with lots of greeneries. The air is very fresh and the water is crystal clear. People there are very nice. They would smile and greet at you even though they don’t know you. I was excited to see the sheeps/lambs. They are so cute and fluffy.

P/s: Please check my FB for more pics.