Spoonful of Sugar: All England 2014 FINALS!

Assalamu'alaikum and a good day readers!

Last weekend, I went to Birmingham with my bestie to watch the All England Badminton Finals!!!

We were so excited for this trip. We had bought the tix a month in advance. Especially that this trip was right after our final exam, so it was like a celebration for completing the exam (eventhough i didn't do very well..wuwuwuwu..)

We took a 1am bus, because we missed our 5pm bus (the one that we bought earlier), and arrived at Birmingham around 4am. At first I thought we were going to stop at a proper bus stop so that we can perform our Subuh prayer and can just wait until the train is up and about. But, the bus stop is just a crummy pole, at the side of the road!!

So my brilliant mind came to work, to look around for a proper place to sit and wait. But at this hour, the drunks are everywhere..so you can imagine how terrified we were being two gals in the city at that hour. Then, my friend suggested that we just go to the house that we're staying. It was quite far from the city, so we took a cab.

The cab stopped in front of us without us having to hail it (maybe he saw our worried face). The driver is a Muslim btw...our knight in shining armor......

It took about 15 minutes drive to go to the house. Then...something else happenned. My bestie tried calling her friend for so many times but no one answered. We assumed she must've left her phone in silent mode. During this time, the cab waited! He was worried to left us alone outside. huhuhu...

After some time, we just told the cab to go, it wasn't fair for him to wait for so long. Tired of waiting, I searched for a nearby mosque, luckily there's one located 18 minutes walking distance. So we walked, saw a few drunks flipping over the trash bins, we just avoided shady alleys and people. We only knew the next morning that there were a robbery case a few days ago. Alhamdulillah, nothing happened to us.

We finally arrived at the mosque, it was locked. At that time, it was almost 5am. Subuh is around 4.40am, supposedly the Imam should've opened the mosque by now.

The imam's house was just at the back of the mosque (luckily), so we knocked (after waited until 5am) and asked him to open the mosque for us. After our prayer, our friend called...maybe she woke up for her prayer and saw the many missed calls. (-_-")

This is our friends' house.

The All England match start at 11.30am, so we snoozed for a while before going to the stadium. The match was held at the National Indoor Arena (NIA), Birmingham. From our friend's house, we had to walk a bit to the train station (Selly Oak) and took a train to New Street. It costs 2.20 GBP for a round trip.

At New Street, we met up with some friends from Sheffield who's going to the game as well.

This building kind of looks like Pertama complex..=P

We passed by some amazing scenery including this library. It was told to be the second most expensive library ever build in Europe.

The building on the left is the library. It is the most expensive library ever build in Europe.

At the NIA, we met with a lot of Malaysian that came to support our National Hero, Dato' Lee Chong Wei.

Recognize the one in the middle?

That's Awal Ashaari, our local celebrity and his wife who were also among the supporters.

Our tix!

We rushed to get to our seats. Sadly, our seat were located at the very top of the stadium. It was great for live viewing, but not for taking pictures. Most of the people in that stadium were Malaysians or Malaysian supporters. You can tell when it is time for LCW match against Chen Long from China. The energy in the NIA shifted from soft to ecstatic.

LCW won by 21-13, 21-18. It was one of the best experiences in my life...to see his last performance in All England.

Congratulations Dato' LCW!

We had the chance to be in Astro Arena, congratulating LCW, but I couldn't find the video...huhu..

We didn't wait until the game finishes. There's one more mixed double match at the end, but we didn't stay because we were starving. Before we hunt for food, a must have photoshoot...hihi...

After the game..we went around the city to grab some food. We found this All you can eat joint for only 5pounds!!

After stuffing our faces, we went for a walk. Our Sheffield friends will be returning at 10.55pm. Around 8, we went home..and collapse. =P

The next day, before going back to London, we followed our friends to their university. It's very near to their house, just 20 minutes walking distance.