1999年のお正月休みにLiverpoolに行った時の記録を、2016年6月7日に再掲した記事です。
This is my trip memories in Liverpool in 1998/99.
Breakfast of YMCA was a traditional British food. Baked beans, fried eggs, hashed potato, toast, flakes and a cup of tea with milk. There were some people eating already. Though this is a Young Man's house, almost of theirs were elder.
After a breakfast, I had a booking for a stadium tour of Anfield by phone. I wore reds kit today and went to Anfield by bus. Taking a bus in foreign country was a little bit adventure for me. I didn't know which bus would go to the place, how to pay and how to drop off etc. I asked a driver to let me know if the bus went to Anfield. But it was obvious I didn't need to ask. The bus went just in front of the stadium.
The tour would start noon and it's ten past eleven. So I went to museum before the tour. I'd ever seen an imitation Kop stand at the Museum of Liverpool Life before and I could seen it here again. I wonder LFC was the first club in England to wear the sponsor's name on its shirt and this first sponsor was the company I am employed, Hitachi.
At noon, the stadium tour took me and other tourists a changing room at first.
There're players' shirts on the wall.
Some were short sleeve and some were long. Next, we're going to the pitch. We could hear a voice of supporter from a speaker on a wall, it made us like a player. So we passed a tunnel under the "This is Anfield" sign.
The pitch was great. A distance between pitch and stand was very closer than Japanese football stadium. There were no player or other supporter in the stadium without us so I imagined how wonderful if the stand was full and Michael Owen got a goal! I felt lonely yesterday but now I never walk alone.
Let's go to the pich with me.
After tour was a little bit bitter. When I went to the stadium shop, it was already closed today. I missed to get reds scarf.
Going back to City Centre, saw Super Lamb Banana again in daytime, I had a fish and chips.
This was another British food I hoped to taste. Then I back to YMCA and phoned to Evelyn Roberts in Hunts Cross, an old friend of Melbourne Scouser Pam's mom. I tried to explain I am Japanese and a friend of Pam who said to me to say hello to her when I would visit Liverpool but she seemed hard to understand why I rung her. Cos me and Pam made a friendship but never met each other! This made her confused. I'm sorry Evelyn! I hoped to visit her but she said she couldn't invite me. I knew I'm a surprise guest and it's New Years day tomorrow. See ya someday. And thanks Pam for introducing her to me.
It's still mid afternoon. I went out again to riverside through city centre's shopping area. The Liver Building and the Liverbird was awful beautiful.
I walked along the river Mersey from the Titanic plaque to Maritime museum.
In Maritime museum, I saw the Titanic room and a life jacket which was donated by another Scouser mail friend Tom Miller's relative.
Town hall and Liver Building 1
Town hall and Liver Building 2
Town hall
Liver Building 1
Liver Building 2
Me and Liver Building
Dreaming night on Liver Building
After a short time rest in YMCA, I was waiting for Lynn to come. Meeting time was 8 pm but she didn't come soon. I had a phone from her to delay and was said it'd be 9 pm.
What a surprise, a person who picked me up was not only Lynn but Mike. I was happy I could meet Mike again. Then we went to Birkenhead cross under the river Mersey. At a pub somewhere in Birkenhead, there were Peter, a friend of Lynn and Mike. We had a chat with beer at the pub and waited for New Year to come. Peter told me a story about Paul McCartney. He was a classical piano player and learned from a teacher in Birkenhead who taught a piano to Linda McCartney. There was an another student of the teacher and a student was a great Beatles fan like me. One day, Paul came to pick Linda up and knock on her door. But the door he knocked was not the Linda's but a Beatles fan's. A student jumped and hugged to this surprise guest for a long time. What a funny story and hope this luck would come to me! When the New Year had been coming, we all in the pub went outside and celebrated each other. It was a great pleasure for me to spend this time in Merseyside.
New Year's Card from me, Lynn and Mike.
We heard the closing bell rung, so we moved to Peter's house and drunk another glass of wine. After that, I got too much drunken to go back to YMCA. Me, Lynn and Mike went to their Birkenhead house to got a bed.