Visit Birmingham on 3rd March 2012(Sat)

It was a wet day with temperature of 9C, we decided to visit Birmingham.

Birmingham is the 2nd largest city in England. Setting sat nav to B5 4BU, it brings you to the heart of the city center where the largest shopping mall-Bullring is. It took only 50 minutes drive.

We parked our car at Bullring center parking. Be remember to go there early. We reached about 11am, there were still plenty of lots, but if you are late, you would have to make a few rounds to all the 3 shopping center carparks as all full. Also, the mall will get crowded, squeezy with the growing crowd at a later time.

 

Bullring definitely provides us a good choice to shop. There are many choices to explore-Including Selfridges, Debenhams- The two large departmental store. We also found Nepresso boutique in Selfridges. It costs only 2.90 pound for 10 capsules. We bought 4 tubes. It was cheaper than bought in Singapore, which cost SGD9.90 for 10 capsules.

We started our day with homemade pie at "Urban Pie". Well, the pie was not fantastic, but it was the atmosphere. The sky became bright, and temperature had gone up higher, we sat at the open air. We ordered one chicken mushroom pie with peas & mash potato as side dishes, and enjoyed our cappucino. It was so relaxing just sitting down there, looking at the passer by...

 

After the coffee break, we move on to take on a stroll on the shopping streets (New streets) outside Bullring to the other end of the Town hall and Council house. Here you could discover many brand name boutiques such as-Hollister, H&M, Zara, Addidas and many others. Japenese brand -Muji is located along the street too.Not forgetting the arcade-Picadiliy Arcade offer a host of independent retailers, jewellers and hair and beauty stores.

 

Walking down to lower level, you get magnificent view of the church. And down there , there are more to offer. 

 

The Rag market - Whether running up a ball gown or saying ‘curtains’ to ready-made home furnishings, nowhere beats the Rag Market. Any colour. Any design. Any length. It’s a world all material girls truly love

 The bullring Market -The stallholders are selling cheap, fresh home grown vegetables and fruits. The supermarket price can never be comparable to the vegetables and fruits. For a big bunch of grapes, it sells only 1 pound.

 Further down to the street, you could get a decent size oriental mart. But to our surprise, the goods sold are similarly in quantities, varieties to the Oriental mart in Nottingham despite the space are much more roomy and more tidy. Despite that, we still got ourselves packets of "Bak Kut Teh" herb soup mix . These were much cheaper than the store in Nottingham, Glutinous rice ball pack and chinese cabbage.

We finished off the day with a take away pack of 5 freshly made "Krispy Kreme" doughnut, and filled our stomach with a delicious Japanese "Karage Curry Rice" and "Fried tempura with teriyaki chicken bento set " of 25 pounds at "Mount Fuji". Thumb up for the food.

We definitely will come back again. It is less travelling time, less hustle & bustle  than shopping in London, and also offers wide range of shopping surprises, and there are much more to explore , we believe. However, thing to take note, we must be early, and also make sure we dont exceed the 6 hours parking, as a minute difference, we could end up paying 12 pounds instead of 8 pounds.