Newcastle, UK

I know, I know, I've been back for nearly a week and I'm just now posting photos from Newcastle! I tried to post from there and kept betting kicked off the web before I could get the post uploaded, and on top of that my blog site was stuck in Flemish mode from the Brussels trip and it was a little tough to figure out what the error messages were saying, at any rate here it is:

When we arrived in the UK it was a bit of typical weather with cold horizontal rain pelting us. This went away that night though and the rest of the week was unseasonably warm and sunny!

Here's the view from my hotel room, overlooking the Tyne River and the Quayside (pronounced: Key side)









We were able to meet up with one of my "Best Mates" from China and he had found an authentic Mandarin style restaurant for us to try out. It was awesome and the atmosphere really made me homesick for Beijing!

Here's a shot of my "Mate" Arif and another of his "Mates" Tony

This is a shot of Arif and I at a pub called "The Fourth", No I don't know why and didn't think to ask










I did stop at one of the most famous pubs in town, the Crown Pasada, where I was surprised to find the same bartender there from 2 years ago and even more surprising he remembered me!

AS luck would have it one of my favorite pubs, Loyd's Quayside, was having a "Real Ale Festival" where they had over 100 different cask aged ales available for sampling, but only one barrel of each, and serving only six different ales each night. So this became a regular stop on the way back to the hotel after dinner to see what was on tap at the time.

It was a good trip, both professionally and personally, but as usual it was good to get back home!