FRIDAY the 13TH

After the madness that was London, traveling to the not-so-far town, Merry Hill, seemed like a most welcoming option.

For those of you that are unaware of Merry Hill's existence, its much smaller in comparison to Birmingham, but boasts an extremely impressive two-floor shopping mall. It also hosts the only Best Buy in the entire region.

Plus, they even have a Wikipedia page! That's gotta count for something.

We decided Friday the 13th would the perfect time to make the journey. Don't ask me why, I have no clue...

The trip north would require a small 20 minute train ride followed by a 5 minute bus trip.

We boarded the train, which was fairly busy, in the early afternoon. As we traveled, we stocked up on a much needed Monster to get us fully pumped for the awesomeness that was going to be Westfield Merry Hill.



See how pumped I am:



The Merry Hill train station turned out to be pleasantly small and quiet, evoking the calm atmosphere generally associated with green England.




With a bus stop nearby, we hitched the first ride to the shopping complex.



The mall turned out to be incredibly impressive. It boasted all sorts of stores that catered to every type of persona.




Endless designer stores, supermarkets, video game outlets, health stores, a sprawling food court, plus:

A HMV:



Jessops:



and a mandatory Games Workshop outlet:



For a such small town to house such an incredible shopping complex was quite shocking. It was Merry Hill's best kept secret.

As I toured the complex, I first popped into their game stores, inquiring if they had the UK limited edition of the RPG game, Demon Souls, available:



Unfortunately, all the stores claimed they were out of stock (the search will continue!).

On a positive note, I was able to pick up the currently British exclusive Blu-Ray of The Hills Have Eyes remake.



I was also able to feed my much needed fix for Starbucks along the way.



My Mom made some very interesting friends along the way, including:

A horse:



And, the most famous tank engine of all time, Thomas:



We continued to explore the complex for a while, but as time inevitably moved forward, our own time at Merry Hill would have to come to a close.



Although we were unable to visit the UK edition of Best Buy this time around, we decided that another trip back to Merry Hill would be a welcoming choice.

We gingerly traveled back to Birmingham, and for the first time, were able to arrive home with some of the evening still free. Quite a rare achievement, if you ask me!

It was sooo refreshing to just take a nice and small trip, one that didn't kill you by the end of the day (I'm looking at you London!).

So, I guess Friday the 13th wasn't so bad for us after all. Can't say the same for those campers, though...