Welcome to Birmingham, my home city.

Today we're going to be taking you around Birmingham, showing you what it's like and also teaching you some English along the way.

So if we say a word that I think maybe might be new to you, the definition will come on screen so you get to see a little part of the UK and learn some English at the same time.

Let's go!

right we're in Birmingham New Street this used to be not a very cool station but then when I was younger they redid it all and now they've got like yeah they have done it up definitely and up here on the top they've got all these restaurants and shops so if you're catching a train here and your train's delayed or you've got an hour wait there's plenty of restaurants.

It's actually quite a nice place just to hang out to be honest.

We've had just like food ages come here for food sometimes.

Yeah it's really nice and they've got this amazing bowl here which was this bowl was for the uh the commonwealth games which is a little bit like the olympic games but for the countries in the commonwealth.

It was in Birmingham in 2021, 22, something like that I think.

So then yeah, look at this bull.

This is the first thing that you'll see when you come to Birmingham, this big bull.

So make sure you see him, take some pictures, it's very cool.

Look at this bull moving, I love it.

That was directly at me, that felt personal.

so if you're coming to Birmingham your ticket might take you to Birmingham New Street or you might see Birmingham Moore Street which is a station right next to Birmingham New Street they are five minutes apart so don't worry if you go to Birmingham New Street or Birmingham Moore Street you are in the centre of Birmingham so we're here at joe and the juice uh we've come here a couple of times to be honest it's very nice birmingham new street just to sit up here people watch a little bit see ozzy the bull set you up for a nice day of shopping or eating out or going to the theater there's lots of things to do in birmingham i'm very excited for today i've had a prince of green whoa which is just pineapple cucumber and lemon it's very cucumbery that is like heavy on the cucumber that is a huge bird is that a real bird what is that is that real it's not real it's the worn off pigeon i was gonna say that's here so we're about to go into the bullring market which is a uh now it's a shopping center but it's called the bullring because i think oh hundreds of years ago maybe like 400 years ago maybe they used to have bull baiting in there so they had loads of balls and they used to like get dogs to attack the balls or something like that i spent a lot of time here as a child i um came here with my friends it was kind of like the the meet-up spot that you would come to um and it's a great place to go shopping if you need to get some stuff there's everything and my favorite shop in the whole world is called selfridges we're gonna go there hello bull i might have to get some macarons i love macarons so much so selfridges is like this big department store they have everything and the birmingham one is an incredible selfridges so they've got makeup clothes gifts alcohol food cards toys everything me and law actually like coming here around christmas time it's a very good place to come at christmas time just for um yeah just for a browse sometimes just for a mooch this bottle looks pretty cool whoop ass absolutely iconic to birmingham is cadbury chocolate i think it's gone international i think you can get cadbury chocolate in other places but gotta get cadbury chocolate it is the best chocolate um it was made in birmingham and if you come to birmingham you can actually go to cadbury world which is like a theme park for Cadbury chocolate, which is a great day out.

So, yeah, they named one of their bars Bourneville because that's where Cadbury is made, in a place called Bourneville.

Oh, there's a shop down there called Passing Fancies.

A passing fancy is something that you really want for a second, but then it's gone.

You don't want it for life, but I just have a passing fancy for it.

It does look a little bit like me.

It's quite a nice place to come here sometimes just to...

I don't know if anybody else feels like this, but me and Laura sometimes just really fancy going out shopping.

Sometimes it's just nice to go shopping, just window shopping.

I don't necessarily have to buy anything.

Selfridges is quite a nice place just to come and...

It's kind of like an experience, do you know what I mean?

Ooh, sushi.

I really like in Birmingham you have the contrast of the very new so all your shops and everything but then right next to it you've got your very old so this is St Martin's church it's from 1855 is when it was completed and it's just such a nice sort of reminder of the history of Britain alongside all the new stuff because of course we want all the new stuff we want the sharps we want all of that fun stuff but then also like look at this amazing architecture we can have nice thing that's so cool Chinese restaurants are opening we're filming this around well right at the moment it's about 11 o'clock in the morning um so everything's kind of gearing up for the day I suppose the good thing about the really nice thing about Birmingham is that there's a lot of diversity I think the multiculturalism of Birmingham is part of its identity.

Yeah.

It's part of, you know, the fact that you can get food from any corner of the world in Birmingham.

And it's always amazing.

Because we've got all cultures here.

It's great.

It's great fun.

When I was growing up, this was the meeting point.

When me and my friends came to Birmingham, we'd say, right, I'll meet you at the Bull.

This is where I met all my friends growing up.

An absolutely iconic landmark of birmingham you've got to come see it if you come to birmingham um the bull i think they call him bully i think his name is officially bully i think it's bully the bull i'm pretty sure also in birmingham there is the uh tram service which is very very useful for just traveling around the city you can just hop on and hop off you can see the the tram lines here and uh Oh, right on cue.

Here's the tram.

It's amazing.

And it's actually one of those kind of buildings that I think people in the UK take for granted.

Brits like to travel abroad and go to see different cities, like European cities and things like that, of course.

And I often think if that was in another country, people would go and people would flock there and take pictures of it and that kind of thing.

But it's just there in Birmingham and people just walking past.

Not really that bothered, to be honest.

And it's amazing, I think.

So this water fountain up here is called the floozy and the jacuzzi.

So the floozy, a floozy is quite a derogatory term, actually, for a woman who likes to take her clothes off, maybe.

or a woman who is a bit promiscuous, a floozy.

We don't really use it in modern day English, but yeah, she looks like she's in a jacuzzi.

So it's called informally the floozy in the jacuzzi.

Thank you.

Do So So we're now heading to the library which again is relatively new in Birmingham.

It's quite a new addition and I remember it being built.

Yeah again it's free to go in.

It's got some really cool viewpoints.

You can go right to the top and you can see all of Birmingham.

Well not all of it but a good chunk of it.

So yeah let's go have a look in the library.

And we've just stumbled upon it must be graduation day which feels weird.

I thought graduation was supposed to be in the summer.

Well it's September at the moment but yeah it's a university city.

Here is the library.

A lot of people didn't like the design when it was first revealed.

It's still very controversial, quite divisive.

A lot of people in Birmingham don't like it.

I like it.

Okay it's fine it's cool.

It does look a bit like a wedding cake.

I think it's fun so we're going to go inside, have a little look around.

I think it's great to have in the middle of a city a huge big library all about books and reading.

I think it's nice let's go have a look I wonder how many books are in this library I reckon there's at least five it's actually really nice up here you got like the hustle and bustle of the city but actually up here it's very calm and quiet this is the Shakespeare collection guess what they have in here Shakespeare stuff We're now in my favourite part of Birmingham, this is Brinley Place.

It's a big area with canal running through it, they've got restaurants.

It's just a really nice place to come if you want a meal or if you want to have a walk, this is probably the best bit.

Anyone from Birmingham will tell you that there are more canals in Birmingham than in Venice.

So that is the big fact that everyone likes to tell you.

There are more canals running through Birmingham than Venice and look at them they're beautiful.

Yeah I like this area a lot this is probably my favourite bit.

Behind me is Broad Street and that is where the best nightlife is in Birmingham so if you're here for a night out or a good time maybe pop to Broad Street.

35 miles of canal Birmingham has.

During the Industrial Revolution this is one of the reasons why Birmingham grew so much, the industry grew so much, because they could transport goods in and out of the city.

We're heading to the custard factory which doesn't make custard but it used to make custard and now they've turned it into this cool like district with shops, restaurants, pubs.

It's just kind of really cool, artistic, fun little place to come.

Hello, it's me.

I'm editing this and I just realised we didn't say goodbye in this video.

So thank you so much for watching this.

If you enjoyed it, please subscribe, please give it a like and tell us where you would like us to go next.

We want to go all over the UK.

We want to show you some amazing things in the UK and teach you some English at the same time.

So where would you like to see?

Let us know.

Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time.

Ta-ta!