London part 2

We met up with Kim and Simon who are doing their electives here. We
also met up with Sa's cousin Maxine, who arranged to get Lion King
tickets for us, showed us around and also got tickets to watch the
Mousetrap (last night). Sorry this is totally out of order but its
hard blogging from a mobile. But thanks are in order to max. And also
dino's relatives for doing this stuff for us.

Anyway. There's heaps more that we did that i haven't mentioned due to
poor memory and a lack of general coherence but anyway. Oh yes. We
went on the London Eye. It was pretty good and i got some nice pics,
which i will share in future.

Until then, take care. Seeya!

--
Jinn and Sa in Edinburgh --> http://edinburghfun.blogspot.com

London!

We're finally here in London! The plane trip wasn't too bad
actually... Only 1 hour. But the taxi trip from Heathrow to Welling
took 1.5 hrs! The place we're living in isn't the best in terms of
appearance but it certainly is good enough for our purposes. The guy
who looks after the place for Dino's uncle is so nice- he wanted up to
in over to his place for dinner yesterday and he was so dismayed when
we told him we had other plans. The crazy thing is that we discovered
after getting back today that he left food behind in the fridge for us
to eat!

Happy new year! We spent the day celebrating chinese new year from
Soho and the other things going on in the city centre. There were lots
of things going on including fire crackers, dancing, singing etc ...

--
Jinn and Sa in Edinburgh --> http://edinburghfun.blogspot.com

Leaving Edinburgh

I'm writing this in Edinburgh airport from Sa's phone wap. My baggage
is over the limit of 20kgs... So i had to pay a little bit. :( anyway.
The plane will be leaving in 45 mins so i'll be in london soon! Very
sad to be leaving this place.. It's been a great time. European
adventures here we come! Happy Chinese New Year for tomorrow everyone!

--
Jinn and Sa in Edinburgh --> http://edinburghfun.blogspot.com

Mountain Climbin'

Today we walked up the hill in our backyard - Arthur's Seat.

The view on the way up was awesome, as usual.

Now, given that Sa is pointing to our apartments in this pic, see if you can spot it in the following pics.

The journey up the hill was not without casualty.


.. but we made it!


Now, can you spot our apartment?

Unfortunately, we decided to walk down some crazy-ass path on the way back.


As a footnote, I hate Americans and their whiny voices. There were two of them on the path behind us - and they just wouldn't shut up. And everywhere we go, there are annoying American tourists. I hate them all even though I don't know them.

Castles

We finally made it to Edinburgh Castle on Tuesday and it's awesome. There's no way anyone could disturb your sleep if you lived on it. It's on a massive rock and is defended with 6 gates that are all easily defendable. There's heaps of cannons and also bagpipers to help you protect your jewels. If you managed to control this castle you'd be invincible. Literally.


And there's a car park that you can use to help defend it too. Incidentally, the car park is the location of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo.


There's lots of exhibits and stuff too. They also keep the Scottish crown jewels there, but you can't take pictures of them.

There's a pretty good view there.

Uni of Edinburgh

On Monday morning me, Dino and Sa were bored so we decided to go hunt for the elusive "Medical School". The elective coordinator here, (Angie) had given me directions to the place, but as is common with a lot of things associated with Angie, there was something wrong with them.

No worries though, as we managed to use our wits to find the building (you can't really miss it).It's kinda cool how the uni is in the middle of the city. It's like walking through Northbridge and then finding a lecture theatre there. There's even an STA travel here. Some things are the same all around the world.

It's quite a nice building with a lot of character and history.

Another fun-filled weekend

On Saturday, we all woke up nice and early for our 2-day, 1-night tour of the Scottish highlands. You know, Braveheart and the like. The tour was also to take us to Loch Ness (of Loch Ness monster fame) and and the foot of Britain's tallest peak, Ben Nevis.

The tour party was made up of ourselves, a Korean girl and her mum, and six Spaniards (3 couples). So it was a cosy group, and the tour guide was also quite friendly so we were all looking forward to the tour.

To be quite honest, a lot of the tour is a blur to me, because the windy roads and lack of sleep meant that it was quite hard to stay awake - but the Scottish Highlands is a simply beautiful place to go to and some of the views there are spectacular. Here are some pics, roughly in chronological order.

This is us in the tour bus. It was small-ish, but was comfortable and quite cosy.

Some castle (not sure which one - could be Doune Castle?)

Another beautiful view. Loch Lochy I think this one is. The water was so still, the reflections of the light off the water are stunning.



The place we took these pics is called Glen Coe.

The photo doesn't really do it justice, because of the cloud - but this is Ben Nevis, the tallest peak in Britain. It's impossible to capture the scale of the way things looked from photos unfortunately.

That night, we stopped by in Inverness, the capital of the highlands and had dinner. As usual, we were unable to find a place to eat very quickly and in the end stopped by at another Indian restaurant. Inverness is quite a small, but pretty place - however, my memory of the place will always be coloured by a recollection of running into Dino's shoulder and having my eye squashed. But I digress.

That night we stayed at this gorgeous little bed and breakfast run by a small, nervous old lady called Molly. She was a dear and helped us to find our way around the city and indeed the country by way of some maps on her walls.

The next morning, we went to Glen Affric and walked along a trail there, taking us into yet more beautiful wilderness.

After that, we went to Urqhart Castle. The owners of the castle blew it up themselves when the enemy approached, rather than have it fall into enemy hands. It's been a ruin for centuries.

Skilled readers may recognise this structure as a trebuchet.

The sign speaketh truth.

"Who's that lad in nappies?"

Duy went for a swim in the Loch, but the rest of us stayed dry. Sa took the normal approach and played with some swans. They're white. Weird, no?

Well, my iPod battery has died now, so that's it for the photos. I'll upload a better pic of Loch Ness later. And no, we didn't see any monster - the loch looked as calm as anything.

Take care everyone - hope to see you soon.

Jinn

Ocean Terminal

As we get closer to that sad time when we have to leave Edinburgh :( , we're trying to pack as much into our time as we can. Last Friday we went to Ocean Terminal, which is located in the north of the city and encompasses the port part of Edinburgh, a massive shopping centre, and the Royal Yacht Britannia.

We left pretty early in the morning, catching two buses to get to the place. As soon as we got there, we found the shops and as usual, the girls were in their element. Duy wasn't with us because he was still in Livingston, but we were to catch up with him very soon (his housemate was a lazy slob and he decided to shift out and live with us).


We shopped and shopped, and to Dino and my dismay, we shopped some more. Eventually we got onto the deck of the Brittania and checked out the various Royal whatevers there were there. It all seemed pretty boring to be quite honest, and the only real highlight was probably seeing the bed that Prince Charles and Di used on their honeymoon. Oo-er.

There's a few more stories involving wombats and monkeys that Sa might elaborate on too. Unless you all beg for me to tell you.

We finished up on the boat and then had another Asian lunch. We ate out of plates with knives and forks. Enough said.

Then we shopped some more.

On our return to the flat, we were ambushed by a snoring Duy, who had managed to find his way back home after his sojourn in Livingston.

Botanic Gardens

Today we spent a lazy morning/afternoon at the Botanic Gardens here in Edinburgh. After finally finding our way to the secret entrance to the place, we went in.


We checked out the beautiful scenery....


... the beautiful animals...

... and just got away from the hustle and bustle of the city. It was amazing to get away from cigarette smoke for just a wee while.


Lots of amazing plants to see...



and also...


SQUIRRELS!
They're the best!

What else happened in Glasgow?

(continuation of my previous post)

Well the next day, Steve had to work at the Vodaphone store in the city, so we all felt a little bad for keeping him up. Especially as we found out later the next morning that he actually missed his bus and was late for work! But Steve, being such a nice guy, refused to blame us - even thought he only got three hours' sleep with work only finishing at 5.30pm.

The rest of us left at Steve's place (Dino, Sa, me) woke up at about 9.30 and found ourself being attended to by Steve's lovely parents! His dad had arranged a yummy porridge breakfast for all of us before we caught the bus into the city. What an awesome fella.

Steve's place is somewhat on the outskirts of the Glasgow city greater, so we had to catch a bus in. It's amazing that you need only drive 30mins out of the city to get to fields of grass with sheep in them. And then within five minutes on the road, you're in suburbia, quite similar to any Perth suburb.
As you can see, it's a really beautiful place.

After a 40 min ride on the bus, we found ourselves in metropolis again, with big steep concrete buildings lining several blocks of streets. We might have gotten lost if not for the tactical nous of "Streetwise" Dino, who is getting more and more streetwise every day.

As you can see from the above pic, it's quite different to Edinburgh.

We spent the morning just looking around the place, and shopping down one of the malls, close to Steve's Vodaphone shop. We met him as he came out to talk to us a few times, and then met up with Jane and Hamish - who had made their way down into the city from Hamish's flat. Duy unfortunately couldn't make it - he was feeling a little crappy in the head after overindulging the the merry-making the night before.


We actually had some Asian food for lunch, as e had all been craving it for weeks by now - but the price was simply exorbidant. £9 for Singapore noodles? You're having a laff. But we paid for it, and they weren't too bad, although not what you'd call authentic. But what would you expect.

The plan that night was to eat out with Steve and then go to watch his cousin sing a gig at this pub where they do old traditional Scottish music. Unfortunately, by this time, including Hamish's gal Karishma and Andrea, there were 9 of us altogether, and finding a table for 9 on a Sat night is not that easy. We eventually found an Indian buffet (which was delicious by the way) but by the time we wanted to go to the gig, we had missed it.


Plan B was to just walk around Glasgow and take in the nightlife there - which we did, despite out tiredness. We eventually got back to Steve's place by about 2am and all fell asleep.

The next day we woke up late and Steve's folks again attended to our breakfasting needs, cooking some scrambled eggs on bagels (which they love here) which was delicious as usual.

We then bade farewell to the Millars as Steve drove us back to Hamish's house for a brief rendezvous with Jane and Duy (and a bagpipe demo!) before heading back to Edinburgh.

Thanks Steve and Hamish!

Bonus pics!

As you can see, the Glasgow tube is pretty cramped.

At Steve's place for an awesome dinner!

Ceilidh. (Jane, Steve, Hamish, Karishma)

The best Scottish weekend ever

Since my last post, we've been up to all sorts of shenanigans. We met up with the lads again (Hamish and Steve for those in the dark, who we met in Perth on their elective) in their home city of Glasgow. Glasgow is world famous for its music scene with the likes of Franz Ferdinand and Belle and Sebastian hailing from this fair city.

We caught the train there on Friday evening after another 'hard' day at the hospital in Edinburgh. It was a bit of a slow train ride - they go at about 60-70 kph, which is really slow compared to Perth trains. The journey took about 1.5hrs, which was ok.

We met Hamish at the train station, and caught up with Andrea too, who is doing her elective in Glasgow! The amount of people doing their elective in the UK is staggering. Anyway, we were soon on our way to the tube station to catch a ride to Hamish's flat.
As you can see, the Glasgow tube system resembles a small race car set, with it's circular circuit.
Anyway. After hanging out at his place for a little bit, Steve and his Dad rocked up to take us back to their place for dinner. What a great bunch of people the Millars are. They picked us up from the city centre and then drove for 40 minutes back to their place, just so we could have dinner at their house! They're amazingly generous and the stuff they did for us this weekend is staggering. But I digress. After an amazing dinner, we all got ready for the Ceilidh (scottish dancing). Hamish, Steve and Duy* frocked up in their kilts and we were soon on our way!

Do you guys remember doing folk dancing at school? I remember, and I remember that it was horrible! But for some reason, it was actually really fun this time! Not to mention the most exercise I've had since we got here. We danced and danced and danced, and before we knew it, it was 1am and time to go home. Me, sa and Dino caught a taxi back to Steve's place and Duy and Jane remained at Hamish's flat.

Despite it being really late at night, we stayed up a bit later than we expected, just playing some music (which we've all missed so much since getting here) and singing songs. We introduced Steve to Spiderbait and Eskimo Joe, and in return he played some awesome folk music for us. It was about 3.30 before we hopped into bed. And that was just the end of the Friday! There was far more to come.

To be continued!

*PS Do you guys know about Duy's kilt? It's a 21st century kilt and cost only seveval hundred £. It looks good, huh? :)

Giant bull plus testicle pic

As mentioned previously.

Notice the single, flaming ball.

Jazz Bar pic + Livingston

Jazz Bar (as noted below)

On a completely unrelated note, we went to Livingston yesterday after uni to visit Duy and his housemate Joanna. Suffice it to say, that after Duy's description of her and her lovely bathroom habits, I couldn't think of anything much to say to her.

Aaaannnyway.

I think Livingston sucks. We got there and it was freezing cold and we waited ages for Duy to rok up and show us to civilisation.... but when he did - it was a gigantic factory outlet! Shops in Livingston have 'late-night' shopping as well on Thursdays, but this place closed at 8. Harly late night at all really. Compared to the wonderful Tesco grocery shop near us that closes at midnight 6 days of the week! But I digress.

So we had roughly 2 hours to shop. I bought some shoes. Again. Which incidentally I'm wearing right now, here at the university computer. They'r some black loafers which go really well with my 'laid-back' (not lazy) look.

Sa got a cool scivvy from Ben Sherman. Dino got lost. But we found him.

Afterwards we went back to Duy's little place at st John's to find his bedroom there actually larger than his bedroom in Perth. Those of you who know his Perth bedroom will know that it's not that hard to find a bedroom bigger than his broom cupboard. So we sat there for a bit and then realised that we needed to catch the train back. Unfortunately we overestimated our walking prowess and missed the train by several minutes, meaning we had to wait another 45 minutes or so out on the platform for the next train to come. Very boring. Very cold.

By the time we got back to Waverley Station in edinburgh, we couldn't be bothered and caught a cab home. Then slept.

Haggis

This is Haggis! Despite what you might have heard about it, it actually tastes pretty good. Kinda like a meat pie, y'know? It's quite 'herby', and it contains some grain thing, barley I think it is - and the overall flavour is not too bad. They serve it with potato (below) and turnips (above).

Yum.

Holyrood again

Yep we went inside! (not sure if you're allowed to take pics... :P)

This is the Palace at Holyrood House, which is located actually really close to where we're staying. It's main claim to fame is that Mary Queen of Scots used this as her palace of residence. It was also the place where QEII signed the paper that allowed Scotland to have its own Parliament (photos of that to follow!).

As you can see it started off as a small church (on the right) which eventually became an abbey. The palace then grew from the side. It's filled up with all sorts of old stuf including crown jewells, lockets of Mary's hair (!), thrones and other awesome and amazing old stuff I can't remember!

It's an amazing building and the tours there are cool - you get this little radio headset which gives you commentary as you walk around at your own pace. You just plug in the number that the guide tells you and the headset walks you through the palace, telling you stuff about the place and giving interesting (or boring) facts about Scottish history etc.

The big lunch

Sa and Jinn's big lunch on Wednesday