Edinburgh, Day 7 & 8

Thursday, February 3, 2011
Briefly visited two modern art museums, went to a bookstore, ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant (I had fajitas), walked down some fun streets, went to a CD shop, stopped by the tourist bureau and bought tickets for a guided tour on Saturday and a Scottish flag, had tea at Eateaket, walked in the rain to an Oxfam bookstore (and chatted with the workers), watched Girl Who Played with Fire, and ate a frozen pizza for dinner. And now I’m off to bed. It was a fun and productive day.



Friday, February 4, 2011

Though the weather was rainy and blustery, Jean-Jacques and I had an excellent trip to the zoo. Yes, I know, it’s terrible to visit zoos since the animals are kept in captivity. However, in the case of the Edinburgh zoo, the organization tries hard to make a realistic habitat for the “residents” and keep them physically and emotionally stimulated. Many of the inhabitants are unable to survive in the wild. Also, the zoo is working hard to ensure that some animals don’t become extinct. Maybe it’s not the most ethical solution to the problem of keeping “wild” (many were born in captivity) animals caged for our amusement, but it’s the best zoo I’ve visited. 


We saw all sorts of interesting creatures -- rhinos, monkeys, zebras, penguins (they were fun to watch as they swam around and dove out of the water), birds, lions, wildcats, porcupines, etc. The weather was horrible and by the end of the visit, Jean-Jacques and I were both drenched. We kept trying to leave, but as we were on our way out, we continually found interesting animals or exhibits to explore. Our visit ended up lasting about three and a half hours.


Following the trip to the zoo, we took the bus and walked a short distance to a restaurant called Oink, which serves pork sandwiches. As it turned out, we were some of the last customers of the day. The owner of the establishment is a pig farmer who lives out in The Borders, so I imagine he needed to close up shop in time for him to get home for dinner. 


We then visited a tea shop and bought two cups as souvenirs. I haven’t gotten many things here to take home for a couple of reasons: 1) I haven’t seen anything I liked and 2) I don’t want to have to carry unnecessary things back to China and then to France once we’re finished teaching. However, I did want to buy a teacup here and Jean-Jacques and I found a couple of perfect ones that we decided to purchase. The shopkeeper was extremely helpful and took a long time packaging up the cups so we could send them to the States. Hopefully, they’ll arrive in once piece...


A trip to the Elephant House for afternoon tea was our final stop of the day. The English have one tradition that I would like to incorporate into my life and that is the custom of having afternoon tea. I think it is a perfect opportunity to take a breather for a few minutes, regroup, and prepare oneself for the rest of the day. During our time here, I’ve found that a cup (or two) of tea in the late afternoon helps me tackle the rest of the day.


This evening we cooked dinner, watched a bit of a rugby game, and saw The Men Who Stare at Goats. 


Tomorrow we’re heading out on a guided tour of some castles outside of Edinburgh. It will be fun to visit the Highlands! 

Edinburgh, Day 5 & 6

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Great day. Visited St. Giles Cathedral (it was a bit touristy, but the stained glass was beautiful), took a tour at Real Mary King’s Close (a semi-interesting visit through underground buildings, but it was a bit cheesy), visited the Camera Obscura and museum of illusion (awesome!), ate a delicious lunch at a Italian restaurant, watched Trainspotting, and saw an interesting documentary about gypsies (or travelers as they’re called here). (If you want to better understand Scotland, watch the film Trainspotting; it's a bit disturbing, but educational as well)


Wednesday, February 2, 2011

This Wednesday was another fruitful and educational day in Edinburgh. We ate a pancake breakfast/brunch at a local burger joint. It was delicious and provided much-needed fuel for most of the day. 


After the meal, we took a tour of the Royal Yacht Britannia, and it was fascinating to see the boat’s luxurious interior and exterior, but made me even more thankful that the US doesn’t support a monarchy. 


Following the boat tour, we took a double-decker bus to a science museum called Dynamic Earth. It was a bit dorky, but fun.


We ate dinner at a pizza restaurant, and finished the day by watching Wolfman (which isn’t a movie I’d recommend).


It’s hard to believe, but our trip is more than half over. We haven’t run out of things to do; actually, we hope we’ll have enough time to do everything we’d like. Although it will be sad to leave, I’ll be ready to tackle the remaining months in China. It really had been a wonderful vacation.

Edinburgh, Day 4

Today we took the hour-long tour of the Scottish Parliament (it was only established in 1997); visited the National Museum of Scotland (admission was free, like many of the museums here); drank hot chocolate in the Elephant House, which is one of the cafés where J.K. Rowling worked on the Harry Potter series; made a trip to the cheese shop; and walked around the city. 


The weather has gotten a bit nasty this evening. As I’m writing this, I can hear the wind blowing down the chimney in our hotel room. I’m happy to be cozy inside right now enjoying the fire. 


We had a fairly simple dinner of a salad, an apple, cheese, and bread this evening. Generally, we don’t like to leave the apartment once we’ve made it back after a long day of touring. It’s also pleasant to eat a small meal at night because we’re usually still quite full from lunch.


That's about the news from today. We're throughly enjoying our time here and are excited that we still have a number of days left to explore Edinburgh.

Edinburgh, Day 3

After walking about seven miles today, my feet and legs are exhausted. However, the pain is worth it because we saw some incredible sights/sites today. 


We started our adventure at around eight this morning and had been planning to eat a large Sunday breakfast at a nearby restaurant; our plans were quickly changed when we discovered that the restaurant wasn’t open yet. We decided to wait until we could find a decent place to eat.


Our first stop was Calton Hill. It has a partially-completed replica of the Acropolis and some other interesting structures. The climb up to the hill was short and we didn’t spend much time looking around. 


We then wandered around the buildings close to Holyroodhouse (the Queen’s residence in Scotland) and found a fun place to eat a meal. Jean-Jacques and I both ordered the full breakfast (it contained eggs, toast, bacon, two sausages, beans, a fried tomato, and came with a large pot of breakfast tea). After we finished, we toured the palace and throughly enjoyed the visit. We’re both happy that the US doesn’t have a monarch, but it was certainly fascinating to learn more about the UK’s government.


Following our trip to Holyroodhouse, we hiked up Arthur’s Seat. The weather was nasty -- windy with occasional snow flakes -- but we enjoyed the climb and view of the city once we arrived at the top. Once we had summated the “peak”, we climbed down the opposite side of the hill to visit a six-hundred-year-old pub. Jean-Jacques and I both ordered beverages and we enjoyed observing the atmosphere of the place as we consumed our drinks. 


Since we were far away from our hotel, it took us about an hour and a half to walk back from the pub. Along the way, we found and ate lunch at a Pakistani restaurant that Jean-Jacques had discovered while doing research about the trip. We ordered two lamb dishes, some naan, and a side of rice; the food was delicious and helped warm us up.


We arrived back at the hotel at around four thirty and have spent the rest of the day regrouping, relaxing, and getting warm again. 


I’m a bit behind on the photo processing (I’m one day behind, sorry), but here are some pictures from our trip to Edinburgh Castle and the farmer’s market yesterday.

Castle time!

More castle!

View of Edinburgh from castle

An "artsy" shot

Farmer's market; the stall on the left is where we bought some tasty venison haggis

Edinburgh, Day 2

It was another wonderful, busy, and fun-filled day. We visited a farmer’s market and bought some bread, local cheese, and two brownies; we toured Edinburgh Castle, saw the Scottish Royal Crown Jewels, and some spectacular views of the city; and we visited the National Gallery of Scotland where we viewed some paintings by Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Rafael, Monet, and Goya. We ate venison haggis with neeps (turnips) and tatties (mashed potatoes) at the farmer's market, cheese at home this evening, and hamburgers at a terrific local restaurant called Wannaburger. The weather was a bit misty (with a few sprinkles of rain), but we managed to stay warm and dry. We’re exhausted, but happy!

Edinburgh, Day 1

As I am writing this entry, I’m happily sitting at a table in our hotel room in Edinburgh, Scotland. After an extremely lengthy journey yesterday that I’ll explain in a bit, we are throughly enjoying our vacation. We’ve had a terrific and productive Friday, but before I launch into a report of our day’s activities, I should first explain the ordeals we endured yesterday. (Actually, I’m exaggerating a bit; the trip wasn’t bad at all.)


We started our journey at around eight o’clock China time on Wednesday, January 26. Fortunately, the flight from Anqing to Shanghai was only delayed about an hour. (We did have to wait for the Beijing-bound plane to leave before us, though we were ready first.) After the flight, we rode the Shanghai subway for about an hour and fifteen minutes to reach Pudong airport; we had arrived at Hongquio, which is the domestic airport and our flight to Scotland left from Pudong, the international one. We spend about nine hours at Pudong waiting to board our flight to Amsterdam; during our time there, we ate two meals, I read, and finished a pair of socks. 


The flight from Shanghai to Amsterdam was uneventful. I was so exhausted that I managed to sleep a fair amount on the plane. I drifted off for about hour-long periods of time, so by the time we arrived in the Netherlands, I was sleepy, but not in the zombie-like-state I would have experienced if I hadn’t caught some z’s on the flight.


Now here’s a story that’s stranger than fiction -- I’ve got the pictures/video to prove it occurred. As I was buying breakfast in the Amsterdam airport, Jean-Jacques Skyped with Isabelle and discovered that Kurtis was going through Amsterdam on his way to Finland. After a bit of research, we were able to locate his arrival gate and greet him when he deplaned. Needless to say, he was a bit shocked to see us, but we spent an enjoyable hour together chatting before he had to catch his flight to Helsinki. 


Thankfully, the flight from Amsterdam to Edinburgh was short and sweet. After we got off the airplane and went through customs (it was the best border crossing I’ve ever experienced), we caught a double-decker bus from the airport to our hotel. We were a bit lost after we disembarked the bus, but quickly got our bearings and found our lodging without much trouble. 


We got an amazing deal on our hotel and man are we lucky! It’s a boutique hotel that has a fully equipped kitchen (I think we’re going to use it to make some haggis); a living room with an electric fire place; a beautiful bedroom with a large, cushy bed; and a bathroom with heated floors, heated towel racks, and a mirror that defogs itself. We’re going to be extremely comfortable for the couple of weeks!


I managed to stay awake until seven thirty last night (most of the day was spent being exhausted, though we did eat a delicious lunch at a small shop called Bread and Olives and we grabbed some fish and chips from a nearby restaurant) and was able to sleep the entire night until around seven o’clock this morning. I feel a bit discombobulated at times, but I don’t think that we’re going to suffer much from jet lag. 


We ate breakfast at a hamburger joint and I throughly enjoyed my meal of a fried egg, fried tomato, beans, bacon, whole wheat bread, sauteed mushrooms, tea, and potato cake. During the meal (and while eating last night’s order of fish and chips), I realized how much I’ve missed salty food. Anqingeese cuisine doesn’t have much salt in it, but it’s a taste I really enjoy. 


After breakfast we walked to a grocery store and bought some breakfast foods, drinks, apples, carrots, and a ready-made pizza we’re going to eat for dinner. We made a quick run back to our hotel room so we could put away the goods before heading to our haircut appointments.


Once we looked presentable again, and after a couple of showers to rinse off the stray hairs, we headed out on the town and walked down Princes Street. I took a number of photos, Jean-Jacques bought a coat, and we visited a cheese shop and a yarn shop. We had a wonderful time walking around the city, absorbing all the beautiful sights (it’s one of the most scenic cities I’ve ever visited). The people are extremely friendly -- we even chatted with two sets of people as we ate a lunch of potatoes with curry and a Greek salad. Yummy!
Well, I’m about out of energy, so I’ll sign off. Hopefully, I’ll be able to process my photos this evening so I can post some of them tomorrow. 

Scotland, here we come!

We’re approaching the final stretch to our departure because we leave on Wednesday. Yesterday we have a full day of socializing because we visited five classes at a school that specializes in providing extra tutoring in English, dance, and art. It was an unassuming school that was fascinating to visit because it was tucked away on the third floor of a random building.


The school visit was similar to a number of experiences we’ve had here: we were given a topic to “teach”, but weren’t given much time to prepare it or many guidelines as to how they wanted us to instruct the students. The students were excited to see us, but were too terrified to speak much with us. It’s sad because many of the students study English for years, but are unable to speak it smoothly. They are either too scared to make mistakes, or are too nervous to talk to a native speaker.


After the school visit, we ate dinner with some friends after we walked through a typical Chinese food street. The restaurant where they had originally planned to take us was closed, so we went to a different place. There wasn’t a menu and we had to go back to the kitchen to speak with the chef about what we wanted him to prepare. We ended up ordering a number of vegetables and I enjoyed the meal. At this point in our say, I have to admit that I'm getting a bit tired of Chinese food (I miss the bland tastes of western cuisine), so it’s good that we’re going to Scotland for a small break.


Today we visited with Amanda for a little while. She had some questions to ask us about her upcoming TOEFL test and we helped her to the best of our abilities. I also gave her the scarf that I’d knitted for her and she was pleased to receive it.


That’s about the most exciting news I’ve got at this point. I turned a sock heel today and am working on the gusset decreases. It’s quite exciting!


Adios!