On the night before we left the Lake District, we decided to watch some videos and got Janet to put the tapes in, but Bons was at the back pressing eject on the remote control. Janet got so frustrated cos she didn't understand why the machine kept spitting out the tape. We were rolling in laughter.
Left to right: Janet putting finger on tape to prevent it from spitting tape out; Bons furiously pressing eject on remote.
Pity we didn't have much time at the Lake District, it is fantastically gorgeous, even in winter. But we decided to drive around Lake Windermere, which is the largest lake in the Lake District. It'll be soooooo romantic to be there in summer. Must find some man, nab him and force him to go with me to Lake District in summer.
Clockwise from top left: View of Lake Windermere Bons take pix; me on pier trying to act like a duck, view of pier, Bons and Janet at Beech Hill with strong winds
On this day, the winds were starting to get a little strong, and I was wondering if Scottish winds are just generally stronger. Never occurred to me that it was the start of a gale in the northern regions.
View of the north while we stopped at Westmorland pitstop. Click for bigger view
The north is generally very scenic, with miles and miles of rolling hills, and lots and lots of sheep. I still find the sheeps amusing, just because they have woolly fleece and black faces and legs. We stopped at one of the most amazing pitt stops along the M6, which is Teby or something, but it's the Westmorland hotel. It has an amazing farmshop, which had stuff like cheeses, spices, chocolates, stollens, pies etc. Nearly drove me mad trying to restrain myself. Ended up buying 1 for £1 Ladybird books for the rascals, some clotted cream fudge for S, organic truffles for my cousin in London and Cadbury fruit and nut for myself.
We headed up to Hadrian's wall. Emperor Hadrian, which built the wall spanning from the east to west coast of UK to mark the extent of the Roman Empire in AD122 to separate Romans from the northern barbarians. Pretty much like the Emperor Qin who did up the great wall of China, I wonder if they had a forum to exchange ideas about such stuff. hmmmm
Clockwise from top left: Me with Minah Lim; Hadrian's Wall at Bridoswald; Janet on wall - evidence that she violated rules hahah; bah bah black sheep around the walls
But it was amazing going up the wall. Touching the wall was like touching the past. Can you imagine 2000 years ago, someone actually laid the stones down by hand?
I have some amazing footage going up to Hadrian's Wall, but haven't figured out vlog, plus pending assignments and exams at the back of my head.
When we reached Edinburgh at 7pm, we kinda decided to not tour around we were dead tired and had kebabs for dinner. :)
Day Nine - 30 December 2006
After a gloomy day travelling up to Edinburgh there was brillant sunshine. Clear indication that we should be on our way to Edinburgh Castle, which sits on top of an old extinct volcano. Marvellous example of how man has mounded his surroundings to the natural environment, with the slope coming down from Edinburgh Castle as the main road - Royal Mile.
Clockwise from top left: Standing at the esplanade to Edinburgh Castle; View of old town in morning sun; me with view of new town Edinburgh in background; Haven't found out what that is!
Edinburgh is nice in that it still retains a bit of its history, you can almost feel it in the air. Not everything is done up touristy (or maybe they have, just that they've done a really good job that I didn't feel so.) It's almost like modern day life has taken small steps to move into this old city. Case in point, the esplanade where I took my picture was a place for public execution, and on other days, a day for couples to go out on dates. And you can almost imagine how it was like, though I wouldn't to be pat-tor-ing while someone was beheaded.
We walked down the Royal Mile, almost made Bons do her horse act, ie, neighing and galloping, which she does brillantly, down the mile, as if to herald our royal entrance on the Royal Mile.
We made our way to the Royal Yacht Britannia, which was at Leith. We took a bus out to Ocean Terminal where the decommissioned yacht was resting. It comes from a royal lineage of yachts.
Funny thing about Scotland, where I stayed as a kid was at Phillips Ave. But around that area they had names of all Scottish places, like Rosyth Road, Leith Road, Glasgow Road, so it was really funny coming to Scotland and finding out that THAT street name is an actual place in Scotland.
The ship is really cool, why it's decommissioned is my question to Thomas, my Scottish classmate. Can you imagine Charles and Diana had their honeymoon on the ship? And other royalities and important people were entertained on board? They even had a sweets shop! And the engine rooms (which I didn't want to see at first) were sparkling clean.
We had dinner at Ma Potters or something, only cos we get 10% off from the ticket stub to Britannia. Then headed back to city centre. Good thing that Bons and Janet suggested we go George Street for some Hogmanay performances. I was about to say,"Let's go back to the room." For foot was hurting quite badly. But I am glad I went. They had bagpipers and drummers come down the street playing. And in the cold nite, it was almost like magic.
Bagpipers, some really cute men in kilts too - woohoo!
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