It was a weekend spent with Yeelin in Edinburgh. I was here 12 years ago and I remembered some part of it like Edinburgh Castle... the main shopping street (Princes Street)... and... of coz the cold gloomy weather although it's a distant distant memory... 12 years later, it's the same haha but this time round we joined the free walking tour so we found out more about the capital of Scotland. I love the sound of bagpipes filling the air which is what makes the difference in Scotland. YL says it sounds like funeral music.. *rolls eyes*
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| Edinburgh Castle looking the same. Well what was I expecting.. of course it would be the same as 12 years ago! |
After the tour, we concluded that Edinburgh is an ancient city with a dark history, and more so with the ghost stories we heard on the tour, and mass killings, hangings, burning of witches, punishments, etc... a bit spooky. We almost wanted to join the ghost tour at night to spook ourselves but we decided not to.... disclaimer- not because we are scared of ahem but because we are scared of the cold! This being Scotland, summer is very misleading. Thank God it was a weekend with pleasant weather nonetheless.
The gothic structure standing along Princes Street; our ever enthu tour guide explaining to us the story behind the tombstone of a dear little dog Bobby who was faithful to his owner for 14 years *sniff
Our tour guide Doug was this very entertaining full of energy American guy who now calls Edinburgh home. From a 3h tour, it stretched to 4h and at the end of it, our legs were so tired. We walked around a bit before finding a place for dinner (we skipped lunch due to the tour) and Yeelin bravely ordered the Scottish delicacy Haggis with mashed potatoes.. Haggis is our kway chap equivalent, just that it's the innards of sheep mixed with spices and oats... made into a patty. ewww... ok i tasted a bit of it... umm.. okay actually IF you don't tell me what it is.
street in the old town; up on Carlton Hill with my M&S jelly
dinner
On Sunday we decided to wake up like really early to go to the beach. Our hotel concierge told us there is a place called Ocean Terminal so we got excited. "Take bus 22" she said. Guess what Ocean Terminal is exactly like Vivocity lor.. a huge shopping mall near the sea. *faint plus we were there at 9.30am no shops were opened. We asked around and this fella told us to walk 5min to Portobello beach... kena tricked again coz we walked for 15min and realised we were going nowhere... and with the never say die spirit, we asked again and we were told to go back city centre and take bus 26. wahh... so we took bus back and climbed (ok more of walked not climb hahaa) up Carlton Hill to get a good view of the city. Nice one.
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| View from Carlton Hill |
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| Oh hey look who is that! Mr Invisible hand (good ol' economics class days remember?) |
Interesting tidbit:-
Top left: Don't look down on this run down looking building... for therein lies the Elephant Cafe (2nd level)... which is the birthplace of Harry Potter! We were told that JK Rowling came here daily to write her book and the cafe owners were kind enough even though she ordered only a cup of coffee and sat there the whole day! It's also said that from that window view, she could look over to Castle Hill School in the distance (3rd photo) which gave her inspiration of Hogwarts School of Magic. That's about what I remember he telling us about Harry Potter.
Lunch was at this Scottish pub called Maggie Dickson which had a dark past.. long story told to us by our guide. After lunch, we continued our quest for "Finding Porto Beach". We finally reached at about 3.30pm. Never say die spirit huh.. we spent almost whole day searching for it! But must say it was worth it coz there are very few nice sandy beaches in the UK. And I think we were the only tourists there. I guess not many people go Edinburgh for the beach! After having an ice cream each, it was time to go back hotel to collect our stuff and head to the airport.
Simple chilled out weekend I'd say!
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