Back from Edinburgh

It was a cool trip! The best part of Scotland has to be the spectacular scenery and the awe-inspiring views of the sea.

The first day we went along the Royal Mile to see the "wynds" or the undulating little streets and then ended up at Holyrood Park, hiking up Salisbury Crags and maling it all the way up to Arthur's Seat. It's 250 m above sea level and the view from the top was well worth the scrabbling and scrambling up the last lap on all fours. Heh, amateur rock-climbers eh. cy's judicious question saved us much grief; if not for it we might not have gotten to the Seat this trip!

The second day was rather slack, mainly because it rained most of the time and also because we were all unwilling to fork out money for admission into Edinburgh Castle and Rosslyn Chapel (yes, the one in "The Da Vinci Code"). So like all good tourists, we took photos outside and were happy with those. We did go for a Scotch Whiskey Tour though and I had my first taste of the very strong brew. Highlight for the day was probably the very nice lunch at The Mussel Inn. But I didn't have mussels... ok, I had one.

On the last day, we visited the Museum of Flight for "The Concorde Experience." It took us about an hour and a half on the bus to get to East Lothian Airfield, where the museum is located. En route we passed by North Berwick which boasts an award-winning seaside. cy and I spend the time waiting for our connecting bus taking pictures while the other 4 experienced an award-wnning toilet and hunted down pastry. The beach makes us think of "The Old Man and the Sea." On the return journey, we had lunch at a teashop called "The Pantry" in Haddington where a middle aged couple approached us and remarked on how "quiet" and "gentle" we were through our meal. They are Haddington residents and had apparently been observing us eat. Oh, they first asked where we were from. Haha, they must have had some nasty experience with rowdy Asian tourists in the past. After lunch we headed back to city centre and had time for a little retail therapy along Prince's Street before catching our train back.

The train ride back was very pleasant and comfortable... because cy and I had a lot of leg space! Heh.

All in all, a good trip!