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Scotland photos

Decided to stop worrying about how to post my travel pictures and splurged for a FlickrPro account – so you can see all 71photos I took during the week in Scotland here.

Scotland 2005 Scotland 2005 Scotland 2005

Quick run-down of what we did:

Friday
Travel to Glasgow. Exploration of the lively West End/university quarter (where our hostel was), including a very nice meal at a cute Italian restaurant and drinks at a renovated church.

Saturday
Glasgow all the way – seeing the sights (cathedral, university, The Lighthouse museum, Mackintosh House), enjoying the city. Tea with . At night out with Regina's friend Alex and some of his mates.

Sunday
Trip by train and ferry to Alex' home Inellan, near Dunoon at the Firth of Clyde. Absolutely fantastic weather, perfect for savouring in the sea. Spending the night enjoying the hospitality of Alex' parents.

Monday
Trip to Edinburgh by bus. Climbing Arthur's Seat for a fantastic view (and freezing wind). In the evening exploring the New Town, having Fish n'Chips and seeing In Good Company in the cinema.

Tuesday
First snow, then pouring rain as we continue to enjoy Edinburgh. Regina goes to explore the castle (which I've already been to last summer), while I go check out a bookstore. Then we walk down the Royal Mile, since the sun was out again, and have a look at the fantastic modern Scottish Parliament. In the evening we play Snooker, a strange version of Pool, at the hostel. I even win once. šŸ™‚

Wednesday
Quick trip to Leith, which would have been nice if it hadn't been cold and raining. Then catching a bus back to Glasgow, where we unsuccesfully try to find a tearoom still open for scones. But I do find the 'Forbidden Planet' fantasy and science-fiction bookstore.

Thursday
A loong day, as I spend much time waiting around for planes to catch back home, while Regina takes the train to Brighton to see a friend.

Once again I discover I really love Scotland. And I finally come to the decision that, as a place to live, Glasgow is absolutely fantastic, much better than Edinburgh, beautiful as it is.

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Feasgair math duibh, dhaoin uaisle.

Guess who's back from Scotland again (although she'd have liked to stayed longer – maybe forever)? šŸ˜€

Regina and I had an absolutely fantastic time, in Glasgow, Edinburgh and a small village on the Firth of Clyde called Inellan. More about all of this some time later, as it's been a looong day, considering that we left the hostel this morning around 9am. Although luckily, the hours spent waiting at airports by myself (since Regina took a train down to a friend in Brighton) were made much more bearable by the good books I bought… We all knew that I wouldn't be able to resist, didn't we? *g*

But all of this are stories for another day… When I've caught up with everything. G'night!

Crossposted to the blog and travel log.

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Scotland here I come again!

Just got off the phone with Regina – weā€™re leaving for a week in Scotland (mostly Glasgow, but also a bit of traveling) on Friday. Yay, Iā€™m slowly getting all excited! I canā€™t really afford it, but I just love Scotland and couldnā€™t say no when Regina asked meā€¦

Glasgow is great (I finally want to see the Charles Rennie Mackintosh museum), and I hope weā€™ll get the chance to catch a bit of the nightlife, since sheā€™s got a friend there who plays in a band and is therefore bound to know the good places for live music. Weā€™ll also visit Edinburgh, because thatā€™s just a must for any Scotland trip, and might go see a bit of the countryside, too. Itā€™s all very much not planned – weā€™ve got a twin room at a hostel for the first two nights, after that itā€™s all openā€¦ The weather will probably be even a bit warmer than it is here – we had some lovely snow again today.

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Japan trip – points of interest

Currently I'm completely enthralled by my new Rough Guide for Japan. I'm planning on going there this October, maybe with my brother (who's a big Japan fan), but definitely at least part of the time alone.

My dream would be to spend four weeks traveling the country and one week or so on a stop-over somewhere else in Asia, maybe Bangkok or Singapur. The problem is money – according to XE.com, 1000 yen are a bit over 11 Swiss francs at the moment, which would make it very expensive. I'm not sure yet I can afford it, actually, since even the cheapest youth hostel is about 3000JPY/night. We'll see, I guess.

But I thought I'd keep track of my 'must-see' destinations here, just so I get an idea how much time is realistic… This will be edited/updated as I learn more.

Attractions are listed from North to South, as you can see on the Lonely Planet map:

Japan

Hokkaido
– Sapporo
– Historical Village of Hokkaido
– Nibutani (Ainu village)
– Daisetsu-zan National Park (Sounkyo)

Northern Honshu
– Kakunodate (samurai town)
– Tono valley
– Hiraizumi (Motsu-ji temple)

Tokyo area
– Nikko
– Kawagoe
– Mitaka (Ghibli museum)
– Mount Fuji

Tokyo

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Note to shirasade's LJ friends

Apparently, the MadCow cluster that is on will be down until tonight at 10PM PST (is that Monday morning my time? no idea). šŸ™ So that explains the lack of updates – but I thought that at least some of you will see this post.

My voice has been pretty much gone since Friday night, but I had a lovely birthday party anyway. I've got some great people as friends and we had a lot of fun – ate, drank and talkedtalkedtalked about everything and nothing. It just was a bit quieter than normal… *smile* Totally worth all the work that went into preparing!

Okay, I'll catch up with yous when is up again – just know that I'm thinking of you and hoping y'all are doing good. I can't help but worrying – it's so strange not to be able to go and check how things are… *hugs tight*

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Scotland wallpaper

MƃĀ¤rrie made an awesome wallpaper from some of our Scotland pics – thought I'd share it, because I still haven't gotten around to sharing any photos. Bad Eva! *g*

This is also a test of the upload image feature here – click the pic for the full-size version…

Scotland wallpaper

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Synching from my website

Currently I'm trying to better fit my travel log into my website. Mostly because using WordPress will make posting photos with thumbnails much easier. Then I'll finally post those pictures from Scotland – promise! šŸ™‚

ETA: Managed to import all old entries from LJ, although without linebreaks. Also, all photos seem to be broken – one of these days I'll have to fix that. Anyway, posting to LJ via WordPress seems to work, which is the main thing, as there are a number of people around who only read this on LiveJournal. But the blog is just prettier… šŸ™‚

ETA2: For some reason the WP blog stopped working, so I'm back to posting via LJ and embedding the posts into my website.

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Almost over…

Sadly enough, today we'll be leaving Scotland behind. Our plane leaves from Liverpool tomorrow morning and we'll spend the night there already, to make sure that we'll be on time.

Scotland really has been a wonderful experience and I'd have loved to stay on and see more things. I think my favorite part was the trip up North, to Carbisdale Castle, but basically it was all an awesome journey. Yesterday, we even managed to meet here in Glasgow, which was a lot of fun.

Well, time's almost up, so I'll say bye for now and will talk to you on Monday, when I'm home.