Tattooooo

(Edinburgh, Day 4 - August 25th, 2007)

We actually managed to get some tickets for the Edinburgh Tattoo today! The office had a handful left, it was even the last night for the Tattoo so we were quite lucky to get them. We'll get to the Tattoo itself shortly.

Most of the day we bummed around town taking in more street performances and checking out shops and various other sights. At one point we wandered into the Fringe Festival and spent a not insubstantial amount of time watching the various performers and people milling about the area. There was also this awesome store called Royal Mile Armouries that sold real battle-ready swords... believe you me if I could have figured out an inexpensive way of transporting one of these beauties home I would have!

As the time for the Tattoo drew near we queued up on the road (not on the pavement, which is what they call the sidewalk here in the UK) and waited for the Police to let us into the castle Esplanade.

The seats were a wee bit tight but the view was great and the show was pretty good to boot. I especially enjoyed the initial display of pipes and drums and the the band of the Moscow Military Conservatoire (they put on a very good show), though the Trinidad and Tobago steel band was pretty neat too. There was even a motorcycle riding display put on by the Imps motorcycle display team which is basically a group for young people to practice precision motorcycle riding.

After the Tattoo we caught a final street show at the Fringe and headed back to Portobello.

Ain't Technology Grand

(Edinburgh, Day 3 - August 24th, 2007)

Started the day off again with the Scottish Breakfast. As heart-attack inducingly delicious as the previous day. We started running low on clean clothes so some drastic measures needed to be taken, mostly having to do with going to the local laundrette. On the way I noticed that the fire department had shown up at a vacant shop. It seems that there was a fire somewhere as there was smoke coming out of the building. I don't think it was particularly serious however as the firemen were out carrying on and generally appearing to be not very concerned.

After dropping our freshly laundered clothes off at the B&B we headed into town with the intent of going to Edinburgh Castle. We lingered around the Scott Monument and took in the sights and sounds of the festival atmosphere, however, before heading up the Royal Mile towards the castle.

We got to the castle just before 1pm which meant that we could actually try and get a picture of the 1 o'clock gun firing. The 1 o'clock gun you see, was in years past a way for the people of Edinburgh to synchronize their timepieces to one standard. They even had charts people could use to take into account the lag effect of the speed of sound based upon your position. Unfortunately there was no joy in 1 o'clock gun land as it failed to fire. Apparently the recently installed gun, a marvel of modern military technology designed to replace the WWII era gun that is now on display elsewhere, is not exactly what you would call reliable.

We explored the rest of the castle at our leisure. There are about 17,000 museums and shops in various locations around the castle... okay maybe not 17,000, but there are quite a few. It's all very interesting though, and definitely worth the time and the money.

After we leave the castle we go up Calton Hill to get a better look at the National and Nelson Monuments. The view is pretty damn good too, though it won't be the best view we get by a long shot. On our way down we hear the sounds of the beginning of the Edinburgh Tattoo. There's a bit of a firework show as well. It's pretty cool, and we continue to regret being unable to book tickets for the show before we left, as it's been pretty much sold out since tickets were made available months and months ago.

Lions and Tigers and a Severe Lack of Bears. Oh My!

(Edinburgh, Day 2 - August 23th, 2007)

Started the day off with a traditional Scottish breakfast of a fried egg, bacon, sausage, fried tomato, toast, and mushrooms. It's quite good, though I'm sure it sped us along towards an early heart attack at some point down the road.

Our goal today is the Edinburgh Zoo! We head off from the B&B into Portobello to catch the bus. It's awfully convenient that the bus we take from City Centre to Portobello and back is the very same bus we take to the Zoo... though there's a slight detour to a used camera store along the way. I happen to find a used Pentax 50mm f1.7 manual focus lens for a reasonable price. It's in great condition optically and physically so I snatch it up. It should make for a great portrait lens, hehe.

Okay when I said slight detour earlier, I lied. We didn't go to the Zoo until later in the day, as Eva wanted to go to the Book Festival as well. We went and had a poke around however Eva didn't really find anything too interesting, though we did have some ice cream (99's, an ice cream cone with a Cadbury's Flake bar in them... yum!).

So then, off to the Zoo finally. We managed to make it there about 3, which meant we had about 3 hours ot explore the Zoo. We didn't see absolutely everything however we did get to see a lot. The pictures in the "Edinburgh - Day 3" set on Flickr really show some of the highlights. There wasn't much going on as it was mid-afternoon so a lot of the animals were resting. Though the lions did start making a racket after we left their area, and I think the Baboons started yelling at some obnoxious children though we missed that as well.

Anyways, off to write about Day 3.

Out of The Wilderbush

Okay Bath isn't exactly in the middle of nowhere but our hotel did not have internet access while we were there and I being the lazy individual I am didn't want to schlep my laptop to a WiFi enabled cafe. Hence the lack of updates.

I just started uploading the pictures of our 4th day in Edinburgh to Flickr and I'm going to post the entries for our 2nd and 3rd day in Edinburgh... I'll be caught up right about when we get back in town at this rate. Not exactly going as planned, but at least the vacation has been going well.

Still Alive

Haven't had a chance to talk about our trip to the Zoo or Edinburgh Castle yet, hopefully when we get back tonight I won't be falling asleep.

Edinburgh!

We made it to Edinburgh in one piece yesterday, though it took us some time to figure out the WiFi setup here at our B&B. If anyone reading this is looking for a nice place to stay just outside the main area of town, we highly recommend the Ardgarth Guest House in Portobello. It's about 3 minutes away from a beautiful beach and maybe 10 minutes away from town by bus.

As a contrast to our London experience, when we arrived in Edinburgh the sun was shining and it was very warm. We took an Airlink bus from the airport into the center of town. It's a double-decker like 99% of the buses here in Edinburgh and we got up top right in the front (wee!).

Edinburgh is absolutely beautiful! It's basically the downtown St. John's area, as if it were a city... with a medieval castle on a hill in the middle of it... and a long extinct volcano. But in all seriousness it feels like we're home.

Everyone is so friendly too. Two total strangers helped us out yesterday when we got lost, it was so different from London where a lot of people just seem very distant. I think it's just a symptom of London being so big. People were nice and all, but with 7 million people I suppose you just keep to yourself.

Anyway, we got off in the middle of town and scoped out everything in the area. The Scott Monument looks like something out of Mordor, this black jagged looking Gothic spire. The only difference is that Mordor isn't a beautiful green park. Apparently you can climb to the top, looks like you can get a good view. There are also a lot of performers around for the various Festivals that are ongoing this month. It's pretty cool. We ended up going to the Tourist Information building just after this to get some info about the buses and whatnot, and after that we headed to the Lothian Busses building around the corner to pick up some Day Passes.

We hopped on the bus we needed up across from the Marks and Spencer and headed for Portobello. More great views of the neighborhoods along the way greeted us. When we arrived we were greeted by Ursula, one of the owners of the B&B. She is really friendly and jovial and has lots of useful advice and information about the area. After checking in we headed down to the beach and walked around in our bare feet at the water's edge. We're going to have to come back here before we leave and actually try some swimming.

After wiping all the sand off our feet we started walking down Portobello High Street to check out the shops. We eventually reached the roundabout that would have taken us into town but we took a wrong turn and ended up going down the motorway, which also happens to be lined with auto dealers as far as the eye can see.

We ended up going the right way into town after walking back the way we came and took a bus into the city center. We bought a wool blanket and had a fish and chips picnic in the park, it was great.

After this we walked to Holyrood Park. Along the way we got lost but a friendly girl helped us get our bearings. We ended up taking the incredibly hard way up but it was more than worth it for the beautiful view in the end. We finally walked our way down the easier path in the dark, managing once again to not get killed, and after getting lost (and being helped by yet another friendly stranger) we managed to get to our bus home to the guest house.

Off again!

Buck House, Museums and Sushi

Today we set out to do the most touristy thing imaginable: watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. We did want to see the palace, but we weren't sure we were interested in fighting our way through a few thousand other tourists to watch some guards marching up and down the square. Okay, it's probably pretty interesting to see... except that it was canceled due to the threat of rain. It never did actually rain, but the show was canceled none the less. An hour or more sitting around very nearly wasted! Luckily the crowd was pretty interesting and we did get to see the palace.

Did I mention Eva almost got eaten by a Police horse? Okay... maybe not eaten... but he did take an interest in the zipper on her jacket as he proceeded to chew on it. Alfie was the horse's name, though his officer said he had a few other choice names for him, presumably because of similar behavior.

From the palace we walked to Wellington Arch. We had no idea there was an inside to this place but apparently there is. However much like a lot of things in London this year it seems, bits and pieces of it were undergoing renovations or repairs. Supposedly you can go all the way up to the top and look out over the area, so not being able to was a bit of a let-down.

At this point we headed from the nearby Hyde Park Corner station to Victoria Station to inquire about train tickets to Bath. I'm still amused by the Pigeons inside the station here. Honestly it's not surprising given that there are about 5 pigeons in London for every man, woman and child, it's just weird seeing birds flying around "indoors" like that. After grabbing some sandwiches and crisps from the Marks and Spencer we got our advance tickets to Bath and headed off back the way we came so we could check out some museums.

The first museum that was up was the Natural History Museum. Like most everything else in London, this place is absolutely vast. We spent about 2 hours here and didn't get a chance to see everything though we did go through the human oven that was the Dinosaur exhibit. It was well worth it though. One thing I did notice was that the NHM was far more orderly and organized than the British Museum, but it was necessary with the massive queue going through this particular exhibit. We also checked out the Mammal, and the Human Biology sections. We got lost trying to find the section on Geology, though we did manage to see the Nature section. After all this we figured we should move on and see the Science Museum.

In the Science Museum we checked out the Space exhibit and their temporary exhibit about Energy. As well we saw some of the Aviation area and took a ride on one of those silly 3D roller-coaster simulators as it looked like too much fun. We stayed almost until closing though like the NHM we didn't really have enough time to see everything. I really think each of these Museums could be a day in and of themselves sadly.

We knew that Harrod's was just down the road, so we figured we should get some pictures of the outside at least though Eva felt that entering would be a detriment to our vacation fund. We spot a Yo! Sushi across the street and realize that, hey, it's pretty much supper time. Having wanted to eat here at some point it was pretty much no argument. The little conveyor belts are pretty neat, carrying all these multi-colored sushi dishes around the entire bar. We ate a fair bit and ordered some hot stuff off the menu too. Yes, I had Inari... two plates of it in fact. After eating we walked around for a while just exploring the area, eventually walking towards Hyde Park.

Did I mention everything in London is big? Hyde Park is no exception. It's very beautiful and peaceful. Definitely a good place to go to escape the hustle and the bustle of the city. They have a Peter Pan statue that is identical to the one we have in Bowring Park in St. John's, that was pretty neat. Tried to get a shot similar to the one that's in my Flickr stream just cause it would be amusing. We eventually made our way to the station and then to the Hotel so we could get packing for today's trip to Edinburgh.

Anyway we're off to the airport now!

Exploring the South Bank

Yesterday we checked out the South Bank for the most part. Though in the morning we went and finally got those Rainsleeves I was talking about earlier (yay!).

On our way to the Tower Bridge we passed the London Dungeon with it's massive queue. Bought a pasty with beef and potatoes in it and ate it while walking towards the Thames.

We started at the Tower Bridge and gawked at City Hall and the Tower of London across the river. We went full circle around the tower but thought better of doing the tour as we really didn't think it was worth the time waiting in line. We ate a light lunch, more scones with clotted cream and jam, with hot tea this time. The scones were as big as your head, I swear!

Walked back over the Tower Bridge then past London Bridge and towards Shakespeare's Globe and the Tate Modern Gallery. Had a quick poke 'round the Globe and checked out the Tate Modern. We then crossed the Millennium Bridge and headed to St. Paul's Cathedral. After that we headed to the Old Bailey. We decided to walk to Blackfriars to grab the tube towards Westminster.

We came up and immediately in view was the Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament (the bell is called Big Ben). Walked around the whole thing and checked out Victoria Tower Gardens. We then walked to Westminster Abbey and took some lovely shots of it in the setting sun. Checked our map and realized that New Scotland Yard was nearby so we ended up checking that out. At this point we were famished so we ate at this nice little restaurant called Snax which had this delicious (and cheap!) Mediterranean Chicken.

At this point we headed back to the hotel for a bit, then when darkness fell we left for Piccadilly Circus again to take some pictures of the place when it was fully lit.

Anyways that's about it for yesterday, we're off again!

London - Day 2

Holy crap another long day. Didn't even get a chance to sort out my favorite pictures and upload them. We'll see what I can do tomorrow.

Later!

Piccadilly, Pigeons, and People

Well, I think we got off to a good start on our first full day in London. Some people might think we wasted our time, but we had a grand time walking around central London exploring the sights and getting our bearings.

After getting up and eating our free and delicious light breakfast, we left the hotel for Old Street Station which, much to our chagrin was closed until noon! A friendly woman at the station suggested we take the bus and pointed us in the right direction. After bothering a bus driver we managed to get on the correct side of the road and on to a bus to King's Cross station. Again, I can not get over how much better public transit is here, there are buses almost constantly!

So from King's Cross we take the tube to Piccadilly Circus and pop up to street level. I didn't mention it at this point but it was raining lightly so taking pictures was somewhat annoying as I didn't want to get my camera wet. Luckily at one point I devised some impromptu rain shielding by stuffing the barrel of my lens into my jacket sleeve. Annoying but effective. Anyway, there was hardly anyone around as it was pretty early and wet, but it was still pretty cool seeing the place in person. Before taking off we bought a few souvenirs.

Our intent was to find the The Britain and London Visitor's Centre to load up on pamphlets and whatnot. We failed in our original attempt as we went the wrong way down Regent Street, but we did find quite a few interesting shops. After turning around and going back through the Circus we found the Centre and got what we needed.

At this point we decided to head and find a Jessops camera store so I could get some Rainsleeves (cheap and cool rain protection for SLRs). On the way we happily stumbled upon Trafalgar Square, where there was some sort of Indian festival being set up... or ending... or something. It was still pretty interesting.

After finding that the Jessops had no Rainsleeves (subsequently discovered there's like only one camera store in London that sells them) we passed by a Currys Digital who's very friendly staff (at least 5 people asked us if we needed anything) said that we might have better luck getting a Rainsleeve at the Jessops Pro Store or the Jacobs Digital across the way on New Oxford Street. This was perfect because this is just around the corner from the British Museum which we wanted to check out as our next stop!

We walked the whole way up Tottenham Court Road, checking out shops along the way. Eva managed to find a new bag to help hold the vast quantities of crap we were accumulating so our hands weren't full. We arrived on New Oxford Street only to discover that the Jacobs was closed and that the Jessops was also without Rainsleeves. Oh well, it was off to the museum!

When we arrived at the British Museum there was an astonishing number of people there, it was like a vast sea of humanity in some areas. The Rosetta Stone was as if it were surrounded by a school of pihrana eating some poor unfortunate that fell into a jungle river. We managed to see most of the Egypt section, some of the Greek & Roman section, checked out an exhibit on Islam that they had, went through a temporary exhibit about Death and Dying and then started in on the Asian section.

After all this walking around we were nearly beat so we decided to go to the Cafe and have a quick bite to eat. We had some delicious iced tea and Scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam... mmmmmm. Wait, what was I saying... right. Suffice it to say it was very good. We decided at this point to try and get to Camden Lock before the market closed for day.

Camden Lock is another place where you get a feel for just how many people must be living in London. There were thousands of people around to be sure. All walks of life, all sorts of unusual characters, everything imaginable for sale. Lots of tattoo parlors... yeah I dunno what's up with that. So anyway, we explored the labyrinthine Camden Lock market. Lots of sights and sounds. Almost every other stall was playing different music. Food everywhere. It was getting near on supper time at this point so it wasn't helping matters. We decided to drop off our stuff at the hotel and go get some food before finally crashing for the night.

After the hotel we headed towards Bishopsgate which is really rather close. We got a better view of the Gherkin and found a few places to eat that were either too expensive or closed (unfortunately) until we stumbled upon a small chain pub/eatery called Woodins Shades, it seemed alright and the prices outside were reasonable. Eva ended up having Bangers and Mash (and salt!) and I had what they called a Toad in the Hole (I thought this was fried toast and egg) which was a sausage with mashed potatos and vegetables covered in gravy inside this massive Yorkshire pudding... oh my god was it ever good!

Anyways our second day is wasting so we're going to get going!

Day 1 - So Tired

Pretty much falling asleep in the chair as I type this. I'll upload today's pictures to Flickr then write all about it in the morning tomorrow.

Take Care.

Strangers in a Strange Land

Well, it's a little overwhelming at the moment but we're in our hotel room safe and sound.

The flight went smoothly, the landing was smooth as buttah. Oh and we actually got served real food for the in-flight meal. It was pretty yummy!

We managed to navigate our way to the train station to take the Heathrow Connect to Paddington station, then with the help of some friendly staff we got our way to an open ticket booth to buy some Oyster cards. We then went and took the Circle Line to King's Cross St. Pancras and transferred to the Northern Line and finally arrived at Old Street Station. I'm amazed we didn't get lost or eaten by a bear quite honestly.

I commented to Eva that this must be what it's like to have real public transit. Seriously, compared to Metrobus back home the tube was crazy efficient. Though the Victoria Line was down for repairs, so I guess we were lucky we didn't need to take that today.

From Old Street Station we almost got lost but luckily we managed to find a street sign to help us get our bearings (seriously, how the heck do you find out what street you're on here?) and turned around to head to Great Eastern Street. Managed to cross two very busy streets without being run over by a car, so a real bonus there! The Hoxton at night seems to be quite the popular spot. Lots of people in the lounge. I was feeling rather shy so I didn't really snap any pictures.

The rooms are really very cozy. The decor is slick and modern. Lots of great little freebies such as WiFi, milk, bottled water, tea and coffee, etc. Little touches help make it a really nice place.

Hopefully we'll have enough time to explore, 3 days doesn't feel like enough to take in a city the size of London. I suppose if we stick to the central bits we should be okay. Tomorrow we'll be checking out the British and London Visitor's Centre (near Piccadilly Circus) to get our bearings and some cheap maps and such and then hitting up some museums and maybe Buckingham Palace to take some pictures.

Anyways I'm not sure what else I can say at this point... I'm doing a very British (and Newfoundlander, to be honest) thing and drinking a cup of tea (actually a mug... I hope nobody minds) while uploading some choice photos to Flickr.

Cheerio!

At The Airport

I'm actually posting this from the St. John's Airport departure terminal! It appears that Aliant is providing free WiFi as a trial here. That's pretty damn cool.

The weather here is all pretty blah and overcast, and apparently London is pretty similar. I guess we'll feel right at home.

Anyways our plane boards in about 45 minutes, so we'll soon be flying off to Heathrow. It's all pretty exciting.

The next post will either be from there or our hotel :D

LBA!

In the Pentax community, there's a phenomenon they call LBA. It is short for Lens Buying Addiction. It is very real, and I think I have it...

I'm currently looking at eventually getting a 50mm prime lens, a Sigma 10-20mm and a Sigma 17-70mm lens. I'll probably get the prime first given that it would be nice to have a really fast lens, plus the Pentax 50mm/1.4 is relatively inexpensive. The 17-70mm has a bit more reach than the kit 18-55mm I have and it's really sharp and a fair bit faster to boot. The 10-20mm is just crazy wide (102 degrees!), I've seen some really breathtaking pictures taken with it and I think it would be a great addition to my kit.

The downside to all this is that lenses are all quite expensive so it might be some time until I get any. I'm not unhappy with my kit lenses mind you, I think they're both really good lenses, it's just that I think the other lenses will more accommodate my shooting style.

Welcome to the Photoblag

I've been on the internet for a looong time... in internet time at least. Since 1993... the year Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web. Wow, that's crazy. Anyways this is my first serious attempt at posting on the Blagosphere. I hope you enjoy your stay.

What brought all this on would be the fact that my girlfriend and I are going on our first real vacation together to the UK and I want to post about our trip where our friends and family can see. I get the added bonus that total strangers get to see it too! Amazing!

I fancy myself a bit of an amateur photographer, so I might be talking about that from time to time too. You can see my Flickr page here.

Anyways that's enough for now, I'll probably write more stuff nobody will read later :D