Trip to Scotland

Scotland is probably the most beautiful place I've visited so far. From the city of Edinburgh that divides the old and the new to the beautiful Highlands that house a sizeable number of lochs, glens and mountains, they have it all. There is also a very rich history and strong heritage here. You get to hear about the Loch Ness monster, the ghosts of Edinburgh, witchery, the public hangings in Grassmarket and many more myths and gruesome stories of the past. I'm quite fascinated by them and I would love to make another trip here again some day.

This is the New Town area facing the sea, which is also our apartment's view.

Listening to the commentary while riding the tour bus. Ooops, wrong channel.

The highland bulls.

A beautiful glen in the Highland.

We took a cruise around the famous Loch Ness. The view was spectacular but unfortunately, no creature was spotted in the lake. Maybe Nessie was taking a break.

At East Princes Street Gardens.

As we walk along The Mount, we came across a guy playing the bagpipes so here is a picture opportunity with him ;)

The Edinburgh festival in August is in full swing now. This includes the Assembly festival, I think. Not sure what it is though.

The Royal Mile! We actually arrived in Edinburgh on the day of the royal wedding so this street was closed for the wedding and we couldn't get in so we came here on Monday instead.

The Edinburgh castle is a place you can't miss wherever you are in Edinburgh because its up the hill and is very much conspicuous.

Another one of those "street performers" and as usual, this one moves as soon as I donated a few pennies. I also stopped for another street performance that lasted a good one hour which involves balloons, whips and chains. Don't ask.

This is children in the Victorian times, taken in the Museum of Childhood.

Arguably the most haunted close in Edinburgh. I wanted to take a tour but I was by myself as our group has separated that day so decided against it. Yes, I chickened out! hmmph.

Unnecessary picture of me as I was about to walk up (not down) the hill on my way to the castle.

This is one of the many museums I visited. It was recommended by my favourite Scottish author Ian Rankin. But once I entered, I realised I don't know any of those writers whose works are on display. Fail.

A view of Edinburgh from Mound Place.

Finally, I made it through to the last picture. I'm really not a fan of posting many pictures because it is a very tiring job to do but for the sake of people who still visit my blog, I have to make an exception. I have exactly one month left to submit my work so there will be no more trips like this so from now on, my updates will not be as adventurous. Just a heads up. Chao for now.

What I've Been Up To

I can't even begin to tell you how quiet this past week has been. Most people has left for the summer and the ones who have to stay are left behind stuck here until our work gets done. It's been nearly a year I've been away from home and there are a lot of things I miss about home so I can't wait to get this done and go back. But at the same time, I'll really miss this place. It's a great place to study and meet lots of new people. Here are some random pictures of what I've been up to lately (some of them are not so new).

Zuddin graduated last week so congratulations to him. And here's what's left of the Spenceleys.

Parathas for dinner, back at the old Spenceley.

I've always wanted one of these cos it's not your typical cliche barbie dolls.

This was when we had to carry Rini's stuff to the new place. I don't know why we look so clueless here. LOL

Our last pose with the old place after we moved everything out.

This was taken when I had a lunch date with Izzy at Patisserie Valerie.

It is really difficult to write a good post these days because I think I've lost my blog-writing vibe, therefore all those one-picture posts previously. I'd like to think that I'm saving my writing time for my academic report. But I'm obligated to write a proper post this time so might as well talk about how I can't write a proper post these days. Ok...

Rant aside, I'm seriously getting really busy. I guess I still haven't seen the whole picture but I have a good idea about the length of work I need to be doing now. Let's just say I've not exceeded my own expectations so I have to tear myself away from all those unnecessary social networking sites and focus on getting the implementation done. That includes blogging, right?

Summer in York

The Tree Pose

Sorry for the one-picture-per-post. I'm just experimenting.

In an Ice Cream Parlour

Trip to Venice

The trip to Venice a couple of days ago was quite exhausting yet exciting although we needed cold drinks and ice cream ever couple of hours to recharge because the weather was unbearably hot. But nevertheless, we had a fine time exploring the city on foot, in a gondola, on a waterbus, you name it we had it. In one day itself, we had the opportunity to travel on land, on water and on air so we can't possibly top that.

This is St. Mark's square, the most famous landmark in Venice. Definitely not one to miss. In the evening, tourists trong this place because it's just beautiful and romantic especially if you dine in one of the restaurants here because they have live music to sooth your dining experience.

Izzy, Raizul, his mum and I posing in front of St. Mark's Basillica, another fine landmark in the square.

The main canal that runs through the heart of the city.

It was too hot for us to handle, I gave up and took out my trusty umbrella who has travelled with me for miles all the way from my UBD days.

A yacht sailing through Di Fusina canal.

One of the many canals in Venice. Bridges and boats are aplenty in this city.

It had been a great weekend for me and I had a wonderful time here in this city. Hopefully, I get to visit many other places in the future although I'm not much of a travel person.

Moving

The end of June came which means moving houses for many of us as term contracts come to an end. I don't want to bore you with all the gory details of our experiences cleaning our flat but I've got some quick pictures that will run you through the course of our excruciating glory.

A couple of days before the move, we had to clear out the food in the refrigerator so we had a small party with whatever food we have left. It was a weird dinner experience as we had salty fish with parathas and extremely spicy curry with mixed meat (sausages, burger meat, fish balls and crab meat).

AJ came around to help us out. Here's half of the Spenceleys and AJ.

We had to move the broken TV to the side to make way for the dinner. You see, we don't have a dining table. True story.

Ebom was at the party as well, but she only had carrots because she's on a diet. A guinea pig diet, that is.

The night wouldn't be complete without us camwhoring so there you go.

Mizan dropped in as well. And I think he made a truck out of the Lego set we have.

After the party's over, it was time to get down to business. That, in Spenceley term, means messing up the living room. We only had one box so it was pretty hard deciding what to put in that box considering that most items are fragile.

Here's Zudin clearing out the kitchen. We had so many stuff that we had to throw out most of them. We had more than 20 trash bags by the time we finish.

We couldn't resist having some fun while packing too. Here's me holding a football mug (which we threw away) while Izzy sat in her packing box while holding a teapot (I think we threw that away too)

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And after a while, Izzy became the teapot.

We barely slept for three nights, but the satisfaction of clearing out stuff made up for that, albeit feeling a little guilty for throwing away lots of good stuff. We simply can't carry them all with us.

We also Skyped with Raizul that one night. I haven't seen him in months! He'll be coming over in the next couple of days and we're all excited for that.

How's my new room, you ask? Besides the traffic noise and the fact that we have flatmates who sleep at normal times unlike us so we have to keep quite at night, I think I'll survive. It's not so bad actually. The toilet is much better, the shower works perfectly and the kitchen's well-equipped. I'm just finding it hard to do my work because there is just something about this room that makes me feel lazy. On the bright side, I've been catching up with lots of TV series. But this month is supposed to be the busiest month so at one point I would have to kick myself back to reality. In the meantime, have a nice summer holiday!

The New Tennis Superstar

Regardless if Novak wins or not tomorrow at The Championships final, he will be the new world number 1 come 4th of July. It's not surprising given that his performance this year is near perfect, having only lost once to Roger Federer this season. Federer and Nadal have hold the number one spot since 2004 so this is quite a refreshing change. I know I'm a bit bias, me being a big fan of Novak and all, but if someone else has taken the spot it would be just as refreshing. Where does the Nadal-Federer rivalry go from here? The way we see it, it's more of a fab four rather than a two men show now, with Murray not far behind the three.

Source: AP, Getty Images, Reuters

Tomorrow I will be sticking to the laptop watching live stream of the final at 2pm so I don't expect myself to do something productive for the whole afternoon. This has become my life for the past two weeks. Yes, I'm a tennis junkie and I need a life.