travels
Well, I originally said I would only post to update people on my travels, and I've finally been getting out a bit so here we go... :)
I started writing this post in the Hong Kong airport, which amazingly seems to have free (unsecured) wireless internet! Either that, or it's just a ploy to steal unsuspecting internet users' passwords and credit card numbers.. Well, in either case, I get to check my email for free, which is cool. I've also been able to find free wireless while we've been driving around at a few larger cities in Taiwan. Very generous these island folk are ;)
The first week of April was spent taking an American-style ('American' implying 'driving' and 'whirlwind') trip up to Scotland with my Swat friend Taki and one of his friends, a "french bird" named Emilie, whom he knows through work. The old proverb warns that three is a crowd, but I've had both positive and negative experiences in such situations. This time was a bit mixed; we all got on just fine, but I didn't have too much in common with Emilie (though I did get to brush up on my french conversation skills a bit). Generally we took turns talking to Taki, which worked out okay.
The route we took started out at Stansted Airport (north of London), sticking to motorways until we headed up into the Lake District (still in England). We spent some time the next day in the Lake District, but we were all pretty excited to get up to Scotland. We arrived fairly late at night, to a welcoming castle/hostel by Loch Lomond (see http://somebodyku.ultranurd.net/Scotland/35.html ). It was a lot of fun staying in a castle, and my fears of it being horribly cold were unfounded.
The next day was a long drive up to the Isle of Skye, but well worth the time. We saw more rainbows in this one day than I had in the previous year combined. We also took a ferry to the Isle of Skye, which was quite fun and scenic. Our time in the Isle of Skye was definitely my favourite part of the journey, because the sights were so spectacular. I definitely could have spent the whole week there, just exploring and taking pictures (until my memory card ran out of space, which it would have had I not culled out the bad pics every night). It would've been nice to get out to do some hiking, but my companions were more along the sedentary side of life and so we pressed on with our whirlwind (driving) tour.
We drove north to Ullapool after leaving Skye, which was nice but the roads weren't really built for speed. I think a lot of people use Ullapool as a jumping-off point for exploring the Highlands, but sadly we didn't push further north. The next day we drove down to just outside of Newcastle, near Hadrian's Wall. This was a wall constructed by the Romans across the neck of England. It was bitterly cold and windy that day, but certainly worth the visit. As we finished out our trip, we stopped into Edinburgh (definitely my favourite city in all of the UK thus far-- very European) and York. Yorkminster Cathedral was quite spectacular, and there was even a wedding taking place there that day. My pictures sadly do it no justice.
Speaking of pictures, I've been taking LOADS of photos while in Taiwan with my new digital SLR :-D I promise I will update soon, but for now I'll leave you with a couple (scaled down for your web-viewing pleasure) of some local folk I took earlier today ;)
http://somebodyku.ultranurd.net/small/lizard_small.JPG
http://somebodyku.ultranurd.net/small/dragonfly_small.JPG
Cheers from Taiwan, and apologies for the gross over-glossification of my travels..! if you have any questions about any part of the trip, let me know.
I started writing this post in the Hong Kong airport, which amazingly seems to have free (unsecured) wireless internet! Either that, or it's just a ploy to steal unsuspecting internet users' passwords and credit card numbers.. Well, in either case, I get to check my email for free, which is cool. I've also been able to find free wireless while we've been driving around at a few larger cities in Taiwan. Very generous these island folk are ;)
The first week of April was spent taking an American-style ('American' implying 'driving' and 'whirlwind') trip up to Scotland with my Swat friend Taki and one of his friends, a "french bird" named Emilie, whom he knows through work. The old proverb warns that three is a crowd, but I've had both positive and negative experiences in such situations. This time was a bit mixed; we all got on just fine, but I didn't have too much in common with Emilie (though I did get to brush up on my french conversation skills a bit). Generally we took turns talking to Taki, which worked out okay.
The route we took started out at Stansted Airport (north of London), sticking to motorways until we headed up into the Lake District (still in England). We spent some time the next day in the Lake District, but we were all pretty excited to get up to Scotland. We arrived fairly late at night, to a welcoming castle/hostel by Loch Lomond (see http://somebodyku.ultranurd.net/Scotland/35.html ). It was a lot of fun staying in a castle, and my fears of it being horribly cold were unfounded.
The next day was a long drive up to the Isle of Skye, but well worth the time. We saw more rainbows in this one day than I had in the previous year combined. We also took a ferry to the Isle of Skye, which was quite fun and scenic. Our time in the Isle of Skye was definitely my favourite part of the journey, because the sights were so spectacular. I definitely could have spent the whole week there, just exploring and taking pictures (until my memory card ran out of space, which it would have had I not culled out the bad pics every night). It would've been nice to get out to do some hiking, but my companions were more along the sedentary side of life and so we pressed on with our whirlwind (driving) tour.
We drove north to Ullapool after leaving Skye, which was nice but the roads weren't really built for speed. I think a lot of people use Ullapool as a jumping-off point for exploring the Highlands, but sadly we didn't push further north. The next day we drove down to just outside of Newcastle, near Hadrian's Wall. This was a wall constructed by the Romans across the neck of England. It was bitterly cold and windy that day, but certainly worth the visit. As we finished out our trip, we stopped into Edinburgh (definitely my favourite city in all of the UK thus far-- very European) and York. Yorkminster Cathedral was quite spectacular, and there was even a wedding taking place there that day. My pictures sadly do it no justice.
Speaking of pictures, I've been taking LOADS of photos while in Taiwan with my new digital SLR :-D I promise I will update soon, but for now I'll leave you with a couple (scaled down for your web-viewing pleasure) of some local folk I took earlier today ;)
http://somebodyku.ultranurd.net/small/lizard_small.JPG
http://somebodyku.ultranurd.net/small/dragonfly_small.JPG
Cheers from Taiwan, and apologies for the gross over-glossification of my travels..! if you have any questions about any part of the trip, let me know.