Life Sucks

During our sojourn through Scotland, we stayed at quite a few places. Mostly bed and breakfast but the place that stand out the most was the Victorian style Camus House at Onich, Fort William run by Alastair and Louise. Not only did these lovely couple made us feel welcome, they also gave us many tips on the best place to visit in the area, the best place to eat. It was from them that we managed to have the best time in Scotland, hiking through the Glens. Read the account of our visit to Glen Righ and Glen Nevis here . The whole place is so beautiful and romantic. From the lovely cottage bedroom to the warm inviting living room to the countryside looking dining room and the view of the Loch. Can you imagine a more beautiful bedroom than this? Possibly the most romantic bedroom one can get. Honeymooners, this will be the most perfect place to smooch around if you are not the sun and sand type. The cosy looking living room. There is absolutely no hotel sty...

A friend posted a link to a webpage review of the 6 "best" prawn noodles in Singapore. One thing led to another and soon we were talking of doing our own tasting. A wicked idea then came to us. Instead of going to the different outlets over several days, why not do it all on the same day! And so we rounded up a small group of friends and whittled down the list from 8 to 6 and finally 4. Everyone was in agreement that 6 bowls of prawn noodles in a day will be a tad too much calorie and cholesterol overload. The final shortlist - Wah Kee Big Prawn Noodles at Cambridge Rd; River South (Hoe Nam) Prawn Noodles at Macpherson; Blanco Court Prawn Mee at Beach Road and last but not least Adam Road Prawn Noodle at Zion Road. We started out quest at the seemingly most highly rated stall of all, Wah Kee Big Prawn Noodles. As a testimony to their fame, there was already a queue at 9.50 am when our early birds reached. After queuing for 1 hour, we finally got our noodles! This s...

One of the thing that we decided to do before we go over was to go on a "wildlife expedition" trip. So after some research, we signed up for one on the Isle of Mull, a place that is renown for its wildlife. The trip to the Isle of Mull was an adventure by itself with beautiful scenery. We had to drive a long distance from Glasgow after which we had to take a ferry across. Along the way, there are the usual beautiful landscapes both on land and in the sea. Unfortunately, the Isle of Mull by itself is quite a boring place with nothing much to do if you are not into nature.  This is Tobermory, the main town of Isle of Mull. It is also a "ghost" town after 6 pm when all the shops closes.  We drove 20 miles to this place to find everything closed. Our consolation was that the only remaining place still opens for business happens to serve the best seafood in the whole of Scotland!   More of the food in another blog post later. Back to the wildlife ...

After finding out from the Visitor Centre at Loch Lomond that there was a castle "nearby", we decided to visit it. But the Scots has a very strange sense of distance. Nearby was actually more than an hour drive away! But we got to see our very first castle so I guess it was worth the drive. This was the first view of the castle when we reached.  The castle sits on top of a hill and has a nice view of the surrounding All respectable castle must have a good defence and a solid rock cliff is one of them. And canons too! Europeans like nudes and there are nude statues all over. Wonder what is this guy doing? This is the hiding and resting area for the soldier during war time. Unfortunately sometime the walls collapse and kill them while they are inside There is a large chapel with a big altar. For worship or sacrifice? These ceilings are awesome. Apparently they are medallions handed down over the years and are of royalties from UK and Europe....

The most famous place in Scotland is probable Loch Ness, home of the mythical Lock Ness Monster. Naturally that was on our must visit list until all the locals we spoke to told us not to waste our time travelling there. So in the end, instead of Loch Ness, we ended up at Loch Lomond . Loch Lomond is the largest lake in mainland Britian - i.e. England and Scotland and is about 71 sq km in surface area. Certainly it was big cause we could see that it stretches on and on and even when we were driving up to the highlands, we keep passing signs pointing to Loch Lomond. We decided that the earliest way to explore it is to take one of the short cruise. There are different cruises available including sunset dinner cruise but we had only time for short cruise. What we saw on this little cruises were beautiful houses along the river banks. Most of them have been converted to hotels and it seems celebrities from all over the world flock here to stay and escape from the crowd. ...

What is there to see in Glasgow? To be honest nothing much. Just lots and lots of old building. From Victorian era apartments to Gothic style buildings that resemble castles and palaces. And most of them look alike like those in those photos. An office building in Buchanan Street A shopping complex in Glasgow Town Centre A coffee joint in another converted building Gallery of Modern Arts Glasgow City Chamber in George Square Main building of University of Glasgow Kelvingrove Museum