Edina! Scotia’s Darling Seat!

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Architecture, Art, Castle, Edinburgh, Flowers, Park, Photography, Postgrad, University of Edinburgh

Edinburgh is a beautiful, vibrant city. There’s such variety in the landscape and architecture. With regards to landscape, we’ve hills and valleys, parks and inactive volcanoes and buildings. For architecture, the modern Informatics building at the University coexists with the older, Georgian buildings, and buildings older than that.

But enough for words. I’ll let Edinburgh speak for itself.

Flowers and Couple, (C) BCW 2012

Greyfriar's (C) BCW 2012

Sunset over the Divinity School (C) BCW 2012

In which Beth eats unusual foods (for her)

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Edinburgh, Food, Friends, Life, Postgrad, restaurants in edinburgh, Scotland, Travel

Whenever I’m travelling, I try to eat a new thing every day. Living in a new country, this doesn’t happen daily, particularly as living somewhere entails me making my own food.

Today, however, I managed to eat a meal filled with foods I never had consumed before. I went with a few of my friends to Saigon Saigon, which is one of the tasiest Chinese restaurants in Edinburgh.

We looked over the menu and then ordered, my friends (two from China, one from Taiwan) suggesting and selecting some of their favourite dishes. I just had one request: whatever we ate, there had to be at least one dish that wasn’t too spicy.

We ended up with five dishes. One, my favourite, I can’t recall what it was called. But what else did I eat? Let me preface by saying yes, I knew what I was eating. And it was all delicious.

Shredded chicken–my choice. Not too spicy at all.

Roasted duck tongue–a favourite of one of my friends. A bit spicy for my taste, but I did eat three tongues. As well as the bones of two, I didn’t realize there were bones in it…the crunchiness should have tipped me off.

Cow stomach–I’ve had stomach before, when I was in Italy (lamprodotto). I wasn’t a fan then, I’m really not a fan now either.

Pig’s feet–Um, these were delicious. Succulent and tasty, with a lovely sauce.

Sadly, the duck gizzards were unavailable. My friends said that they’re delicious, and I wanted to try them!

For desert, I had coconut milk with soga and tapioca. Wonderful!

 

And no, I still haven’t tried haggis.

 

A Windy Day at Rosslyn Chapel

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Art, Edinburgh, Life, Photography, Postgrad, Rosslyn Chapel, Scotland, Travel

Yesterday, a few friends and I ventured through the wind and rain to visit Rosslyn Chapel. After missing the bus (and noting that the 15A wouldn’t drop us off at the Chapel), we were off to a late start. Killing time with a cappuccino, we caught the later bus and were off, an hour after we had meant to.

But that was okay. We drove about a half hour outside of Edinburgh to Roslin, and a quick walk up to the chapel’s visitor center. Then through the sliding glass doors to see the chapel itself.

No internal photography is permitted, but we took full advantage of there still being daylight to shoot the exterior. There’s some lovely stonework, which I find beautiful, even in its decay.

(C) Beth 2012

I loved wandering around the building, looking at the statues of saints and angels. Living in Italy, if only for four months, instilled a fascination with these images. At Rosslyn, my favourites were on a memorial stone.

(C) Beth 2012

I think I photographed all of the angels on this stone…there were so many! This one was my favourite photograph, though.

(C) Beth 2012

The interior of Rosslyn was stunning. Not being allowed to take photographs, I sketched instead (but none of my sketches were quite up to par, so sadly I shan’t share).

The carvings were beautiful. I can’t even begin to describe them without falling into cliche. A place that must be seen by one’s own eyes!