Edinburgh....

It is the weekend again and this time we are going down to Edinburgh! Jasmine was like "I want to go too!" when I told her that we'll be going to Edinburgh but too bad she's in Germany (sorry gal). Anyway, I have heard a lot about the place, its rich history and of course the Edinburgh Castle. Those who had been there always say that if you have been to Edinburgh Castle, there's no point visting the rest of the castles in UK. The unique part of Edinburgh is that the current city is built on top on the ancient city, so it'll be great to participate in the underground tours to see the ancient city. Keith had told me to go for the ghost tour where the guide will bring you underground and tell ghost stories about the place. All these make me all the more wanna go to Edinburgh.

Well, the day that I'm looking forward to is finally here. We are supposed to meet at 8am that day, take a stroll to the train station and catch the train at 8.45am. However, it was 8.30am and Yusen was not here yet. Went up to his room and found that he had just woke up only! In the end, instead of taking a slow walk to the station, we had to run there in the rain. Luckily, we managed to board the train and the train started moving like 10sec after we stepped into it. Xuejia and Joanna slumped into their seats immediately and couldn't stop panting. Not soon later, they dozed off. Well, Yusen was the one who kept reminding people not to be late and he himself was late.

It was a 1.5 hrs train ride. The first impression of the city when we arrived is that it's like another Newcastle. Well, it doesn't seems to be as impressive as the people had described it to be. At one look, the city seems to be divided into two different time zone. On one side are all the modern buildings and shopping malls while on the other side are the old buildings. The Edinburgh castle sits on a big rock in the middle of the city. This is the unique difference between Edinburgh castle and the rest of the castles in UK. Edinburgh Castle is built high upon the basalt remains of a long extinct volcano. People have come from all places just to visit the castle.

We paid 9.80pds for entry into the castle which is rather expensive (Well.. we have come all the way here to see the castle). The interior is rather disappointing, not as good as I expected it to be. There are many old Scottish houses in the castle, which have been turned into resturants and souvenir shops. There are also people dressed as Guards during the early Scottish wars. Edinburgh was once the royal residence of Scottish Kings and Queens. Over the next century the castle was used to hold prisoners of war during several conflicts including the Seven Years' War (1757-63), the War of American Independence (1775-83), and the Napoleonic wars (1793-1815). Recenly, the Honours of Scotland -- the Crown, the Sceptre and the Sword of State have been brought to Edinburgh castle from England. The Honours of Scotland now resides in the heavily guarded crown room. We had to queue for quite long to catch a glimpse of these precious items.

We wanted to go for the ghost tour after the castle trip. However, most of the tours are either full due to the weekends or too late at night, which we can't go as our train leaves at 7pm. Eventually, we found one historical underground tour which starts at 4pm. The guide allowed us to join the tour after our lunch as long as we came back before 4pm. However, when we returned, the guide backed out on his words and refused to let us join in. Yusen got so pissed off and started arguing with the guide but it's fruitless.

We went to our final destination -- the Arthur's Seat. It is located within Holyrood Park in the centre of Edinburgh. Arthur's seat are the remains of a volcano that erupted under water during the Carboniferous period. It is located 250m above the city. We had a hard time climbing up to the top of the hill as the hill is very steep and the path up is rather narrow. It was raining in the morning which makes the ground even more slipperly. Eventually, we reached the submit the view was superb. We could see the entire Edinburgh city beneath us and the sea. Well, it's a special day for us as we got to see a guy dressed in bagpipper, clothings proposing to his girlfriend at the submit. It's sooo... romantic.. *envy*