huilin

Long overdue pictures from London when I was there in May and Marcus and I decided to make the best out of the whole dire swine flu situation by enjoying ourselves for a week there! More here.

We went to this fertility festival on the penultimate night of our stay in Edinburgh. Carlton Hill was crowded with thousands of people boozing away, and the sexually charged atmosphere was spurred on by the almost-naked performers painted in red, gyrating around with lots of fire. Great excuse to parade around naked I say, but at temperatures of 2-3degC, hats off to them. I was fully clothed and swathed in layers and layers of warm clothing, and still shivering standing next to them. More pictures here

These were up eons ago, but I’m not sure how many of you click on the “my photos” link on the sidebar. Pictures from a whirlwind trip to Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road in the height of the swine flu hype.

Some pictures I took on a recent trip to Penang in June. For the rest of them, click here.

Taken by Liyana whilst the 4 of us were scrambling on the scree-covered incline to get up to the base of the Old Man of Storr.

First post from the spanking new imac! When the doorbell rang and I saw the TNT delivery guy at the gate holding a huge box, I was in such a fluster that I tripped and -almost- fell in my haste to run down to collect the parcel. I must say that editing photos on this humongous 24″ screen with a fantastic graphics card is such a joy and pleasure. This new computer’s increased memory and speed also means that my processes (which took my old powerbook ages to do) are completed almost instantly, making image processing such a breeze.

On a sadder note, my portable hard drive died, so the rest of the pictures of Scotland have sadly vanished with it.

These photos were from an awesome dinner at Nobu London. It was my first time there, and 2nd time dining at a Michelin-starred restaurant (the first was at Martin Wishart in Edinburgh which I shall blog about later). I’d always wanted to try Nobu, and was initially supposed treat myself for my birthday (which would have been spent in London/Pittsburgh if not for the swine-flu disruptions). When elective plans were ruined by the swine flu outbreak, we decided to just go anyway.

The restaurant was upmarket, minimalistic and chic, and the well-heeled crowd quickly filled the place by 8pm. The service staff were an international mix – apparently they have people who speak different languages so as to better serve their non english-speaking customers.

I got to try some unfiltered sake – another first for me. I ordered the Sashimi dinner – the best I’ve ever tasted, each slice was so thick, fresh and succulent. The salmon slices were buttery and flavourful, and the scallops surprised me with their overwhelming sweetness. The taste of each amazing bite lingered in my mouth, and I’d pause to swoon (inwardly of course), before eagerly reaching for more. I think conversation stalled at this juncture due to the frequent interruptions from my inner raptures of joy (and outward silence). For dessert, I had the Mango katsu with coconut cream noodles in an earl grey and yuzu broth – a wonderful recreation of the traditional katsu with udon noodles dish. The broth was subtly sweet with the citrusy flavour of yuzu with a hint of flowery earl grey to anchor it, and when paired with the coconut cream noodles and the fried mango, was really something to remember.

I also got to sample some of Marcus’s Wagyu beef tartare starter, which completely changed my mind about minced raw beef with spices- it is definitely much tastier and sweeter than I’d ever imagined it to be.

More photos to come!

The Isle of Skye is an island off the north-western coast of Scotland. We took a long drive (7hrs) here from Edinburgh through the Highlands of Scotland. By an unfortunate twist of events (Lawrence’s flight here from the USA got grossly delayed due to bad weather), I only managed to spend one full day on this beautiful island. However, we still tried to make the most out of it by exploring vastly different sites. The scenery was really fantastic, and the photographs that I attempted to take really do not do the beauty of this place any justice at all. It was vast, stark, harsh, cold and beautiful, and it was so amazing just being in the midst of such natural beauty.

The views on the island are varied. It ranges from vast acreages of farmland with grazing sheep and highland cows, astounding cliffs with relentlessly crashing waves, gentle benign beaches, azure blue bays, rolling hills, strong silent deep blue lochs, to rock structures of fantastic shapes and forms. The light here is also amazing. In the morning, everything sparkles with dew, and at sunset, the sky is a dazzling array of colours. Sunsets are the most amazing – the sky is pastel pink, purple, and orange all at the same time, and it bathes everything in its golden glory.

We also saw many animals on the island. Sheep are abundant and graze just about anywhere, within the confines of farmland and outside the boundaries of any kind of farms- I swear I’ve seen them trying to eat vegetation on cliff faces too, and have no idea where or how they got there. Cows are also plentiful, there’s the normal dairy cow, and its cuter relative – the Highland cow, or Highland “coo” which its more affectionally called here. When we stop the car to take a picture of them, the cows will unanimously look up from their drinking vessel, and turn to look at me. They appear to ponder curiously about who I am or what I want, and upon deciding that I’m relatively harmless, turn back to their drink with an air of boredom. Its all very hilarious really.

Before heading to Skye, I read about a place called Faerie Glen. Its supposed to be a mysterious place filled with hillocks, and has a magical air about it, just like you’d imagine elves and faeries inhabiting the area. We made our way there, driving on teeny farm roads, stopping the car as farmers and sheep dogs herded sheep across the road and chased runaway lost lambs all over the place, and finally finding ourselves surrounded by an unreal landscape of little hills. It wasn’t as magical as I’d imagined it to be, but we still had lots of fun climbing the hills and chasing random sheep that were grazing there around.

More pictures from Skye to come!

These were the glorious breakfasts we had over the course of 3d2n (4d3n for the rest) at Ashaig B&B. This is truly a wonderful B&B, a little house perched on the edge of a very scenic loch in the middle of nowhere. They have chicken coops outside where Kathleen and Colin (our hosts) rear free range chickens for their eggs, and a little motor boat in case they want to go out in the loch. The rooms were really comfortable and nice, and my favourite part of the house was the little drawing room where guests can feel free to sit around, play games, browse through their collection of books on Skye, and borrow from their extensive dvd collection to watch in the room. The little library was really useful as we were able to get a book enumerating several scenic walks on the island, ranked by difficulty level, and we tried one of them out! (in a later post)

The breakfasts were completely awesome too, with a choice of free range scrambled eggs with smoked salmon/mackerel, a full Scottish breakfast with haggis/black pudding, or pancakes with eggs, all homecooked by the hosts. Amongst the few of us, we managed to sample everything, and apart from the black pudding which I personally found gross to eat because its really coagulated blood and who wants to eat coagulated blood right, it was all really yummy. We also got to help ourselves to as much cereal or yoghurt as we wanted, placed on a side table.

Kathleen and Colin also have a wonderful dog, Brea, who’s so friendly that the moment anyone goes up to her, she rolls over and expects to be tickled/rubbed. She’s tremendously lovable, but moves about so fast that I was not able to get a picture of her. When anyone comes to her with a camera, she also tries to lick the camera lens – not good for the camera!, so that made the job doubly hard too.

On the way up to the Isle of Skye, we also stopped by at the infamous Loch Ness, home to Nessie, the Loch Ness monster. Lawrence and I decided to skip the detour up north to Inverness in order to try and get to Skye before nightfall, so we stopped by Fort Augustus, a small town on the southernmost point of the loch. And no, we did not see the monster. It was a humongous lake, and very windy and cold too. It was a short walk out to the jetty to take pictures and try not to get blown away by the wind, and off we went again towards the Eilean Donan castle and Skye.

This castle is, of the few that I’ve seen, my absolute favourite here. The magnificent view of the little castle perched on an island in the middle of a huge loch, with the late afternoon sunlight casting shadows, adding dimension and creating sparkles on the water surface completely silenced me. I had expected it to be bigger, but this quaint little castle’s interiors are furnished in the style of the late 1800s early 1900s, which made it very interesting to browse around and see too. More fun though, was exploring the grounds around the castle, perching on rocks to take pictures and sitting in the garden with daffodils all around with the Scottish flag flying high in the background. I’d first seen it in the movie Made of Honor, and have been raring to come visit ever since. Its located just next to Kyle, where the Bridge to the Isle of Skye is. It definitely has not disappointed, and I really think that the locality makes this one of the most beautiful castles ever.