hiiii i'm totally supposed to be sleeping now after a complete lack of sleep last night but here i am blogging about Edinburgh! haha.
anyway, Edinburgh is quite a small city that can be explored in....one day! (: i took a day trip there from Glasgow and pretty much managed to cover everything. i've gotta admit though, that i skipped some of the really hardcore parts of it, such as *points below* :p oops!
What to see in Edinburgh
climb Arthur's Seat which is the hilliest part of Edinburgh and when you reach the top, you'll be rewarded with magnificent 360 degree views of the whole city! :)) haha it doesn't look very steep, but it's honestly no joke climbing this :p we climbed about halfway, and the view was pretty good already and so we gave up then haha! but i definitely encourage you to go all the way up to Arthur's Seat itself (:
the Royal Mile is a succession of streets where the business of the Old Town of Edinburgh flourished in the past! just walk down the street and you'll see stores selling all sorts of knick-knacks that are pretty cool! we also went to this museum (free entry) where we explored how Edinburgh developed from its history till now! pretty cool ;)
i just think this photo of the Royal Mile is superrrr pretty :) it was such a bright sunny day when we were in Edinburgh! feel super lucky to have good weather ;)
and you'll see load of bagpipers and street performers throughout the entire stretch of road! one of the street performers could seriously win an award for the longest performance EVER. i think we stood there for more than an hour before finally giving up and going off because he never seemed like he was going to do whatever trick he was saying he would do haha. but he was definitely very entertaining and charismatic ;) (at least up to an hour or so...haha)
right at the end of the Royal Mile is the Edinburgh Castle! the view from up there is pretty amazing too, but that's about it :) i heard lots of advice that it isn't worth paying to go into the castle and so i skipped that ;)
and this pretty much rounds up the main attractions to see in Edinburgh! (: of course there are streets to explore and stuff if you want to. but instead, i chose to spend the rest of my time pigging out :p hehe!
My foodie recommendations for Edinburgh
wondering what this is? it's another exotic Scottish dish that i had! the other was the black pudding in Glasgow. this is haggis (£8.50), which is a savoury pudding that is made of...(guess what) sheep's intestines :O omg. can you even believe that i ate this?! haha like neither sheep nor intestines and yet we ordered this haha! but we really just wanted to try it, and it turned out to be not thaaat bad ;) i wouldn't order seconds, but the taste of the sheep was pretty minimal thanks to the generous serving of whiskey sauce.
we also had the handmade 100% scottish beef burger (£9.50) which was humongous! i didn't take a picture of the Scottish mussels we had, but please order it!! ^^ it's definitely worth it ;) fat, juicy and succulent, just like those i had in glasgow! (:
i also had a glass of pear cider which was super yummy!! and it came in a 500ml size :O haha so shiok ;)
Whiski Bar & Restaurant
119 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1SG
Tel.: +44 131 556 3095
we were pretty full after lunch, but we weren't done with the food yet ;) this pork bun may look simple, but it sure packs a punch! hog roasts seem to be really popular in UK! i saw it in quite a number of places, and it's sooooo delicious :D the hog roast roll was a freshly carved hog roast - smokey, piping hot, and super juicy - served in a bread roll with a choice of sage & onion, apple sauce, chili relish or haggis (omg. haha).we opted for apple sauce and it was amazing!!! the light sweetness of the sauce went perfectly well with the pork, and the flavours exploded in our mouths with the juice dripping all over the place as we devoured the bun amongst the three of us. there are three sizes to choose from - the piglet (£2.80) for the small eater, the oink (£3.80) which is the standard size and the grunter (£4.80) is for the hungry ones ;) MUST TRY!!!! no matter how full you are ;)
Oink Hog Roast
4 Victoria Street, Edinburgh EH1 2JW
Tel.: +44 7771 968 233
and girls always have a separate stomach for dessert! ;) i'm always amazed at the amount i can eat. :p we trekked for like...half an hour before we finally found Patisserie Madeleine, which was said to have the BEST macarons, as claimed by my friend who's stayed in edinburgh for quite a few years. it's a really small shop and we totally walked right past it initially! unfortunately, they didn't have the flavour that we wanted to order!!!!! :'( imagine our disappointment! :( the worst part was the thought of having to drag ourselves for another half an hour walk to get back to the train station...imagine that haha. anyway, we ordered other flavours, and they were really quite nice! :) some of them were a bit too sweet for my liking though! anyway, if you are there, you HAVE to try saffron pistachio flavour which is supposed to be the awesome flavour we didn't get to try!
Patisserie Madeleine
27b Raeburn Place, Edinburgh, EH4 1HU
Tel.: +44 131 332 8455
walked through this gorgeous park on the way back, and i totally fell in love ^^ hehe. i'm always just so fascinated at how the Europeans have such an amazing way of relaxing on a nice sunny day :) if only we do this in singapore too!
