The Journey to Edinburgh

One of the best way to travel in UK are the trains. The initial fear of traveling alone, which holds me back for a week at a new terrain was kicked out with this first journey. Now I am almost hopping in and out of the trains to travel in and around Glasgow. 

It is an hour of travel from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Got into a train with a return ticket that costed 13 pounds and enjoyed the changing landscape through the windows till I reached the Edinburgh Waverley Station.

The stations are architecturally amazing with the structures, columns and glass panes and roofs. 

Easy access from the heart of the city

We can enjoy the beauty of the city from inside the station. 

Yey!!

Art is almost everywhere. This has some meaning. I will never get it :)

So clean and tidy. Operated by a private firm, the standards are never compromised.

Airport styled status boards. Efficient way to find out the next train with ease. No confusions.

Back at the Queens Street station Glasgow.

Why To Visit Edinburgh?

To be frank, I didn't see 90% of Glasgow yet. But Edinburgh travel happened due to couple of reasons.

First, Glasgow is a fashion center. The city and the crowd is not something that I enjoy in my travel. I like the places which are serene and ambient. Edinburgh surely matches this like.

Second, the old charm city plus the castles and the narrow stone paved alleys which makes it a historically significant world heritage destination.

These two reasons were enough for me to hop on the Scotrail and an hour of travel slipped me to the beautiful terrain of Edinburgh. Awesome.

Few interesting facts about Edinburgh below:

• Mons Meg: The Edinburgh castle has this super power canon which fired the canon balls weighing close to 200kg to almost 4km (Wow!) Just imagine the moment the canon is fired. That guy will be dead probably due to the sound waves around :)
• Walking back from the castle I noticed a Greece architecture styled structure on the top of the hill. It was the The National Monument on Calton Hill, which is also called the Edinburgh’s Shame. Because this high profile construction got stalled due to fund issues. 
• Nicolson's Cafe where JK Rowling penned Harry Potter which is owned by her brother in law. I had a pen and a paper with me too :P
• Britannica Encyclopedia is born at Edinburgh
• Edinburgh castle is seated on a dormant volcano. Oh yes, its dormant and that's why I could click a picture :)
• Royal Mile the straight path from the castle to Holyroodhouse palace. I photographed the entire path throughout.
• August is the time of Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the worlds BIGGEST art festival. Not much relevant for me anyway :)

The places visited in Edinburgh. 

• Arthur's Seat
• Edinburgh Castle
• Edinburgh Old Town
• National Museum of Scotland
• Camera Obscura and Wold of Illusions
• Calton Hill
• Palace of Holyroodhouse
• Royal Mile
• Edinburgh New Town
• Princess Street 
• And a whole lot of walking up and down the beautiful streets.

The magnificent Edinburgh Castle. View from the street. 

This is what I could cover in a day. Pictures and posts to follow. 

Can't leave this post without saying that Edinburgh is a must visit place in Scotland.

Glasgow Necropolis Vlog

Short video I took while visiting the Glasgow Cathedral and Necropolis. Some photos from the visit, you can view by clicking here.

Video - World Piping Championship 2015

Time Lapses are recommended to be recorded on a tripod. I didnt have one, so had to hold the camera for minutes to get the initial time lapse from the event. I could have stabilized the visual, but it will kill the entire clarity. So keeping it as it was recorded. Enjoy!

World Piping Championship 2015

I did prepare to go and see this event from the moment I heard about it from the colleagues. Everything at this place was awesome except the entry ticket for 16 pounds (that's too costly) and it became worse when the security blocked me from clicking the photos. 

I was kind of frustrated but then noticed that several visitors were clicking pics around. Then I asked another security at the event about clicking the photos and he agreed to it. Weird! 

Anyway that was enough for me to get started. 

A little history about this event before we dive into some pictures.

The World Pipe Band Championships is a pipe band competition currently held in Glasgow, Scotland every August. The event has been operating regularly since 1930, when the Scottish Pipe Band Association (today known as the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association) was formed. For competitive bands, the title of World Champion is highly coveted, and this event is seen as the culmination of a year's worth of preparation, rehearsal and practice. This makes it a tough competition.

Until 2013, the entirety of the World Championships has taken place on one day in August, the current venue being Glasgow Green (which is a minute walk from my apartment).Typically several hundred bands attend, traveling from all over the world. And the entire place was crowded with bands and people.

Okay. That's enough.

The venue was awesome and the climate was wonderful. I walked around and enjoyed the whole show that they presented. 

The bands has to perform several rounds to reach the final. This is one of such qualification rounds that was happening when I reached the venue.

The band is so synced and disciplined that almost entire team sticks to pre-defined plan for any kind of movement until they move out from the competition ground. All the bands will have a set of bagpipers and drummers, the core part.

Drummers of the team towards the end of the formation.

Scotland is all about food and drinks. Behind the shop is People's Palace.

Practice session going on before the real fight.

The venue had other events too. Like this one, heavy weight championship. Jaw dropping competitions. Wooh!

He just threw a 15kg stone to the thin air. 

I loved it when the sun was out and froze to death while the clouds hid it.

The Scottish dance competition that was held as a part of the event. Skilled students. Totally enjoyed the show. 

Ikey Trying To Deliver An Eloquent Speech

When we discussed the idea to capture Ikey's timeline on web (http://anoopsavio.com/ikey/), I thought it might be an overhead to my hobby time. I rejected Ani's idea in the beginning which then she successfully negotiated to reinstate her view on this matter. Well, it turned out to be a 'terrific idea', as my uncle responded to it :) 

This made a great difference in my life. Those events, the little big milestones in Ikey's life, which I would have missed (because of my general priorities), came to me like a homework. It is more or less like an instruction from Ani - "Anu today this event happened in Ikey's life. Please update the timeline", which then I will go in, upload the videos / pictures / texts, tags them to a date and click save to bring it on to the website. Along with it, my heart goes through those events with joy and thankfulness to God for blessing us with a wonder kid. If the timeline wasn't there, those events would have probably taken a stroll through my ears and gone somewhere. 

Ani called me in the evening and told that Ikey was trying to speak the other day. I didn't believe it. Until few days back, he was using his mouth for two main purposes - laughing and eating food. So I couldn't believe the event as of such. But when I received the below video, I laughed my heart out. He was try to convey something. Both sweet and fun to watch. :)

Glasgow Cathedral & Necropolis

Finished some pending official work in the morning. Prepared the lunch and while planning for a walk out I noticed that the cathedral is close by. So decided to take a walk to the place.

While I was getting out of the hotel, the receptionist warned me about the rain and handed over an umbrella. That was so kind of him. Appreciated.

14 minutes walk to the cathedral. It just stopped raining then. The offline maps worked great. It was navigating me with ultimate accuracy.

The sky was bit dark. I expected another rain before reaching the cathedral. But it just drizzled all the way long. Didn't have to use the umbrella. Like a soft touch from the nature, the walk was more enjoyable with the drizzle. What a feel.

This is not the cathedral. Looks like an another church on the way.

Not sure who this is. The cathedral premises had a lot of statues like this one all around.

Cathedral view from the front gate. The place was so neat and clean. No wonder why this place has a Gold environment status.

Lots of tourist were enjoying the architectural beauty of this place. Tall and artful roofs and that old touch of architecture so amazing.

Looked like the music vent connected to a huge organ.

Is this the organ to which those numerous pipes connected to? Might be.

Side view of the cathedral

On the way to cathedral hill. Green meadows.

The way up to the Necropolis (The Glasgow Necropolis is a Victorian cemetery). 

Either take left or right, and climb up the mountain.

Lots of monumental structures all around this place. I was walking in between them and clicking pics for some time.

That is the view of the cathedral and the surrounding areas up from the hill. I was anyway tired of climbing the hill. So sat down and enjoyed the view and the cool breeze for almost half an hour before heading down back to the ground. Priceless moments and memories.

The cathedral hotel just outside the premises. That was a cute little structure which carries that old charm attached with a beer garden.

A tour video of the cathedral below

The Chocolate Factory

I saw one pound store in the morning while walking towards the Central Station. The shop had a very good deal but I didn't want to get into a shopping mode in the morning. Kept the visit for the evening.

So in the evening, I decided to pay a visit to the pound store. Suddenly this shop caught my attention. I was wondering how did I miss it in the morning. It is a chocolate shop. Home made and lots of other varieties. It was even good to walk around the shop. I wanted to click the picture, but didn't want to do it without the owners permissions.

Saw this old lady (Is that Mrs. Mitchell? I think so) in the counter and so I requested her the permissions to click the photos. She gracefully agreed. I started clicking all around like I got the permission to fire the machine gun :) Sharing some of the pics here.

This is the front view of the shop. It catches the attention of the people, especially the kids.

Different varieties of chocolates arranged to tempt the people :)

This is the marshmallow section.  That big smiley face is made of soft marshmallow.

I didn't get what this is. Doesn't matter, it is chocolate.

No idea what this is. But it was written sweet on the label. Didn't get the rest of it.

Aha. This was favorite one in the bunch. The Wonka bar from the Charlie and the Chocolate bakery.

Am I getting the golden ticket?

The chocolate sticks

The Reese's + other heros

The marshmallow collections

Scottish tablets?

Puff candies all around

More marshmallows

Yummy butter cookies

Mint balls section

This shop has a crazy collections of chocolates for sure. Keeping an eye on this place :)

Dare Enough For A Change

Finally I decided to take a deviation. Downloaded the Google Offline map of this area and felt too much of confidence. Walked for almost 4 miles and clicked photos all around. 

Majority of the establishments are bar attached restaurants. Pints and Spirits are adorned more than the water. Might be that the extreme cold climate. Its a part of the culture.

I hear a church bell kind of sound from a far distance from the hotel room. Came to know that it is from this tower. It rings for every hour. Soothing voice.

I like the road intersections. There are some interesting buildings on the dividers.

Walking to the interior part of the city. The old days touch kept on coming in

Clicked this picture as this building looks symmetrically awesome. A rectangular chunk of art.

The brownish row structures. Old shops on the ground floor. There were some Indian restaurants too.

The end of this road takes me to the hotel. Combination of maps + landmarks saved some battery life.