One Day in Edinburgh

For Christmas, Ralph bought me one of the best books I've read this year.
One Day, written by David Nicholls tells the story of two friends on St. Swithin's Day, each year across the span of twenty years. It's a beautiful story that's also been made into a film, starring the charming Jim Sturgess and stunning Anne Hathaway.

The characters in the novel, Em and Dex, both attend university in Edinburgh itself. The novel describes places in Edinburgh beautifully, and after reading the novel by the new year, I was hooked.
To date, I've read the novel back to back about five times in total. I know it's a bit silly of me to read the same book over and over again (especially because I currently have six English-lit novels to finish by Friday and I haven't made a start in any of them...)

Ralph took me to Edinburgh just a few days before I left for Singapore, and it was by far one of my favourite day trips for the summer. Never did I imagine I'd get treated to a whole day in Scotland! I didn't bump into Amy Pond, or Em and Dex, but I definitely could imagine having bumped into them, saying hi, taking photos... just a really chilled out fan in action. =p

Arriving in Edinburgh, I was half expecting a Nessie to greet me and say hi, but unfortunately they're only mythical. Evolutionary flaw in my books. Also, I had no idea that Scotland was home of the Highland Cow! I bought about three post cards (none featuring the beautiful landscape or architecture of Scotland), but of these cows instead. My ignorance had led me to believe that Scotland did not really have much to offer- but I was wrong. It's history, the layout of the city, the atmosphere, and the beautiful buildings all around was plenty to discover for the whole day.

We made it into the heart of the city along Royal Mile, and up to the castle. It costs around $30 just to see the inside of the castle. Following the example of all the couples, Ralph and I loitered around the drawbridge and ticketing area for a few minutes to take photos and see the sights...and slowly backed away. You'd think that the admission price would be around $10 NZD or something. Following a low cost but broad market strategy would work effectively in the maintaining of the castle as well! (just utilizing some leftover knowledge from a business paper last semester)

Having had bento in the train ride up to Edinburgh, we had no plans for lunch in the city. Moving on to exploring the rest of the city was extremely exciting. As usual, Ralph had to do most of the navigating because I have zero sense of direction. Getting lost for me is not an option either. It rates about an 8 on the fear factor scale.

We explored a lot of the city, taking photos of the landscape and finding an abandoned Tardis on the way. The weather was as usual, unkind to us all, and we sought shelter in the National Museum of Scotland. It's a huge pity I did not get to visit the British Museum in London.

an equal marriage protest

What is it about coming back from holiday and suddenly listing all the places you wish you had visited? Every single holiday that I had ever embarked on results in a "why didn't I go here?", or "damn, should have went to that place after I visited this place...!"
Oh well. An excuse for a re-visit in the near future hopefully!

Also, a key point in the novel, One Day, is when Em and Dex hike up Arthur's Seat, a spot that overlooks the whole of Edinburgh. It was too cold to hike up there and by the time we exited the museum, it was close to nightfall. Summer would definitely be a better time to visit. But the earth has to be round, and my winter, is Ralph's summer, and vice versa. Bleurgh.

The National Museum of Scotland was absolutely huge. It looked impressive from the outside, a modern building, but it was definitely bigger on the inside. Perhaps it has residue Tardis particles in it or something, but Ralph and I only managed to finish one level of the museum in two hours! There were other exhibitions on display that we couldn't go and see due to the crazy universal closing time of 5pm.

I ooh'd and aah'd at the Natural History exhibit (of course), and couldn't believe the colossal amount of information they had about stars and astronomy! It was like everything Ralph had said to me before about the stars and galaxies, but written down in stylized, lit up font.

no, we didn't go inside this cafe exactly- but who knew potatoes were called tatties?

After the long museum visit, we went to take refuge indoors again at a cafe. We were both hungry, and unsure of where to have dinner. A potential Japanese restaurant located about 30 minutes from the cafe looked promising. We were so excited to find out that they had this amazing shabu-shabu buffet and sushi deal for only 17 pounds per person. Literally everyone in the restaurant was having this buffet deal, but of course, we were "too late", and the restaurant had already run out of steamboats to use.

Throughout our meal we bitched and moaned (in good spirits, of course) about their business ethic. Seriously though! If you advertise "buffet", but run out of steamboats? And it's not unreasonable to assume that every table would be allocated with one steamboat. Sigh. My ramen was really good though- so no complaints there!

As the day drew nearer to a close, I realised that this was my last day trip in the UK for the summer.
It's a horrible feeling counting down towards the day you leave. Looking back now, I realise that it wasn't that long ago. It was just two weeks ago that I was in the UK, but it feels like it's already been forever.
Time flies when you are having fun, but when you are in law school sitting through a torturous public law lecture, an hour can feel like forever.

My finger is healing at an extraordinary rate as well! I hurt it terribly in the UK while cutting up some onions with Ralph's new samurai knife (hate that thing), and about a third of my nail was sliced off. It's nearly grown back to its normal size now, and I can type perfectly on it without any pain. That was also a huge deterrent in blogging the last few days in the UK- I physically, and mentally couldn't.

I'm so happy that I have all these amazing memories of Japan, and the UK with me. It's different each and every time, if not better, to travel and find out things about yourself, about the people around you. To grow, develop, and appreciate the precious time you have with one another.

It's difficult to settle back down in New Zealand though. I had this problem adjusting as well after a year in Japan. It's only been three months in the UK, but I guess that is still somewhat of an extended length of time in comparison to a week's holiday in Malaysia or Singapore by comparison.

I hope I get to go back again one day.

All my love always,

April

Vikings in York

I'm already back in New Zealand after a wonderful 3 month long "summer" holiday in the UK, and although I've set the date for this blog back in time (to the day that we went to York itself), I'm only managing to blog about York in the first weekend of the semester.

I haven't gotten around to blogging about the last few weeks in England. Undoubtedly it has been fun, right till the very end, but a huge wave of pre-holiday blues interrupted any productivity whatsoever. Not to mention coming back to New Zealand has turned me into some sort of depressed hermit.
Blogging and uploading photos aside (which take up quite a bit of time, surprise surprise), I haven't made a any progress in the huge pile of newly bought law text books and course books that sit on my desk. They come in volumes now, too. Brilliant.

Looking back at these pictures of York (which I have only managed to upload about a third onto facebook due to a certain person refusing to smile properly... :P), I am nothing but nostalgic.
I truly miss the place- the culture, the food, the weather, and the people.

thought I had mastered the art in reading maps, but Ralph did all the navigating that day. 

York was absolutely beautiful, a city full of historic attractions and life. Though the weather was gloomy and slushy due to the sudden burst of snowfall the day before, the photos still turned out alright. York Minster was smaller than I had expected- the photos online misled me to believe that it was absolutely enormous. The size of Buckingham Palace or bigger! I'm not terribly good at making out sizes of things in photos anyway, so perhaps it wasn't so large after all.

We also went to the Jorvik Viking Centre. The smell at first was honestly unbearable. To keep in theme with the Viking Age, the entire musuem was infused with a musky, almost rotting smell that would give you an idea of what it was like back then. Guaranteed, they did not have as efficient a sanitation system as we do now, but who knew that the smell would be so overpowering!

I accustomed to the smell not too long after being inside though- so maybe that's how people back then dealt with it. The Jorvik Viking Centre is built on actual remains of 1000 year old houses! There was a ride as well that allowed you to travel into the city of Jorvik itself, hear the wax figures converse in Norse, and see how they went about their daily routine! I can't tell you how grateful I am for living in this present day and age. It's an experience I will never forget.

standing in the snow

I'm also studying the Norman Conquest this year, and just coming back from the UK has inspired me tremendously. I can't imagine what it must be like to study British History in the UK itself!
At least one would have the opportunity to actually go around all the sites discussed in history books and textbooks. The unfortunate thing about New Zealand history is that I have absolutely no interest in it, so it follows that I won't be able to apply that same theory here.

the house of John Goodricke (a famous astronomer who managed to discover a lot of cool things about stars)

I imagine York would be lovely around the summer time as well. As you can see from the majority of the photos uploaded here, and on facebook, the weather was not exactly the best that day.
Nevertheless, a great experience of trudging through snow, slush, and history.

All my love always,

April

Angry Birds Cupcakes

My first baking session of the year? 

ANGRY BIRDS CUPCAKES!

Recently I've been watching a show online that airs on Food Network called Cupcake Wars.
Cupcake Wars is one of my many guilty pleasures, and I find myself able to sit the through three episodes at a time, weirdly fascinated by people's creativity/lack of creativity in their cupcake concoctions. I've always had a passion for baking, and when I'm too tired to be revising my Japanese or doing something productive, Cupcake Wars is my haven.

Ralph was sweet enough to suggest that we bake something ourselves. To have our own version of Cupcake Wars (minus the judges, minus the KitchenAid, and minus the ginormous oven that stretches a mile or two.) Thus began the Angry Birds Cupcake showdown, where we make fifteen muffin-sized cupcakes of four red, blue, and yellow birds, accompanied by the three cutest green pigs you've ever seen.

Keeping along with the theme of Cupcake Wars, I stole a recipe from one of the episodes itself.
Using sour cream and canola oil as the "secret ingredient", the batter itself was a smooth and rich texture even without the aid of an electric mixer.

In my years of amateur baking, I've noticed that the majority of recipes online that feature sour cream in their ingredient list do in fact turn out to be a huge success, and an hour later of cupcake preparation, mixing, and baking, these over-sized cupcakes smelled and looked amazing. Also, I upgraded the recommended amount of vanilla essence from two teaspoons to four. I've always been a huge fan of vanilla extract and vanilla bean, and being generous with this particular ingredient has not let me down so far.

We went shopping together for all the ingredients about two days before attempting to make these cupcakes, and bought marshmallows and mini chocolate chips for the eyes/pig teeth, Pocky for the eyebrows (great idea Ralphy), ready made icing for the beaks, stouts, and belly, and food coloring enough to last anyone a lifetime.

Whilst the cupcakes were cooling, I started on the butter cream. I've never physically handled so much butter and sugar in  my life before. Furthermore, I was mixing this batch of butter cream icing with a wooden spoon! The KitchenAid has spoiled me rotten all these years, as I realised how physcially taxing it is to actually whip butter and sugar into creamy, sinful goodness.With the butter cream icing prepared, Ralph and I began dying them red, blue, yellow, and green.

Thanks to the yellow richness of the butter, the yellow bird's color was spot on to begin with. It was challenging to get him the exact right shape since he's a triangular sort of bird, but I'm sure you get the idea we were attempting to create the yellow Angry Bird from the picture above.

The red bird's color was challenging to achieve because we somehow started off pink, but worked our way towards a dark red hue instead. Though we were cautious in adding food coloring to the batch in small amounts, never once did the vibrant red traffic light color appear. Regardless of the slight different shade in color though, the red bird cupcakes were still a success.

The blue Angry Bird was surprisingly the hardest to do, because we struggled to think of ideas for its eyes (note that it has these droopy eyes, and that the there is a pink surrounding it.) Good thing we bought the pink and white marshmallows, because Ralph decided to stack them on top of each other and create what looked like a very accurate depiction of the blue Angry Bird's eye.

I was so pleased that he handled most of the delicate decorations, because knowing me, I would have been boring and used royal icing or fondant for most of the decorations and skimped out on marshmallows or Pocky entirely. Not to mention that using Pocky biscuits, marshmallows, and chocolate chips contributed a lot to the flavour of the cupcake! The green pigs are by far my favourite. Although they're the evil villians of the Angry Birds, I can't help but think they're adorable beyond description.

After a grueling three hour decorating process, all the fifteen cupcakes were finally done. The house smells of vanilla and cake, but no one has complained yet. I wonder how on earth those bakers on the Cupcake Wars program can manage to create 1000 cupcakes in 90 minutes! It took us more than 90 minutes to create a measly 15.

Hope you all enjoyed the photos! Ralph and I took them before consuming a red Angry Bird each. By the time I was halfway through mine, I was harshly reminded of why I never could enjoy eating what I had just baked because I was too aware of its indulgent contents.

All my love always,

April