London, Paris, Tokyo....

...well, two of the three anywayThe view from our Tokyo hotel room down to the street
The view to the horizon
We Will Rock You at the Dominion Theatre

...well, two of the three anyway!

Yes, I´ve been slack at updating the blog constantly through. What can I say, I´ve been out enjoying my holiday, not staying in writing about it :P

We head off from Tokyo today and will be home tomorrow. I´ll do some catch up posts for London and Tokyo then.

Highlights from London and Tokyo have been (not necessarily what would be seen as traditional holiday high points):
London

• Seeing the crazy squirrels in Hyde Park and enjoying the retreat from the hustle of the city - we even had a picnic lunch there one day
  
• Watching ¨We Will Rock You¨ at the Dominion Theatre and getting up and joining in for a number of the songs. A large part of the fun of this one was seeing all the people who didn´t know what they´d got themselves into and who didn´t want to stand and clap :)
• Visiting the British Museum and seeing the cool glass roof over between such old buildings
• Shopping in Vivienne Westwood and Agent Provocateur in London

Tokyo

• Realising I haven´t totally forgotten my Japanese and it comes back more each day
  
• Walking along Omotesando and through the Omotesando Hills building
• Wandering through various department stores in Shinjuku
  
• Exploring the stationery sections in department stores - I love Japanese stationery
• Eating dinner entirely from convenience store food - yum!
  
• Meeting up with my friend Nobuko for lunch - we lived together on the Gold Coast when I was at Uni
• The view from our hotel room at night - our travel agent Maria is a saint - we got an excellent upgrade here in Tokyo and also in Singapore
• Catching the train from Narita to Tokyo and going through similar looking country areas to where I lived in in Nagano all those years ago - the good memories came flooding back and I had a silly grin on my face
  
• Buying local sweets in both the UK and Japan

Alistair may well have different hightlights, but he´s not writing this blog :P

Last couple of days in Aberdeen

Amanda, Alistair, cousin Laura, cousin Lyn and Lyn´s son Cameron (the cheeky one making us laugh!)

We had a busy couple of days at the end of last week.

On Thursday we went out to afternoon tea with Aunty Margaret and Uncle Eddie at the Gordon Highlander´s Museum, which was lovely. That evening we took Derek and Carol out to their local, the Ferryhill, for a wonderful dinner.

On Friday we headed to Inverurie and visited Alistair´s Granny with Uncle Ian again. Following on from that we met Ian´s daughters Lyn and Laura, as well as Lyn´s son Cameron. All the girls were at school. Once Aunty Kath had finished work we went to lunch with her and Ian.

That evening we had dinner at Valentine Drive and said goodbye to Aunty Cyn, Uncle Gordon, Jenna, David and Georgia.

Derek and Carol kindly drove us to the airport early Saturday morning and we have spent nearly a week in London.

We´ve had a great week here in London, but I´ve run out of time to blog tonight. :( I must get some sleep before we fly out to Tokyo in the morning.

Using Cameron´s choice of words as we were leaving Inverurie - ¨See ya stinkies!¨. Alistair, Laura and I nearly fell on the ground laughing at that gem :)

Photos of Fraserburgh

The Fraserburgh town square
The Fraserburgh harbour
Photos just for Jenny :)

Alistair and I went exploring on our own during our last week in Scotland. Thanks again to Uncle Gordon for so generously lending us his car so we could get around.

We drove up to Fraserburgh and then had breakfast in Peterhead. These are both small towns up north from Aberdeen. I really enjoyed driving around in the scottish countryside - it is so pretty and green compared to Oz at the moment.

Visiting Baxters and Huntly

The whisky shop at Baxters - yes more whisky! Well, when in Scotland....
Dean´s shortbread factory in Huntly

While away for the weekend we also visited Baxters - home of lots of yummy food. They had a number of shops onsite, including an old store that now houses a wide range of whisky. It was surprising how many we had tried.

We visited Huntly, where Alistair´s Granny used to live. There is a big shortbread factory here, and the smell of the place was unbelievable - the whole area smelled like sweet sweet shortbread and it really made you want to eat it. We sampled quite a few types of shortbread there :)

Overnight in Keith - and more whisky!

Alistair, Derek and I sampling Macallan at the distillery
The Strathisla Distillery near Keith - the shape of the building is used for the Whisky Trail and much of the advertising for this area due to the unique shape.
The Macallan Distillery
The original house at the Macallan Distillery
Alistair and I at the house at Macallan

Unsurprisingly, our time in this area had a lot to do with whisky as it is in the middle of the whisky trail. We went to Macallan and sampled the whisky and delicious whisky liquer. We drove all over the countryside and saw a lot of distilleries and also all the whisky in storage.

Carol´s family is in Keith and we stayed overnight there. We had a lovely dinner with them and then sampled more whisky by the fire. Carol´s mum cooked a great roast beef dinner including ´nips and tatties (parsnip mash and potato mash for the Aussies). We followed up with a divine lemon meringue pie. Carol´s dad was very generous in bringing out quite a few of his wonderful whiskies to try and significantly added to Alistair, Derek and my count of whiskies tried. He had some wonderful single malts I had never even heard of and I enjoyed them thoroughly. I giggled over the sound of the glug glug jug we used to put water in our whiskies and now Carol and I both want one for ourselves.

Next stop - Loch Ness

Urquhart Castle ruins on Loch Ness
Carol (sideways?? sorry!) standing above the ¨no climbing on walls¨ sign taking photos :)
A trebuchet at Urquhart Castle (sideways!). It is absolutely HUGE - the people look small next to it.
Alistair and I at Loch Ness - can anyone see Nessie?
Derek falling into Loch Ness

We headed for Loch Ness on Sunday morning after breakfast. It was bigger than I expected and quite beautiful. It was also closer to Inverness - I had this impression that it was well off the beaten path, but it didn´t take us long to get there.

Our last weekend in Scotland

Our hotel in Inverness - our room was just above the ¨E¨ in the Hotel part of the sign on the left of the building.

Thanks to Derek and Carol taking yet another couple of days of work to show us around Scotland, we got to see quite a lot on our last weekend in Scotland. We spent Saturday night in Inverness and had a nice dinner out with quite a few drinks too. Alistair and Derek nearly ordered a round with 3 nips of whisky at about $150 each - oops! That´s what you get for just choosing something from behind the bar because it is a whisky you haven´t tried yet.
The River Ness
Inverness Castle - just across the river from our hotel - we could see it from our window.

Visiting the Cairngorms

Enjoying the sunshine and wind at the Cairngorms. Carol and Derek took us exploring up around Inverness and the Cairngorms. We were hoping to go up to the summit on the Funicular Railway, and even had tickets, but it was shut for the day due to the extreme winds that were occuring. This is clearly evidenced by my hair in the photo above. You can see the people skiing in the background.

Skiing Scotland style
The view from the carpark of the Cairngorms ski resort.

We had lunch at Aviemore and then continued on through the countryside to Inverness.

Lunch at the Inversnecky

Mmm, lunch at the Inversnecky! We saw this funny sign at the beach - I don't think you could call this a resort by any stretch of the imagination. Remember, we were here in the snow a couple of days ago and people were kite snowboarding across the road.
A Highland Cow - finally got to see one up close!

We had lunch at the Inversnecky and then a bit of a drive around the countryside and went to another beach for a wander. There was a nice walk through the dunes, past pillbox amourments and other signs of the war. Who would´ve wanted to invade Aberdeen and surrounds?

Royal Deeside with Uncle Gordon

The Burn O´Vat - there is a cave hidden up behind the waterfall through this gap in the rocks. We were unable to go up there as the water was quite high from the snow melt.
The view from up above the Burn O´Vat
Alistair and I up above the Burn O´Vat - it was cold and a little bit wet! Do you like our matching jackets?

We explored Royal Deeside with Uncle Gordon and then had dinner at Derek and Carol´s with all of their family plus Uncle Eddie, Aunty Margaret and Elizabeth. Uncle Eddie was the one snapping photos at dinner, so they´ll have to wait.

Day tripping with Aunty Margaret and Uncle Eddie

The gardens and pigeon coop at Crathes Castle
Crathes Castle

The falls of Feugh - where salmon jump up the stream in spring.

Aunty Margaret and Uncle Eddie took us out for a day trip to Crathes Castle and the falls of Feugh. These are both places Alistair remembers going as a child :) There were stories of bringing the family and car loads full of food to eat.

Uncle Eddie also had old home movies converted to DVD with each of these places on them. Also on that DVD was some footage of Aunty Margaret and Uncle Eddie´s wedding day, where I could have thought it was Alistair as a child at the church, when in fact it was his dad. The likeness was amazing! I´m sure Mum2 has exactly the same picture of Alistair on the wall in Adelaide - they look interchangable!

Uncle Eddie took many more photos and was kind enough to give us a copy of them all. Unfortunately they are on CD, so you´ll have to wait until we get home to see his brilliant photos.

Taking a break

Hmm, I think I´ve posted enough for tonight. Please have a look lower down for some new photos. I´ll do some more catch up photos tomorrow.

Yesterday we wandered down to Oxford Street and Selfridges. It was extremely crowded and not all that pleasant to be constantly jostled.

Today we wandered around Hyde Park, marveling at the cute squirrels and looking at all the lovely geese, ducks and other birds in this inner city sanctuary. I´m so glad we´re right next to this green expanse. We also visited the Victoria and Albert Museum which was spectacular. The building alone is worth visiting.

Tomorrow we´ll wander along Bond Street again as well as head to Leicester Square to try and pick up some cheaper tickets to see We Will Rock You tomorrow night. I´m also hoping to have a walk around Notting Hill, Soho and Portobello Markets.

Royal Yacht Britannia

The Royal Yacht Britannia was in service for the Queen from 1954 until 1997.
While the royal parts of the yacht are lovely, the officers didn´t get such lavish quarters.

It was cold on deck, and I have no idea what we are all doing.
Here are Alistair, Derek and I in the Officer´s bar. Note the silly audio thing in my hand - you could use it as a weapon, and I really wonder how many have disappeared overboard.

Dinner at Aunty Margaret´s

Here we are before dinner at Aunty Margaret´s. Clockwise from the bottom left are Uncle Eddie, Aunty Cyn, Alistair, me, Carol, Jenna, Uncle Gordon and Jenna. Aunty Margaret must be fetching us girls more Buck´s Fizz. Here is Georgia crawling for the first time.
Aunty Cynthia got caught licking the spoon from the trifle - that is Carol and Aunty Margaret looking on, very amused. Aunty Cyn couldn´t believe someone caught her - I bet she won´t laugh when Derek tells her it´s on our blog!

More snow in Aberdeen

Here are a couple of shots of the snow on the first night we arrived in Aberdeen. It was so snowy and slippery out in the car. I was glad we weren´t driving ourselves!

Dinner on our first night in Aberdeen

Here´s Alistair´s Uncle Gordon and his grand daughter Georgia. Alli, doesn´t she look gorgeous in her Aussie Bonds? I swear it makes up half of her wardrobe!



This is our first night in Aberdeen, out to dinner with Derek (Alistair,s cousin) and his family. Around the table anti clockwise from the bottom left are: Carol (Derek´s wife), Aunty Cyn, Jenna (Derek´s sister), Georgia (Jenna´s daugther), Uncle Gordon, Alistair and I.