oban + lochilphead trip..

after chatting with k.hooi, he suggested that we shd try a road trip to oban and lochilphead, the place where he was posted to for a month..it sounded like a great idea, so we booked a car the day before he reached glasgow..

lol..apparently u need the driver's passport and need to show the credit card to the car company..we dun hv both, but probably we looked honest:P so that nice lady just let us thru..phew!!

so..with the scotland map and some info that we found through google map..off we went..our plan = stop whenever we see nice scenery..in short=no detailed planning :P

luss, our 1st stop..with loch lomond at our background..loch lomond is in fact quite a big lake...it was alongside the road that we used..and there were a few stops along the way with a few B&B, caravans and camping sites for tourists

this was another stop with the loch lomond at the background..haha..nice scenery bt lotsa dog shit around..n we heard the tale of hw k.hooi wil kena shit everytime with glen ard..lol..

stopped at this random cafe to have lunch..and the fish and chips turned out to be really delicious..award-winning summore..:P

on our way to oban, we saw this really nice place with a few uncles fishing below, so we were thinking..uncles oso can go down..shudnt be that difficult rite?

bt we were obviously wrong..the place was veli steep and slippery.. it was so difficult to walk down..hence the above pic..haha, the 3 of us gave up after trying..

kokhooi was the oni one who went down..

and this was wat he saw...so nice rite, jeles!!!-___-..one of the uncles managed to get a fish at that moment..

with such a relaxed pace..we finally reached our destination, oban at nearly 6pm..haha!!luckily its summer and it'd be dark oni by 10pm..and luckily we managed to go into tourist info centre to get the oban map minutes before the centre closes...

oban is situated by the sea, and its a small town with lotsa tourists around too..

it is justifiably known as the Gateway to the Isles. The town's south pier is the embarkation point for car ferries to Mull, Coll, Tiree, Barra, South Uist, Colonsay, Lismore and Islay. From these islands you can travel further afield to Iona, Staffa and to many of the smaller less well known isles...

so we walked around the town with scenic surroundings for some time..and finally drove to

Mc Caig's Tower..

at the McCaig's tower, overlooking Oban..

McCaig's intention was to provide a lasting monument to his family, and provide work for the local stonemasons during the winter months. McCaig was an admirer of Roman and Greek architecture and had planned for an elaborate structure, based on the Colosseum in Rome. However, his death brought an end to construction with only the outer walls completed.

another random place we stopped by after leaving oban..another lake with nobody else except us..hmm..the place was veli nice, photos cant really capture its beauty..:)))

this was another secluded camping site which i guess oni certain locals know bout it..we came here accidentally when we were searching for the canal situated near lochilphead..the 2 men camping there told us the directions to the canal..this will be the ideal place for camping,haiya if oni i've more time in scotland..

and we managed to find it!!hehe..i think its called crinan canal..it has its historical story behind it..sumthing bout hw the merchants could shorten their distance by XXX miles and reached their destinations really quickly after the canal was built..

we spent our nite at kokhooi's place in lochilphead..lochilphead is a very, very small and quiet town where it seemed like it's isolated most of the time-its very beautiful though:)..the streets looked empty and there were very few ppl ard.. one time there was this car in front of us tat just stopped abruptly to talk to a man who passed by--looks like everyone knows everyone else there since its soo small..

kokhooi's place was situated next to the psychiatry hospital tat he was posted to..listened to lots of interesting stories bout his patients and we saw 2 of them outside the hospital:p..at nite, we had a wonderful time chatting and laughing..

the next day..

we've chosen another route back to glasgow, and stopped by inverarray ..(the above pic)

after reaching glasgow, we spent the remaining time eating dimsum and later watched "indiana jones" in the cinema..

haha..the few of us nearly slept at the beginning, but it was kinda exciting after that..not realistic but thats wat indiana jones is all about..haha..sooo many long years have passed ever since the last indiana jones movie..and its in fact a reminder to all of us that we're all grown ups..:P

THAT was basically about it for our oban +lochilphead trip..i personally enjoyed the road trip a lot, shud rili thank k.hooi who had been driving all the time and still being so energetic..throughout the trip we've seen the beauty of nature..we've laughed, exchange stories, tok and tok and tok..

im gonna miss this a lot..:))

london trip

without pics..its hard to summarise my few days in london..

main purpose was to renew my passport, and i got it done the 2nd day that i was in london..din expect it to be done so efficiently in a day, so basically my next few days in london was really relaxed and enjoyable..

yup, london is still as busy; people there still looked as expressionless and stressed as before; everyone in the tube was reading something and ignoring ppl around them; most of them were walking extremely fast on the street..but somehow this metropolitan has given me a much better impression than my previous encounter in january..maybe becos i took my own sweet time observing them and walk at my pace..and by using tube, being really bad in direction is not a problem at all..haha..

glen's housemates were all very frenly and easy to get along with..i chatted with them for a rili long time since the 1st day tat i reached and im not even a talkative person..haha..

anyway..glen being glen..has been a really great host (despite the fact that he laughed a lot at my blurness, had fun using MY msn to kacau ppl, telling his housemates hw crazy we were..oh i think s.choo's name was mentioned a few times too..haha!!) been repeatedly taught me the directions in london (hopefully i can remember til july lah..:P); abandon his studies for tat few days..watched a few movies..thankfully they were all quite good..thanks a lot lah monkey..:)

i think i gained back my appetite ever since my trip to london..glen's cooked a few delicious meals..swk food summore *clap clap* (for his future visitors..please request him to cook..wahahaha..) elaine and lihping had been offering me food all the time; so usually we'll sit there chatting and start searching for food, prepare and eat; then search for food again; kuan eng being the indomee seller would be there offering indomee; and then telling us his stories with mentally-ill patients..litching and yiwei who were usually not at home, but will leave sth for us to eat as well..:p..i've tried the nice indian food nearby, eaten nasi lemak..and oso tasted the best dimsum in my 1 year stay here together with all his housemates..dimsum in Imperial China, chinatown!!!*drool*

all in all..london trip was really nice and comfortable with all the fun ppl ard..:)) a slight disappointment was that i couldnt watch another musical with lihping and elaine as planned..cos of the sch holidays which means no discount price for that week.:(..hopefully can get to watch again next month lah..