The white Christmas in Scotland

The Scotland trip that I had with my friends from Manchester and Belgium turned out to be a special type of trip that I ever had in my life. It is an adventurous one and most importantly it has given us so many lessons to ponder though the trip has ended. If I were to write about every details, I might have published a mini novel and the title should be "A series of unfortunate events during the Scotland trip"...haha! But it is quite pointless for me to tell it all - people will just get bored listening to old grandma's bedtime stories if they didn't experience them. Thus, using the experience from this trip, I might as well make it into tips and advices travelling during the winter.

1 st - always make sure you bring enough warm and thick clothes if u know u're going to somewhere snowy. This is no joke! U might consider wearing boots rather than sport shoes because they can keep your feet warm BUT they can cause sore legs after some long distance walking. i wore a pair of sport shoes, though, and they easily get wet and my feet has to soaked in melted ice. I have to wear double layers of socks too!

2 nd -always allow plenty of time to travel from one places to another and better to prepare a plan B if plan A doesn't work. This is especially true during the winter. Trains and planes can get delayed, not by minutes but by hours or days due to the poor weather. It can be due to the poor visibility, snow blocking the road or engine default caused by the melted snow. And find the alternative transport just in case the first one doesn't work. During winter, it is so normal that a train station closed without any early notice. That's what happened on the last day when we want to travel back to london. Luckily we start leaving by 3 pm while the plane is actually at 830pm. Seems exaggerating but then the train that we're supposed to take to the airport is closed! Thus we have to find the buses to the airport. A long tiring journey.

During the scotland trip, when we're travelling from glasgow to Edinburgh at night, the train that we were waiting has suddenly been delayed for around one hour! Then, we're like a bunch of orphans being abandoned in an isolated train station! We can see no lights from anywhere outside the fence of the train station and we can only wait outside the closed station with our feet freezing in duno how many negative degree celcius of temperature. In this kind of miserable circumstances, meditation might helps: we can meditate until we forgot that our feet is still present.then you'll feel no pain and cold. haha..my friends laugh at my words but it is not a joke la..~ I was freezed to a point that I also practised some dance to avoid my feet from frostbite. After a long waiting that 1 hour seems to be extended to ages, the Hogwarts train finally has come!!! After going through this kind of temperature, i can say that our life may be prolonged, just like the frozen chicken in the fridge, the expiry date is always longer than the fresh ones. haha. ( I know you guys miss the lame jokes that i have told! XD)

3rd - make sure you read through at every detail of the information that you have. Did i mention that we left by 3pm in the afternoon and find out that the train station in Edinburgh is closed? The story hasnt ended yet, though!!! We managed to get to the airport at around 4 something and then we felt so relaxed because we have plenty of time before the plane departs.Thus, we lied on a row of seats and took a long nap in the airport ( forgetting about whatever images we have) until it was around 7pm. Then...we wanted to check in. WE COULDN'T FIND THE TIME OF THE PLANE WE WANT TO CHECK IN. We wondered and we asked the kind air-stewardess around. OH my GOD. We're on the wrong airport!!! It is stated there in the boarding pass that it is " Glasgow (prestwick)" but we went to the Glasgow airport without the word prestwick. There's only one airport in Glasgow, but there is another one in Prestwick!!! Nyiao...The time is running out and the distance between these 2 airports is around 1 hour. The check in gate closed at 740pm. Hopeless. Miserable. Don't know what to do at all. Where can we see the way back to our sweet and warm home? The air ticket for the next day's plane is too expensive, around 100 pounds something. The train tickets are not cheap either, 116 pounds something. Have you ever try this before? When you're in state you don't know what will happen next, at all. We all thought travelling is just about fun but we forgot all the possible consequences that can happen once you stepped out of your house. But~~ There's always a silver lining behind the dark clouds! Thanks to a friend in Edinburgh, we managed to book a latest bus going from Glasgow to London for just 40 something per person. Minimise the loss but it takes 8 hours to reach. Nevermind, just treat it as the Redang trip journey then, as well as we can get back home!

4th - Prepare some dried food in your bag, no matter where you go. You'll never know when you need them~~The food in the airport and train station is incredibly expensive, and sometimes they're not open 24 hours. You might get stuck in a station at night ( like us) and suffer from cold and hunger! After the second event of being frozen at the train station, the fact that we have missed the plane doesn't seem to be that miserable - At least we are not hungry and not cold.That's already a thing to be grateful of!!! When we finally know that we have a hope to go back that night without having to stay overnight in the airport, tears well up my eyes..not because of how miserable we were to be in this situation but I was too touched to have so many kind hearted people and friends helping us in times of need! 在家靠父母，出外靠朋友，所以我们平日要广结善缘，以善待人，因为我们不知道什么时候我们也会需要朋友的帮助。

5th - If you're thinking of getting an iphone, go ahead! it is a perfect gadget during travel. It helps us when we're so desperate to call someone or to online to check on the weather, the train station closed, the air ticket and so.

Despite all the unfortunate events, our trip turn out to be a heart-warming one! The snow can be a great thing but also a disaster, but we get both of its sides. Not forgetting the funny and memorable events in Scotland:

~Thanks to Hana's warm hospitality, we had some very delicious korean food i.e. kimpap for lunch and steak noodle for dinner. Miss the ginger beer, it tastes so~ gingery.

~ Having some snowball fights in Glasgow. Building snowman in the garden,which take ages!

~ Came to a beautiful city of Edinburgh, where the fairy tale settings take place! Seeing the roofs of houses covered by snow, stepping on the crispy snow that never melt that fast, visiting the historical building with so much of a European style, visiting Edinburgh University which gives me a wonderful feel of being at one of the greatest universities in the world..I seriously fell in love in this classical city!

~ having a great oriental christmas eve dinner. Thanks to the great chef jinghui corrine meichi yunyi piyasilo and yew lee!

~ Fighting with turkey for the christmas dinner: It's my first time marinading a huge turkey! Just simply pour the salt and pepper and everything in. It takes 3 hours to be fully cooked and it's hard to be cooked thoroughly. Anyway, It was really a great dinner!

~ Confession of couples during christmas night!

~ playing the addictive mafia for the whole night! That's the most popular game i have ever had since i came to uk.

~ Boxing shopping in Edinburgh and london.

6th - As a conclusion, if possible, avoid travelling during winter. Many unexpected things can happen in such an unpredictable winter. You might get bored hibernating in your room, but actually it is a bliss! After a long travel between Scotland, London and Bath, I felt so so SO great to be back to my home a.k.a. hostel in Bath! Trust me, there's no place like home in the world and travelling can only be made fun when a tired soul can rest in a place before the next journey. A big bed with fluffy pillow to sleep on, laptop on the table to surf for 24 hours, huge food storage in my room which makes sure i wont be hungry, heater than keep me warm..all those details that we were least aware of were suddenly become so essential. Anyway, travelling makes us grow, and we will become more conscious of what we have after experiencing the absence of them.

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"Home is the most important place in the world" quoted from nowhere. Can't help agree with it!

~~~Home Sweet Home~~~