Hellooooo again everyone! 🙂 Sorry for the late update on the blog. There’s a sports event at Surrey Sports Park on Wednesday which I’ve attended to support my friends who are competing and it was a really fun! Stay tuned and I shall share more details in my next post. 🙂

So, back to today’s topic, I shall blog about the second part of my Easter vacation in the UK- visiting Scotland and Lake District. (Please click here if you would like to know about Part 1 of the vacation) 🙂 After visiting Keukenhof Gardens in the Netherlands, we took a night flight from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport and reached Edinburgh city the same night. It was a long long day and we slept immediately after checking into our hostel. We woke up very early next morning and went on a free walking tour in the city whereby we visited many landmarks in the city such as the Edinburgh Castle and St Giles Cathedral, listened to a lot of history of the old city, and of course visited the places related to the Harry Porter series such as the tombstone of Thomas Riddell in Greyfriars Kirkyard, George Heriot’s School which have 4 houses and 4 towers that resembles Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and The Elephant House cafe, where J.K Rowling took her inspiration from and wrote her novels. 🙂

While staying in Edinburgh old city, we also took the opportunity to do 2 day trips to the Scotland Highlands. Famous for its beautiful scenery, we enjoyed the 2 road trips a lot whereby we get to stop by at many beautiful highlands, castles and lochs such as Glencoe, National Wallace Monument, Dune Castle, Stirling Castle, Loch Katrine  and many more! We also stopped by at the famous Loch Ness but too bad we didn’t spot Nessie that day. 😛 One of the main highlight of the highland tour was feeding the highland cows! It was my first time seeing the highland cows and we get the chance to feed them with bread, and the experience was just too amazing! 🙂 During the whole journey in the highlands, I couldn’t help myself but just indulge myself in the beautiful views and praise God for His amazing work!

After that, we proceed our trip to Glasgow. Glasgow city is more modern compared to Edinburgh city and is also beautiful in its own way. While walking around and exploring the city, we accidentally discovered a park that has cherry blossoms blooming away and it was really beautiful! I always relate sakura with Japan and Korea and seeing them here in Glasgow blooming so beautifully was just too amazing! It just feels like being in a scene of a Korean Drama and we just can’t help ourselves more by snapping away with our phones and cameras. 🙂 And oh, since it was Jerusha’s birthday, we had a fine Indian cuisine buffet dinner on the day to celebrate. Although I’m from Malaysia and Indian food was common back home, it was also my first time trying an Indian style buffet with so many different kind of curries in a meal and the food was really delicious! 🙂

Finally, the last stop of our 19 days trip is the famous Lake District. As Lake District is a huge area, we chose Windermere as our base and bought the day passes for bus to visit Keswick, Grasmere, Ambleside, Coniston, Hawkshead and also some other few places. Again, the whole Lake District is really beautiful with hills, lakes and wood. I really wanted to join in for a hike when I was there as I could start imagining how beautiful the scenery will be from mountain top. Too bad we did not do enough homework prior the trip and thus did not prepare suitable clothes and equipment for the hike and thus could not proceed with the hike. 🙁 However, we did manage to walk around the trails in the woods instead and the views along the road was also lovely.

To conclude the trip, I would say it was definitely one of the most amazing and unforgettable trip I’ve ever had in life. Europe is really beautiful and I know there are many more beautiful hidden places in this big world that is waiting for me to discover. 🙂 I’m really grateful for the opportunity to be able to come here for studies while exploring more places. Undoubtedly, all these study abroad and travel experience broadens up my perspective and increases my knowledge that are not taught in classes but earned through experiencing it yourself. 🙂

Hope all of you enjoyed the blogs up to date and I will really encourage all of you that have the chance to definitely go for studies abroad for the experience. And of course, University of Surrey is definitely a good choice if you’re coming to the UK not only because of its high academic rankings and high level of student satisfaction but also because of it’s close proximity to London which makes going to all parts of the UK and EU easier! And of course I’m not saying all these because it’s part of my job (although it is part of my job :P) but I genuinely love Surrey for its beautiful campus and people and I never regret choosing this university for my masters degree. In fact, how much I hope I was still doing my undergraduate so I’ll have more time to stay here! 🙁

So, that’s all for today and I’ll see you guys again next Wednesday!

Take care till then. xx

Love,

Adeline