Awesome Series Part 3

Scotland

Out of all the side trips I went to in my stay to Europe, this was probably my favorite. After hearing about my friend Sarah's fun solo trip backpacking in Italy, I kind of wanted to try going by myself. This was my first trip alone and was also my longest, 6 days. I was looking for a country to go to that had cheap flights and would accommodate my schedule. I turned down a trip to Ireland with some other guys and went to Scotland! My first reaction when I got there was, thank God they speak english. I felt like could really do almost anything I wanted haha. and I almost could. I figured out the bus system there and the train system. So I bought one ticket to Edinburgh and my return ticket was from Glasgow. I didn't even know how far apart they were or how I was going to make my way over there but I had to get from one city to the other somewhere along the trip. Luckily it worked out find and I split three days each. So I went to the hostel in Edinburgh and my first night there was...interesting. Besides that I met a few Americans who were teaching in Malaga so we hung out and traveled the city a bit together. Listening to their experience made me want to be adventurous and hippie-ish because one guy was telling me how he just arrived in some latin country, forgot the exact one, without even knowing what he was going to do or where he was going to live and just stayed there until he settled in and started studying spanish.












We did a free tour of the city and ate some haggis, to the top, which was quite good, its like sausage and mashed potatoes. I went to so many art museums, I traveled mostly on foot. I also went to a couple craft fairs haha. I know its weird but they were really cool and I picked up some stuff for my sister. I didn't know but Scotland is like super artsy and craftsy.

This was a selling at the Glasgow school of arts.

I also tried to go to a lot of open mics and performances. I found out most of my information from a website, theskinny.co.uk, which I basically based my day on. So I got to see a few performances, my favorite of which was Jo Mango.

In this clip she's playing like the little box thing with strips of metal on it. If you go to www.myspace.com/jomango and play the kcrw live my lung, its the same instrument she's playing. Yea the video kind of drags so I duno if you want to watch all of it. I also visited the Edinburgh castle and camera obscura, like an optical illusion place + you could see all of Edinburgh. Here's the castle from the top of camera obscura building.

So I made my way to Glasgow by train and went to the hostel without problems. Both cities are awesome and everyone is always walking everywhere so I fit in. I went to a couple more art craft fair things and a lot of art museums. but the highlight of this trip was korean food!!!!!!!! Man I think that was one of the main reasons I went to Glasgow because I researched online before whether or not it had Korean food. When I went there I was like getting emotional, this was honestly the highlight of the trip.


France and England

After my schooling was over in Spain, I met up with my parents in Barcelona and we had a happy little family reunion. We toured around Barcelona for a bit and went to Picasso museum and had some yummy salmon and cheese sandwiches. Then, later, made our way to Paris. We went with a korean tour and it was pretty fun, mostly because I got to eat so much Korean food! We went to some museums and historical sites like cathedrals and palaces. I really liked the culture of France, like the air is different. My favorite part was going to the modern art museum (below).

In London, we went to a lot of shopping places, didn't buy too much. We stayed at a Korean bed and breakfast which was interesting. My parents and my sister ditched me for their own room and left me to share a room with some other guys. Everyone was Korean Korean so one night they invited me to hang out from like 11-3am and I was so tired and barely said anything. We saw some cool artsy stuff and some cathedrals but my favorite time was going to the "Electric Cinema" to watch Australia.

It was really unique and we got to rest. There's only so much seating and people can even pay for couches and such. They said it was coming to the states too. All in all we had a good time and I was super glad to come back to CA too. I'll wrap it up here because its a bit lengthy. So this was basically 2008 for me!! Thank you God for protecting me and I'm excited to see where this year takes me!