Farewell 2012

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In the days of auld lang syne...

I have now lived in Edinburgh for three whole months, or a whole quarter of a year; while I know that really isn't a very long stretch of time at all, I can't help but feel that the more I get to know this city, the more I love it in a way that I think only living in a city makes you feel.

In the three months I've been here, I've made some awesome friends, I've got a job, and I've got to know the locals. These things have made me feel connected and joined to Edinburgh in my own special way that I don't think I would have experienced if I had just been a 'long-staying visitor' - it's the difference between visiting and living, as it were.

It's been a time of enriching self-discovery, travel and learning how to cook foods a touch more exciting than instant noodles. It's been a fair bit of culture adaptation, not just to Scottish culture but also adapting to the cultures of everyone from around the world who I meet here.

I know this is cheesy, but people love new years because they represent new hope - the chance for us all to forget everything that we might have done wrong in the previous year.

That's not to say that we'll have a perfect year up ahead. Of course we'll run into trouble - there's no one year that's perfect, and every year we encounter fresh sets of problems - but the new year endows upon us renewed vigour to tackle those problems, to give us the vision and possibility of new beginnings.

I've had a fair number of new beginnings this year. Living in a different country, travelling on my own, travelling a lot, getting back to music composition, leaving home behind for a while. I've discovered that I absolutely love travel and I love seeing the world.

People have presented me with tremendous opportunities this year - there are a number of amazing things that I've only been able to do because of the goodwill and generosity of other people who have made them possible. For that, I'm grateful to these people and all their help.

I've learned how to be alright on my own, I've learned how to enjoy my own company and I'm a little bit closer to knowing what I want out of my life. I've figured out that to be anyone else's friend you first have to learn how to be your own best friend.

These are the things I've learned in 2012.

You may have learned something different, you may not even really have thought about what 2012 has given to you, or you may not even really care - you may think I'm being a soppy old grandmother waxing lyrical about life.

But wherever you stand and whatever you think, I'd like to wish you a great year up ahead anyway.

Happy new year, and may 2013 bring even greater blessings, joy and happiness.

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Must visit: Sri Lanka

We're in the bleak midwinter (ha ha, see what I did there?) now, and although I love the cold, a little bit of me occasionally misses things like warmth and beaches. I am a tropical girl after all - it's in my blood! My Pinterest board is full of beaches, and warm waters, and corals, living by the beach and sundresses... You get the idea.

In November, Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2013 guide named Sri Lanka as the top destination to visit. Having been to Sri Lanka (or Ceylon, as it was previously known), I completely agree.

Mention Sri Lanka and most people are likely to still conjure images of the LTTE army fighting in the war. Today, though, Sri Lanka is an idyllic haven of white sandy beaches and roaring waves, bliss for whale researchers and surfers.

Although I've travelled around quite a fair bit by now, Sri Lanka remains my absolute favourite holiday of all time. Sri Lanka for me means three things - elephants, the ocean, and tea.

It's a developing country, so for the most part things there are untouched and pristine. Cows cross the road at random places, and Yala National Park is pretty much a safari park with only dirt paths and absolutely no light after dark.





In 2004, Sri Lanka was badly hit by the Aceh tsunami that affected many parts of Asia. Much of Yala National Park was wiped out, being a coastal area near the ocean, although the wildlife that lived there managed to escape the disaster by evacuating early (animal sense anyone?).

The southern coast of Sri Lanka too has been forced to rebuild itself after the devastating losses that it experienced - today if you visit, you can still see straight paths up to higher ground and signboards that say to follow these paths up in case of tsunami.



Even if wildlife isn't necessarily your thing, it's absolutely impossible to say no to Sri Lankan beaches. The Tangalle Bay area has some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen, where waves on the Indian Ocean crash up on a rocky seashore.



Looking at the white and blue of this hotel's white walls and the beautiful clear ocean, it's hard to know if I'm in Sri Lanka or Santorini!

I went at the full moon, so I was also able to catch turtles coming to shore to lay eggs at night. Turtle conservation is a big deal in Sri Lanka - or any sort of animal conservation, really. The Tamil Tigers war, although detrimental for the country as a whole, had the flip side of also keeping other people out - which means that wildlife had the chance to grow and flourish because no one was going there to destroy it.

Today, Sri Lanka is one of the top spots in the world to go whale-spotting, looking for sperm whales and blue whales. The blue whale, the largest cetacean, and indeed animal in the world, gathers in one of the world's largest colonies off the Sri Lankan coast.

Guess there are good and bad sides to everything!





If you're a big tea drinker, then you'll be familiar with the opinion that Ceylon tea is the best in the world. And boy oh boy do the Sri Lankas love their tea, grown in the Nurawa Eliya hills - huge planatations of tea on rolling hills that seem to go on forever!

Nurawa Eliya is an entirely different climate altogether - where lowland Lanka is warm and pleasantly tropical, 16 degrees Celsius would not be unusual for Nurawa Eliya, which sits nearly 2000 metres above sea level.

Sri Lanka is also home to the world's largest gathering of Asian elephants, which happens once a year. This place is filled with elephants - they're all over the place! There are elephant orphanages which are a huge hit. After all, who could possibly say no to this adorable tiny face?



Alright, I kid. Maybe not so tiny. Still though, it's not quite every day that you see elephants casually walking down a street like they're having a nice Sunday afternoon walk, even if they are being controlled by a mahout.

These elephants are on their way to a nice midday water bath.





So there you have it - Ceylon in a nutshell. It is truly one of the most beautiful places in the world and absolutely gorgeous, and I'm dying to go back at some point in the future.

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The time dad took my passport

We need our passports. Of course we do. They're what gives us legal access to countries and what gives us the chance to run to embassies if ever we run into problems abroad. You can't board an international flight without a passport.

The funniest thing that's ever happened to me with regard to travel happened in January of this year. I was trying to go to Indonesia, because I've never been (despite me living my whole life in Singapore, shame on me) and because I really wanted to visit my maid who lived with my family for 10 years and who I haven't seen since she left to go home to Indonesia in 2009.

Also, I really really wanted to see this:



Mount Bromo in Java, which is supposed to have the most amazing sunrises and is supposed to be incredible. I still really want to go.

Anyway, the story goes like this: I had planned my itinerary and everything, checked out hotels and even searched flights. I was all set and ready to go - all that needed doing was to actually book all these things.

As you know, when you book flights you need a significant number of details found only in your passport - your passport number, expiry date, issuing authority, and so on.

Because my parents are cautious (and I mean, over the top incredibly paranoid cautious) I was 20 years old and still made to surrender my passport to them the moment I got home if I'd just come back from a school trip, or if I was travelling with them they would absolutely refuse to let me even hold on to my own passport at all. So I didn't have access to my own passport.

In line with being incredibly paranoid cautious, my dad in particular was absolutely freaked out about the prospect of me going to Indonesia, even if I had a friend who was going to go with me. "It's not safe, what if you get raped/murdered/robbed, you are not going to Indonesia."

Despite all my protests and all my planning and showing him all my research, he still refused to let me go. It didn't help at all that I was going there to meet a person who'd lived with us for 10 years.

One thing you should probably know about me is that I'm not the type of person who needs permission for anything. In all honesty, telling anyone I was going to Indonesia was more of a courtesy than a request. Also, I am determined as hell - if I want to do something (like, for example, go to Indonesia) there is very little that can stop me. I'll pack my bags and leave out the front door if necessary.

The one thing that will stop me is if I'm going to wind up in a legal immigration mess - let's say, if I enter Indonesia without a passport.

And that's exactly what my dad did.

To stop me from going to Indonesia, and because he knew exactly what I'd do even if he said no, he actually took my passport, put it god-knows-where (I have a feeling he kept it in the bank safe deposit) and then told me firmly I wasn't going.

I was this close to just saying "To hell with it" and applying for a new passport from the ICA. But I didn't, in the end, and so I didn't go to Indonesia in January this year. Rest assured though - I will be going sometime in the near future, say maybe in December of 2013, about a year from now when I'm back in Singapore and considerably nearer to Indonesia than here in Edinburgh.

It wasn't funny at all when it happened - can you imagine doing all your research and planning and then your missing passport kills all your plans? - but now that I think of it in retrospect, it's one of the funniest things that's ever happened to me in travel.

Especially when you think that in April, I'm going to be hitchhiking from Edinburgh all the way to Morocco - which I think is considerably further and a lot more dangerous than taking a flight from Singapore to Indonesia, and there's nothing that Dad can do to stop me this time. But that's another story.

What's the funniest travel incident that's ever happened to you?

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Things travelling has taught me

"Boredom can be a lethal thing on a small island." - Christopher Moore

The world is much bigger than we seem to think. With technology, the world appears just there, right within reach, everything at our fingertips - and in some ways, it is, but for the most part it really isn't.

Every time you step foot in someplace new you're still awed, still amazed at how it is possible that even though you've seen so much, there's still something new to see. That's pretty amazing.

Material things aren't always as great as they're made out to be. I say this because travelling makes you learn the importance of packing light, and packing things with multiple purposes. That means that you'll definitely need to cut some luxuries out of your packing, or you're gonna lug that 20-kilo trolley bag everywhere you go. And that's really not fun.

So you bring around only the bare essentials, each time learning more and more about what works best and what not to pack. Each time cutting more things out of your packing list, until you realise that there's only so many things you really need to carry with you.

It's a bit like life; as time goes on, we start learning that not everything is as hyped up as it seems at first to be. Eventually we realise the most important things are the ones we already carry within us, the things that are with us all the time, these bare essentials. A good, sound, positive attitude being the top of them all.

Sometimes you meet mean people, and that's alright. Not everyone you meet on the road is going to be friendly, but that's just how it is - they don't necessarily mean you any harm by it.

We really shouldn't over-think things. Thinking too much, planning too much - we spend more time worrying than making the actual journey. Quite literally, all this can make you miss the bus. You're stuck stranded in a place for longer than you wanted to be there for, and all you can do is wait for the next ride out - as long as you don't over think that one, too.

Sometimes, you've gotta just wing it.

Travelling helps you see the beauty in everything. I know that by now this is starting to sound a little bit Eat Pray Love, but I do believe this - if you are trapped forever on one tiny island and never get out, you'll never know and you'll never be able to appreciate just how much is out there.

If you don't get out, you'll never get to understand why different cultures do things the way they do, or to see pristine and unblemished pieces of nature. There is a difference between seeing something on TV and being there in front of it. It may not look as glamourous, but you will appreciate the rawness of being there in person.

When we travel and meet new people, we remark on things we find amazing that people who have grown up their entire lives around it dismiss. A girl from the light-polluted city marvels at the dark starry skies; the girl from the rural countryside never even notices the stars are there.

It makes you wonder what we're taking for granted in our everyday lives.

Above all, travelling has taught me about the generosity of the human spirit. Travelling has taught me that when you are a solo traveller, or even in a group, people will take care of you. There are mean people and there are good people - and the good people truly humble you with how much they will go out of their way for a stranger.

We are but individuals on a vast planet in a vast galaxy in an endless universe. If we don't take care of each other, who will?

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7 Songs for Yuletide Joy

Yuletide joy to you, and you, and you, and you!

Although this may seem a little bit strange to some of you, I'm really not a Christmas person quite as much as I'm a holiday season person. I love the spirit and the joy and the decorations and the lights around Christmas, and I wish that that sort of happiness could stay every day all year, but I'm not that hyped up when December 25 comes around. All the same, I love the music of the season - so here are some of my favourite holiday songs I'd like to share with you.

1. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel - Enya - And Winter Came

2. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Katherine McPhee - Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You

3. Grown-up Christmas List - Kelly Clarkson

4. Santa Baby - Michael Bublé - Christmas

5. In The Bleak Midwinter - Mindy Gledhill

6. River - Sarah McLachlan - Wintersong

7. Angels We Have Heard On High - Josh Groban, Brian McKnight - Noël

Happy holidays everyone.

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Virtual Choir 4

I've never talked about this here before, but some of you may know that I have been involved with the composer Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir project. Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir (aka EWVC) is, just what it sounds like, a virtual singing project - a choir made up of people from all over the world who for the most part have never met before, singing together to form a giant massive choir out of people their individual voice parts, uploading them together and then cutting and mixing everything together.

It's a pretty sweet project, if you ask me.

Now, not gonna lie - Eric Whitacre pretty much changed my life. Not simply because I got to sing his music when I was in my school choir, I'm not gonna get that cheesy and sappy, but because he is honestly one of the kindest, most hardworking and incredibly talented people on this planet. He's the rockstar of the 21st century classical music world.

Oh by the way did I mention how devastatingly handsome he looks?


I did say. Devastatingly handsome. Ahem.

In 2011, I had the incredible, incredible honour of being mentioned by Eric Whitacre in his TED talk. The TED talk series is a worldwide conference that brings together some of the world's best minds and speakers - Bill Gates, Sir Ken Robinson, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Eric Whitacre of course.

It's an incredibly inspiring series of talks from some amazing people, and when Eric was talking about the virtual choir he mentioned me as one of the singers involved (only in passing, but still!!!!!!). Needless to say, I squealed like crazy and went superultrahyperhappy.

I appear at 4:36.


Ha ha ha - I know I look funny when I come on, lol! It's amazing what a couple of years of difference can do to a person, no?

Anyway, back to how Eric Whitacre changed my life. Because I was on this TED talk, the TEDxSingapore coordinater Dave Lim contacted me and presented me with the amazing opportunity to speak at TEDxYouth in Singapore, in November 2011. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever done, being involved with something as huge as TED.

After TED, I started becoming involved in other things, like more music and more performances. And if you know we well, you'll know that music is probably the dearest and closest things to my heart. It's one of the things I really, really love and which I have no doubt I'll never stop loving. Also because of Eric, being mentioned on TED and everything that happened as a result of it, I started writing and composing music, which I'd stopped doing for a long time.

One of the other things I really love about this guy - he really does make time for every single person. He knows that it's because people love his music that he is where he is today, and he's humble about it. I don't know any other Grammy-award-winner who makes as much time for his fans as he does. He actually responds to everyone who writes on his Facebook page, he'll talk to you if you message him, and somehow he still finds the time to conduct his professional choir the Eric Whitacre Singers, write more music, conduct concerts, be a husband and a dad. I swear to you, this guy owns one of the Ministry of Magic's timeturners.

And now, Eric Whitacre and the Virtual Choir gang need your help.


Through Virtual Choirs 1 2 and 3, the costs of producing this video have grown exponentially as more and more people have become a part of the project. No video of sufficient quality is rejected, which means that if Virtual Choir gets 5000 singers, 5000 videos have to be cut, scrubbed, and mixed into the final video, which means a tremendous amount of time and effort goes into creating this. This is why the Virtual Choir has now become so expensive to make - and why we need as much crowd funding as we can possibly get to make this video happen.

Not convinved? For the love of all things good and holy, listen to this and be awed.



That demo alone is enough to make anyone want to donate to and join Virtual Choir 4. (You don't have to donate to be a part of it, but any contribution would be extremely helpful!)

So if you have any love of good music at all, please help make the virtual choir happen by clicking here and donating any amount you possibly can.

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Amsterdam in 48 Hours

Bicycles. That's the first thing any visitor to Amsterdam notices - lots and lots of bicycles. They are the traffic of Amsterdam, the people - of course you'll see cars, but there is nothing that stands out quite as much as the bicycles. Bicycle parking lots number in the thousands, and such is the prevalence of bicycles that they even have their own dedicated lanes on the road.

Bike-car-tram-tram-car-bike. Memorise this sequence, for it will save you from being run over; I swear that Amsterdam has probably one of the most hazardous roads I've ever been on. First, look LEFT and watch out for bikes, cars, and trams, then look RIGHT and watch out for trams, cars and bikes. No wonder no one jaywalks in Amsterdam!

So, Amsterdam - you'll probably want to visit the I AMSTERDAM sign, which has become a brand and symbol of Amsterdam. It's become a symbol of people as well as the city, and the white and red lettering stands out against the old buildings. It's a fitting contrast, one which captures the old-new dynamic in this old city.



I love that you can still find the most quintessential of scenes - ducks on the bank of river, even amidst the Amsterdam hustle and bustle and changing modernity of drugs, sex, and rock 'n' roll.

Or maybe I just wanted a reason to show you my photo of these nice ducks.



If you're hungry, one of the things which you absolutely must try are pancakes. Amsterdam is known for these - all flavours of pancakes, sweet and savoury, equally suitable for breakfast lunch or dinner. Another must-try food is the stroopwafel - a syrup-filled baked waffle which can be found anywhere.



Amsterdam's Concertgebouw (literally concert-building) is a world-famous performance venue with intricate architecture, famed for its acoustics. Some 900 concerts a year take place in the concertgebouw, from Mahler to Pink Floyd; despite that its acoustics are best suited to the late Romantic style, it has played host to musical styles as varied as jazz and world to hard rock.

In summer, a tour of the concertgebouw is available that lets you explore the soloist rooms, artist’s lobby, tuning rooms, choir practice room, attic, basement, and auditoriums. It's a dream come true for any music geek!



Join a walking tour - an easy way to see the top sights in Amsterdam. Sandeman's New Europe: Amsterdam free walking tour is a great way to see the city on a tight budget (tips are encouraged at the end of the tour). Not only do you get to see Amsterdam, but you get stories and history thrown in as well - a great deal if you ask me!



A must-visit attraction is the Anne Frank House - the museum dedicated to the world-famous Jewish-Dutch girl and her diaries written during World War II. In visiting the original annexe where Anne lived, you are struck with a deep and profound sense of sorrow and sadness. It is like stepping into the life of this girl, who tried her hardest to make life as normal and cheerful as possible despite her being in hiding.

Today, the annexe and museum are stripped bare of furniture, left unfurnished as Otto Frank, Anne's father, requested; the rooms are poetic in their emptiness, with only posters that Anne pasted on her room wall serving as the reminder that she once lived here. The rooms have only been refurnished once for the purposes of photographs for the museum.



If you're into cheese, Amsterdam won't disappoint. There are cheese shops abound here, with walls upon walls of cheeses of every kind. Goat, cow, sheep, aged, fresh, flavoured - you name it! With cheeses sold in whole wheels as well as in cheese slices, you're certain to be spoilt for choice.







Of course, who can visit Amsterdam without seeing the Red Light District at least once? This place is known for being sleazy, with women wearing next to nothing flaunting their bodies in glass door displays. Be careful - not all women may be women, although if that takes your they'll be perfectly content to service you. Sex shows are openly advertised, and adult shops are a dime a dozen.



Drugs and sex are Amsterdam's anthem; feel free to head into a coffeeshop for some weed (if you're above age, of course). Surprising to many visitors, marijuana is in fact not legal in the Netherlands, although it is very widely tolerated and the authorities don't really give a damn - shops that sell marijuana are around every corner and you can buy joints for about €12 a pack of four pre-rolled. And it's not just weed that you can get here - mushrooms and salvia are there if you look.

The smell of weed permeates the air and becomes the perfume of the city. Yet despite the high availability of drugs and associated sleazy image, Amsterdam is surprisingly safe. Sure you wouldn't go waving your big camera and massive expensive bag just anywhere, but I found it far more comforting to have calm people high on weed than violent drunks.

And if you're hungry after getting high, have a Febo burger - where you put a coin in a select a burger in the display. It's almost like Japanese vending machines that dispense just about everything.



And that, my dears, was my Amsterdam in 48 hours.

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Have a very Edinburgh Christmas!

"It's the most wonderful time of the year!" - Andy Williams

There is a special magic about the Yuletide season - it being a holiday season, with traditional Christmas gift-giving and Yule logs, the end of one year and the dawn of the new. The holiday season has long been my favourite season of all, and spending Yule in a different country only adds to its charm.

A Christmas market is a traditional street market that began in Germany and Austria in the middle ages and have now become a common sight in several countries. Amidst the squeeze of people, shops contain gems - mulled wine, crêpes, gingerbread, Christmas ornaments.

In Edinburgh this year, the Christmas Market opened on November 29 and will close on January 6. It's full of colours and bright wonderful things, with colourful ferris wheels and an outdoor ice rink only two of the many attractions.





It isn't only the outdoors which are decorated, as shops and restaurants go all-out to impress, decking their halls with boughs of holly and chandelier crystals. Real pine trees perfume the rooms, while fairy lights bedazzle railings and doorways. Fancy restaurants like the Dome on George Street spare no expense in putting their best on display for the festive season.



In this wonderful arts culture hub of a city, Christmastime also brings the start of a Christmas concert season - choirs, orchestras, school groups, professional companies, playing Christmas classics such as Handel's Messiah and Vivaldi's Gloria. Dance groups start performing Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, just as they do every Christmas, with dances of sugar-plum fairies all over the world.

Just this past week I had the fantastic opportunity to watch the Academy of Ancient Music in Usher Hall - and the music was like nothing I'd ever heard before. What a difference period instruments make - gut-strung violins, theorbos, baroque oboes, and a whole new world of enchanting, magical music.

The many performances that take place over the festive season make it a great time for music-lovers to travel, with concert halls all over the world showcasing a myriad of music dance and acting.





While in many places the festive season is a chance for family to get together over a good Christmas dinner, it's also a chance for us travel buffs to see cities in an entirely different light. Travel is in its off-season in winter due to the lack of daylight - but this is more than made up for with streets being illuminated in all colours.

You may not see the iconic sights in the way that travel magazines often photograph them, but it is precisely this that makes winter travel as enchanting as it is. Getting away from the crowds of high-season tourist travel, winter is the chance to see an old city in a completely new way.

Where are you headed for the festive season?

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Five picks: Things to do in Edinburgh

Note: this post first appeared in the Tripping.com blog.

I've been living in Edinburgh for about four months now, so I think it's safe to say that I've been living in it long enough to have figured out my favourite things about this city. And here I am, four months later, proudly being able to tell you what I think are some of the greatest things this city has to offer - and things you probably shouldn't skip even if you've only got a short time here.

1. Food

This might come as a bit of a surprise, especially because Edinburgh isn't a city really known for its food. Nonetheless, some of the options for food here might surprise you. In Delhi, The Elephant House, and Jamie's Italian are my favourite places to go to for food. True, they aren't exactly Scottish, but it's really good all the same.

In Delhi

In Delhi is a gem of a find, especially if you're on a budget - good, cheap Indian food in a place that looks like a rainbow gone wild.



Just walking into the restaurant is enough to send you into another country - the bright, vivid colours and smell of Indian food makes you temporarily forget that you're in Scotland. I'm a fan of the chicken masala - full of delicious fragrant spices, but not wasabi/English mustard spicy enough to make your eyes well up. Pair this with passion fruit juice, and that's pretty much perfect for me!

In Delhi
67 Nicolson Street
Edinburgh EH8 9BZ
07786 626600
Mon-Sun 10:00 - 22:00
Note: no credit cards

The Elephant House

Now I'll admit, I'm partial to the Elephant House because: A) I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, and The Elephant House brands itself as one of the places where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter (this isn't entirely true, but more on that in another post); and B) I work for them and give out flyers, and I get free food at lunch break so I've tried almost everything on their menu.



The people who work here are amazing, ever-friendly and eager to serve. This is really saying something, considering how busy The Elephant House always is - you'll more often see a line than not, especially when the weather is good or around dinnertime. The queue does move fast, though, so even when it's very crowded you shouldn't have to wait too long to find seats.

The seating area in here is cozy, which adds to the atmosphere of this place - which, by the way, is filled with elephants of every shape and size. You'll see elephant paintings, elephant newspaper cutouts, elephant chairs, elephant ornaments... You name it! I also like that it overlooks Greyfriars Kirkyard, which is the lovely graveyard of Greyfriars Church - also said to be where JK Rowling got inspiration for Harry Potter character names. (Look for the grave of Thomas Riddell - aka Tom Riddle!)

Try the brie apple and mango chutney panini - it's my favourite sandwich on the menu.

The Elephant House
21 George IV Bridge
Edinburgh EH1 1EN
0131 220 5355
Mon-Sun 8:00 - 23:00

Jamie's Italian

Now, I love Jamie's Italian - and not just because of its Jamie Oliver celebrity chef status. I love that it's got delicious affordable Italian food that actually tastes really good, which is all I could ask for in a restaurant. And look at the interior of the place - you can't argue with that!

 I love the crispy squid at Jamie's Italian, and it's definitely something I order every time I go. The garlic mayonnaise sauce complements it perfectly, and every bite tastes like heaven - the squid isn't over-fried, a perfect golden batter encasing baby squid rings.

The wild rabbit tagliolini isn't bad, either, and while the selection of desserts is limited, what is available does taste extremely good.

Jamie's Italian
The Assembly Rooms
54 George Street
Edinburgh EH2 2LR
0131 202 5452
Mon-Sun 12:00 - 23:00

2. Edinburgh Fringe Festival

i~Image

If you visit in August, be prepared for a world-renowned spectacle that is the Edinburgh Fringe Festival - hundreds of thousands of people descending on the city for a month-long calendar full to the brim with street performances, theatre shows, concerts, singers, dancers, jugglers, and every other show you could possibly think of.

The world's largest arts festival, the Edinburgh Fringe brings together arts performances like no other. It's a brilliant festival and for just one month, the streets become jam-packed as people squeeze past each other to get to theatres and watch street performances. The city is brims with life. The programme every year includes several world-class acts, so if arts is your thing you definitely won't want to miss this.

3. The Real Mary King's Close

This is one of the best tours I've ever been on. It takes you deep into the underground, old-town depths of medieval Edinburgh - into the real, historical closes hidden beneath where the Royal Mile is today. Looking at Edinburgh above ground, you would never think that something like this was below it, but it's surprises like these which keep the intrigue in this old city.

The best part about this tour is how authentic it is - the streets you walk on are the same ones that people walked on 400 years ago, with the same cobblestone and the same walls. It's not a recreation. There is a very unique authenticity about how undisturbed the Real Mary King's Close is - because it lies underground, it isn't exposed to the elements and isn't damaged.

This isn't a ghost tour, but walking down these old, dark and dank passages you might feel as though you aren't alone. These houses were built in storeys so high and so close together on the streets that even by high midday, the first-floor houses would have very little light and still need to be lit by little oil-lamps by the side of the road. Your guide will bring to life the stories of children who lived in these houses, the people who died in these houses, and the Black Plague.

Since Edinburgh was built on top of a volcano, the ground they built on isn't flat; the pathways are steep, which I suppose must have aided the flow of human waste when it was poured out from the buckets onto the streets (an extremely primitive sewage system). Gardez l'eau, watch out for the water indeed - you would really need to watch out to prevent yourself from stepping in human excrement! It's little things like these which bring alive the living conditions of 400 years ago.

This fascinating tour is a must-do, and it's well worth the £12.95 entrance fee.

4. National Museum of Scotland

It's free and it's fabulous. What more need I say? The National Museum brings together tonnes of history - natural history, cultural history, even scientific since the stuffed remains of Dolly the sheep are in the National Museum. You could easily spend a whole day getting lost in the endless exhibits, letting yourself be wowed by the number of items on display.

World cultures don't get left out, either. There are areas dedicated to East Asian art, Egyptian culture, and the National Museum houses the only mummy sarcophagus outside Egypt to be left unopened. CT scanning has revealed what it looks like on the inside, but it's extremely impressive that such an important artefact was entrusted to Scotland's care!

Did I mention there's also a T-rex on display? Alright so it's only a skeleton cast, but hey. I'm thinking night at the museum!

5. The Royal Mile

Alright, so I work on the Royal Mile handing out flyers, so I'm just a wee bit partial - but nonetheless, the Royal Mile must rank among my favourite streets out of all the cities I've been to. There's always so much life on the Royal Mile (supposing the weather is good, of course), and because I work there I've gotten to know a lot of the storeowners over a period of time.

Apart from it being a great road with lots of restaurants and souvenir shops, the Lawnmarket end of the Royal Mile leads to the doorstep of Edinburgh Castle.

Sometimes if you're lucky, you'll even be able to see the World's Most Pierced Woman, Elaine Davidson. She currently holds the Guinness Book of World Records title for most pierced woman, with over 9500 piercings (seriously, where does she even have enough skin for that many?!) on her body.



She's an absolute darling, and she's absolutely the sweetest person you've ever met! With colourful hair (all extensions, she tells me) and so many piercings she could be picked up by a junkyard industrial magnet, she's impossible to miss. If you talk to her, she'll be extremely friendly, and she's always ready for a photo or two.

This street is full of life, with buskers and street vendors often lining the sides. It has, over time, grown to become one of the iconic areas in Edinburgh, and definitely an area you'll want to visit.

What are some things you're planning on doing in Edinburgh?

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Escaping the Muggles

Warning: This post is a little bit disorganised. It is full of pictures though! :)

There is a Harry Potter theme running through my life.

In summer of this year, I worked at Harry Potter: The Exhibition, where I met some of the best friends a person could meet. If I don't say so myself, Potterheads are an amazing group of people - people from all walks of life who get together with nothing but the uniting love of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry binding them.

I currently hold a job at the Elephant House. In Edinburgh, the Elephant House promotes itself as the 'birthplace of Harry Potter' - JK Rowling was known to have sat in the back room of the cafe and written a bit of Harry Potter there. This isn't the only place Jo wrote Harry at, though; the former Nicholson Street Café was also one of the places it is known that Jo used to sit down and write Harry Potter at.

And most recently, I went to the Snow Ball in Edinburgh.

Siriusly Hazza P, Riddle™, The Pumpkin Pasties, and Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons

Now, this is a bit of an obscure genre, so I'll explain it a bit - wizard rock is pretty much rock music, but with a wizard slant. Or any other kind of music - acoustic, folk, you name it. You may have heard of Harry and the Potters, who started this whole crazy wizard rock phenomena more than 10 years ago.

One hilarious thing about wizard rock is how much they really don't care about you goofing off - you'll get 30-year-olds alongside 13-year-olds dressing up as fictional characters, and that's all part of the fun! I present, exhibit A: Harry and the Potters.



And they were just the final act in a five-band (sometimes one-person-band) concert. All this, alongside a giant group of people dancing and singing together over screams of:

Hagrid is fun to hug
Hagrid is full of love
Just don't get stuck in Hagrid's beard!
SNOW BAAAAAALL!!!!!

I warned you when I said it was a non-judgemental group of adult Harry Potter fans. I used to listen to wizard rock years ago, so it was really fun when they'd play a song and I'd know the tune and lyrics of it!

By the way, get a load of the costumes some people dressed up in:



I present, Lord Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange. Because, you know, Voldemort and Bellatrix. No further explanation needed.

The Snow Ball 2012 was held in Edinburgh University's Teviot Debating Hall, and it was held in conjunction with the Harry Potter Alliance which uses the forces of magic and good to make the world a happier place. The Snow Ball targets Cancer Research UK as the charity of choice, so every time you come to a wrock concert you're also giving money to help someone with cancer.

As part of the charity fundraising efforts, the Snow Ball often includes raffles as one of the night's events. And this baby (in perfect condition, mind you) was one of the things which was on the raffle table. Someone actually donated a copy of the limited edition Tales of Beedle the Bard, and someone won this by buying a raffle ticket.
 

Whoever won this: you lucky bastard.

So in order to soothe the aching hearts of those of us who saw this beauty fly away from us and into the hands of some other (I'm sure extremely deserving) witch or wizard, we ended the night with - what else? - cake. An extremely impressive cake, shaped and frosted to look like Hogwarts Castle - with the right number of towers and everything. That is dedication in the extreme!




Now if that cake isn't impressive, I don't know what is.

After the Snow Ball I decided to join Harry Potter Society here, because as cheesy as it sounds I really do love Harry Potter and I find my kindred spirits when I'm with fellow Potterheads. In fact, I'm so much of a Potterhead that I've got a ton of Ravenclaw things, because I'm a Ravenclaw and Luna Lovegood is my idol (by the way does anyone else think that Sylvia from The Pumpkin Pasties reminds them of Evanna Lynch?)



Yes, back to Harry Potter society: my first meeting ever was also sadly the last meeting of the semester, but I had so much incredibly great fun anyway. This amazing video pretty much sums it up:



Harry Christmas, everyone.

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