Add journal for Scotland

source/_posts/Scotland.md

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+---
+title: Scotland, all the greens and blues
+date: 2024-09-05 22:38:49
+img: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SMartQi/Live-the-Life/master/source/gallery/ca1912/10.jpg
+categories: 游记
+tags:
+ - 苏格兰
+ - 英国
+ - 在路上
+time: 2024-06-08
+length: 8 days
+---
+
+D0: It’s very hard to find journals about Scotland. But the lesson is: find them! And try your best to plan your trip as detailed as possible. Check every stop point at Google map, or other travelling apps.
+
+D1: It turned out the most impressive part of day 1 was on the plane. Services of the business class was remarkable. I was both glad and regret that it was an airline company owned by China so the attendants all spook Chinese. But although I thought I had enough sleep, it didn’t make me as energetic as I thought in the daytime of England. True, I was not sleepy in the morning or even in the afternoon, but I got super sleepy in the evening (7pm). We decided (with struggling feelings earlier) to take the train from Manchester to Glasgow. That was when MM began the journal of paying for train tickets, bus tickets and all kinds of parking’s ‘Pay Here’s. The train was pretty cool. Those indicators for the seats were brilliant. We did a piece of city walk in Glasgow before heading to the airport for renting car. Scotland has more tombs surrounding churches than I’ve ever seen. There’s even a hot tourism spot of churches and tombs (). It’s a lovely place for locals to take some walking, I think. Another thing worth some words was that the cellular signal was horribly poor around the airport. It was terrifying when we turned to a wrong path and didn’t remember how to get back to hotel from Tesco. And the roundabout near airport was also confusing. JJ was nervous every time we used that route. I call it PTSD.
+
+![1](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SMartQi/Live-the-Life/master/source/gallery/scotland/1.jpg)
+![2](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SMartQi/Live-the-Life/master/source/gallery/scotland/2.jpg)
+
+D2: Day 2 had the best weather of the whole trip - although it might have been the southern position. We chose a small town by a loch (yes, loch, Scotland had a lot of ‘lochs’ and nearly no ‘lake’) as our first stop. It was a very lovely and peaceful town. If I lived there, I’d like no visitors at all. There were a lot of pink and purple flowers by the road. It was unusual to me. We saw a stone bridge above the road, which looked a little bit like the one in Harry Potter, but was way much smaller. Still, I was excited to see it. Sometimes, we could see the road was kind of red, just like it in Arizona. After a day of mountains and lochs, we stopped at our first castle - Eilean Donan Castle. The rooms were quite dark and tiny there. I wouldn’t like them even if I had the chance to live there. But to be true, the stone building itself is indeed beautiful. After the castle, we made our way to Isle of Skye. At the beginning I thought the only scene we planned for Day 2 was a pool. But stepping up, JJ realized it was plural – Fairy Pools. The sky got darker as it got late, but still we had to admit it counted as day time even at 9 pm – that’s when we finally got to the hotel and found nobody at the reception.
+
+![3](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SMartQi/Live-the-Life/master/source/gallery/scotland/3.jpg)
+![4](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SMartQi/Live-the-Life/master/source/gallery/scotland/4.jpg)
+
+D3: One amazing thing we found immediately as we stepped out the hotel: the ‘lake’ in front of the house was gone! It became a ‘muddy puddle’, just like those Peppa Pig likes! We went to the sea side before breakfast, and saw the classic cliff by the sea. I didn’t make it to the lighthouse. It was too tall and too far for me… Back to the hotel, I knew from the menu that the dishes I loved earlier was actually Scottish breakfast. Later, we went to our second castle, and its garden - Dunvegan Castle & Gardens. I wouldn’t call it garden at all if you asked me. It was built at a hill with all those plants, waterfall, creeks and even a playground! The ticket was mainly for the garden and the castle was only worth 2 pounds. It was not as beautiful as Eilean Donan Castle, although it looked more modern and larger. We then went to Portree and saw some colorful little houses like in Bergan. It was raining. I was hungry. The fish and chips were not tasteful as I expected. BTW, we hadn’t had a fine dinner until now. After this lunch, we got some strength for the trail to Old Man of Storr. It was still rainy so we put the jackets again. It was pretty pleasant even though tiring – much better than Hooker Vally! We were confused which mountain was called Old Man. The wind was strong, so we took some photos very quickly for every direction without did some thorough check, since at least one of them must have Old Man in. Another famous scene we saw today was Kilt Rock & Mealt Falls Viewpoint. It was a waterfall directly pouring to the sea. Someone flied the drone there. It was still cold and windy. Back to the hotel, I might have fallen asleep as soon I touch the pillow, again.
+
+![5](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SMartQi/Live-the-Life/master/source/gallery/scotland/5.jpg)
+![6](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SMartQi/Live-the-Life/master/source/gallery/scotland/6.jpg)
+
+D4: We went to a ‘cave’ in the middle of nowhere. Why do I quote ‘cave’? Because we didn’t see it at all. People must get very well prepared with all kinds of equipment and check the tidy schedule for the entrance of the cave – we didn’t know that then. And the path was not easy to find. We got lost for several times. But although we didn’t see the cave, we saw another scene of two facing cliffs. I don’t know if there was a terminology for it. Along the coast, there was a pink beach I loved very much. One reason is the beautiful and very flat surface of the beach. Another is that to get the beach from the viewpoint, we had to (or should I say got to?) climbed down from a bunch of stones. I loved the climbing! We finally got to Ullapool at nearly 9 pm. It seemed we would have a nice breakfast tomorrow in the hotel. Hooray!
+
+![7](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SMartQi/Live-the-Life/master/source/gallery/scotland/7.jpg)
+![8](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SMartQi/Live-the-Life/master/source/gallery/scotland/8.jpg)
+
+D5: This day we passed an interesting spot where a round sliced bolder was placed on a hill. The stones were discovered upside down, which meant that the older layer somehow was above the younger layer of stones. I loved the ball! We then saw another castle but it was a remaining. I got to climb up to a window of it. I tried to take a picture in a good direction where both the castle and the sky were beautiful but failed. It was cloudy. Then we had a pretty good surf and turf lunch by a bridge. In the afternoon we finally went to a cave! It was pretty cool down there but there was no tour that day. After checking in for the hotel, we stepped out again and went to a beach. That beach was great! It has quite unique scene of wave-shaped flat beach and the kind of stones that I loved (even better than the pink beach).
+
+![9](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SMartQi/Live-the-Life/master/source/gallery/scotland/9.jpg)
+![10](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SMartQi/Live-the-Life/master/source/gallery/scotland/10.jpg)
+
+D6: We went to see a very interesting cliff that looked like an elephant (indeed!). But the more interesting is that an old man talked with us about the history about the stairs down to a platform. It functioned even his grandfather was young. He must have had said those words thousands of times! And we went to a castle again! It was also companied by a huge garden, and by the sea. Before the sunset, we went to yet another light house. After all, we were travelling along the coach.
+
+![11](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SMartQi/Live-the-Life/master/source/gallery/scotland/11.jpg)
+![12](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SMartQi/Live-the-Life/master/source/gallery/scotland/12.jpg)
+
+D7: It turned out that we went to the opposite end of Loch Ness of the one people usually go. It was very peaceful (and even hard to find) little beach. A nice couple helped us take a picture. We made several stops along the loch. Funny thing, I found a pink coach by it. Who did that? Another funny (or should I say pity?) thing was that after I had paid a fairly high fee in a parking lot, we found out that some persons had left tickets for later cars. We saw a little turf house which was shared by people and their cattle. Then we headed back to Manchester by train again. JJ figured out that if a seat was not taken in Airport Station while the light was red, then it means it won’t be taken anymore – the person must have missed this train, maybe due to delay of their plane?
+
+![13](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SMartQi/Live-the-Life/master/source/gallery/scotland/13.jpg)
+![14](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SMartQi/Live-the-Life/master/source/gallery/scotland/14.jpg)
+
+D8: I was not completely satisfied with my flight journey back. I didn’t get the dishes I want, and my finger was hurt by the arm of the seat. But anyway, Business Class rocks!
+
+![15](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SMartQi/Live-the-Life/master/source/gallery/scotland/15.jpg)