After spending a week with Phan's family in Vancouver we caught the early morning ferry to Schwartz Bay, Vancouver Island and bussed down to the city of Victoria. The ferry trip saw us cross the channel from Vancouver and enter the cluster islands south east of the larger Vancouver Island. The weather was cold, grey and windy but the scenery was great as we passed close by small islands that had a lot of forests as well as houses and docks scattered around. Victoria has a nice harbour and after we checked in to a hostel Phan and I decided to [View Full Entry]

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Since farewelling Phan's family in Canada we have visited the Altimiras in London, seen the sights there and caught up with some of our friends living in and around the city. We went to have a look at Buckingham Palace and there watched the guards do their march back and forth as they do every 5 minutes or so but one of the guard's front foot slipped forward on the pebbles but he just managed to recover himself before he ended up on the ground. He looked very embarrassed. There was a bit of activity inside the gates with people [View Full Entry]

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We hired a car and drove up to Scotland spending the night in Warwick and seeing the ruined castle nearby as well as Shakespeare's home town of Stratford upon Avon and Oxford on the way. It was a lovely but long drive up to Edinburgh. It was great to drive through the green hills and then the moors of The Borders. Once in Edinburgh we checked out my old haunts and went on a walking tour of the old town. [View Full Entry]

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We decided to do all of our highland sightseeing in one day so we headed up to see Loch Ness and then drove over to the west coast through the spectacular highland scenery to Elain Donan castle. We then headed south toward Oban and ended up staying at a B&B that was right on the banks of a loch and had a pub that served great food but the midges were after our blood and we couldn't enjoy the view of the loch as long as we would have liked. [View Full Entry]

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Belfast was an interesting place to visit. The city was dead after 7 in the evening (legacy of the troubles??) Took a black cab tour of the divided catholic and protestant communities and Phan and I went back later and wandered the catholic area and looked at some murals the tour didn't go past and I got a haircut on Falls Road. Seeing the "peace wall" with the houses along it with plastic windows and explosive deflecting cages was disturbing. So was seeing the cage windowed pre-school of the next generation who will grow up with this physical seperation from their [View Full Entry]

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Isn't it reat when your day seeing a city coincides with a public holiday, not much was open. We walked around the university, watched rangers win the scottish premiership on the tv in a pub and observed a lot of drunk people walking the streets trying to start fights with celtic fans who were also playing that day. [View Full Entry]

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Downtown Vancouver Caught the Skyway into Vancouver and when we arrived at Waterfront Station headed down to Gastown precinct, known for its eateries and art sellers the brochure enthused. Walking along just out of station noticed a lot of homeless people around the place. Window shopped down the street and ended up at the statue of the Gassman some local pioneer character named for his storytelling, decided to keep walking to Chinatown. Passing a LOT of homeless along the street, next street I could see ahead that the homeless were in even greater numbers crowding the sidewalk. We quickene [View Full Entry]

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