Past Trip: Scotland/England 1994

In February 1994, we took another trip across the pond. Little did we know what we were starting. We traveled again using the Brit Rail Pass and visited Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness in Scotland and London, Dover, Winchester and Chester in England. We probably wouldn't have planned to visit Glasgow, but the impetus for the trip was my cousin's wedding. She was living in Glasgow, met someone, was getting married in Glasgow and that was enough of an excuse for us. We traveled on the Scottish part of the trip with some friends, they also came for the wedding and were to come to Inverness too, but one fell ill and we went on without them.

Highlights of the trip:

• Still have menus on the flight
• Slept in a Scottish Castle
• Slept on a Sleeper train
• Saw more real Castles
• Saw the Loch Ness Monster (kidding)
• Hand pumped ale

Sights we saw:
Glasgow (4 Days)
Had a good time in Glasgow, met my cousin's friends and in-laws.  Our eldest asked why we always went to pubs?

• trips to Edinburgh
• pre-wedding gathering
• Wedding

Edinburgh
There is a lot to see along the Royal Mile, the main street leading down from the Castle to The Palace of Holyroodhouse. We only scratched the surface. I would definitely visit again.

• Edinburgh Castle
• The Scotch Whisky Heritage Centre
• Arthur's Seat hike

Inverness (2 days)
Had hoped to visit a Whiskey distillery while we were in the Highlands, but there was not enough time. It snowed on the trip up from Glasgow, but it stopped before we arrived in Inverness.

• Loch Ness Monster Exhibition Centre, Drumnadrochit
• Loch Ness - the scenery reminded me of upstate New York
• Urquhart Castle

Urguhart Castle

London (2 days)
Who knew we would be spending so many vacations in the Worlds best city. Lots of free museums.

• The Tower Bridge Exhibition
• Prince Henry's Room
• The Science Museum
• An Inspector Calls (play)
• Temple Church
• Westminister Abbey

Dover (1 day)

Dover Castle

• Dover Castle  - Very large and comprised of fortifications from many different time periods.
• Hellfire Corner - Secret tunnels on the grounds of Dover Castle used for various purposes over the years.
• The White Cliffs

Winchester (1 day)
Heard the organist and the choir practicing when we visited the Cathedral.

• Cathedral
• City Mill
• statute of King Alfred the Great

Chester (2 days)

The Rows

• Roman amphitheater
• City walls, actually used to get about the town.
• The Rows, double tiered half timbered stores along the shopping streets.
• Beeston Castle - a ruin, but still worth a visit.
• Cathedral

Hotels:
I was very lax in keeping receipts and writing down all the names of the places we stayed at, we might have been having too much fun... in the pubs.
The Sandyford Hotel on Sauchiehall (pronounced Suckiehall) Street, Glasgow, Scotland, very clean.

Castle Stuart

Castle Stuart, Inverness, Scotland, the highlight of the trip for me. We had the Battlement Suite and the eldest had her own bed down the hall off in a side nook, needless to say she ended up staying in our bed. No one else was staying at the time so we had the run of the place, the whole Great hall, the drawing room and the Billiard room. The pool table was the size of a soccer pitch. We had to have dinner in town because Cook didn't cook for less than six! The next day, the lady of the Castle made breakfast for us and then the Daughter took us into town in the Rolls. They have a ghost, but we didn't see it.

Wait, is that a ghostly presence I see in the bed nook?

The Royal Highlander Sleeper Train, Inverness to London. A bit tight and a bit warm on the top bunk. We had to change engines somewhere north of London and that delayed our trip by 3 hours. It was still exciting and I have ever since wanted to take a sleeper again. I really like train travel.

???, London
Cliffe Court Hotel, Dover
Right by the harbour, you could hear the Hovercrafts departing. A bit of a walk back to town.
???, Winchester
Eastern Guesthouse, Chester, very nice.

Pubs:
Kept even worse track of the pubs we visited.
The Horse Shoe, Glasgow
Ye Olde Cock, Fleet Street, London

$1 = 0.68 pence
Average Daily spendage was 66 GBP (12 days)
Lodging totals were 721 GBP

1994 Trip expenses - 2 adults, 1 child
$1108 - air fare (2 Adults, 1 child)
$ 675  - rail pass
$1165 - daily expenses
$1059 - Lodging
$4007 - Total omitting any charges

A few Archtops

Stopped by a Guitar store in Edison NJ last week and tried a few Archtops, I had started looking back in February. All three had a floating pickup, a wooden bridge and a single cutaway, just what I was looking for.

Godin 5th Avenue Jazz(new) for around $1000. The neck felt too narrow, I didn't like the scale and the body felt small. Sounded fine, weighed next to nothing.

Hofner Jazzica(new), for close to $3000. Felt almost like the Godin, blindfolded I wouldn't have known the difference. I really liked the pick guard, doesn't block the sound hole plus the tail piece looked really nice. The build quality was a bit higher than the Godin.

Epiphone Emperor, made in Korea, $799 used. The color doesn't look as bad in person. The size felt better and the sound was warmer than the other 2 guitars I played that day. I didn't try it through an amp so I can't tell how the non-standard pickup (a Shadow) on the Emperor sounded. The volume and tone knobs on the pick guard didn't bother me, I had thought they might get in the way. Sounded very nice, if I could have had one of the 3 for free, it would have been the Emperor. Didn't love it, so I didn't buy it. New ones go for $699, but are made in China, some say the quality is not as good as the older Korean made models.

Still looking.

Past Trip: England 1993

On our first trip abroad, we spent 15 days traveling around England by train, on our itinerary were;
London, Canterbury, Brighton, Bath, Cambridge and York.

We paid 159 GBP for a 15 day British Rail FlexiPass, the airfare was $1382 for 2 adults and one child and 1 US Dollar bought 62 pence. Today, a FlexiPass is $329, $1382 will pay for 1 Economy airline ticket to London(June 2012) and now you get 60 pence for 1 US Dollar.

We visited and saw
London (6 days)

• London Zoo
• Sherlock Holmes Museum (bogus)
• Harrods
• Piccadilly Circus (saw no punks)
• Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap (someone had to lie claim to be 7 years old)
• Hop-on Hop-off bus tour and saw the major sights (sitting and wathing the sights go by helps to get over your jet lag and to get your bearings)
• Buckingham Palace and changing of the guards
• The Horse Guards
• Kew Gardens
• Fortnum and Masons
• Camden Market
• Tower of London and the Crown Jewels(fantastic)
• St. Paul's Cathedral (a bit glum)

A member of the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, A Life Guard(Red Tunic).

Canterbury (2 days)

• The Cathedral (they were putting down a new floor)
• city walls
• Leeds Castle (day trip)

Leeds Castle

Brighton (1 day)

• rocky beach
• pier with sickening ride
• The Royal Pavilion

Bath (2 days)

Pulteney Bridge, Bath

• Roman Baths
• Avebury Stone Circle (day trip) Excellent, better than Stonehenge even though I've never been.
• Red Lion Pub inside Avebury's stone circle
• Watched some Cricket from our room in Bath

One quadrant of the Stone Circle

Cambridge (2 days)

• Guide Friday Cambridge bus tour (the eldest child got to ride the tour bus for free by claiming to be 5)
• Kings College Chapel
• flea market
• hired a punt and a punter for 15 squid

Kings College Chapel, stunning inside and out

York (2 days)

• Jorvik Viking Centre
• Cliffords Tower - remains of York castle
• York Minister
• Walked the walls (very complete, saw into some nice back gardens)
• Model train museum 

Some of the highlights/surprises of the trip.

• A Menu for the food on the flight
• subways with upholstered seats
• buildings are really old and no one is thinking of tearing them down
• pineapple on pizza
• English pubs and pints
• real castles
• no two Toilets flushed alike
• lots of book shoppes
• ice cream during intermission at a play
• old navy rum is horrible

Our Hotels (any opinions are almost 20 years old)

We booked our rooms as we went using the Tourist Information centers, we mainly had good luck, but now we pre-book our rooms.

Leicester Court, London is now Grange Strathmore Hotel.

  The wash basin in the room backed up one night.

Kings Bridge Villa, Canterbury
  So clean the bedspreads were actually touchable.

Marina West Hotel, Brighton (now closed for the season?)
  Mushy beds and many flights of stairs to the room.

The Edgar Hotel, Bath
  Good location, just over the Pulteney Bridge.

The Milton Guest House in Cambridge
  Too much like living in someone's home, plus the air freshener smelled awful.

Cavalier Private Hotel, York
  Very nice.

Windermere Hotel, London (near Victoria Station)

  We had a basement room, but it was clean.

We used to be very fastidious about photographing the pubs we ate at, but we haven't kept that up, we still keep a travel journal. Some of the pubs still seem to be in business.

London

•  The Gloucester Arms Tavern
• Royal Court Tavern
• Hawley Arms
• Ye Olde London
• Marquis of Westminister 
• The Clarence
• St. Georges Tavern

Canterbury

• Tudor Tavern (rabbit and bacon pie)
• Shakespeare Inn

Brighton

• The Regency Tavern

Bath

• The Rummer
• The Huntsman
• The Red Lion, Avebury

The Red Lion Pub inside the Stone Circle at Avebury

Cambridge

• The Bun Shop
• Fountain Inn

 York

• Royal Oak
• Cross Keys

Cross Keys Pub in York, circa 1993

1993 Basic Trip Expenses - 2 adults, one child

$1382 - air fare

$  672 - rail pass

$2300 - cash and travelers checks

$4400 - Total omitting any charges

Travel? Why Not! Japan (ReVisited)

In 2003-2004, I made 3 trips to Tokyo and spent a total of 8 weeks working there for a large telecommunications company. On one trip, my better half was able to travel with me and we visited a temple and shrine complex Nikko, a bit north of Tokyo. On my first stint I spent a weekend in Kyoto. Kyoto is full of temples, shrines and gardens and was such a pleasure to explore. I had lunch one afternoon in a German bar, "Munich Haus" that was down this dark narrow alley off the main strip Shijo Dori, I just barely noticed the sign and decided to check it out. Lunch was wursts, sauerkraut and German beer, a break from all the Japanese cuisine, but not quite German food. Kyoto was the capital of Japan until replaced by Tokyo in the late 1800s.

The flight to Japan is very long, but the flights seem less onerous the more trips you make. You watch all the movies, read all your magazines, read a book or two, try to sleep, eat and drink and finally there you are.

If the kids were able to come along,  I would revisit Tokyo and Kyoto and maybe include a day trip or two from each. If the trip was just the two of us, then I would spend less time in Tokyo, more time in Kyoto and add a third city like Osaka or Nagoya or Matsumoto.

Travel

• 14 hours non-stop NYC to Narita Airport just outside Tokyo, Japan
• Narita Airport to Tokyo, depending on your hotel location.
• 55 minutes by bus to Tokyo City Air Terminal, (TCAT)
• 53 minutes by train to Tokyo Train station (JR Narita Express, NEX)
• under 3 hours hours Tokyo to Kyoto via Hikari Shinkansen (2nd fastest Bullet Train on this line)
• 1 hour to Himji from Kyoto via Osaka

Sights
Tokyo

• Tokyo National Museum at Ueno Park
• gardens, a few listed here
• Sensoji Buddhist Temple (Asakusa station)
• Sumo wrestling (January, May and September in Tokyo) 
• Edo Tokyo museum in Ryogoku, next to the Sumo Hall
• Kirin Beer Village, brewery tour in Yokohama
• food 
• Yakitori (chicken on a stick) in Ginza under the train tracks.
• sushi near the Tsukiji Central Wholesale Market
• odon noodles
• shops
• Oriental Bazaar (in Harajuku/Omotesando)
• Tokyo Hands (crafts, hobby, housewares, tons of stuff)
• china shops down little alleys

Kyoto

• stay in a Ryokan (traditional guest house, sleep on a tatami mat)
• Imperial Palace (Palace tour requires advance request)
• Imperial Palace Park, open to the general public
• Nijo Castle, it has Nightingale floors and beautiful gardens
• Minimiza - Kyoto's Kabuki theater
• over 1000 temples and shrines to see so says this website
• Gardens, an overview by Bowdoin College (most are in or near Kyoto)
• Kyoto National Museum
• Kyoto Museum of Traditional Crafts

Himeji (day trip from Kyoto)

• Himeji Castle (UNESCO site) has multiple moats, gates and confusing paths all protecting the central keep. 15 minute walk from the train station.
• Harimanokuni Main Shrine (near Himji Castle) 

Osaka - 20 minutes from Kyoto, Our favorite Japanese Restaurant is named Osaka.

• castle (reconstructed)
• Maritime Museum
  
• Shitennoji Buddhist Temple and treasure house

Nagoya - another port city like Osaka, an hour from Kyoto towards Tokyo

• castle (reconstructed)
• Atsuta Shrine
• Shirotori Garden
• Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology

Matsumoto - in the Japanese Alps (3 hours from Kyoto, 2.5 hours to Tokyo via Nagano)

• Matsumoto Castle (original construction), 15 minutes from train station.
• Timepiece Museum, 10 minutes from train station in the castle direction.
• Jorinji shrine, 5 minutes from train station in the direction of the castle.
• Kametaya Sake Brewery, short train ride needed

Souvenirs

• sake in a special bottle
• Japanese mon (family crests), brass, ceramic or on a flag
• Japanese roof tiles for the walls of my Zen garden
• bowls and cups
• katana samurai swords (good luck getting that home)