(Edinburgh, Falkirk, Pitlochry, Inverness, Manchester, London, Seoul)
I'm returning home from a brilliant Scottish wedding "do" for Ms Lizzie and Laird Alan, enormously grateful - not just for one of those once-in-a-lifetime family experiences (pipes, gorgeous bride, gorgeous kilts, ebullient best man, impeccable groom; suitably, drily, irreverent and nostalgic speeches, stylish bridesmaids "of a certain age", the "Gay Gordon's", excellent food and company, table conversations about tracing all of the Spitfire crews from WWII) - but also to Cathy, my thoughtful driver and guide who'd prepared some great sight-sees:
Look up "The Kelpies" at Falkirk:
and also the Falkirk Wheel:
...and you'll see what I mean.
I was moderately enthused at her suggested itinerary, but genuinely impressed by both, as well as the dramatic Scottish landscape from the Borders to the Highlands. And the sunshine. In Scotland. For two whole days.
Cathy and I are both long-in-the tooth enough to have more than adequate riveting family/work/medical/travel experiences to share on an extended drive. Just her descriptions of the interminable house renovation project with dodgy builder in Revel, south of France, still makes me wonder how she sleeps at night...
We gate-crashed Lizzie and the bridesmaids "night before" at Culloden, bringing French "recovery" wine. Lizzie and bridesmaids were well prosecco'd and sharing Hens' Night photos by this time... The "frocked up" and sashed "Bride to Be" had had a "do" at the Canny Man's - Est. 1871 - in Morningside, locally notorious for its "battle of the signs" with the nearby Church of Scotland. (Sydney people will probably remember something similar at St Barney's on Broadway until a sad fire...
The Canny Man is much more "in your face" than the meek humour of the pub near St Barney's). This brass sign "welcomes" you to the Canny Man's:
"NO SMOKING
NO MOBILE PHONES
NO CAMERAS
NO BACKPACKERS"
Good!
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Up in the wildish hills east of Loch Ness is Lochgarthside and the isolated stone cottage of Pat and Steven who enthusiastically "put us up" for the wedding. As well as the warm, gregarious welcome, the morning brought sweeping vistas across Loch Mhor (and more bright Scottish sun) with swooping red kites and distant WHITE sheep ("that would be because of all of our rain") on mottled green distant ridges. The next most impressive view was the Wall Of Fridge Magnets abutting the cosy bathroom: several fridge doors' worth from floor to ceiling!
Most of the road to/from Inverness was single lane with passing bays every 400 metres or so: recently straightened for the transport of turbines and blades for local wind farms. Signs provided dire warnings to avoid collisions with sheep, deer and red squirrels (endangered by those Nasty Grey Imported Grey Squirrels from America: you can run THEM down). Cathy carefully let vehicles pass in both directions as we ventured back in mist and drizzle from the wedding.
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Some other bits and pieces from the trip back:
"Today's rain is tomorrow's whisky"
- Sign at Pitlochry - in the heavy drizzle…. Seeing the salmon jump was out of the question….
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Manchester Piccadilly station:
“TO DRESS EXTRAVAGANTLY IN WAR TIME
is worse than BAD FORM
it is UNPATRIOTIC”
- Poster advertising the Imperial War Museum
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Oldham Mumps: the Main Street of traditional red-brick terraced shops and a grey Victorian town hall commenced with a massive grimy-red-painted and abandoned Bingo Hall. Any travel out of Manchester passed through old industrial towns with close-packed terrace housing abutting abandoned/derelict or repurposed red-brick mills. Public buildings and black painted pubs were clustered with spectacularly flowering hanging baskets.
Eccles: a scrappy Main Street of shops ended at the Metro station and a large supermarket. The main entry aisle was: "YORKSHIRE PUDDINGS and FROZEN CHIPS. Across from the station were high rise apartments from which cladding had been recently removed, following London’s Grenfell Tower disaster.
Back in Manchester City, the extensive cast iron Victorian market buildings have been preserved for various purposes, as have the old rail yards and workshops, now the Manchester Museum of Industry.
After a wander through the dark satanic textile mills section, you emerge from the building across a brick yard to the first ever intercity passenger railway terminus. George Stephenson’s Liverpool to Manchester Railway from 1830 commenced here. In the old workshops, amongst a huge collection of 19th and 20th Century steam-driven industrial output, were some telling posters of contemporary quotations:
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"... the piston of the steam engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness."
- Charles Dickens, "Hard Times", 1854
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"... the most striking result produced by the completion of this Railway is the sudden and marvellous change which has been affected in our ideas of time and space...".
The railways' impact of standardising time across the nation meant that the tardiness of British trains can be reliably measured ever since.
The walk back to St Peters Square was between well maintained medium rise Victorian buildings and past the massive LNER brick warehouses and former station buildings still advertising fast (steam) freight services to the south.
Victoria Station Metrolink stop:
"This project forms part of the European Regional Development Funded redevelopment of Victoria Station...
EUROPEAN UNION: Investing in your future"
...but not for much longer...
If you are Australian travelling in the (still) United Kingdom, you may be getting interesting reactions to any Brexit conversations, especially in Scotland. You should also expect some uncomfortable questions on our own Federal government's immigration and internment policies which are toxic, and an increasing international scandal. I had two such conversations at the wedding: one highly (and justifiably) emotive, and another series of pointed questions in a pub in Manchester. Taking the discussions into the area of dodgy Australian citizenship of our Federal politicians just reduced these conversations to (justifiably) high farce.
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Sights in London:
Walking across Trafalgar Square to see "Apologia", you are struck by the green "WALK" signs which are a variety of symbols for gender equity and inclusion.
Walking through the Embankment Park towards Covent Garden: a bunch of grey suits was striding towards me. Mid-cluster was Alexander Downer: our plummy, former fish-netted foreign minister and now Australian Ambassador to the UK. He did not pause to pass the time of day.
London Transport Museum poster:
"I have always thought that the substitution of the internal combustion engine for the horse marked a very gloomy milestone in the progress of mankind."
- Winston Churchill, 1954
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Flying into Seoul Incheon Airport: on one of the many rectangular land reclamations is a huge oil storage complex, abutted by an expansive square golf course with three-sided water/mud views of Incheon city and the airport.
Welcome NOTICE at Seoul -Incheon Airport.:
"We sincerely apologise for making you inconvenient. We friendly ask your deep understanding during the renovation as below for better customer services"
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"In 1994, Seoul National University released research suggesting that 92 per cent of South Koreans thought reunification “necessary”, though this had fallen to 64 per cent by 2007. Early this century the vast majority of South Koreans perceived Japan as an enemy, rather than the North."...
..."In 2003, it seemed to me that there was more to this nonchalance than resignation. There was fondness. Nostalgia. When I asked Koreans about the North, in soju bars and BBQ restaurants, I heard melancholic sympathy for them. They were cousins, estranged by the unnatural cleaving of the peninsula in ’53. Far from being fearful, they sought reunification."
- Martin McKenzie-Murray: " The Saturday Paper": 9/9/17
The writer's description of South Koreans seeming more "sanguine" about their situation than, say, the current occupant of the White House, seems reasonably accurate.
In Seoul, I have been spared every misguided Trump Tweet, as the Hotel Manu (everything in the room run from one dodgy "remote" - except the toilet which had a wall-mounted dashboard of its very own) only offered news in English from Fox News (please...) or the revamped Chinese CCTV English language news network. Apart from worthy reports on the upcoming National Assembly of the Communist Party most of the rest of the programs are straightish reports of US/Caribbean hurricanes, Myanmar's ethnic cleansing of the Rohinga and South Korea's suicide prevention squads.
Outside of my pub window is Seoul's latest of many greening efforts. This is a city that has pulled down an ugly cross-town 1970's freeway to recreate a river park through central downtown, and has now turned a former freeway over Seoul Station Square (think: a maze of parallel bus stops and taxi stands and 6 staggered pedestrian crossings to negotiate thick roaring traffic) into an colourfully-illuminated-elevated-strip botanic garden: Seoullo
This long former road bridge links the downtown river walks across traffic and rail yards to residential areas and new outdoor food markets to the east. It's not quite a New York High Line, but the concrete pavement is now cluttered with potted botanic specimens including a fresh potted forest, in amongst lurking coffee and ice cream and souvenir concessions. The first two (previously quiet) floors of the hotel are linked to this walkway and are now a craft beer bar with hamburger and pizza concessions in competition with Star*ucks and more up-market restaurants freshly opened in the opposite office buildings. And there are crowds: horticultural organised tours, wandering families and travellers with bags on rollers just loving the easier walk to the Airport train, avoiding the crowded multiply-stepped extended rabbit warrens of the subways below.
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It's mid-morning in hilly Buchkong Hanok Village, four metro stops and one transfer from Seoul Station, sandwiched between two expansive and intricately painted royal palaces. I'm surrounded by traditional tiled house rooftops, many of which are well preserved carved wood and plaster buildings with carefully tended courtyard gardens. Nearly as many structures are “nice" galleries fronting twisted, narrow streets, or shopfront cafes and souvenir "nick-nackeries". It looks pleasant, but the number of houses emblazoned with banners demanding quiet ("Shssssss for silence please!!!!!!") and considerate behaviour gives some hint of the intense daily tourism - organised and otherwise - suffered by the locals in their quaint, traditional-looking haven. In amongst the evil selfie-stickers and organised bus tours of foreigners, linger small groups of day-trippers undergoing self-guided tours dressed in gaudy versions Korean national costume (or an acrylic impression thereof). One lost, dressed-up couple seemed unable to figure out the local map between frequent selfies: he in a traditional tall black hat, rakishly and inappropriately-tilted to-toppling-angle on one side of his head, with white earbuds and selfie stick… are a stark memory. Three Indonesian women in hijab and colour-coordinated traditional Korean gear waited patiently for the "lost" couple to move out of their bloody photo.
Sign outside a local gallery of cat art:
"Life is short but art is long"
I'm used to Japanese pedestrian crossings that twitter at you, or Australian ones that provide tapping or beeping noises, but press the button in Korea and you receive an assertive and extended lecture: what it's about remains a mystery to me, but I felt very forewarned about waiting/traffic hazards/possible attacks from the North????
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Departure NOTICE at Seoul-Incheon Airport:
" Flight No KE121/10Sep
New Boarding Time: 19:25.
New Departure Time: 19.55
Reason for Delay/Cancellation:
Insufficient Parking Area"
Culinary notes: following my earlier rant about lactose-free airline nursery-food, things improved, or at least appeared to be a case of trying harder. One of the better airline breakfasts I've eaten was baked tomato, a generous portion of mushrooms and cubed potatoes with puréed tomato sauce: simple and genuinely flavoursome. The salmon main meal was better than the usual mystery white fish? chicken? mush? One chicken meal was much improved by baked pumpkin slices as a large garnish. The final dinner was a not-bad version of what most of us would think of as a baked dinner. It was recognisable as a large steak lump (just as well Korean Air provide you with metal cutlery!), a large baked potato, and sliced zukes. An accompanying card informs the diner about which hospital has supervised the "medical meals": most of which are "hospital food" in the truest sense.
If you wanted the "full Korean" menu, the flight from London offered large bowls of meat/veg arranged in the base, a sealed container of boiled rice and a small tube squirting what was looking/smelling suspiciously like puréed kimchi: mix your own bibimbap! Between meal snacks were pot noodles and a cup of hot water.
I'm now boarding the 10 hour overnight flight to Sydney. Cramped sleep is beginning to look good.
And so: Good Night!
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