Singapore Day!

On Saturday, I decided to join the Singaporeans to go to Duddingston Loch! It was such a nice trip down and it was a blessing that it did not rain!

    

  

Aren't we just so cool

We were surrounded by berry bushes and Beverly and I just kept plucking them and eating them! I've never eaten wild berries before so it was quite exciting hahaha and they were really sweet which was surprising!

We had lunch near the loch (Fun fact : Loch is Gaelic for Lake) ,  just sitting on a couple of steps and  decided to play Heads Up! We had such a great time laughing our assess off when we replayed the videos hahah

After that, I had dinner at a senior's flat. It was a mentor/mentee cluster dinner (basically, its part of the Singapore society here where each senior is paired up with a fresher to provide any help/guidance sorta thing), and the food was sooo good! I've never eaten till I was so full in a long time and my mentor specially baked a vegan quiche for me which I was so touched by and it was delicious!

Tutorials start next week which I'm quite excited for but I have a 3 hour lab session on Monday which I'm not looking forward to :( I've also got quite a bit of reading to do for marketing so I'm gonna go back to doing that. Erin and I just went up Arthur's seat this afternoon as it was so sunny and would be a shame to just stay indoors the whole day. We also found a sneaky entrance/short-cut back to our house woohoo Tonight's the day of the lunar eclipse and there's a gathering in the meadows to try to catch it at 2am, I praying I'll be able to stay up for that!

One of the best mornings I had

School has officially started!! But for this week its lectures only and most of the classes I had were introductory lectures - boring. Tutorials here occur once in 2 weeks which I find really slack! I wish we had more so I feel like I'm actually studying? But I guess I'll just do my own readings.

I had such an amazing morning today! I didn't have any classes for the day and that also adds to why I had such a great morning hahah :) 

I headed down to Princes Street this morning to get a couple of things - A world map and a small succulent for my room! But of course I had to go check out Top Shop and H&M cos they were RIGHT THERE. I ended up buying a really nice cardigan from H&M which only cost £11! Then I headed to John Lewis to try my luck in finding a succulent, and I passed a small farmers market on my way there

The fruits and vegetables looked so fresh and I wish I had my own kitchen so I could buy all of em and cook up a real healthy meal! 

Turns out - John Lewis only sells artificial plants :( But I asked the sales lady and she recommended a florist - Narcissus just 5 minutes away. On my way down Broughton Street, where the shop was located, I passed by a sign that read " Vegan Chocolates " and without giving it a second thought, I headed straight into the shop! I was so excited by the variety of vegan chocolate bars they had and bought 2 for £7.75 which was quite dear, but it's quite hard to find vegan chocolates in the local supermarkets so I just got them! 

Look how pretty their packaging is!

I then headed down the street to the florist. It was hard to miss as the exterior of the shop was so beautiful and colourful!

 I managed to find a small succulent for £3.50:) 

On my way back up the street, I passed by this food store called Real Foods and just by the name alone, I suspected it was a cafe ( like the one in Singapore with the same name ) but turns out it was a health food store! and I almost died in there because I literally wanted to buy everything off the shelves! 

Just a small list of the amazing items that they sold

1. All sorts of nut butter you could imagine - almond, cashew, hazelnut, peanut 

2. Superfoods - Chia seeds, Maca powder, Acai powder, Hemp Seeds, Goji Berries

(you name it, they have it!)

3. A huge variety of Nakd bars!

4. Dairy free yoghurt!! 

(Which I missed so much after turning vegan)

5. Different flavours of Rye bread! 

6. Vegan chocolate milk - TO DIE FOR 

And all of these were sold at affordable prices! I can already envision myself doing my weekly grocery shopping trips here when I get a flat next year :) 

So after gasping with delight at every shelf that I critically examined, I ended up purchasing 3 packets of Chocolate Oat Milk (for £0.46 each) and Coconut & Cranberry Rye Bread (£2.19). I decided to save the dairy-free yoghurt for my next trip here! 

 I then headed back to Pollock halls for lunch and to Skype with daddy! 

Junction at Princes Street 

Happiest meal I've had in my room ! 

I've left this post hanging for 2 hours as I just Skyped Dad, Mum and Justina!! <3 <3 <3 Had so much to share and it was so nice to see their faces and to hear their voices :) 

I'm going to go for dinner soon and then for Muay Thai tonight, so pumped for that wooh!

Bye xxxxx ( Hope everyone has a great day!!)

Freshers' Week Part II

I left off on a Thursday so let's start with FRIDAY

So, I went to meet my personal tutor Friday morning to tell her which modules I'm planning to take. It was my first time walking to the King's Building by myself but Google Maps saved my life! and even though the walk is pretty long (2.5km) it was really enjoyable plus the weather makes it all better. Then after the meeting, I headed back to my room and started to plan my timetable. It was quite stressful as I had to make sure none of my classes clashed and I had time to travel between the 2 campuses plus there were so many options of tutorials to take - e.g choose 1 between tutorial 1-10. But I'm glad I managed to get that sorted. Then I met Erin for lunch and again we ate in the Meadows! It's so nice to have lunch whilst looking out to a huge park full of green (: We then decided to explore Calton Hill! 

Deco for Pumpkin Spiced Latte!!

( I can't wait to try a Pumpkin Spiced Latte! and this was just a Starbucks we passed along the way) 

We met Sanya along the way

It was so beautiful :') 

We reached Calton Hill at around 4:45pm and that explains why some of the photos are really dark. After heading back for dinner, Erin and I got ready to go to the Big Ceilidh! (Scottish dancing) We ended up having to queue for an hour before entering as it was too crowded in the venue but it was definitely worth the wait as it was so fun!! We took turns being the guy and girl in a couple and thank goodness there weren't too many sweaty people we had to link arms with HA!

Saturday was one of the best days this week! Though I was disappointed about not being able to go for the hiking trip, I had an amazing time at the beach! I expected many of us from the same house to go to the beach that day but there were only 3?? hahaha It was just Erin and I and another guy (i forgot his name :( ) and the 3 residential assistants brought us there! Though it was an hour walk to the beach, it was scenic, warm and sunny! 

Walked past Arthur's Seat along the way 

Had the huge urge to belt out The Hills Are Alive by the Sound Of Music here

We just basically chilled at the beach for a good 2 hours! Erin and I managed to pick some nice rocks and shells to bring back as well. The other guy who came with us was going to be studying Geology and he was a genius!! He was basically telling us the the origin of each type of rock that we picked up and literally knew every type of rock and how they were formed. I was blown away by the knowledge he had about geology. Fun fact : Only in Edinburgh would you find people suntanning whilst wearing a trench coat!

After the beach, Erin and I combined our laundry load and shared the cost of doing laundry woooh & then we got lunch at 4:30pm HAHAH and guess where we ate?? Yup that's right, the meadows! Following that, I went for dinner at Kampong Ali, a Malaysian restaurant, with a Singaporean senior and other people. I had mixed vegetable curry with rice. CHINESE RICE !! Rice, oh glorious rice, I've missed you too much!! It was so nice being able to talk to a senior who understood the struggles of freshers and she comforted me that things would get better! 

I headed back to Pollock halls after that and then Erin and I had a movie night! We watched Just Go With It but we both fell asleep halfway hahah

Sunday was the most chilled day in the entire week! I had breakfast at 11am which is probably the latest time I've ever had breakfast, then I went up to Erin's room to finish the movie and then started on The Back Up Plan. Then we went to grab free food!! A hotdog vendor came into the halls and so a couple of other girls and I went to get our free hotdogs! I obviously had a vegetarian one and it was really yummmyyy. The other girls then also came to Erin's room after our free lunch and we all watched White Chicks together before heading to dinner.

So now its currently 9pm and I'm just going to catch up on a whole week of YouTube videos which I haven't made the time to watch and get ready for the first day of school tomorrow - SO EXCITED!! 

Explorin'

It's Friday!!! Feeling slightly anxious and apprehensive about moving into halls tomorrow :'( I'll be sleeping alone !! But both mum and I will be sleeping alone so we're sad together hahah but at the same time I'm really excited to see how my uni looks like

Any way, I really like Edinburgh so far! It's not like London which I had expected, but I like it nonetheless. It's quite a small city because we seem to be ending up in the same places despite feeling like we've been walking for miles in different directions! The people here are really friendly and we've experience excellent service in all restaurants/cafés that we've dined in, and on top of that the weather is soooooo enjoyable right now which makes it 10 times better!

Since mum and I arrived on Wed, we've been shopping, ( I've yet to find a nice coat, but I just went onto the Urban outfitters and found some really nice ones YAY and I'll try to drag mummy with me if not I'll just go down myself to get it hehe ) explored different places by just walking into random streets, had super good vegan food and today we've been to the castle!

I absolutely love the streets here - the cobbled pathways and buildings built of stone and all the nice little cafes where people sit outdoors (:

Cute little Ice Cream van :)

I've found my favourite cafe for vegan food! It's called Hula's and I'm even thinking about working here hehe. They have vegan desserts! Which is a total plus because it's quite hard to find vegan desserts when there's milk and egg in most of them :(

Acai Bowl!! 

Double Chocolate something which was VEGAN how amazing??

Mum had a Toffee cake which according to her tasted really good!

<3

Mum and I had tapas for dinner one night! And for some strange reason I ordered an Olive dish?? And I don't even like olives so I don't know what was going on inside my head... but the smoked aubergine with bell peppers, onions and courgettes were really yummy!

This post is rather foody... but everyone likes looking at food pics. Right? Well, I hope HA

After visiting the Edinburgh castle, Mum and I headed to David Bann for lunch! It was a vegetarian restaurant (w vegan options) and the food was AMAZING. Definitely coming here for more! It was so good mum decided to steal the menu 

Aubergine, Chick pea and Cashew koftas!

The castle!

To be honest, I wasn't really thrilled to visit the castle and I think because of my mood, I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have. So from this experience I would say the castle was really boring?? It was still gorgeous and grand but just not really exciting . But I think if I went in with a more positive mindset I would view it differently! Till next time then :) 

CHEEEESSEEEE

So along the street West Bow, there are so many dainty cafes and shops which were so inviting and mum and I found ourselves going into almost all of them! We entered a cheese shop with a huge array of different cheeses! I miss cheese :(((( There was also a really nice stationary shop which was super Pinterest-y and they had these beautiful marbled notebooks with the golden caligraphy font which I was so tempted to buy!! but they were £8.50 which was not worth it sigh :( 

Its currently 6:48pm and I'm just chilling in the hotel room with a huge cuppa tea and mum is watching all the election videos. We're both really lazy to go out for dinner and I've also realised that I haven't done any exercise since Monday!! GASP. Though we walk everywhere here and have only taken a cab once from the airport to the hotel, that doesn't really count as exercise. But I have found a dance school so YAY but seriously feeling like a potato without exercise sobs :'(