A cosy birthday

My flatmate shares the same birthday as Robert Burns, the Scottish bard. We opted for a Malaysian dinner as opposed to haggis and nips. It was an extremely satisfying meal. You may remember an earlier post about Rumours, the Malaysian restaurant on Bath St, Glasgow. I have since returned several times to try the noodle/rice dishes and found that they were actually very authentic. I therefore highly recommend their Hainan chicken rice, salted fish and chicken fried rice and nasi lemak.

After dinner, we moved on to the Loft in Ashton Lane for drinks and chat. We managed to find a cosy corner table and ensconced ourselves there. Their fruity cocktails were light enough that they did not overwhelm what scanty reserves of alcohol dehydrogenase we had. I recommend their Tequila sunrise.

At midnight, we serenaded a blushing A with a birthday song. Then we retired to our cosy flat for birthday cake and coffee. Peckham's chocolate 'loving spoon' stood up to our expectations. It was decadently chocolatey and was amazing with coffee.

The birthday girl, the devoted friends and the chocolate 'loving spoon cake'

Looks like another one of us is older (and wiser, I hope).
Happy Birthday, A!

Sushiya

This is my favourite Japanese restaurant in Scotland. It's a tiny restaurant on Dalry Road, off Haymarket in Edinburgh which could maybe fit 20 people if stretched.I do not doubt that it is probably owned by Chinese as opposed to genuine Japanese but the food tastes great!

I've tried several Japanese places in Glasgow, each grander and bigger than wee Sushiya but I would miss the latter as soon as I tasted my order. I've only tasted better sushi/sashimi in New York.

An university junior had recently returned to Edinburgh following an extended holiday in Malaysia (envy envy). It was great to see her again after 6 months, curls notwithstanding.
Btw, I stole these pictures from her camera :)

The 'can't wait to eat, what's with the camera shots' looks

yumm.. on the left is dragon roll with king prawn on the inside, and topped with avocado and crab roe! On the right is my favourite dish - the soft shell crab roll with soft shell crab on the inside and crab roe topping.

I still remember a friend (you know who you are) coming to eat at Sushiya and telling us about the cruelty that crabs were subjected to in order to obtain the soft shelled specimens. Following a rather lengthy explanation, she then proceeded to order soft shell crab. My jaw did not hit the floor, but it was close!

The power of words

New year was a cosy affair as I had the flu and LL seemed to have caught it too. Oops! Apart from going out for dinner (calamari, roast pork and tofu at a favourite Chinese restaurant), we didn't really feel like venturing out into the freezing streets of Edinburgh. We watched a couple of movies and then decided to challenge our brain cells with Scrabble!! After a few competitive games, LL became fascinated by the new words that we were learning. We then tried to come up with high-scoring words with the aid of a Scrabble dictionary. Here is the evidence of our temporary infatuation with Scrabble:

Beautiful, don't you think?

We are now much better acquainted with many two and three letter words that we never knew existed such as ae, ar, er, es, oi, fez, zed, etc..

Berlin Part 2

I did not want to wake up when the alarm clock went off at 6am on Day 3. However, I dragged myself out of bed eventually to continue our exploration of Berlin.

The Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin

After breakfast, we hopped onto a bus to get to the first stop of the day - the Charlottenburg Palace. Charlottenburg is the heart of the former West Berlin and the palace is actually the reason for the whole city to be built. It was originally built in 1699 by Elector Frederick III for his wife Sophie Charlotte.

In the courtyard of the palace

The gardens at the back of the palace and a beautiful fountain

More of the baroque garden.

I also saw a fox in one of the bushes. He was quite cute!

Sachsenhausen (Houses of the Saxons)

Then we had to rush to get on to the train to Oranienburg, a quiet suburb which became one of the first places to house a Nazi concentration camp, one of the few on German soil.

The main entrance to the camp and the fence surrounding it

The prisoners were used by the Nazi army to try out new footwear for the army. They were made to march for hours under the sun on various surfaces in order to choose the most durable footwear for the army soldiers.

Where new footwear was tried out by the camp inmates

Most of the prisoners were Jews but there were also political prisoners such as Communists, gypsies, homosexuals and foreign nationals.

2 barracks which housed Jewish prisoners

Their living conditions were atrocious. They had to share tiny beds and bathrooms. Take for example the washing rooms shown below. Only several minutes were allowed for 400 prisoners to wash at these fountains every morning. Some ended up being trampled by their fellow inmates during the rush to leave the room on time when the time for washing was up.

2 fountains to 400 prisoners!!

3 prisoners had to fit into each of these bunkbeds, measuring 70cm wide each

The camp grounds were quite huge, and there was this wall which had lots of photographs and explanation of the events that occurred in the camp as well as famous inmates.

Wall depicting the events that occurred in the camp

Although this camp is not quite as big as the Auschwitz camp in Poland, the Germans had also built a crematorium here for the mass incineration of prisoners who were first killed by gassing with Zyklon B in fake shower rooms. 100,000 people died in this camp. The prisoners would first be led to the crematorium, having been told that they needed to shower. After their clothes had been taken off, they would be crammed into a room with fake shower heads which actually emitted deadly gas and not water. The dead bodies would then be burnt. The ashes were cast into a nearby canal.

The entry to one of the gas chambers and crematorium...creepy

One of the crematoriums where the Jews were led to their death

Gruesome, isn't it? We then moved on to see the barracks where the political prisoners were held. Their living conditions were relatively more luxurious than the Jewish barracks but they were at real risk of being executed at any time.

Political prisoners had roomier accomodation but could still be executed at a whim

There were tall posts from which prisoners could be hung, leading to bone dislocation and a slow death.

Posts where prisoners were suspended from

After the Nazis were defeated in 1945, the Red Army took over the camp and turned the camp into Special Camp No. 7, interning Nazis and killing 12,000 of them before the camp was finally closed in 1950.
A memorial was erected to remember all the people that had died at the camp.

The memorial to all the people who died

I was surprised that I still managed to eat my lunch after all that depressing revelation of what human beings could do to one another.

The Markisches Museum

Next stop, the Markisches Museum. This rather annoyingly was closed when my sister and I arrived. So we just took pictures with the huge statue outside..:)

Gosh he's a tall lad

The Television Tower
We took the tram back to the city centre and saw the Television Tower which is 365 m high. Apparently the height was chosen so that every school child would have no difficulty remembering it.

The television tower

The Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral)
This is the biggest cathedral in Berlin with a huge green dome which can be seen for miles around. It was built between 1894-1905. It was damaged during the second World War but was then reconstructed into a simplified form of the original.

Berliner Dom

We then went to visit some of the museums on Museum Island before heading back to the hotel. It had been a tiring but enjoyable trip. Our flight back to London was early the next morning and before we knew it we were back in the UK, wishing that we could have had a few more days in Berlin!!

Credit crunch new year

If you thought 2008 was bad, 2009 is going to be worse..is what many economists are warning.

I thought 'how true!' as I stood on Calton Hill in Edinburgh on Hogmanay night with my friends watching the fireworks display. Traditionally the new year is welcomed in Edinburgh with a lavish display of multicoloured fireworks from 4 sites surrounding the new town. However, last night's affair was muted, only lasting for 2 minutes and I only saw fireworks bursting into the sky from Princes St Gardens and Arthurs Seat.

It was really good weather, despite the fact that the mercury was indicating minus 7 degrees Celcius. It wasn't windy and it was not raining for once as it had wont to be for the last 6 Hogmanays. The skies were clear. Hogmanay celebrations had been cancelled twice in the last 6 years due to bad weather, which is historically significant in itself.

So here's my New Year message. Hope you have a fun year despite the credit crunch and long may your new year resolution last, if you have one, that is.

Happy New Year everyone!