Scotland Journal

We're have arrived at our next stop, SCOTLAND!!! It is one of the most beautiful places we've been to. Since we were both so hungry after the flight to here, we decided to eat some of Scotland's famous cuisines, and then explore the country. While waiting for our food at a traditional Scottish restaurant, I looked at my brochure about food in Scotland, that I got at the airport. It said that the Vikings were the ones who brought the method of 'smoking' AND 'salting' to Scotland. These methods became very popular here!! That explained why the smoke salmon I ordered was so delicious. Scottish food is also very healthy because of the great soil they have for farming. For the main course, we ordered haggis. Haggis is a super duper famous Scottish cuisine and it is made of the innards of a sheep. Though it did taste quite good, I still wished that I didn't know what it was made of.

Next, we went to the Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums. It had many alluring artworks by Louise Hopkins. Louise's amazing artworks are made of fabrics, music scores, pages from comics and magazines since 1990. Her artworks are made to represent the problems and process of representation, which is the portrayal of an object or a person in the art. After our visit from the museum, we had a nice stroll on the street. We saw many people who were playing Scottish folk music on the street. One of the street performers was playing an instrument called a bagpipe. A bagpipe is an instrument with reed pipes. The sounds are made by the pressure from the wind when being pushed or squeezed by the arm. The street performer told us "did you know, bagpipes are one of Scotland's OLDEST instrument?" Of course, we knew that already because we were good kids and did some research before we came here!! :)

The Beautiful Scenery of Scotland!!! 

The last amazing place we went to today was the Scotland's government building. Though we weren't allowed to go into the building, the outside of it was pretty cool. We also learned much information about the government in Scotland. Since 1999, Scotland has been governing successfully for ten years. Also, despite the small population in Scotland, which is only around five million people, they are very proud of their nation identity! This is quite amazing to hear because the population is so tiny. Although the Scottish National Party, also known as the SNP, in the Scottish Parliament has agreed to vote on a full independence from the British Government in 2014, the vote was 55% to remain with the British and the other 45%, which voted for independence.  So I guess they will stay with the Union. Our travel to Scotland was great! The government part was very fun to learn about because I wouldn't have know that Scotland's population is quite small. We can't wait to go to the next country! Well, I guess I will see you, journal, in our next entry.

image source - coolerlifestyle.com