Beyond The Maple Tree

When we arrived, we discovered that it's actually quite pricey to get into the visitor area surrounding Stonehenge (£18.20 ($30 CAD) per person).  Even if you pay the entrance fee, the stones themselves are fenced off by a rope, so the closest point is still about 10m away. 

Lucky for us, when we arrived at the entrance, a nice older gentleman approached us and asked if we had tickets.  We said no, so he proceeded to tell us that we can head back to the the visitor's centre to pay £18.20 each and then come back to get into the designated visitor area, or we can continue walking just a few meters further, enter the gate along the farmer's fence, and see the stones from there.. for free.  Seemed like a no-brainer for us, so we graciously thanked him!  He gave us a friendly smile while pointing out the farmer's fence and forewarning us, "just watch out for the sheep droppings, they can be slippery!".  

So, if you don't mind seeing Stonehenge from 20-30m away instead of 10-20m, you can do so for free!  

Bringing our bikes allowed us to also explore the surrounding area, including Stonehenge Cursus and Woodhenge.

For Jen's birthday, we took a 3-day weekend to celebrate in the land of scotch whiskey and haggis.  It was actually suppose to be a "surprise" birthday, but our credit card statement blew the surprise - Jen could clearly see “Edinburgh” on one of the line items, a couple of weeks early.  Fortunately, it was no big deal since Jen doesn't really like surprises anyhow!  

We arrived by train and our first stop was the “Scotch Whiskey Experience” in the centre of Edinburgh.  We learned about ow scotch whiskey is made and how the flavours differ between the various regions.  The tour allowed us to taste scotches from each of the 5 regions.  Jen discovered her (new) favourite whiskey (Glen Scotia) which, of course, is one of the harder scotches to find since it's from the smallest region, Campbeltown. We also discovered that scotch goes really well with chocolate!  It's our new favourite "treat" :)

The next day we climbed up to a popular viewpoint called Arthur’s seat.  We hoped it was actually where King Arthur ruled from, but no.. turns out it's not :P.  The hike is, however, quite beautiful with its 360 degree view of Edinburgh Castle, the city, and surrounding area.

We were really impressed at how well Edinburgh maintains its historical look. We spent a lot of time wandering the old town since it's such a beautiful city to see.

We also experienced some local foods including delicious roasted-pig sandwiches at "Oink" and some local game-meat pies that warned that they may contain "shot" (ie. bullet) residue.

A 40th wouldn't be a real birthday without a nice dinner out!  A coworker recommended “The witchery by the castle” - a super nice restaurant with an amazing atmosphere and really good food.  Happy Birthday Jen!  :)

We decided to spend a few weekends exploring small towns around London.  Our first trips were to Stratford-Upon-Avon, the small town where Shakespeare was born, and Oxford.  We wandered the cute towns to see the sights and strolled the river paths that pass through the towns.

Our colleague from work recommend trying the typical British "afternoon tea" in Stratford-Upon-Avon, so we chose a cute 1940s-themed tea house, appropriately named The Fourteas (www.thefourteas.co.uk), to experienced our very first British afternoon tea! 

It wasn't anything particularly fancy - white-bread sandwiches with the crust cut off, a few bite-sized deserts, their special blend of 4 teas with milk and sugar, and scones with fresh strawberry jam and clotted cream.  It didn't look like much food at first, but it was surprisingly filling!  Our favourite part was definitely the scones with jam and clotted cream, since we hadn't had before.  The clotted cream tastes something like a cross between unsalted-butter and whipped cream.

Since we enjoyed the afternoon tea experience in Stratford-Upon-Avon, we decided to try "cream tea" in Oxford.  "Cream tea" sounds to us like it's just tea with cream in it!  Turns out that "cream tea" here actually refers to a "lighter" version of "afternoon tea" - just tea, scones, jam, and clotted cream.  We also learned that cream tea is a hot debate topic - what's the "proper" way to eat a cream tea? jam first? or cream first?  

Fortunately the Brits have done extensive research to scientifically prove the optimal way to construct your cream tea:  Revealed-the-scientific-formula-for-the-perfect-cream-tea.   Yay for "science" funding!  :)

Montmorency Falls

Along the way, they tried the “Best” poutine (according to Dom's mom) at LaMaire and attempted eat a huge ice cream sandwich from Île d'Orléans.

The road trip ended at Charlotte's country retreat in St Placide where our friends spent the night before returning to Calgary.

Shortly after the road trip, we finally got word that our London work visa applications had been approved, so we drove to Ottawa to complete the application process.  Since Jen hadn't been to Ottawa before, we spent the afternoon doing a bit of sight-seeing :)  

It was a sunny weekend during the Cherry Blossom festival, so we certainly weren't the only ones there!  When we arrived, there was a huge queue to visit the castle.  It had us worried, but fortunately it didn't take as long as we would have thought.  Unfortunately, the reason the line didn't take that long is because they rush everyone through the castle quite quickly, so we left it feeling somewhat unsatisfied.  

On the plus side, there happened to be a really cool Cherry Blossom festival happening on the grounds, so we watched an assortment of entertainment, listened to traditional Japanese music and, most importantly, sampled some fresh local Sakes :) 

While hanging out in the crowd, enjoying our sake, we were approached by a young Japanese couple who asked us if we like fish (or something like that).  It felt like a rather bizarre encounter and a very random question, so we muddled through trying to figure out if we were actually understanding their question correctly.  Eventually we kinda politely responded "well.. yeah, we eat fish".  

They looked at each other with delight and giggled.  The guy walked off toward the food booths while the girl stayed to chat with us.  When he returned, he was holding a big round meat lollipop that he had purchased, and he promptly handed it over for us to try.. meanwhile they both stared and smiled at us curiously.  

...the strangest things run through your head in these situations - we simply couldn't make sense of what was going on!

We looked at each other in confusion, but politely tried the fishy meat stick as they eagerly observed our reaction and asked us, "Do you like it???".  

"Yes... it's good", we replied.  Again, they looked at each other and simultaneously laughed in delight.  

Ok, the suspense was killing us. "...but.. why?", we asked them in confusion.

"Why?", they responded, almost equally confused.

"Yeah.. why did you want to buy this for us to try?  Was it because you thought we would find it weird? or gross?".  

Again they looked at each other and laughed, and their answer was simply, "Just because... these are a very traditional food in this area.  We really like them... and we thought you might too!".  

And that was.. just that...!  Then they offered to buy us more sake!

Despite the lingering sense of confusion about how this had all come about, we ended up sharing a couple more rounds of sake with them while having a really great conversation about travelling, our visit to Japan, what life and work is like for them in Japan, and answering all their curious questions about what things are like in Canada.  They were a really cute couple.

They were super excited when they discovered that we were from Canada because it's a place that they both really wanted to visit.  We asked them where in Canada they wanted to go, and they shocked us by responding "Yellowknife!".  

Yellowknife??  How do they even know about Yellowknife!?  Out of all the Canadian cities that people usually visit, we never would have guessed that someone would respond with Yellowknife!  .. eventually it all made sense when they explained that they heard about the Aurora Borealis there and really wanted to see it one day!!

About an hour later, they told us they had to head home.  We said goodbye and they were gone as quickly as they had appeared.  

It was such an unusually unique and memorable encounter that it left us recounting it to people long after.  Travelling is so great for stuff like this!

After such a long fun day, few things beat a little nap in the park under warm sun and cherry blossom trees  :)

And here's what $40 cantaloupes looks like

compared to the $130 cantaloupes, which have "nicer" webbing patterns and a perfectly T-shaped stem.

If you look closely, you can see that the $28 sets of strawberries are hand picked to all have an identical colour, shape, and size.

If you're willing to eat the fruit "rejects", you can also buy them at a (relatively) reasonable price :) :).