Glasgow, Scotland

I know my first few entries in London have been very vague on what we did everyday or what we saw.  I wanted to write every night, but that would just get too redundant, and there really wasn't much to say.  Plus, the crappy hostel we were staying in had very bad Internet services, which I think I already ranted about. 


We did the basic touristy things in London: visit the Parliament, London Eye, Millennium Bridge, Kew Gardens, St. Paul's Cathedral and Buckingham Palace.  We also did the non touristy things, like going to the hospital twice.  The second trip to the hospital gave us a more accurate examination on what was going on with Alex's eyes: he has iritis.  So now we have more accurate analysis and eye drops that will hopefully do the trick in curing this iritis.  


So our last morning in London, we woke up at 5am to quickly pack, check out, take the Underground to Kings Cross Station to catch the 7am train to Glasgow, Scotland.  We arrived around 12:45pm, and made our way to our hostel, which is so much nicer and cleaner than the last dump we stayed at in London.  There's free wifi and computers with Internet access which is actually letting me update this blog.  There's free coffee and tea in the kitchen.  A clean kitchen.  Breakfast is included.  And we're only paying £5 more per person.

To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to Scotland as much as I'm looking forward to France or Italy.  But  boy, was I pleasantly surprised.




We took a trip to the Glasgow School of Art designed by famed Scottish architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh.  If you're ever in Glasgow, take a tour of the building.  It's truly worth the £8.70.  The building is beautifully detailed and his play with natural light vs. dark spaces is fantastic.  Unfortunately, they don't allow photographs inside the building, as it is an art school and students were preparing for their final presentations.  To top it off, it was raining outside, and since my camera isn't waterproof I couldn't snap many outside detail photos.  So sorry, but you'll all have to wait for Alex's super processed photos.  But take my word for it that it is a brilliant architectural piece of work.  If you're a fan of Art Nouveau, Scottish Architecture, and Japanese Architecture, this is the place for you.  It weirdly reminded me of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture (I'm thinking the Japanese Architecture has a lot to do with that).  Also, I fell in love with his rose design.  The motif is found throughout his design, "contrasting the geometric edges with floral-inspired curves".

Mackintosh's wife Margaret was also an accomplished artist, and a huge influence on the works of this details.  Her painting done by gesso is displayed at the school and it is absolutely beautiful (sorry, no photos).  I fell so in love with this rose motif, that I bought a useless, yet pretty, souvenir.  Alex also bought me the rose motif pin badge.  Needless to say, we'll be ordering a bunch of useless things from this school when we get back to the states.

The neat thing about this school is that they sell art made by students/alumni of the school, and all profits go to fund the school.  Perhaps the Dean at NJIT should think about doing something similar to this rather than asking students to ask their rich relatives for donations, because it clearly does not work, and it makes the Dean look pathetic.