I had a dream that Jake and I were back aboard s/v Bosco at sea. We were doing something that I can’t recall, but for some reason we absolutely needed to hear the VHF radio; most likely weather-related. All that could be heard is the crackling and buzzing of radio waves that gradually grew into a louder screeching sound. My head flew up instantly off the pillow and I realized that the noise was not a VHF radio in my dream.

It took a few moments to come out of the mental cloud to take in my surroundings and understand what I was hearing. Just outside of the door sounded like an epic battle. Sure enough, Mia and Archie were going after each other at 3:30AM. I got up to separate the attackers but they were startled out of their mini-war when the door opened. Mia (the white kitty) tried to enter our room so I had to shimmy out between the crack to keep her out. All seemed well on the western-front. Silly kitties!

It was a struggle to get back to sleep, and before long Jake’s alarm buzzed at 730AM. Not at all ready for the day, I thought a hot shower might wash away some of the drowsiness. It did!

Our agenda for the day wasn’t too major. We are leaving Leith and heading to the opposite end of the city for a couple of days. It is a bit outside the tourist bubble known as “downtown Edinburgh”. We can’t check in until 1PM, and our host said we can leave here whenever.

With tons of time to kill, Jake commenced with packing while I chatted with Caroline, helping her clean our room and set it up for her next guests. Then we played with the little cat-attackers who went back to being sweet and playful. Mia was ecstatic when we finally left the door open so she could claim her bed again 🙂

By 11am we were packed and out the door. We felt like experts today as we knew exactly which bus to hop on (the #22), which would take us downtown to Waverley Station. From here we know of a bus (#100) which will take us to the Zoo. That is the location of our next abode. And with our all-day bus passes in hand, we thought that all would be well.

For the most part it was. There was a bit of a walk to actually find the location of #100, from which we found pretty quickly. We stood in line with the last of the passengers loading on and were about to enter when the driver asked if we were heading to the airport. We said, no, the zoo and showed him our passes. Apparently those tickets will not work on this bus, we need a different (more expensive) pass for this bus. He told us that we can take the #12, 26 or 31.

It wasn’t a big deal, other than the fact that we were laden with all our stuff (plus the extra food), so it was a pain to walk all the way back to the bus stop. We had to make a run for the #31, which pulled up to the stop we were heading, barely catching it before the doors closed.

Now we haven’t been out of the city heading in this direction, and we had no idea if this really was the right bus. I should have probably asked the driver upon entering, but was so out of breath and just happy to make it that the thought didn’t occur until we sat down at the back. I pulled out the phone to check GPS for location of the zoo, and sure enough, we are heading in the exact right direction.

The bus will not stop at every location, so it took some guesswork to determine where we actually need to get off. We were one block early, but it worked in our favor since our next room to rent was just ahead (before the zoo). I consulted our directions: 2 doors down from the Moon Jade Chinese restaurant.

This definitely doesn’t look like a residential area. Just a few small townhomes and then a whole lot of commercial buildings. But we spotted the restaurant and from there located the big white door with the apartment number we are looking for!

There’s always a slight risk that this whole rental room thing won’t work out. We have been lucky so far that it always has, but you never know. And in those few seconds before a person answers the door, my imagination streams through all of the possible bad things that could happen; shady people, no one answers, the place is shabby or something worse. We knocked a few times to no answer. Eventually someone answered the door, an old woman with a strong accent that I couldn’t place; a mixture of Scottish and Middle-Eastern I’m guessing? She is older, probably in her mid-60’s and she gestured for us to come in and follow her up the stairs.

It was a very grand entrance, probably due to the extreme height of the ceiling. It was at least 20 feet tall and continued in that fashion as we walked up the long stairwell. The place had a musty odor, a combination of cleaning bleach and the faint smell of cigarette smoke saturated into the walls. At the top landing there was another large door that we entered into a long narrow hallway, with several doors on both sides, all closed. It still had the grand essence, and sort of felt like a palace. The smell was a bit better from up here (whew).

Our room was down the hall (facing the street) and upon entering it had a really unique, king-like quality. The ceiling here was just as tall and with some very beautiful ornate crown molding embellishments and large tapestry on the wall. It was very light and warm and kind of elegant. No smell in here (thank goodness) and really kind of amazing, especially for what we paid for it!

Gill (pronounced like Jill) gave us the tour; kitchen (directly across the hall from us) and bathroom(s) and gave us a really unique key to the home. Our bathroom had a broken toilet so we were told to just use the master bathroom, which was amazing. Very modern, well designed with a HUGE hot tub. The smokey smell was more pronounced at this end, so I’m guessing that either she or her husband smoke here (or used to). But besides that, the place was really wonderful.

At this point, Jake proceeded to make us lunch while I unpacked. It took no time at all since we really don’t have a lot of stuff. Our goal was to get back out into town since the weather is going to be nice this afternoon and we were hoping to go explore The Royal Botanical Gardens.

Unfortunately, we really had no idea how to get there. I pulled up the app on my phone again, and plugged in the address. It was several miles away from here and we were in no mood to walk. We hopped on the first bus that we saw #26, hopeful that we would figure out where to go. I could hear the voice of Caroline in my head saying that we needed to get on a specific bus, I believe the #8, but I can’t remember where the pickup is for that bus.

We got off near Waverley Station and proceeded on foot. Consulting our GPS, we only have about a mile to go and since we haven’t been over here, the walk will be a nice way to see things. It was way less touristy the further we walked and eventually turned off down a very quiet street. AHH such a great break in a bustling city. It took us awhile to find the entrance, all the way on the opposite end from where we stood, so it took awhile to get there.

When we did, we opted to purchase the glasshouse ticket, which is only £5/pp. Otherwise the grounds of the Gardens are totally free to anyone, which is always a perk when traveling.

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh covers 70 acres of grounds, including 10 glasshouses (greenhouses), several education centers for science and research, Herbarium, Library, walking paths and of course, a huge living collection of diverse plant life 13,000 species of plants and over 3-million specimen in the Herbarium, flowers galore and beautiful living designs.

We were hopeful to see some of the infamous UK gardens that we’ve read about, but it appears that our early spring arrival means everything is still barren. It was cold as we walked along down the different garden paths, so we made our way to the glasshouse exhibits. They are situated towards the middle of the grounds. I took heaps of photos and some video of flowers that we could see. It was refreshing to be surrounded by plants and nature. Plus there were very few people out here, also a nice reprieve.

The entrance begins at Palm House, a very beautifully designed building. It didn’t fit with the rest of the Scottish facades with its more modern and tropical design! But then that’s the point, its meant to grow tropical plants and…if you guess palm trees…you would be right.

Talk about a temperature difference! We entered into a room that felt like Florida in the middle of summer. The humidity levels went way up and it was probably 85 degrees F in here.

I’m not a fan of humidity but it felt amazing (other than the foggy glasses). We proceeded to be whisked away to other worlds full of lush plant-life. Each glasshouse represented different climates and/or plant-populous. The Palm House, Temperate Palms, Tropical Palms, Orchids and Cycads, Ferns and Fossils, Plants & People (with a giant water lily pond), Temperate Lands, Rainforest, Arid (Desert), Carnivorous and Wet Tropical to name them all. Each glasshouse had its own controls of temperature and humidity.

When we got to the last of 10 glass houses there was nowhere to escape. So we had to walk back the way we came, which was kind of cool as we spotted things we didn’t see on the first go-around. At one point a worker didn’t realize that we were nearby and accidentally showered us while we were taking photos of some plants. Good thing the palms were full and thick, making for an excellent umbrella.

The warmth was so nice that we completely forgot outside temperatures were far cooler. It hit pretty hard when we stepped into a frigid burst of wind and had to bundle up before continuing our walking tour. There were so many interesting paths to take, sort of like a big maze. There were rock gardens, small and large terrariums of plants and flowers, and some really cool gardens. If only they were in bloom, the labyrinth designs were visible, just brown and barren for now. The Queen Mother’s memorial garden consisted of a really beautiful path and ended at a small cottage situated at the back. When we walked closer, we noticed that it was made up completely of shells. How strange? I could only imagine how lovely this is in late spring and summer time!

We continued on past the student gardens (which were much more modern) and a large pond full of waterfowl before calling it a day and heading back out the way we came. The sky was thick with clouds again, and as we headed toward the bus stop a light rain began to fall. The #8 came about 10 minutes later and we hopped on, with no clue where we are heading. Hopefully back into the city-center!

Nothing looked familiar as we drove along, though we are definitely heading in the right direction. So we rode the bus until we came into the main heart of Edinburgh and walked to a little food market to pick up some food before heading back to our abode for the night. It was a random shopping trip, we got noodles, sauce, meatballs, a pizza, soup, pie and yogurt for £7. A bit more expensive than the other stores, but it should do just fine for the next couple of days.

After just a few blocks, we found our way and caught the #26 bus back. Already feeling like experts, we got off at the right stop and were home in the warmth for the evening! With all of this travel and exploration, we find it equally fun when we get to sit around and do nothing; or rather watch our most favorite trashy TV show, AKA Dinner Date. It’s a dating show in the UK where people choose date(s) based on the food that will be cooked for them. The hostess of the show always makes hilarious jokes and we just love the adorable slang and accents. It’s silly but quite addicting.

Our night was great, other than the street noise outside. Neither of us slept all that well but its worth it for the cheap accommodation and access to my most favorite place of all, the Edinburgh Zoo!

The best feature of this zoo is the Giant Panda. I dubbed the day, Panda-Mania, because we’ve never seen one in real life. We were at the gate at 10AM right when the doors open. There were tons of school kids waiting at the gate and it appeared there were 2 lines; one for will-call and the other if you needed to purchase tickets. That is our line. And surprisingly everyone was in will-call line, so we were right up front.

The zoo is a pricey admission (nearly £50 total), but since we have ALL DAY to spend here, I would make sure we get our money’s worth. The woman who gave us our tickets told us about the animal feeding times and that the Giant panda private viewing times aren’t available today. We didn’t even know that was a thing, so we weren’t disappointed by it.

Our first pass of the zoo was a bit lackluster. We basically tried to go everywhere that the large group of kids were not. So we weren’t exactly following the map and hopped between exhibits quite a bit. A lot of the animals were not visible in their exhibits, other than a few of the smaller ones like meerkats and monkeys. I was hoping to get a good view of the red panda (also one of my favorites), but they were as elusive as everyone else.

This zoo is built on a steep incline, which is kind of cool per the layout. But it means a lot of slogan up and down to see different animals and avoid the crowds. The smaller animals were in full view, which was fun. I’m always a fan of getting close-ups of any animal, even if its a rodent or a bug.

The first interesting thing we saw was the otter-feeding. They were all in hiding until the zoo keeper rang a bell and they emerged from their hidden hole. They had to fight off some nearby straggling birds for their meal of dead mice. From here we walked next door to see some cute penguins and then found ourselves near the Giant Panda viewing area. They have an outside viewing spot as well as an enclosed one, which is normally open but visitors have an allotted time they can go see them inside (since these pandas are very sensitive to noise and bright lights). Sadly there were no pandas in sight. 🙁

So far, we aren’t super impressed with the zoo, and not seeing the main attraction feels like a huge let down. As we walked away from the outside panda exhibit, Jake spotted a sign that pointed to the indoor enclosure. We opted to follow it, just to see what we see, and the door was open. So we went in and found one of the Giant Pandas laying right in front of us! Holy cuteness batman. He or she was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

We opted to walk back to our abode to fix lunch (pizzas and meat pies). It was actually a really great break and saves some money too. I was amped to go back for a second round of touring after that, though I’m sure Jake would have been content to just hang out here the rest of the day.

Our second time around was a completely different experience. Every single animal that we didn’t see this morning was not only out, but acting in ways that you almost never get to see. The wild dogs (hyenas) were hunting their prey, which was already dead, but still super fun to watch them do their thing. The tiger and lion were both active and moving about, the Koala bears opened their eyes from their 20 hour nap and of course, we got more Giant Panda action!

Basically every animal was doing something this afternoon. I found it funny when the rhino had birds roosting on its backside and Jake thought the penguin synchronized swimming show was pretty interesting. We also walked to a few areas that we missed on our first pass; the Wallaby walk and Amazonian animals (zebras, antelopes).

I’m so glad we came back because it really did make for a more fulfilling day. We stayed until closing time at 5PM. I think that is the longest we have ever spent in a zoo before. And after the 2 minute walk back to our abode, we thought it’d be fun to order from the next-door restaurant. And we enjoyed another evening of good bad TV and Chinese curry and Singapore noodles.

Tomorrow begins our journey to a new city, Aberdeen, Scotland!