Pictures are here.

The first day after our wedding was spent not doing much at all. We had breakfast/lunch with some friends and then started with errands for the honeymoon. Monday saw me at the DMV and social security office getting my name changed, and Tuesday saw us on a plane bound for Tokyo.

Except the flight there and back, Japan is awesome! I practiced a lot of my Japanese, and while I’m sure I really screwed up quite a bit, I normally didn’t have any trouble being understood. Everything is so different, yet the same. I had never been in a city so large, but the Tokyo metro was quite easy to navigate - most of the signs are in English as well. Our sleep schedules were quite messed up the first two days we were there. The second day, we went back to the hotel about 2pm to nap until dinner, and we slept right through dinner, getting up at 3:30am and being wide awake. Luckily, there are lots of 24 hours convenient stores to sate our hunger.

We started our first day with a morning tour of the highlights of Tokyo. Then we went back to Asakusa to see the nakamise and have lunch. That’s when we fell asleep.

The tour company took 24 hour reservations, so we made arrangements to take the studio Ghibli museum tour in Mitaka (a suburb of Tokyo). If you don’t know what Studio Ghibli is, it’s run (owned?) by Hayao Miyazaki who wrote/directed Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Howl’s Moving Castle. The museum was neat, a little cheesy, but talked about animations history, and Studio Ghiblis history in particular. We got to see a short film completely in Japanese, but it was completely obvious what the story was about, and I even picked up a few words here and there.

The Ghibli tour didn’t start until 1pm though, so until then, we checked out “Love Hotel Hill” in Shibuya, and Akihabara. We went shopping and I found a new DS power adapter, and the CD Hasufin requested. It wasn’t raining, and the weather was quite nice for walking around.

We’re back from Japan, and our sleep schedules are screwed up royally (we were wide awake at 1am and doing things that could be done that early, then we both just woke up from a nap). Hopefully, the sleep/wake cycles normalize on EDT before Monday, or people will be seeing us in the office *really* early.

The wedding was wonderful, and a very memorable event for both of us, and we were glad to see a lot of our far flung friends. The honeymoon was excellent as well, if a bit stressful at times (I’ve discovered that I have to eat before Brian’s able to get showered and shaved or I grow an extra head). Pictures will be forthcoming as soon as I get the chance to go through them and organize them. It might be a while

Pictures are here.

Laundry Day, and of course it has to be nice, bright and sunny. The length of the daylight hours is really getting to me. I tend to be asleep before it gets dark out (so somewhere around 11), and stay asleep until after it gets light (somewhere about 3:30am). I’m used to waking up with the sun, so if the curtains aren’t heavy enough, I’ll wake up really early as the morning light begins. I don’t have a problem falling back asleep, but it is rather annoying.

This morning, we were up and out the door by 8 to return the car to Portree. We took laundry with us to try to wash in Portree, but we were there at 9am, and the laundry wasn’t open until 11am. We checked with the tourist office to see if there was another laundry, and there wasn’t. We knew there was a 24hr laundry in Broadford, so we asked when the next bus was. She told us 5min, but the timetables just changed, and we’d missed it by 15 minutes. We waited at the bus stop for about an hour until we could get the next bus to Broadford.

Once there, the laundry was easy to find - in the closest thing to a truck top I’ve seen, a 24hr Esso (Exxon) station. We sat and did laundry and tried to figure out how long 20p would dry our clothes (we think 2min).

With laundry done, we walked across the street to a cafe recommended by our hosts where we had lunch. We were able to hop a bus back to Kyleakin immediately after lunch.

After putting laundry away, we went to the small grocery store an bought dinner supplies. We went with pasta and sauce and butter with some canned peas for greens.

By now, we weren’t hungry or tired, so we put the food away in the hostel kitchen, and climbed the hills behind Kyleakin to get to the ruins of Castel Moil. Castel Moil belonged to a Viking princess called Saucy Mary. It’s pretty difficult to get to, with the “path” leading through a tidal pool (luckily we went at low tide) and up the hill to the castle. I can see why all the old castles and keeps were built where they were - they all have amazing views.

We spent a little bit of time at the castle, and then made our way back for dinner. Neither of us were very hungry, so we decided to walk to the local otter pond down by the beach. The pond was stagnant, and we figured that otters wouldn’t play there, so we kept walking down the beach.

The beach is my favorite kind, with rocks rather than sand, but the water was way too cold for swimming. We walked down the beach until we were almost under the bridge, but we couldn’t go any further because of the high tide.

We returned to the hostel, where we drank tea and played another game of scrabble. Brian won again, but not by as much this time. After our game, we were hungry, so we cooked our pasta dinner.

We were the only residents in the hostel that night, so I read while Brian worked variety puzzles until I went to bed. I fell asleep reading, and Brian had to remove the book from my hands when he came to bed.

Pictures are here. Brian has a lot more because I was driving, but he hasn’t put them up yet.

We were up bright and early to catch the 7:50am bus and to meet up with Fredrico who would be joining us for the drive. It was already starting off cold, windy and raining. I had on a shirt, my flannel shirt, my fleece jacket and my waterproof rain shell, and I was still cold at times. We got on the bus to Portree, the largest ‘city’ on Skye. When we arrived, we called the car hire company who said they’d pick us up in a silver car in about 10 minutes. 30 minutes and a phone call later, a small blue car came to pick us up. For £35/day, the car was certainly not cheap, but it was split three ways.

Next was the fun part - Elwing driving. For those of you that don’t know, Scotland drives on the left side of the road, and they usually drive a manual transmission. I haven’t driven a stick shift for 3-4 years, and even then, I didn’t drive them much, and not very well. Imagine me having to re-learn a stick shift with the stick on the left, and driving on the left. All I can say is that I’m glad the clutch, brake and gas are all in the US expected locations, and the majority of Skye roads are relatively flat, without too many cars.

Now take that image, and put me on a single track (one-lane) road with passing places. You can see why Brian appears to be a few years older now. Actually, the car was pretty forgiving and easy to drive, and I never forgot which side of the road to drive on, but I did forget that left turns are not across traffic and I could have just yielded (multiple times). Also, going 60 mph (the prevailing speed limit) on a two lane road (or even some one lane roads) - not happening - so I had to let a lot of people pass me.

The first stop was to fill up the gas tank at a petrol station. £20 (~$40) later, we have 3/4 a tank of gas, and we hope this will last through the day. The second stop was the Talisker Distillery near Carbost - the only distillery on Skye. It required our first trip down a single track road, but we made it and saw how a larger distillery produced its whiskey. Talisker has its grain malted at Glen Ord, and then transported to the island. Many of its casks are also warehoused on the mainland to age. The tour was excellent, and we got a coupon for £3 off a 70cl bottle, but Brian chose to pass on that.

The next stop was the tourist office in Dunvegan to get a better map for driving since we were going to be on some pretty small roads. A little bit further up the road, we stopped at Dunvegan Castle, home of the MacLeods. The cafe provided lunch for Fredrico, and cover for us to eat our packed sandwiches out of the rain. In the castle was a lot of old portraits, and some of the original keep - like the “fairy tower”, where the stairs were built into the walls. There was also the horn which all clan chiefs must be able to drink from (about half a gallon of claret) and not ’set down nor fall down’. Also, the Dunvegan Cup made out of wood and placed at the early 1100-1200 time frame. The castle was interesting, but I think the best part was the view over the loch from the castle. Dunvegan is considered the most romantic castle in Scotland, and I think that’s more from the gardens than the castle. The gardens were amazing, and had waterfalls and streams. We probably would have spent more time in the gardens, but it was still raining.

From the castle, we drove along many single-track roads to Neist Point. There’s a lighthouse at Neist Point on the very western edge of Skye. The prettiest part were the sheer cliff faces that rose from the seas. Because of the rain, there were a lot of waterfalls off these cliffs. We got completely drenched, but took a lot of pictures.

We made our harrowing way back to the main road, where we headed for Uig and the Trotternish penninsula. I was planning on stopping for gas at Uig, because we were back down to 1/4 tank, but the road through Uig didn’t have a petrol station. We got up the steep switchbacks and then I decided to go back down to find petrol. So I turned around- on a one lane road. The Uig pier had a petrol station, and I just filled the tank with about £26 of petrol. For those keeping count, we just spent about $90 on gas!

Back up the switchback and on the single track road to the Kilmuir cemetery and the Flora MacDonald memorial. Flora MacDonald helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape Scotland to France to lead the Jacobite Uprising.

Duntulm castle was the next planned stop, but we could see the ruins from the road. We missed the turnoff, and it was raining, so we just looked.

The next stop was Kilt Rock and Mealt Falls. This was a short stop at the top of a sheer cliff, where it was *very* cold and rainy. It was an amazing view of the falls and the ocean hitting against the rocks and cliff face. Kilt Rock looks like a kilt as it rises from the water. Mealt falls were swollen and powerful. I would have liked to spend more time there, but it was cold, and the rain was horizontal, so it was a quick picture stop. On a clear day, you’re supposed to be able to see the Outer Hebrides.

We had also planned on stopping at the old man of Storr, but it was completely covered in mist, and we would have gotten soaked trying to hike to it. From there, we found sheep on the road, and a pretty long cattle caravan (without a herder/owner) using the road. Brian got some amusing video of it.

A direct drive from Portree to Kyleakin commenced - about 45 miles. We dropped off Fredrico and then decided to go to dinner at the Indian place we had passed right outside Kyleakin (Caol Acain). It made for a good end to the evening.

When we arrived back at the hostel, we were both tired, and needing to get up early to return the car, we simply passed out.

Pictures are here.

Brian did not want to wake up this morning. I took him a lot of water and some tylenol to help him feel better. Today was also the first day on our trip where it rained all day and not just in short spurts. I got breakfast, but Brian was not feeling up to it, so he kept sleeping in. We hung around the hostel until it was time for out 12:41 train to Skye.

The train ride had awesome views between Inverness and Kyle of Lochalsh. It apparently rivals the West Highland Railway for scenery. I got a few pictures from the train, but it was still cold and rainy. Once we got to the Kyle of Lochalsh station, we had to walk across the Skye Bridge into Kyleakin. The guidebook and directions I had said that the bridge was walkable in about 15 minutes. We walked it, in the rain, with our big bags, and it took us about an hour - we weren’t really keeping track.

We checked into the Dun Caan Hostel and dropped our bags off. It’s a lovely cosy hostel, with an excellent host and hostess: Terry & Laila. Once we got settled, we went to the Skye backpacker’s hostel to see about getting on a day tour of the island. Unfortunately, they only run on Saturdays, and we were leaving on Saturday, so that wasn’t going to work. We set about trying to hire a car for the next day. The car hire in Kyle of Lochalsh was booked, and we found a place in Portree, about a 45 minute drive from the hostel. There was a 7:50am bus to Portree that left from in front of the hostel. We called another guy in the same predicament as us, and he said he’d join us.

We bought some groceries for breakfast and lunch for the next few days at a tiny grocery/post office. These we took back to the hostel and put away before heading to the King Haakon bar for dinner. Brian would have preferred not sitting at the pub, but the restaurant was closed, and the only food available was at the pub. Brian had grilled salmon and I had Macaroni and Cheese. The chocolate cake dessert we shared was excellent.

We decided to come back to the hostel to relax, and we played a game of scrabble. Brian beat me soundly, but I think he takes too long to find words.