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Tropical Butterflies

Last Sunday me and my mum decided to visit the botanic gardens in our town. I haven't been there in so long but it's always really nice and I was craving some warmer temperatures after coming back home from the sunny Thailand.
And also do they currently have an exhibition for (alive) tropical butterflies going on.
Butterflies are such fragile creatures. It's so interesting watching them fly from flower to flower. In summer we have two huge lilac trees in our garden which always attract tons of butterflies. Really missing this right now so the exhibition was just about the perfect thing for a cold, drizzly Sunday morning.
All the butterflies were extremely colourful and some of them pretty gigantic. They came from all over the world and usually live up to one or two weeks. The number of butterflies inside the greenhouse was very impressive. It's definitely a nice environment. Lots of plants, flowers, a little bit of water and even fruit stations where the butterflies can stuff themselves. Yumm!
One butterfly even landed on my shoulder and while my mum was taking a picture two more found it pretty comfortable on her!
But see the beauties yourself:

'Short-trippin' through Scotland: Glasgow

I've just returned from my 4-day short trip to Scotland. Me and my friend went to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness. This and the next two posts are going to be about how we got there, where we stayed and what we did. Including loads of beautiful pictures of course so look forward that.

My friend in Glasgow

Our first stop in Scotland was Glasgow. The bus only cost us 10£ each. Megabus is probably the cheapest option for travelling in the UK. I would highly recommend it to everyone travelling on a budget though it's definitely not the most comfortable bus. (Actually we haven't slept at all during our journey to Glasgow but well..) 

So we arrived in Glasgow at 7 in the morning and immediately went to have breakfast at "No 1 Chocolate Factory" because we had to wait for someone to open our Hostel. 

We stayed at the Bluesky Hostel in Berkeley Street which is 20 minutes away from the bus station but quite central to the city centre. We had booked our beds in the 20 dorm room. 

I've never stayed at a Hostel before and was a little suspicious but it turned out to be very chill and comfy! Our beds were great, we had neat bedding and everything was tidy including the bathroom and shower. 

Check-in time is 2pm which is why we just left our luggage at the Hostel and went on to explorer Glasgow. 

Unfortunately it had been raining all day but we didn't really care about that after a while.
If you're going to Glasgow I would recommend you to do a guided tour at the City Chambers. Because a) they are FREE! and b) there is a tour twice everyday from Monday to Friday at 10.30am and 2.30pm. I'm afraid I can't speak from experience as we've been to Glasgow on a Sunday but it's said to be really beautiful. (Maybe someone who has done that tour can share their experience? :D)

City Chambers

At 11am we could finally enter the Gallery of Modern Art. A really small gallery to be honest but just as nice. We kind of lost ourselves in their little library downstairs but then continued with some selfies in front of the Duke of Wellington statue who is funnily wearing a cone on its head which someone always replaces when it's removed. That's why they actually stopped removing the cone. Haha!

We continued to 'The Barras' which weren't as exciting as we thought they would be but the People's Palace was just nearby and we visited their Winter Garden and museum.

The People's Palace

But by far my favourite place in Glasgow has to be the Glasgow Necropolis just by the Cathedral. The cemetery lies on a quite high hill which allows you to look all over Glasgow. The view is amazing.
And wind was blowing really strong. You could almost lean against it!

Glasgow Cathedral

We finished our day with some nice food at 'Chilli Grill'(which is very similar to Nandos, haha) and even saw a rainbow as the sky finally cleared up a little..

P.S.: Sadly I'm returning from London this Saturday but I still have a lot to post about London. So those posts will continue throughout the next week. (Prepare for a lot of posts!). The subsequent week will be general posts about London. My experiences and tips for shopping/eating/exploring. Perfect if you're planning to visit London. In the beginning of November I'll continue my journey with my two friends to Asia. Exciting things to happen. I'm looking forward blogging about it!

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Walks around Belgravia and Mayfair

Recently my friend and I took this giant walk through Belgravia and Mayfair. Such a beautiful borough of London. (As usual.. But I'm always serious about it, haha).
We saw so many cute houses and doorways with flavoursome flowers everywhere.

 It's already getting very autumnal here. Very lovely!

Cute Penny Panther!

During the walk we also passed Hyde Park and Harrods. The "Animals in War" Memorial copletely sadned me. It's good that not even the animals are forgotten as they took a part in wars as well and had no choice..

Different topic but talking about animals: The squirrels in Hyde Park are surprisingly gentle! One even took a nut from me. Lucky little guy!

 Cara and Kate for Burberry

 Some London Streetstyle.

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Stunned by Saatchi Gallery

I hope everyone's doing great! The only excuse for my absence is that a lot has been going on lately. Sadly we're leaving London really soon which is why we packed our days with everything we still had to do before leaving. Literally no time for sitting down and writing a proper blogpost. But now I want to share what we've been doing during the last week.

One time in Lush we met this really nice guy who worked there. We had a chat and he advised us to visit Saatchi Gallery at Sloane Square. We took his tip to heart and weren't disappointed at all. Saatchi Gallery is a really unique gallery.

The first thing we saw when entering was a giant room with big ants crawling the walls! All the ants were handmade which is unbelievable considering the amount you would find in the room. Just jaw-dropping.

Then you would continue to the other gallery rooms where you could find paintings as well as installations.

One of my favourites definitely has to be the oil installation by Richard Wilson. A whole room where maybe one quarter was completely filled with oil. You could smell it when entering the room but still many people thought of the oil as something else like a mirror. Me and my friend too wouldn't have thought it was oil if the guy from Lush hadn't told us about the room before.
The fascinating thing about the oil was that the room looked like at least double its size because of the reflection on the ground.

We spent over two and a half hours at Saatchi Gallery. There was just so much to discover and we always took as much time as needed for beholding the art work. I absolutely enjoyed Saatchi Gallery. Whenever I come back to London I'll go back to Saatchi Gallery as well. They often change their exhibitions which is why I'm looking forward the next time going to Saatchi Gallery. A Must-See!

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