edinburgh penguins

Bollocks to this. I’m heading home to London.

Edinburgh: famous for its Castle, the Royal Mile, the Medieval Old Town, the Georgian New Town, and… penguins. Yes, penguins. Edinburgh Zoo apparently has the largest collection in captivity, a fine mixture of Kings, Rockhoppers, Macaronis and Gentoos, and every day at 2pm they go for a walk. The Penguin Parade is strictly a voluntary affair, and a few minutes before the appointed time there’s already an orderly queue forming of wannabe participants. About two dozen take part, split evenly between the Gentoos, who scurry round the circuit quite briskly, and the Kings, who take a more leisurely lap, stopping to examine things on the ground and chatter with the giraffes.

More pictures are available here, including a trio of bonus animals for those who aren’t so keen on our penguin friends.

Elsewhere in Edinburgh I spent a lot of time wandering round rather aimlessly, caught a film, and ate at a Mongolian restaurant. The latter, although reasonably tasty, was a little disappointing in terms of authenticity. Osterich? Kangeroo? Cajun sauce? Olive Oil? Pineapples? Tuna? Shark? These are hardly typical Central Asian ingrediants – this is a nation where vegetables are only a recent addition to the national diet, after all. And where was the fermented mare’s milk? And the bbq’d marmot? Nowhere to be bloody seen, that’s where.