Scotland: Falkirk Wheel

Have you heard of Falkirk Wheel? It is the world's first and only rotating boat lift!

It is sited in a countryside of Scotland, approximately 23 miles (37 km) from both Glasgow or Edinburgh. To be precise, it is situated in the Falkirk Town, Central Lowlands of Scotland, historically within the county of Stirlingshire.

Falkirk Wheel was the only point of interest I earmarked for my trip in Scotland, after I stumbled upon. [My entire trip plan is free and easy and by that mean, the rest of the plan is blank of places-to-go, only the places-to-stay].

I was very impressed with such a futuristic structure, in the middle of nowhere, just for the purpose of connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. For the first time, I heard of Falkirk, for the first time I learnt about canals' history (brief) of Scottish. For this case here, the two canals had been historically joined at Falkirk by a flight of 11 locks that stepped down across a distance of 1.5m (since 1800s), but these were dismantled in 1933, breaking the link.

Falkirk Wheel was meant more than just to restoring navigability across Scotland actually.

Chinese Glutinous Rice Dumpling

In the pantry of my office right now, I am having Chinese glutinous rice dumplings (肉粽) as lunch. I have a sense of gratification as this is something I made from scratch. And seriously, it ain't easy! There are lots of preparation work prior to the wrapping, cleaning and washing numerous utensils after wrapping and waiting at least 2.5 hours of cooking thereafter. I always know it, that's why I didn't want to do it myself, alone. I grown up in typical Chinese family where every year praying of Dragon Boat Festival (or Dumpling Festival, 端午节) and eating dumplings are part of the family tradition. I have the vivid picture of my mum wrapping dumplings, siting on a stool with all the ingredients laying on the kitchen floor; I have fuzzy memory of my grandma doing the same. Long hour of hard work.

Then we grown up, my mum demanded helps from me and my sister. I didn't learn dumpling wrapping skill from my mum willingly. Well, I didn't resist it either. I found it challenging and wanted to overcome it and I sensed, she needed company. In retrospective, this was probably one skill that she passed to me with little confident, as she admitted that she didn't like the work and not good at the technique of wrapping the dumpling. Sometime, we would had wrapped dumplings leak/loosen up while cooking. She repeated the same confession more than once. Her little fear blocks her from improvement. Yet, it didn't stop her from doing. My dad loves dumpling apparently and we love it too. I reckon, family love gave her a push to do it. Over the years, she saw my sister's and my wrapping technique doing better, and better. I think, she was relieved.

One little dumpling revived One little family tradition of mine.

Thanks to Mrs Kam and Lynn, gladly joined me last Sunday (Fathers' Day!) to wrap dumplings from 2kg glutinous rice, 1kg of pork belly, and many other ingredients (I used Diana's recipe). If not, I would not able to complete the entire process of dumpling making! whew~!