There be dragons!

Spent the afternoon and evening in Edinburgh ticking off a couple of items on my wish-list.

My first port-of-call was the National Museum of Scotland, where I visited the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. It was an absolutely amazing exhibition, showing nature in not just its glorious beauty but also at its most fragile and its most brutal. Powerful stuff!

I left myself with just time for a quick look round the Scotland's Early Silver exhibition before the museum closed at 5pm.

After a bite to eat I took a bus out to Edinburgh Zoo to meet my cousins and see the Giant Lanterns of China exhibition (pictured). There was a trail of about 34 installations, over 400 lanterns in total, made from steel and silk, some on an animal theme (given that the location was a zoo) and some on Chinese culture and tradition. Obviously, only one of my photos made it into my Blipfoto journal, but there more on my Flickr page.

I was quite taken by the scale of many of the lanterns and also their design. Not what I was expecting - and much better.  There was also a short show by four incredible Chinese acrobats, whose balance and strength were breathtaking.