I’ve been quiet on the J-List Blog recently, because I was taking my dream trip to Scotland and England, exploring the backroads of both countries (including more than a few Outlander filming locations). Keep reading to see what I learned on my long trip, and how the UK compares to Japan!
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Dream Trip to Scotland and England!
I was invited to Portugal to attend the wedding of PrimusPrimeTime, the guy who makes those amazing videos promoting J18 Publishing manga and JAST USA visual novels. Since I was going to be in Europe anyway, I decided to make the most of the opportunity. I’d plan an awesome tour of Scotland and England!
On day one, I had time to kill until my train to Scotland, so I explored the city, hitting various museums. It was funny to find myself in famous locations like Notting Hill, a posh Victorian neighborhood in London. I made sure to send this photo to Mrs. J-List so we could share a laugh. As a married couple, we’re united in our dislike of the 1999 film by the same name.
London was freezing when I arrived, so I curtailed my museum-visiting activities, sallied forth, and infiltrated the nearest Uniqlo to negotiate the vending of some HeatTech gear to get me through the rest of my trip.
Whenever possible, I try to take interesting trains while traveling, since that becomes part of your memories of the trip. The Caledonian Sleeper took me from London to Edinburgh while I slept off my jet lag, which was perfect. I spent several days exploring Scotland’s capital, including Victoria Street, a beautiful shopping street that had just a few too many Harry Potter shops.
Let’s Check Out Some Outlander Filming Locations in Scotland!
Mrs. J-List and I are huge fans of the Outlander series. This is a time-travel romance story about a woman who travels from 1945 to 1743 Scotland and has an amazing adventure. I made sure to map out the Outlander filming locations I wanted to visit, starting with Midhope Castle, the location of Lallybroch in the show. It was great exploring the ancient castle that was built in 1458. Later, I drove up to Inverness to check out that Ghost Tower to do more sightseeing around the Culloden Battlefield area.
Anime famously sets its stories in real-world locations. This allows dedicated fans to enjoy 聖地巡礼 seichi-junrei, a “pilgrimage to the holy land” where their favorite shows were set. Some of these places resonate with fans so much that years or even decades later, they’re still visiting, bringing in tourism dollars. Happily, the popularity of Outlander seems to be doing this for Scotland, likely bringing in millions of pounds. I met a dozen or so fans who had travelled there from far-off countries like France, Brazil, and India.
I “hired” a car to head out to the site of Craigh na Dun, the location of the time-travel stones in Outlander. The stones are fake, of course, painted styrofoam only brought out when needed for filming. Sadly, we’re not allowed to visit the actual filming location, because the important work of “lambing” was in progress. Oh well!
I Could Have Spent a Month in London
Part two of my trip was to fly back down to London, where I’d meet up with my daughter, Rina. We spent a few fun days in the city, visiting the first Twinings tea shop (established 1706), the first Hard Rock Cafe (established 1971), and the Red Lion pub, where Winston Churchill would drink in between sessions of Parliament. I drank his favorite brand of champagne there.
On the day we were to visit Westminster Abbey, I was literally foiled in my plans by King Charles himself, who decided to open Parliament that day. This is actually a theme with me. I was once blocked from visiting Pompeii because the Pope was making a visit there that day. Then there was the time my plans to visit my favorite shrine in Kamakura had to be called off because it was also the favorite shrine of Barack Obama, and he was there that day.
One surprise we had was that London’s bookstores are the best in the world. We happened to pass by Hatchards (established 1797 — Oscar Wilde used to hold book-signings at the store), where there were so many amazing books inside the five-story building that we were stuck there for hours.
Fish, Chips, and Coffee in London
How is coffee so much better in the UK? In Japan and the US, we have Starbucks, Starbucks, and if we’re lucky, Starbucks. But I found both Costa Coffee and Coffee Nero (two UK chains) to be far superior in the quality of coffee, food, and general atmosphere. The chocolate powder they put on your cappuccino was great, too.
The UK is “famous” for not having the best food in the world, but we didn’t find this to be the case at all. We were happy with the food we encountered, whether standard pub fare or exotic chicken tikka masala. The only thing we got tired of was the “full English breakfast.” Not because it was bad, but because every place we stayed at served it, and we started wanting more variety.
More Anime Tourism: Visiting The Kiniro Mosaic House!
Next, we exited London and drove to Bath on our way to the Cotswolds. But since I was in the area, I made reservations to stay at Fosse Farmhouse, a lovely bed and breakfast found at the end of a 2000-year-old Roman road. It served as the setting for the Kiniro Mosaic anime, and Alice Catelet’s home. Carol, the owner, is very proud that her home was featured in the anime and has many stories to tell visitors. I even slept in Alice’s bed — totally not creepy!
Then it was on to Chipping Campden, where my father Peter Payne (the elder) was born. We visited the church where he was baptized 99 years ago, and left flowers for my grandfather, Charles Payne. (No relation to this guy.) I learned that a “wool church” is a church built with the wealth generated by the medieval wool trade.
There are, as you can imagine, rather a lot of old churches in England, and my daughter visited at least a dozen of them. Of course, it’s important to get the right photos while you’re there!
Visiting Oxford and Tolkien
The final leg of our trip was to Oxford, a university so old that it predates the Inca Empire. We had one stop to make on the way, though: to the grave of J.R.R. Tolkien, which has become a shrine to fans of his sprawling fantasy world. There was at least one letter written to Professor Tolkien in the Elvish language.
We wanted to visit the Eagle and Child, the famous pub where Tolkien and C.S. Lewis traded story ideas, but Larry Ellison purchased it and is (supposedly) restoring it to reopen to the public later. So we had to settle for the backup pub, the Lamb and Flag, which was also used by the writers. We also got to see the actual lamp said to have inspired C.S. Lewis when he created his Narnia books.
Final Thoughts: What Did my Trip to Scotland and England Teach Me?
In the end, I had a blast making my whirlwind trip to Scotland and England. I’m hugely grateful to the internet for allowing me to travel to exotic lands while keeping in contact with the J-List crew, helping write product descriptions and add new products to the J-List store. Here are some final random thoughts:
- I get that London’s underground is 160 years old, but damn, not having elevators in so many stations is a major pain for visitors lugging suitcases (to say nothing of actual disabled people). Also, for some reason, tools like Google Maps and Claude are useless for figuring out which train to take. I learned quickly to just ask one of the employees for directions.
- Having read up on the lack of improvements in productivity in the UK, I did my best to observe the pace of life there. Service in shops and restaurants felt slightly “slow,” at least compared to Japan. My impression was that the economic energy of the country falls between super-efficient Germany and the much slower and more relaxed Italy.
- As is always the case whenever I’m in Europe, the music played in shops was awesome American rock and pop songs from a few years ago. I like the music in Europe better than when I’m visiting the U.S., where the music they’re playing is too new for me to appreciate it yet.
- I sampled a lot of whisky in both countries, and learned quickly that asking for whiskey on the rocks is a very strange thing to do .
- Rhubarb everywhere, man. Rhubarb cakes. Rhubarb-flavored beer.
- The Knight Bus from Harry Potter is apparently a reference to this “night bus” that runs around Trafalgar Square. Who knew?
Thanks For Reading!
Thanks for reading this blog post exploring my long trip to Scotland and England. My daughter and I had a blast, and we’ll both look back on the trip with many fond memories.
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J-List is a corporation registered in Japan, and like every corporation, we have to count inventory when our fiscal year ends. But we hate counting stock, and would much rather sell it to you — so let’s have a sale! Through May 31st, get 15% off all shipping-from-Japan products automatically. Start browsing here!
