Interesting Things in Dublin

Ever since I came to Ireland, I knew I'm gonna see and experience foreign way of life and culture.

*Us in the bus*

First of all, the cityscape is very different from Malaysia's. No highrise condominium nor highrise apartment. Most of their office and apartment buildings are only a few storeys high and the streets tend to be dotted with houses older than my great grandparents.

*The Milenium Spire*

The Millenium Spire, as it's named, is a contemporary monument replacing the Nelson's Pillar monument. However, it came 3 years too late: construction only completed in 2003. Hehe...

No bangla, indonesian, philipines in the streets (got la..little bit la) but all caucasian.

*Avril Lavenge*

Secondly, I saw lots of "Avril lavenge" or "Pink" in the street. I guess they cant live without eye liner. They have piercing and tattoo all over their body. Oh..and their hair colour..whatever colour u can think of..pink, purple, blue, green..etc. Don't be shock when u see a redhead waitress, or a receptionist with piercing at her lip, her nose, her eyebrow and tatto on her neck. I'm doubtful if similar outlooks would ever get a job in M'sia! hm... probably yes, job description: unemployed.

Thirdly, in fact I really respect the street entertainers here in Dublin. At least they know how to use their so-called talent to make their income, instead of sheer begging or stealing or robbing.


An street entertainer, he is trying so hard to impersonate the James Joyce statue nearby. Are you able to guess which is human?



A beggar. Oops... An artist painting on the paveway and hoping a couple of Euro in return from appreciative passer-bys.



Harp player by a busy downtown street, never got a chance to witness this in KL.



Golden Angel! She is a human... If you are generous enough to throw some money into her box, she would become alive waving her magic wand above your head and, "may your wish come true!"

I guess she's performing some sort of traditional dance. Anyhow, all I know is the guys there are only admiring her protruded nipples. hoho... A guy even shouted, "strip! strip!"



I think as long as you are daring, you could earn a living here, at least as a street entertainer. Hehe...



*The Bad Ass Cafe*

Fourth, weird name!

Why in the world does the owner name his/her cafe "The Bad Ass Cafe!" I'm curious. Are they "selling ass?" Or even worst, BAD ass! Let me guess, maybe they have "Ass of the day" in the menu. haha...


*Gay and Lesbian section in bookstore*

Fitfh, they even have a Gay and Lesbian section in the bookstore. Cool!


Now, do u have cultural shock yet? No right..me neither! I expect to see more bizzare and strange things in years to come.

However I'm really shock with this...

The prettiest I ever saw...

*The prettiest ever Stewardess I saw in Irish airline, Aer Lingus*

My housemate

One of my housemates likes to wear only his underwear walking around the living hall. Typically, it is after he came back from work. He would take off his pant naturally and look for food, lay himself on the couch watching TV or surfing the internet. Just imagine.. a hairy (very hairy) "ang moh" wearing his ugly boxer and walking happily in front of you! Ewww!!! *puke*

Dont misunderstand, it's not that he is a pervert nor being profane, he is just used to be it. I'm ok with it but I would like him to wear a nicer underwear..haha.

Orange Butter Cake

I bake a cake!!! This is a wonderful step by step recipe for an idiot like me ^_^, but the lady pronunciation is funny..it's FLOUR..NOT "FLOWER"..

This is my production :p

Dublin one day tour

We bought a dublin pass and travelled around Dublin last weekend. It's cheaper as compared with if you pay entry fee for every single place that you wanna visit.

We hopped on a bus and headed to Dublin Zoo after grabbing our travel pass =)



Overall, it's not so exciting. S'pore Zoo is much much better. Probably the most impressive animal in Dublin Zoo is that I got to see Gorilla. The way the big apes walk are exactly as those depicted in the King Kong movies. Most of the visitors are family. While we were strolling around, we overheard a kid asking his parents, "Why do the tigers have so many scars on their bodies?" Hehe...

One thing that puzzled me while visiting the zoo is, most of the cafes and kiosks were closed! Well, know why, Caucasian know how to enjoy life, better quality of life and they dont wanna work on weekend, I guess.


The only kiosk that opened was a coffee house which looks pretty rundown.When I entered, only then I realised it is Starbucks! Starbucks look like this! What are Starbucks' marketing people doing? I thought outlook branding is fundamental for such an established company.

Interestingly, I came across this little buddha sitting on the shelf in the souvenir shop. Huhhh????? Every single item that is being sold in the shop...erm... are the likes of monkey! Giraffe! Lion! All animals!!! Why would a person want to buy a buddha in a Zoo as a souvenir? I guess the little buddha himself also doesnt understand why is he there. Sitting side by side with the monkeys and vases. I guess he must be shouting "WTF!"

The zoo is really mediocre. After wasting hours there, we paid a pilgrimage to both the famous cathedrals in the city, Christ Church Cathedral and Saint Patrick Cathedral.

What surprised me is that there is Crypt, an underground chamber beneath Christ Church which dated to 11th century.

It's during this trip that I came to know prominent clergies are actually buried inside churches.

The interior of both the cathedrals looks pretty similar. I can't really identify them from inside, can you?

Our next destination is Guinness Storehouse. It's a musuem showing how does the black stuff produced.

The only information that I am able to gather is that the ingredients of producing a pint of Guinness are barley, hop, yeast, and water. Don't ask about the process, I have zero clue of all of the other stuffs inside. I'm just too lazy to read =)

After "understanding" and touring the Guinness musuem, the best part is we are entitled to a free pint of Guinness at the Gravity Bar, situated at the top of the building overlooking entire Dublin city.

Lots of people. Crowded. No place to sit. Noisy. Irish here drinks beer in the morning, during lunch, dinner and whatever occasion that they have. They are just "alcoholics!"

We wanted to go Bram Stoker Dracula Experience after dinner, but it was getting dark and we were pretty tired after a full day of touring. Eventually we decided to call it a day. Dracula, I will meet you next time!

All right. That's about it for our Dublin 1 day tour.

Tomorrow we are going to tour Wicklow, Southeast of Ireland. Hurray!

Craving for mooncake

Mid Autumn Festival is coming! I'm craving for mooncake recently. I went shopping the other day and saw some chinese food store do sell mooncake. Guess how much it is? €30 for one box. I would not say it's very expensive as I'm earning here but for second thought €30 = RM140. Hell! I can get three boxes of mooncake at Malaysia.

In order to satisfy my stomach, I've searched through the net to get a recipe..

Proudly present to you... Mini Shanghai Mooncake =D

Although the pastry skin cracked a bit but it still taste good...yum yumm

If you wanna try this recipe, click here

Kerry Trip

It was a Bank Holiday last monday. In Ireland, they don't celebrate much on public holidays. They celebrate Easter, Christmas and St Patrick's day. So for the other public holidays, they just call it Bank Holidays. ( I think so )

Nelson and I went to south-west of Ireland, county Kerry for a trip. We stayed at one of the Bed & Breakfast (B&B), which is a large family house run by the host family. I don't think we have such type of accommodation in Malaysia. The B&B we stayed is cosy and comfortable. Breakfast is included and the whole environment is very homely. I begin to like to stay at B&B rather than at hotel. Probably one of the reason is there are always stories that hotels are haunted most of the time..and that really scare me off...haha...call me coward!

Day 1

After checking in to B&B, we head straight to our first destination, Killarney National Park. It is 10,236 hectare national park extends to the southwest of town. From the entrance, we walked for a good 45mins to Ross Castle which is situated by a scenic lake. We took our time strolling around the castle and taking photograph. The highlight of the afternoon was the boat tour cruising the various lake of the National Park. It just so breathtaking. Virtually, calm and peaceful lake, pine tree mountain at the background, dilapidated ancient stone arch bridge linking some of the islands.
On our way back to the B&B, we passed by the town centre and checked out what are the happenings there. As recommended by a travel book, we decided to have our dinner at O'Connor traditional pub.

Some people says if u haven't downed a pint of Guinness at an Irish pub, u have not visited Ireland

Day 2
We went for a bus tour to Ring of Kerry. The whole tour took us a day. The picture speak for itself. Magnificent and picturesque =D

Day 3
We went back to the National Park because it's so huge that it is impossible to visit all of the places in one day. We decided the best way to tour the park is by cycling. Alternatively, you can take the horse-drawn jaunting car.
We cycled to Muckross Abbey, Muckross House and garden and Torc Waterfall. Ensure that u r a good cyclist or else you will be running on the shit left by the horse. It's disgusting . My biggest discovery is horse actually shit while he is on the run..the dropping is fresh, I saw it..yucks!!!

Leaving

It's the day! I'm leaving.
Thanx for those who coming.
Thanx huay min for ur scarf. I already have one but with different colour.

It's ok,I still like it =)