St Patrick's Festival

St Patrick's day is an annual feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick, one of the patron saints of Ireland, and is generally celebrated on March 17. The day is also the national holiday of Ireland.

Everbody was heading to O'Connell Street where the parade hold.

Full of crowd

Everybody wore the huge green cap. We bought ourselves each too!

As I mentioned in the previous post, I've been anticipating for it. I thought it would be fun! Yes, I thought! Some said even US have more grandiose celebration than Ireland! How come?

The overall parade is for kids!!!

The bee and flowers...

Parrot...

I have no clue what is this?

Spider...

And fishy...

Is for kids! Isn't it?

Finally!

It's been 3 weeks!!!

The f**king internet just won't work! Arrrrrghhhhhh......

Finally, I'm able to surf the net now. I have a long weekend this week because I don't have to work on Monday! It's St Patrick's day on Monday! It is the grandiose Irish festival I have been anticipating. St Patrick's Day falls on 17th March but the festival have kicked off yesterday and continue over the weekend, culminating in a parade through the city. The festival include days of music and entertainment events including street theatre, fireworks displays, pageants, exhibitions and dance.

I want to wear that huge cap and have a pint of Guinness! Everybody does that on St Patrick's Day, don't they?

Pressie

Pressie from my hubby! Thank you!

20s, 30s,40s, 50s or 60s?

I love travelling because it's amazing to see the different culture in other countries, to savour the local food cuisines and to mingle among communities speaking foreign languages. You will never know what to expect trying to see the countries in a new perspective.

While I was browsing through my spain trip's pictures just now, I saw this picture. I snapped it because I have never seen this type of magazine before. Pai sei! Pai sei!

Playboy magazines are not officially sold in M'sia. The sexiest and hottest magazine I have ever seen in M'sia is ...em...perhaps FHM Malaysia? That's not really hot though. Ya, I can't blame it because that is M'sia. Some lame politicians even complained that M'sia Airlines' uniform is too revealing.

Alright, back to the magazine kiosk I passed by at the busiest boulevard in Barcelona. They're selling these!

Man, no matter what age taste you have, there are plenty of choices to choose from. Twenties? Thirties? Fourties? Fifties? Or even Sixties!!!

However, I am doubtful whether is there a man ever interested to buy a magazine publishing boobs and butts of women in their sixties.

No offence. I'm not ageism. Do you think even a man who is contemporary, says his sixties too would ever buy that magazine? Or wouldn't he choose those in 20s, 30s? You tell me...haha

Belfast & Ballintoy

It's a super late post =p

5 months ago, Nelson and I went to tour around Ireland. We rented a car and decided to travel on our own =) By saying travel on our own, we read the map and drove all the way to our destinations. Ok, not we, man does all the direction. I have no sense of direction at all, I can't even tell where is north, south, east, west! All I did was question, question and question.

Why aren't we reached yet?
How long does it takes?
Are you sure you're in the right direction?

When Nelson asked me to check on the map. I told him " I have no clue at all!"


When he asked me to drive instead cos I can't read map. I told him " Oh, I do not know how to drive a manual car."


Alright, it might sounds I'm useless. However, I'm a good companion. You should be glad honey! Hahaha!

It's our first day of travelling, so we just laid back and had our own sweet time. The main thing was to get to our destination, Belfast. After collecting the car, we kicked off our journey.

It took about 2hours to reached Belfast. Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland. In case you don't know, Northern Ireland is part of United Kingdom. Therefore, sterling pound is the currency being used. Republic of Ireland is using euro.

We had lunch and strolled around the city centre. With Lonely Planet as our tour guide, we visited some of the tourist spots in Belfast. It's a good travel guide. Absoblutely useful!!! We snapped some photo at this Belfast city hall.

I didn't know Titanic was made in Belfast.

Queen's University. I didn't know tuition fees can be won? I thought tuition or course fees are usually given out in the form of scholarship?

Some casual photo of around the city and The Albert Memorial Clock from Queen's Square. It's just a small city =)

We then headed to our hostel at Ballintoy.

We passed by this gorgeous seaside - Ballycastle. I couldnt help myself but stopped by to snap a picture :p

Maybe it is not obvious from the photo, but the scenery is really breathtaking. With the cliffs and sea as backdrop. GORGEOUS!

Alright, no more wasting time. We reached the hostel - The Sheep Island View Hostel. It cost £18 a night for two. It considers cheap. Why wasting money to stay in hotel when you are not in the room the whole time, right? It's my first time staying at hostel. Oh, you can cook at the hostel. All the kitchen utensil, microwave and refrigerator are provided. I saw some tourists brought their own food and cooked their own dinner. There is this big pantry area where you can have ur meals and meet people from all over the world. We met a Poland man and had some chat too. But Nelson and I had no idea what was he talking about. He can't speak fluent English. At times, he even spoke Polish to us because he does not know how to confess it in English. It was disaster if you can't communicate with people. I'm not saying his bad english but the situation.

This is the view in front of the hostel. So relax. The view is just breathtaking. As if you see it from poster! Some sheeps is eating grass. Cute! White fur but with black face.

After settling down at the hostel. We went to Ballintoy Harbour. It just a few minutes drive from our hostel.

We were able to see sunset. Nice view.

End of Day 1. Lol =D

Ailwee Cave & Cliffs of Moher

Day 4, we went to Ailwee cave. Its features include an underground stream and waterfall as well as some very impressive stalactites and stalagmites.

Hubby said the Mulu caves in M'sia have got much more impressive stalactites and stalagmites than this. I have no idea. And I have no interests. Haha.

Somehow, it's my first experience to enter a cave. It was 10 degrees celsius in there, pretty cold.

The burren - the whole area is apparently covered by rocks. It feels pretty amazing though, seeing only greyish rock across the horizon.

After that, we went to Cliffs of Moher. According to wikipedia, The Cliffs of Moher are amongst the most impressive places to see in Ireland, and are widely considered to be Ireland's top tourist attraction, drawing almost one million visitors in 2006.

Everyone wish to get the best picture. So they just cross over this boundary eventhough there is a sign stating clearly not to trepass.

Daddy with the baby did that...

And most of them dont seem to be afraid of height...

They take picture like this...

Have a view like this...

Even the handicapped also took the trouble to inch near the edge...

All have only one wish - To snap a great photo!

Carrick a Rede,Giant Causeway & Slieve League

Day 2, we started off to Carrick a Rede rope bridge early morning. The bridge links the mainland to the tiny Carrick Island.

I am wordless and do know how to describe. You gotta see it yourself!

According to the Lonely Planet, the bridge is used by fishermen during the salmon season, however there are now very few salmon left. The area is exceptional in natural beauty with stunning views of Rathlin Island and Scotland.

A friendly passer-by offered to help us to snap a photo. Thank you!

The bridge's span is around 20m and is 30m above the rocks below.

An old man waiting to snap a picture for his wife.

I guess they are in their seventies, yet are still daring enough to cross the rope bridge. *Sweat*

Next destination - Giant Causeway. It is the most popular tourist attraction in Northern Ireland. You must be wondering what so special about these stones?

If you notice from the picture, they are all in polygonal fracture pattern. It is the result of ancient volcanic eruption.

We met some China men there. One of them presumed we are from China too. But when we told him we are from Malaysia, he asked have we returned to China for visit. We were confused and replied no. He then said we should go back to "拜祖先".

This sounds funny to me. I told him we are born and raised in Malaysia!!! He still think that we should go back to China to pray to "nenek moyang". Insane! Alright, I might have "祖先", but I have no idea who is my "祖先" and I bet my dad won't know either.

Forget about that. We just snapped as many pictures as we wished.

Lastly, we reached Donegal (a very small town) and spent a night there.

On Day 3, we drove up to Slieve League.

Wikipedia:

"Slieve League, at 601 metres, is Europe's highest sea cliff after the cliffs of Croaghaun on the northern coast of Achill Island."

Breathtaking scenery. It's very very very cold and absolutely freezing up there. Tak boleh tahan =p

We quickly snapped a few pictures and stayed in the car.

My next destination - Chonamara National Park. As compared to Killarney National park during my Kerry trip, this is totally wasting my time. All we got to see were just vegetation and mountains, which are not particularly impressive. Oh, I forgot to mention some resident horses which are lifeless.

We then reached Galway city and spent the night there. After staying at small town for the last two days. Galway city seems so happening to me.

Probably because it's Friday night, everyone was going out to have a pint - lots of people at the pub.

We strolled around the street and had dinner there.