Singapore

Sorry time got away from me and I just didnt have time to blog when I got to Singapore...
And then after I got back to Sydney life just got crazy. So here is a summary and the full photo album can be found here.

Things to do in Singapore...

Wakeboarding:

Catch up with relatives:

Shop:

Takashimaya!!!

Eat:

mmm rothi prata...

Singapore pepper crab...

Get pampered a bit:

exfoliating my feet... these fish eat the dead skin off your hands and feet...

Sightsee and take stupid photos:

Singapore merlion

London

It's been a long time since i've been to london. I really didnt like it last time so i planned to spend most of this trip away from the city. So i only had a few days in London before and flying back to Sydney via Singapore.

I must admit i was feeling quite road weary after travelling for the last month. So i just wanted to take it easy in London... sleep in and not do too much.

First full day in London, i slept in... then Celeste and I decided to go shopping. First stop Leicester square to have a look at theatre tickets. Will had wanted to see Sweet Charity... but by the time we decided there werent any tickets left... So next choice was Billy Elliott... I havent seen it in Aust and thought it would be good to watch as it is set in the UK - actually Newcastle which is where I had been.

We actually got a bit carried away with shopping (although i didnt buy anything)... and at 6pm Will was calling us trying to figure out where we were... we realised it wasnt 4pm as we had assumed but it was 6!! and we needed to scoot to the theatre... And i hadnt given poor Clive directions so he had to scoot to make it to the show as well... but all good as we snuck some food in...

I notice that there are lots and lots of West end shows on sale. Certainly more arts life than in Sydney...
But... this production of Billy Elliott did definitely disappoint. I have no idea why they decided to try to put on such a bad Jordie accent (the Newcastle accent)... but couldnt understand half the time. The singing was bad but the dancing was quite good. Victoria theatre was quite an old theatre which wouldnt have mattered cos the Capitol theatre in Sydney has a similar rustic feel. But... if I wasnt aware of it being a major London production I might have guessed that what i watched was an amateur community hall production put together in some suburb in whoop whoop Sydney. Definitely not worth the money...


The next day I decided to go shop a bit more and sightsee. I really like Gap clothing and there isnt a store in Syd (well actually one opened up whilst I was away... but there wasnt when i left). First stop was Harrods cos it's kinda iconic. The things in Harrods were pretty expensive so I didnt actually buy anything... just browsed. I loved the food court in the basement of Harrods. Windows of cakes... yummmm.... bought some cupcakes for Celeste and Will.

Went to the biggest Gap store in London that was in Oxford St. before deciding to go on the London Eye.

Then met Celeste and visited Tate Modern for a bit but I dont really understand abstract art. I've a very what-you-see-is-what-you-get girl so anything too deep just goes right over my head...

We then went to the Borough Markets that are near London Bridge which is absolutely LOVED!! Reminds me of the section of Queen Victoria Markets in Melb that has the food - fresh cheeses, pastas, meats, breads etc... yummmm
Celeste and I were quite naughty and bought heaps and heaps of handmade chocolates... yummmm

mmm chocolate...

I do know quite a few people from Aust. living in London... but anti-social me didnt really contact many people as i thought i would be tired and it would be too tough to be running around catching up with people. But I am glad that I did manage to catch Naomi and Tim for dinner cos it's been ages! Went for dinner at Brown's in Mayfair... the baked Camembert entree was soooo good!!

Sat 30th Oct:

ok I am a geek!! Not many tourists go to another country and visit an Anime/Sci-fi convention. But I love anime and Sci-fi so twas awesome!!
I do draw the line at cosplay though... no cosplay for me... but this weekend coincided with Halloween which is also quite big in the UK... so it didnt look too weird to have heaps of people dressed up. And some of the costumes were awesome.

There was an expo so i did have a look at some of the merchandise but didnt want to carry any of it home so didnt buy anything. And the dvd's would be the wrong region anyway.
Didnt stay that long as I was getting a really bad headache. I did stay long enough to hear some interviews with some people who had been on Star Trek - Tony Todd who played Worf's brother Kurn in TNG and also John de Lancie who played Q in a few of the ST series...

yes some cosplay crazies... although they looked pretty real...

Went home for a sleep in the arvo... which was a pity as it was such a beautiful day in London... but i had a really really bad headache.
Went out to dinner with Kelly and Greg in Soho... (we might have been the only straight people in the restaurant though... which was funny... but the food was great!!). Good catching up and hearing about their adventures in Europe. Will definitely miss them over the next 2 yrs...

Sunday 31st Oct was my last full day in London as I fly out to Singapore on Mon 1st Nov. Decided to go get some culture...
Absolutely LOVED the British Library. There is a literary museum inside and was just so awesome looking at all the literary history in the museum.
There were letters written by Shakespeare himself as well as first editions of his plays. There were letters written by Jane Austen as well as original music scores such as Handel's Messiah. There were 2 copies of the Magna Carta (I had already seen one in Salisbury Cathedral)...
There were letters written by Lewis Carroll and a bit of history. I didnt know that Alice in Wonderland was written after Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (pen name Lewis Carroll) had a tea party with 3 sisters, one of whom was named Alice. He entertained the ladies with fanciful stories and eventually penned one for Alice...

So loved the British Library... took a walk around the area past St. Pancras church and then down Gower St. looking at all the houses. The British historical society has put plaques outside some of the notable houses... such as the location of the first anaesthetic delivered in London.

British Museum

Headed to the British Museum... it's HUGE and i think you could spend days even weeks there looking at everything. I only really looked at the 3rd floor that had some exhibits on the history of England and Ireland. It was quite interesting as I have just learnt so much history during my travels.
The ground floor has a heap of Egyptian exhibits and then there are Chinese exhibits... I figured I'd leave that until i travel again as my head can only handle so much history atm...

Decided to go to Camden Markets with Clive as he was looking for shoes... It's a trendy?! but i reckon dodgy part of town. So looking for shoes and I was wanting to get him to try on some ugly shoes but no fun as he wouldnt do it... Found shoes and then walked around a bit more taking stupid photos.

mmm donuts...

Every souvenir shop seems to sell these

My last morning in London... some last minute shopping and Madame Tussauds.
Had fun taking stupid photos with the wax statues!

Click here for more photos.

Dublin #2

I was trying to figure out the easiest way to get back to London from Belfast. Was originally going to catch the ferry from Belfast to Stranrar and the train up to Glasgow Scotland. But the ferry port at Belfast is a long way out of the city and it would have been a nightmare to get to. So decided to catch the train back to Dublin and then the ferry across to Holyhead and then train back to London...

Yes i know flying actually would have been easier... but i like to do it the scenic way and i also had a day left on my Britrail pass... might as well get my moneys worth and use it up on the trains around the UK...

After the intense boredom of not being able to go out much in Belfast I decided to just go crazy and do the craziest (or rather stupidest thing) i've done in a while.... get ticket to the Lady Gaga concert...

So i'm not really that big a fan but i've heard her stuff on the radio... i dont even own one album or have any of her songs on my ipod. But the buzz around Dublin was it was going to be a big concert... so i thought why not...

The concert had been sold out for ages so ppl were saying that i had no chance of getting a ticket... hahah little do they know... so i logged onto ticketmaster online from my hotel room at around 2pm the day of the show... and voila... i got a ticket... it was a tier 2 ticket too so not the most expensive ticket... but the location looked good on the seating map. i wasnt about to get standing tickets cos there's no way i'm standing around all night with young kids screaming in my ear and shorty me can never see in crowds anyway...

So the LUAS (light rail) station was just outside the door to my hotel cos i'd planned it that way with luggage. Caught the train to the stadium. The lady shows me to my seat and then takes a good look at me.
Then she explains that i have very good seats... which were actually a few rows from the front smack bang infront of the stage...
Apparently the row i'm in is usually reserved for celebrities or performer's guests. I guess they hold the seats and then if there isnt anybody coming then they release them for last minute sale... so it was pretty awesome... great view!
And then just before Lady Gaga took the stage, some girls started nudging each other and taking photos... i found out that there was some X-factor person sitting near me but i have no idea who he is...

Although she's not really my cup of tea, I'll admit that the show was fabulous. But i wouldnt let my teenage kid (well under 15) go to it... the swearing etc...
The support act was the worst... the guy got on stage yelling "are you ready you dublin motherf@#$ers" and kept going with calling the crowd "dublin motherf@#$%". i was getting pretty annoyed cos i'm not from dublin but there's no way i'd wanna be called that...

Back pretty late with few hours sleep cos i had to be up for a 6:30am pickup to go to the ferry port back to mainland UK...

Belfast - Titanic Quarter

Belfast is desperately trying to clean up its act....
To attract tourists, there is a new development on the other side of the river to the city buildings. The development proposed kinda reminds me of Cockle Bay in Sydney. They call it the Titanic Quarter.

model of the RMS Titanic

Belfast is where the RMS Titanic and its sister ships the Olympic and Britannic were built.
It's quite funny as people from southern Ireland say that it's crazy that they are claiming fame for a ship that sank. But the northern Ireland people just say "well it was fine when it left..."

Seeing as there wasnt much to do in Belfast, I decided to go and visit the Titanic quarter and do the tour of the docks.
The building of the Titanic commenced in 1909 and was completed in 1912. It was meant to be a very grand and luxurious cruise ship.

Visited the dry dock that they used to outfit the Titanic. The gates at the end are opened and water enters the dock. The ship is guided in by ropes that are wound around big cogs that are all along the side of the dock. Once inside the dock, the gate is shut and water is pumped out of the dock until it is gone and the ship sits on the log bed shown in the photo.


The pumps are very powerful and apparently it takes only 1 1/2 hrs to fully drain the dry dock.
The tour also took us into the pump room.

After visiting the Titanic Quarter I took a walk around the Odessy Arena and W5 Exhibition centre that are on the same side of the river as Titanic Quarter.
The arena is Belfast's multi-purpose arena and they frequently have ice hockey games there. One of the big sports in the are is ice hockey. The W5 Exhibition centre is kinda like a version of the Powerhouse museum. W5 stands for Who What Where Why When (well those are the W's but i'm not sure of the order...)
They have interactive exhibits and it just so happened they also had a Star Wars exhibition... so being the geek that I am... I was so there!

aliens from Star Wars

Click here to view photo album.

Newtonards

Sun 24th Oct

Today was a pretty quiet day.
Woke up and decided to go to a local church. Newtonards (where my uncle lives) is around 20min drive out of Belfast. It's a pretty small town.

The most popular church here seems to be the Presbyterian church and there are 2 about 100meters from each other. Both having beautiful sandstone buildings dating back to around the 1850's. I walked around town early but church services are around 11am here and it's very quiet before then as all shops close until 1pm. I guess most people go to church or sleep in. So from walking around I found that there are 3 Presbyterian churches, 1 Methodist, 1 Anglican Church of England and 1 Catholic church. Just like Starbucks there is one on every corner...

Visited one of the Presbyterian churches closeby. The people were so nice and welcoming and it's great to see the church community here. I must admit though today i was very homesick for NR@N.

Had a family lunch before heading off to the hospital to see my cousin Charles.

Arvo was pretty boring as I walked around the local shops for a bit.... there's really not much to do in Newtonards. I couldnt go into Belfast as my uncle fears I might get bashed or stabbed or killed if I walk down the wrong street - maybe into a Catholic part of the city...
I think he is over reacting in some way but I can see that ignorance and intolerance is still present in a large part of the Northern Ireland population.

Strean Presbyterian Church Newtonards

Antrim coast & the Giant's Causeway [incomplete]

Sat 23rd Oct

Took a scenic drive north of Belfast up to the top of Irland where the Giant's Causeway is... it's a major tourist attraction and did not disappoint.



Carrickfergus Castle

Giant's Causeway

More photos here.

Belfast

Fri 22nd Oct

Went into the city of Belfast which is the capital of Northern Ireland. The city centre is actually very small and you can walk across it in about 10-15mins.

First stop was City Hall and there was a free tour.
In 1920 Ireland was split into North and south with an independant south and an English north.
The city hall for Belfast is quite elaborate considering it is for a city council. Each city in northern Ireland has its own city hall so for the number of people that are under its jurisdiction.

coat of arms for Belfast

Then joined a walking tour of the city. My uncle wanted to just take the hop-on-hop-off double decker bus that goes around the city but i'm not so keen on those as they are just too touristy. I mean any tour is touristy but i find walking tours are good because you can ask questions and have time to take photos.

I must admit that i'm not very good at keeping up with the news in everyday life. And perhaps i was too young to understand. A lot of the history of Belfast centers around 'the troubles'. Belfast has had civil troubles since around 1969. On the surface it seems like a religious war but it really isnt. It's more cultural. The irish people who are Catholic are keen on unification with the south and the English people who are protestant are still loyal to Great Britain. So the civil troubles are more cultural than religious and more republican vs loyalist.

We walked past some walls that still had bolts in them. The gates they held have been removed but they are a reminder of the days in which everybody in the city had to enter on foot and be searched. Cars were not allowed as they might contain bombs. (1n 1972 the IRA detonated 22 bombs in Belfast).

The guide did say that people are still for the most part living in the past. The city of Belfast is an area where the Irish Catholic and English protestants must work together. But as for living together.... there is a wall that separates living areas. If you are a protestant and stray a street too far then it is likely that you might be bashed or killed.

The council is trying to change and clean up northern Ireland. They are trying to make Belfast a safer place where tolerance is embraced and so each month has some festival of some kind.
The fish lies along the river. Taking a closer look, it's made of ceramic tiles which have pictures and newspaper articles and drawings of some of northern ireland's history. There are drawings made by children in Belfast which depict the hopes of that generation of peace.

The thing to note with the fish is that there are red spots over the top of it. Symbolic of the fact that blood has been shed in the past.

Noting some of the ignorance and intolerance both in the past and present northern ireland just made me so sad. But the innocent optimism of kids is refreshing in such a depressing city.

the Albert memorial clock tower... that isnt quite straight... it leans

Lagan statue. She holds a ring of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving square was set as a place where people of NI could be unified in thinking about charity and be thankful for things they have regardless of religion or political thoughts. The locals dont think much of this statue but maybe the irony is they are unified in not thinking much of it.

Click here for more photos.

Dublin to Belfast Northern Ireland

Thur 21st Oct

My train from Dublin to Belfast was at 1pm so I had the morning to kill.
Decided to go to the Jameson distillery to see the process of making whiskey.
John Jameson started making whisky at the Dublin site in 1780. The main distillery is now located in Cork and the whisky is now trucked to Dublin in unmarked trucks and bottled at this site.

So what makes Jameson's whiskey special is that it is triple distilled. So firstly the barley is soaked in water and allowed to half germinate. Then heated with anthracite which is smokeless. Apparently this is why Jamesons has a different taste and is less smoky. Then they mix and mash barley, malt and then boil the mix in hot water. They add yeast and it ferments. The mixture is distilled - so it is heated and since alcohol has a low boiling point, it becomes gas faster and moves up the glass funnel and then is cooled. Triple distilled means it is repeated three times making the end product a lot smoother as it has removed impurities.
The alcohol is concentrated after distillation and is around 70-80%... so they dilute it with spring water and then barrel it. The flavours come from the fact that they use old barrels to store the whiskey in. The barrels are imported mostly from the US and have been used before. The previous contents and the type of oak give the whiskey its flavour as it is matured for at least 5 years.

Bought the special 12 year old distillery reserve whiskey which is only available in Dublin or Cork.


After the distillery i decided to take a walk around and look at the bridges. As previously mentioned, quite a few of them are named after prominent Irish writers.

James Joyce bridge over the River Liffey

Next stop was the National Museum in Dublin. I could actually have spent a whole day there... but I was starting to get a little cultured out. I didnt have much time so in the hour left I just visited the irish crosses exhibition.
The Celtic cross features a cross with a circle around the intersection. Legend says that this cross was created by St. Patrick. He was trying to convert pagan Ireland to Christianity so he incorporated the circle into the cross as they previously worshipped the sun.

 

Boarded my train for the 2hr trip to Belfast....

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Ireland Tour Day 6

Wed 20th Oct

Well another early start as we left Galway to get back to Dublin.
On the way we stopped at Clonmacnoise. The town along the river Shannon was founded in the mid 6th century. St Cieran established the town around a monastry.
We visited the ruins of his cathedral and the grounds around which contains a lot of gravestones.

St Cieran was very clever and established this town along the river where it would be a key traffic site. Many people would cross the river at this site and the town benefited from trade. St Cieran also marketed this site very well and it was believed that if you were buried here then it would guarantee you sure passage into heaven. The big keymark cross was donated by a wealthy politician. He knew his deeds in politics were crooked so he tried to buy his way into heaven by donating this huge cross and guaranteeing his burial on this site.

Arrived back in Dublin around 2pm and had free time until 6pm when the coach was due to take us to our group farewell outing.
Decided to go visit the book of Kells which I had decided against when i arrived but it was raved about so it was off to Trinity College again....
Then i visited the James Joyce centre. Dublin takes great pride in the literary accomplishments of their people. They have a heap of bridges the cross the River Liffey and they have named them after Irish writers such as Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot) and James Joyce (Ulysses).


At night we were taken by bus to a pub just outside of Dublin. It was our tour group farewell dinner. There was live entertainment in the form of Irish dancers doing dances similar to Lord of the Dance. There was also some musicians. I'm starting to get to know some of the Irish songs and have really enjoyed hanging out in the pubs in Ireland listening to Irish music and having a drink... I still dont really like beer but found that I really liked an Irish cider called Bulmers.

Click here to view photo album.