Sunday, May 16, 2010

Dublin

Well, this is quite a delayed post. I went to Dublin with my Liying. We flew by Ryanair. The cheap flights are always at the odd times, so we had to get a flight at 7 a.m. from Prestiwick Airport which is freaking far away. And the earliest method to get there is by bus, with only departs at 4 a.m. Crazy right? Oh well, can always sleep in the plane. We arrived at the airport, have our visas checked and went in to wait for boarding.

Ahh, finally in the plane. The boarding tickets say that the estimated duration of travel will be about an hour but we arrived in Dublin in 20 minutes. Woohoo for Ryanair!

Dublin Airport is pretty big. Well big enough for us to walk quite a long distance to get to the complimentary shuttle bus to the hotel that we've booked - Hilton Airport Hotel. :) Not to ex really. 25 pounds a night person. And services is wonderful. The only thing missing is a complimentary breakfast. Needed an extra 12 pounds for that. I think I will starve. But not to fear, as Tesco Extra is just opposite the hotel... how convenient! Plus it's 24 hours! Not like we'll be shopping there during ungodly hours..

Anyway, some pictures of the hotel.

Twin beds. Oh my, comfy.

A desk with complimentary tea and coffee and TV. The fridge is mighty technologically advanced. It charges you as long as the drink is removed from the fridge, so no itchy hands.

Bathroom - toilet and sink

Bathtub.

So, after loitering around for a while, testing out the comfiness of the bed...*ehem*, we went to the city. We can take a bus from the Tesco to the city which takes about 15 minutes really. Really convenient.

We stopped somewhere in the city, but we needed to get to the City Hall which was where the walking tour starts. So we had to walk some more. We stopped by Westin to use the loo. Fancy.

Fancy Westin toilet.

So, in the end, we managed to get there in the nick of time. Phew.

City hall.

We were divided into groups and each followed a different guide.
Free tour starts here!

Our tour guide.

So, he took us to various places. And btw, the pictures are just from my camera. There are some that are in Liying's camera but I haven't gotten them, so oh well.. gotta live with mine. There are some places I probably don't remember what they were anymore, so if I do remember, I'd put captions, if not, go see Dublin yourself...

A different angle of the city hall.


Dublin Castle. You see people holding umbrellas...it's cause it's raining. And mind you, it's pretty heavy.

Inside of Dublin Castle.


"Look"




One of the famous statues on the castle.
The other statue.




See, it says Dubh Linn. That's where the name Dublin comes from. I think it's Irish Gaelic if I'm not mistaken..really not the best at history.





A plaque of Jonathan Swift.
Inside Trinity College. Pretty.







St. Stephen's Park, it's supposed to be really pretty but damn the rain.


So, that was after the end of tour, we went off to find a place to eat. Walking in the shopping areas.

Oldish looking Boots.

Raining but still people walking around.

Molly Malone.


We finally found our destination - MJ O'Neill


Part of the inside.

My lunch - beef and a lot of stuffs.. and a pint of Guiness. :)

National Wax Museum.

Well, National Irish Bank.



Temple Bar.



One of the nicest looking graffitis I've seen!



















Hard Rock Cafe.

Colourful car.



God is my co-pilot.



Baileys.









The Spike


"Crazy bunch of headless mannequins..."









Heineken.

Look, yellow man. We usually only have red and green man.




The viking tour, both on land and water. Cool!






Malaysian restaurant.










On our way to Guiness Storehouse. Btw, this is already the 2nd day but I forgot where the pictures from 2nd day start.... sorry for disorganised photos.










We're finally here..


We went to the restaurant first. Yumm


Our map inside the storehouse.

See that brown bread? That's a Guiness bread. Doesn't taste of Guiness though. Sweet.


Liying's fish pie.


My pork and leek sausages. Yums.

Heavenly desserts. Guiness infused chocolate mousse, Baileys cream and dates and mascarpone


Went down to start our tour.

Finding out what makes a Guiness - barley+hops+yeast+water.






Yeast

































That's really our tour finished but it's not the end yet!!

The best part is that.....

we get to pour our very own pint of Guiness.

Me in action.

And basically, this is a free pint of Guiness for you to drink. :)

After that, we went to the topmost part of the Storehouse, which is the Gravity bar. Pretty. You can just sit there and look at a 360 degrees of panoramic view of Dublin. Pics in Liying's cam...

After this, we had to rush to go back to the hotel for the shuttle to the airport.



A T-shirt i bought for Ryan. Huge. Got no smaller size...

I couldn't be bothered taking pics of other stuffs I bought. I bought a few souveniors. :p

Dublin's pretty and would be nicer if it's wasn't raining. But, definitely a recommended place to see. :)