St Albans and Brighton

On Sat Feb 4, we went to St Albans (a town about 20 miles drive away) in the afternoon and visited the oldest cathedral in UK. It was a grand cathedral. I saw memorials there dated back to the 13th century. The market was also open today. There were many little stalls selling various goods, from scarves to fruit. We stayed in St Albans for three hours then drove to Edgeware (in the Greater London area, which was another 15 miles away) and visited the Oriental City Mall. There were a couple of Chinese restaurants, a big Oriental grocery store like T&T and loads of oriental food stalls. We ordered alot of great tasting food.

On Sun Feb 5, we set off to Brighton in the afternoon. It was about 40 miles from Tring. It took about 1.5hrs to get there. The traffic in Brighton town was quite busy and it was almost impossible to find parking on the streets. Even when we pulled into a paid mall parking lot, there were many cars in front and behind us looking for parking. In Brighton, we walked over to the Sea front and enjoyed some English Fish and Chips, and a fresh red mullet sandwich. This beach didn't have any sand though, just loads of small rocks. I think this water is the English Channel? I need an atlas.

Happy Chinese New Year...

We did manage to utilize the rental car. We drove to Windsor on Sat Jan 28. It took about an hour to get there. We went into Eton and checked out the place where both Prince William and Harry went to school. We also visited the Windsor Castle. I think it's the official residence of the Queen. She wasn't home though. The castle was huge, but we were only allowed to visit a section of it. Pictures to come.

Happy Chinese New Years to everyone. On Sun Jan 29, we took the train into London to celebrate New Years. It was about a 45 minutes ride into central London. The streets in Chinatown, Leister Square and in Trafalgar Square were flooded with people. There were just as many westerners there as Asians. There were dragon dances, lion dances, Chinese opera, martial arts performances, firecracker and fire works display... When we were lining up for food at one of the restaurants (there were line ups in all the restaurants) we caught the lion dance right in front of us. It was going around to the restaurants to 'Capture the Green'. The 'Green' is usually a lettuce with a red pocket, tied to the front entrance of the restaurant. The lion is suppose to dance around and 'Capture' the lettuce in it's mouth, chew up the lettuce and spit some of the pieces out. (The lion dancer gets to keep the red pocket) I took some video clips of the lion dance on my new Sony Erickson w800i mobile. I'll try to post them.

I also bumped into Adrian in Trafalgar Square. He was part of my team in my Marketing class at UC. Apparently, he’s been here since September 2005 and is working in UK for year. What a small world…

In UK for how long?

We flew to London Heathrow on the evening of Jan 16. I was suppose to start work on Monday but I was still not feeling well. The company booked us into a little Inn called the GreyHound (1hr from Heathrow). It really sucks to be at an inn without a kitchen when I'm sick. I couldn't make anything to eat! Bo had to do food runs for me. Luckily, the company provided us with a car (for the time being) so Bo didn't really have to 'run' anywhere. It took a while for me to finally recover from my second flu. Initially we were only going to be in the UK for a week or two. After some personnel re-shuffling, and changes to the project specs, we may be staying for a few months. Arg, all our stuff are in Dublin and we've accumulated quite a collection. Now we're starting over and living out of our suitcases again.

We're currently working in Tring, a little town about 1hr drive to Greater London. There's nothing here in terms of entertainment, not even a bowling alley or a cinema. There's no sit down Chinese restaurants, but there are a few Chinese Take-Out places. We've been having alot of those lately. The company gave us till the end of Feb to find our own accommodations and transportation. Things are slowing falling into place, until we found out that the company has not gotten us our visa and they don't know how to get them. So now we are in la la land. Apparently, we need to go back to Canada to apply for one. We're finding out if we can get an Irish one for the time being. We'll see what happens. On top of that, my laptop, which I’m using for development, recently died on me. Luckily, it was still under warranty. We got it sent in and it *should* be fixed in a week. The company did provide me with a machine, but it only had 256MB RAM. It was extremely slow to develop on that machine. Especially when i'm running Windows XP, VS.NET, Server 2000, IE, ... and have lots of pages open. After pointing out the lack of memory, it finally got upgraded to 512MB RAM. I miss my laptop, it was *MUCH* faster! How frustrating!

Home Sweet Home

We went back to Canada on Dec 19. We first flew 3 hrs to Frankfurt and waited there for 4 hrs, then flew another 9 hrs to Calgary. While waiting at Frankfurt, we went to McDonalds in the airport and also there were a parent with his two kids (waiting for their flight to Calgary too) They had to wait 12 hrs to make their connection. He manage to entertain his kids by encouraging them to play the McDonalds Monopoly game by collecting stickers from people who ate at McDonalds. They managed to almost fill up the monopoly board. They were only missing one sticker for each property. They had many small prizes; they gave us a free cappuccino and ice cream cone sticker. With the remaining stickers, they covered up an entire medium pop cup and an entire coffee cup. The flight from Frankfurt to Calgary was 9 hrs, but it didn't feel that long, I slept quite a bit. We arrived in Calgary at around 5pm.

At first, I thought that I was going to stay in Calgary, but three weeks ago, I started a contract(same company as Bo) so now, I'm just coming back for Christmas. Bo will be staying for 2 weeks before heading back to Dublin to finish off his contract. I'll be staying for 3 weeks.

The first evening back, I was so excited to be home. Bo's parents came to pick us up from the airport, and dropped me off home, where Mom was waiting for me to arrive. We chatted for a bit, then she took me to T&T.

The next week was filled with having Dim Sum, lunch and dinner with family and friends. Then Bo caught the flu. I suspect that he got it from Geoff at Sandi's party. I've heard quite a few people from the party fell ill sometime afterwards. So we didn't go on any snowboarding trips. Then a few days later, I caught the flu from Bo. Arg. I was disappointed that I got sick. I didn't go anywhere for almost a week. Bo left Calgary on Jan 3rd, he's almost recovered by then. Luckily, I felt alot better during the last few days before I left, so I managed to meet up with a few friends. By the time I left, I was feeling alot better. But I felt quite sad, cause I didn't want to leave.

I left on Jan 11, on an 8pm flight and arrive the next day at Dublin at 5pm. My connection flight from London Heathrow was delayed for about an hour. I was so tired by then, I almost fell asleep on the chair. Apparently, the BMI plane had an oil leak so they had to get another plane ready.

What happen the next day was unbelievable, I got sick again with another flu. Had a fever for a few days and at one point, had a temperature of up to 39.9, I was HOT! We went to the Emergency and Accident at the hospital cause the clinics were closed at 9pm, but we left after not being seen for a few hours. Bo called the Alberta Health Link for information. Then he got me some Benylin for Flu 4, and I felt alot better after taking that. We were scheduled to fly to London (for work) on Sunday but I still felt horrible, so we changed our tickets to Monday instead...

Kitty in Dublin

Kitty came over to Dublin to visit us (Fri, Nov 18 to Sun, Nov 20) for a few days after our trip in Belgium and Amsterdam. Again, I was the tour guide because Bo was busy working. We went to the Christ Church, Dublin Castle, GPO, and City centre on the first day. Then I made a pasta dinner for everyone. In the evening we enjoyed a movie together (Die Hard 3).

The next day, Bo took a day off to hang out with Kitty. We also had two of our room mates join us to take Kitty around town. Our first stop was to Trinity Collage. We bumped into Reily and his friend right in front of the Book of Kells building. They managed to get us in, so we took some time to view the Book of Kells. Afterwards, we took the bus to the Dundrum shopping mall. Kitty and I both agreed that shopping in Canada is much more affordable. In the evening, we went to a nice Chinese restaurant and Reily joined us for dinner. Afterwards, Reily took us to an Irish Pub, where both Kitty and I had our first half pint of Guiness. It took forever for me to finish it and it tasted awful. But I think Kitty didn't find the taste to be as bad.

On day 3, we didn't do much. We slept in and didn't leave till noon. We went to Kilmainham Gaol and by the time we left the jail, it was too last to go do anything else so we took a trip to city centre to get some 'hotpot' groceries for dinner. We prepared a nice farewell hotpot meal for Kitty. Kitty went to bed quite early cause she had to get up at 4am the next morning to catch her flight. Since I’m such a good friend, I also got up at 4am to help Kitty with her luggage and waved down a taxi for her.

Amsterdam (Part Two)

Tuesday November 15, 2005
The train ride to Amsterdam was enjoyable. Kitty likes to ride on trains in Europe because: ‘the scenery is so nice’, but I was still feeling the effects of my cold medication and I fell asleep quite quickly. I think the pills made me really drowsy. 3 hours later, we arrived in Amsterdam. We went straight to the Tourist Office in the train station. We booked a Bike Tour scheduled for the next day. Then we headed off to find our houseboat, the Passenger Ship Maria Alberta, where we will be staying at for the next 2 nights. However, we arrived a bit early (an hour before we said we were going to arrive) and no one was on board. It was raining, no one was home, we were standing outside the boat thinking, what were we going to do? We went to a near by building, a ship like green building, called ‘Nemo’, a Science Centre for kids. We were so lucky, the guy at the Nemo center was extremely nice. He helped us contact the ship owner. It turns out he was on the other end of the boat. Kitty did almost all of the talking cause I was still feeling a little strange.

We thanked the Nemo guy and headed back to the boat. When we got onboard, the size of our room shocked us a bit. It was so incredibly small. I think the room (including the washroom) was a little bigger than my office cubical space! A slightly bigger room with 3 beds was available for only 9 euros more, so we took that one instead. Good thing we did cause later that night, we experienced difficulty of getting to the top bunk. Kitty wanted to take the top bunk, it was extremely challenging but after numerous tries, she was finally able to get on. Needless to say, she decided to the take bottom one. It was a lot of fun trying different ways to get up. I was laughing so hard watching Kitty struggling away that my eyes started to water!

After settling down, we ventured out to find a nice place to eat. Before we left, I asked for some restaurant recommendations from the boat owner. He was nice enough to point us to the right direction. Little did we know, we were about to walk straight into the Red Light District! At first sight, we were in a bit of a shock. Quoted right out of Kitty’s blog: “the first ‘Display’ we saw was this very fat woman with little clothes on”. Then we eventually made our way to Chinatown and decided to eat at the place with the most Chinese patrons. The food was good, though I couldn’t be certain because I was still ill and couldn’t taste many things. We headed back out and passed the Red Light District again. I didn’t want to be rude so I tried not to stare. We took quick short strides down the ‘window’ alley and to please our curiosity, took small quick glances at the different windows. We found a supermarket, and loaded up on fruit and water before returning to our ship.

Wednesday November 16, 2005
The bed on board the Maria Alberta boat was surprisingly comfortable, and this morning we slept in till around 9:00 when breakfast was called. At the breakfast table, we met a couple, Wendy & Andre from LA. Wendy is involved in a Shakespeare theatre production, A Midsummer Night Dream, in Berlin and Andre is a Special Ed. Teacher visiting his girlfriend. Andre was nice enough to offer us a map and let us read through his Lonely Planet book. We also shared some useful travel tips. It took us a while to get ready and we finally made it out by 11:00. Kitty saw the Stella McCartney line in H&M and immediately bought a few of her pieces. We ate our lunch at a very stylish-looking McDonalds before rushing to the Yellow Bike Company for our Bike Tour. As we waited at the Bike Shop, we were told that the tour was cancelled because these other people didn’t show up and there weren’t enough people for a tour. They were trying to scare us away by saying that the weather was going to be crappy and a bike tour wouldn’t be pleasant. They’ve succeeded but now we have to get back to the tourist office at the train station to get our refund. Luckily, it wasn’t very far away. Then we decided to drop off Kitty’s newly acquired treasures back to the ship before heading off to the Van Gogh Museum.

We could have walked 45 minutes to the Van Gogh Museum, but opted for the tram instead. The museum had almost the complete collection of paintings he did throughout different stages of his life. The museum also did a good job on placing information cards for each painting on the background with detail description for the paintings. The museum also displayed some of Van Gogh’s personal items, like his closet and some of his letters. Kitty thought the museum was very interesting and a must-see for art fans. I was not an art fan but I was not bored there. We spent a long enough while in there that my tummy started to growl. Luckily I had some crackers with me. Before we left, Kitty sent her parents a video message informing them that she was safe and enjoying her vacation. Then I sent Bo a video message while Kitty was in the background, popping her head up all around behind me.

We headed to a Chinese restaurant again for dinner because the food we had the other night was very good! Afterwards, we walked around and ended up on the other side of the Red Light District. We walked by an exotic sex museum, I was curious and wanted to go in but Kitty declined to go with me, so we skipped it. We made our way to Dam Square and took some pictures. Then suddenly it started pouring! We went for cover and waited for the rain to die down a bit before proceeding. Interesting thing about Amsterdam was that it could start to pour from absolutely no warning at all, then after a few minutes, the rain could stop completely.

I read on the net that soft drugs were legal in Amsterdam and can easily be bought in any ‘coffee shops’. These shops don’t even sell coffee and if you want to have coffee, visit a café instead. We walked by this shop that was selling food with drugs as one of the ingredients. Kitty talked me into trying a hemp lollipop with her. I could definitely taste the hemp but there wasn’t enough of it to get us high.

Thursday November 17, 2005
We were woken up at 9am by a knock on our door, followed by “Breakfast is ready!” That was our breakfast call. Today, like the day before, we didn’t make it out to the breakfast table until 9:30. We joined Andre and Wendy for another morning meal. We were checking out today but we didn’t want to carry our stuff around with us so we stored it at the train lockers. It was close to noon before we left the train station. Our flight was at around 20:30 so we still had sometime left in Amsterdam. We went for a cannel cruise and took lots of pictures. We saw many houseboats and got a short history of how Amsterdam came to be.

After our cannel tour, we took the tram to Anne Franks House even though it was walking distance. From the outside, it was hard to tell which building was Anne Franks because all the buildings look very similar and there wasn’t an obvious sign indicating where it was. They did a good job preserving it. We spent quite a long time in there and my tummy was growling again near the end. Kitty and I read every single piece of information card and watched every video in there. The Anne Frank story was quite sad and tragic. She seemed like such a mature girl from her writings, but she was only around 15 years old. She was a very brave girl.

After leaving the Anne Franks House, we took pictures with her (statue) before going for a bit to eat. We were pressed for time so we ended up at McDonalds. Did you know that McD’s charges everyone (even customers) who uses the toilet? I remember paying to go to the toilet at every place I went to in Amsterdam (except for the museums)

Then we rushed off to H&M to get as much shopping time as possible. Kitty bought a few more bags of clothes and I also joined in on the fun and bought a bag too. The sales and selection in Amsterdam was much better than Ireland. We got in about an hour of shopping before having to leave to catch our flight to Dublin. Kitty will be staying with us in Dublin till Monday November 20. I will be playing host again because Bo will be busy working.

Our trip to Brussels... (Part One)

After countless hours of chatting, emailing, and planning with Kitty, we’ve finally decided on a trip together! We went to Brussels from Saturday November 12, 2005 to Tuesday November 15, 2005 then Bo will return to Dublin but Kitty and I will be going on to Amsterdam, where we will be staying in a houseboat. Then we will be returning to Dublin on Thursday November 17, where Kitty will spend a few more days with us before going back to Calgary on an early Monday morning flight. Wow, 10 days traveling with Kitty, let’s see how long we can put up with each other! =) I caught a cold two days before the start of this trip, so that kind of sucked but the trip turned out alright.

We woke up quite late on Saturday and started packing. By the time we left for the airport, it was close to 10:30 am and our flight was at noon. Luckily, the public transport system worked out alright and we were able to check in before the cut off time. Next time, we must prep better and leave earlier.

Our flight arrived in Brussels, Belgium at around 2:45 local time. Kitty’s flight from Calgary to Frankfurt to Brussels was suppose to arrive an hour before us, but we soon found out that she missed her connection flight in Frankfurt. We waited and hour for her before she popped out of the arrival gates. I didn’t recognize her at first cause she mentioned that she was going to arrive in ‘Apprentice’ style, so I was looking for someone with a cute pully luggage. It turns out that they ‘misplaced’ her luggage. See Kitty’s blog for details of her journey in the trip and why she missed the connection flight.

We took the Airport Express to get to Brussels' central station. It was only 2.8 Euro and only took about 15 minutes. We decided to spend a bit more and booked a budget hotel (Hotel Opera) for our 3 nights stay. For some reason, all the hotels in Brussels have a higher rate on the weekdays. Their weekends start on Friday and their weekdays start on Sunday. So we end up paying 85 euros for our first night and 100 euros per day on Sunday and Monday night. We spent around half an hour finding our hotel and passed by Grand Place. It's a big courtyard surrounded by historic buildings. Since it was Saturday evening there were a lot of people there. Didn’t stay too long cuz the place was close to our hotel and we knew we were gonna come back. Finally, we found Hotel Opera on one of the busy streets. The hotel was not too bad except that the third bed in our room was obviously smaller than the other 2. It was like Goldie Locks walking into the room of the three bears. So we took turns sleeping on the miniature bed and we play rock, paper, and scissors on who gets the 2 extra pillows.

We decided to walk around the area around the hotel after we settled down. Kitty wanted to look for the new Stella McCartney collection at H&M but they were already sold out when we got there. :( We found a huge electronics store and Bo saw that 7xx Euro camera he wanted! It didn’t take long for Bo to decide to get the camera. After he got his new toy, he sort of ignored us through the entire trip. At around this time, Kitty looked like she was too tired to stay awake and it was only 6pm. Not surprising considering her 10+ hour flight time. She’s probably been up for over 24 hours now.

We were all getting hungry so it was time to find a place to eat. We walked around the area surrounding Grand Place again to find a decent restaurant to dine in. Then this waiter approached and sweet talked us into going in. We went with him cuz we were simply too hungry and too tired to keep looking. Although, Kitty did read somewhere that the restaurants on a particular street around this area is famous as some sort of a tourist trap…

The food at the restaurant was not too bad. Kitty ordered mussels and it was actually quite good. Bo and I ordered salmon, but it was not the best. At this time, I was so thirsty that all I wanted was water, so we each ordered a bottle of water… and this was one of the biggest rip-offs at the restaurant. They charged us 4 Euro for a bottle of water! I did expect to pay a premium for ordering water but… (no, the price was not listed on the menu) then they went on to charge us 9 euros for a small plate of garlic bread… needless to say, we didn’t go there again. We should of pay more attention to Kitty’s article on the tourist trap. (We dined at other restaurants in Brussels and water was all reasonably priced)

At last we were back to our hotel. Kitty’s luggage has not arrived yet so she will have to suffer without her toiletry kit. Kitty took a shower first then she was instantly out seconds after hitting the sac. I guess the jet leg has something to do with that…

Sunday, November 13th 2005
We slept in today and almost missed our breakfast, which ends at 11:00am today at the hotel. The food was like hostel style, but it was ok. We walked to Grand Place again to snap some pictures and went to the tourist centre to grab some information on the Atomium. Then we headed over to Manneken Pis, a bronze statue of a peeing boy, which was just steps away from the Grand Place. We spotted him surrounded by tourists. He was so small! Kitty read on the net that he has around 600 costumes but today, he was naked! Not very interesting indeed but we just have to go see it cuz we are tourists! There was this stall across from the boy selling Escargots (Sea Snails)! We bought a portion to share and it was delicious…

As we walked towards central station, a girl approached us and offered Hop On Hop Off bus tickets for less. As gullible and lazy tourist, we accepted her offer and brought our first Hop On Hop Off ticket ever. The scenery to the Atomium was quite good, but it was pretty cold around this time of the year so I was freezing my little nose off on the top of the open top tour bus. Personally, I prefer the metro since it was the faster and warmer way to get there. Then again, Bo had a blast with his new camera.

The Hop On Hope Off bus took us around the city, which is truly beautiful, and we hopped off at the Atomium. It's a pity that it's closed for renovation until early 2006 but we still wanted to go there to take a look at the structure and take pictures. Kitty likes to look at different architecture and this one is truly brilliant! The Atomium was designed for the International Exhibition of Brussels that was held in 1958. It was supposed to be demolished afterwards, but we’re so glad they didn’t. The design is based on the magnified molecule of an atom, and there are 9 spheres joined by tubes, made from steel and covered in shiny aluminum. We also took a bunch of silly pictures outside of the Atomium to test out the speed of Bo's new toy. Kitty and I took turns jumping, so Bo can take pictures of us in mid-air position. Then we went for lunch at the cafes near by Atomium.

In the evening, we went back to the city centre and hung around in the hotel room cause Kitty’s luggage was suppose to arrive soon. She was so happy when it did and she went for her toiletry kit with no time to lose. She took over 10 minutes to pamper her face! Afterwards, we went to dined in a Japanese restaurant. Kitty and I ordered a Miso Ramen but we suspected that it was just a normal instant noodle with tonkatsu! After dinner, Kitty finally gave in to all the waffle stands and had to try one. I wasn’t too interested cause I can still remember the waffle that Bo and I couldn’t finish at the Eiffel tower in Paris. Kitty really liked it, especially when it was cold at night and the waffle was quite hot. Both of them thought that the waffle was nothing compared to "Chicken Eggs" from HK!

Monday, November 14th 2005
We had another late breakfast (almost missed it again) and we decided to walk around the City Centre in the morning. Bo and Kitty had Belgium Fries, a not so healthy lunch. We found this booth in the middle of a square in front of a church. They thought that the taste of the fries was just: “AWESOME, so crisp and fresh!” I had a kabab, and they put fries in it too. I think it was the first time I had fries put into my kabab. In the afternoon we decided to make use of our Hop On Hop Off bus ticket and went for another ride around the city. Too bad we couldn't hop off the bus cause there are only a few buses running in weekdays and we were on the last one, at around 2:30pm.

We made it back to Central Station by 18:00. We made plans, by text message, to meet up with Bo's cousin for dinner. But somehow, the word ‘tomorrow’ was skipped when Bo was reading the message, so we were actually on our own for tonight. By this time, we were hungry and tired again. We decide to picnic in our hotel room and got food from the supermarket. We ended up having wine, bread, cheese, smoked salmon, fresh fruit and caviar. The food was quite tasty!

Tuesday, November 15th 2005.
Again, we were almost late for our hotel breakfast. But the girl looking after the food was quite nice. She made sure that there was enough bread and ham for us. This afternoon, we hung around the Grand Place area because Kitty and I was going to catch the train from the Central Station to Amsterdam. We left Bo in Brussels with strict instructions on the number of boxes of Belgium chocolates he was to purchase for us. Our train ride took around 3 hrs and it was around 6pm by the time we arrived in Amsterdam. Bo was most likely on his way to meet his cousin, Jie. Bo and I stayed at her place when we were visiting Berlin, Germany. She lives in Berlin on the weekends and flies to Brussels to work on the weekdays.

Kitty has her version of the trip on her blog (there's a link to her blog on my 'Links & Fella Bloggers' drop down, near the top left corner) and I did incorporate some parts of her blog in mine. Part Two of our trip, in Amsterdam... coming soon!

A few things has happen since my last update...

I finally went to the Guiness Storehouse. I took Bo’s mom there when she came to visit us. It wasn’t too interesting though, and I’m not looking to go again anytime soon. Perhaps it would be more interesting to people who like to drink beer. We went up to the gravity bar where they give out a free pint of Guiness to each visitor. However, since I don’t drink, I had a glass of sprite instead. I had to play host to Bo’s mom the entire time she was here cause Bo was too busy working…

We went to London again on Oct 13 for a few days and played guide to Bo’s mom. We went to the Natural Museum and took another guided tour in the National Gallery. We went to see Chicago the musical. It was a great show, we really liked it. We saw the movie a few times so we knew what the show was about before seeing it live. I think the dialog is exactly the same.

Back in Dublin, my first day of work was quite short. Actually, it was the shortest day of work for me ever. Just seconds after entering the office, I was told that my project was put on hold and they had no other work for me. So I was in the office for 45 minutes to wait for the next train home. I decided to become a professional traveler for a few more months.

Bo was summoned to a meeting in London on Thursday Nov 3rd, so we decided to make it into another weekend getaway. I took the early morning flight to London and met up with Bo on Saturday, Nov 5th. There was a seat sale to London for that day on Ryan Air so I ended up in Luton airport instead of the usual Heathrow that Aerlingus always landed in. I found it inconvenient to go from Luton to Central London because the tub wasn’t available in Luton. I was going to take the express train but then after talking with the bus driver for the Green Line to Central London, he convinced me to ride with him. He started to haggle with me and I played along. I managed to get myself a ride to Central London for 6.50 pounds (the express train would have cost 12 pounds, but was quicker) The bus was suppose to take 1.5hrs to get there but it only took 1hr this time because there wasn’t much traffic. I’ve never haggled in London before!

I met up with Bo in the afternoon and we went to see a matinee show of the Shaolin Masters. It wasn’t what I expected. I wanted more martial arts and the music was not traditional. I guess they wanted the western world to relate with them more by playing pop music. Overall, I still liked it. The little Shaolin Monks were so cute. Today was also the day for the Guy Fawkes celebrations. So in the evening, we went to Battersea Park, the flagship for the Bonfire Night. There was a huge bonfire to start, then came the spectacular fireworks with music playing in the background. There was an amazing amount of people there. Afterwards, leaving the park was pretty interesting…

On Sunday, it was pouring, on and off for the entire day. We decided to go on the London Eye (no wait time today) even though the view was not at its best. We didn’t get a chance to go when we were at London the last few times because there were too many people and we didn’t want to wait 3 hours in line. Next we went to tour the HMS Belfast, Europe’s last big armoured warship of WWII. We spent a little over 2 hours in there and managed to finish exploring the entire ship before they closed. Then we went for dinner, before Bo left to catch a plane for Dublin. I decided to stay another night because I didn’t have to work.

On another note, we’re going to Brussels next week, along with Kitty (from Calgary). Kitty and I will be going on to visit Amsterdam afterwards for a few days while Bo must go back to Dublin to work. Then we will play host to Kitty in Dublin for a few days before she has to return to Calgary. Kitty is also going to be planning our entire trip. This should be fun.

On Monday October 31, Bo ran in the Dublin Marathon. There was over 10,000 runners in the marathon and he placed 4488 overall. He had a time of 04:24:06. He said he felt good. But it looks to me that he was in a bit of pain...

A quick update in Ireland

I went to County Meath twice with my ex-house mate and without Bo. He was too busy working (on a Sunday). We went to Knowth, Hill of Tara and Trim Castle. They were some of Ireland’s Heritage sites. We saw the Great Mound at Knowth, which looks like a large mushroom to me. There’s a large network of tunnels underneath the mushroom but they are closed to the public. I heard that these structures were built before the pyramids. Too bad we weren't able to see them, it would of been more interesting then looking at the pictures.

We went to the Hill of Tara and Trim Castle on Sunday Oct 9th. (It was absolutely freezing today) When we got to the Hill of Tara was already closed for the season. So we walked around the area and saw hundreds of sheep roaming around the hills by the Hill of Tara. (So windy up here!) They’re good at fertilizing the ground, sh*t was everywhere and we found it difficult to maneuver around the hills without paying special attention to them. On the same day, we also visited the Trim Castle (by accident, cause we were supposed to visit another site, but got lost and ended up here. So everything worked out just fine) This castle is the largest Anglo-Norman castle in Ireland. It looks quite destroyed though. About 30% of the exterior walls still stand. The keep inside the castle is preserved quite well. But there’s absolutely nothing (of value) inside. Our guide did an amazing job telling us about the histroy of the castle and the stuff that took place back then.

Bo’s mom is coming to visit us on Oct 10 for a few days. I’ll be showing her around Dublin because Bo is too busy working. Then we are all going to London on Thursday for a few days.

I got a job and I’m starting on Monday Oct 17th for a two month contract. I accepted an offer from a company in Skerries, which is once again VERY far away from where we live. It’s in the North of County Dublin. Skerries is beside the Balbriggian town (where I worked last time) However, I’ve been told that I can work mostly from home, so that's why I accepted the job. Another plus is that the contract is only for two months, so I’ll be done on Dec 17th, just in time for us to pack our bags and fly back to Calgary on Dec 19th. I’ll be home for Christmas! Anyone up for another gift exchange party? Let me know if there are any parties happening!

Berlin Pictures...

Here's a link to our Berlin pictures:
http://www.travelgoats.ca/Europe2005/Berlin/

Our trip to Berlin...

We went to Berlin on Sunday September 18th for 5 days. But we almost didn’t make it there cause I was in so much pain on Saturday that I couldn’t move. My back was just killing me and even when I didn’t move, it was painful. I thought I accidentally injured it when I was doing this yoga move, but its not like I haven’t done it before. I actually called the Alberta Health Link for advice, and they advised me to go and see the doctor. It was a Saturday so I couldn’t find a clinic that was open. Besides, I had a hard time walking anywhere so I didn’t physically go out and see if they were open. Luckily I live 5 minutes from the James Hospital (one of the largest in Ireland) We found the non emergency doctors to take a look at me (they made an exception to see me cause I didn’t have a GP and one was required) It was nothing serious, just a kidney infection. I guess that was why my back hurt on one side only. My muscles were only inflamed on the left side by my kidney. I also live 1 minute away from the chemist (aka pharmacy) so that was handy. Took my pills and 2 hrs later, it was like nothing happened.

Everyday, there’s only one flight going out to Berlin and it was at 7am in the morning! The flight was only 2 hrs so we arrived into Berlin at around noon (1 hr time zone change) Bo’s cousin (Jie) and her boyfriend (cute German guy) picked us up from the airport. We didn’t know what she looked like but we she saw our pictures online so she found us. Bo has met her once but he was only hand held size so he didn’t remember much of it.

We will be staying at Jie's place. She lives in East Berlin, and very close to city centre. We went there to drop off our stuff, before going to Sunday brunch at a café by her area. The food was excellent, and it cost about half as much as Dublin. But I got attacked by a bee. It kept flying around our food and around my face. I tried to run away from it but it just kept on following me. Arg. We walked a lot today. I was quite tired afterwards. We went around East and West Berlin on foot. I saw graffiti everywhere. (No walls were spared!)

On Monday, we were on our own since Jie was heading off to work in Brussels and will not come back to Berlin till Friday. She works in Brussels but travels back to her home in Berlin every weekend. So we got her place all to ourselves. We each bought a welcome card, which allows us to use the public transportation for 72 hours, so we’re all set. It also comes with a voucher booklet for attractions in Berlin. But we didn’t make much use of it.

When we were in Paris, we took a bike tour with the Fat Tires Bike Tours. They also operate in Berlin so we took another tour from them. I really enjoyed the tour and we covered a lot of ground. We went to the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, Potsdamer Platz, Victory Column, Hitler’s Bunker (they didn’t excavate it and there’s apartment buildings around it), Reichstag (German Parliament), Museum Island, Soviet War Memorial, Bebelplatz (site of Nazi book burning) and the list goes on. (We didn’t go into any of them) It was a long tour; we took a lunch break at a beer garden. The food was excellent! But I got attacked by another bee! (I think it was a bee, I can’t tell bees or wasps apart) Arg. Overall, the bike tour was great. It was around 5 hours in total but we probably rode for about 4 hours so it wasn’t hard work. We stopped quite frequently to look at the site and talk about the history of what we’re looking at.

In the evening, we went to see the Blue Man Group in a theatre around Potsdamer Platz. We arrived 5 minutes before the show started and score excellent seats! They were premium seats, in the middle, on the ground floor. We had no idea what the show was about, so we had no expectations. I saw the glossy brochure for it in the tourist info centre (it’s the nicest brochure there) and it reminded us of the IBM commercial (the one with the 3 guys all painted and dressed in blue) It turned out to be an awesome show. The visual effects were great and included audience participation. Only 5% of the show required the knowledge of German. (narration and on large place cards), so without knowing German, I thought the show was about visualization, animation, music and their evolution. I googled it and found the description for the same show in Las Vegas: A "Blue Man" (called such because of their entirely blue heads and hands) is "the curious being from inner space who wants to 'blesh' with the audience through sound and color."

On Tuesday we had breakfast at a café close to our crib. They didn’t have an English menu so we randomly picked things off the breakfast menu. When the food came out, it was the most nutritious breakfast that I’ve ever had. My plate had about 5 different types of cheese, 4 different pieces of fruit, 2 different types of sliced meat, 3 types of bread and a hard boiled egg, with grapefruit juice. Bo’s was similar, but in additional, he had smoked salmon, yogurt and olives. After our grand breakfast, we went up to the East Berlin’s TV Tower on Alexanderplatz. It’s 1198 feet high with some great view of Berlin. Then we went to a shopping mall and Bo bought a huge Lego set (Technic 8421) that just came out this month. This thing is bigger than my backpack. So we went home early. After a tiring day yesterday, I accepted the chance to relax and watch 2 movies. Bo starting building it right away and he kept building even after I went to bed.

On Wednesday, we visited the Sea Life Centre and the AquaDom. The Sea Life Centre housed many interesting sea creatures, but it was more for kids. The AquaDom is where there’s tons of different sea creature in the outer tube of the elevator. Picture a hollow see through cylinder that an elevator can go through, with a giant tank surrounding it. It’s interesting but it seems to be a short ride to the top. It would be better if they stopped the elevator longer in the middle of the tube. Again the narration was in German only. Then again, when you’re in the elevator, it’s like looking at a giant fish tank that has you surrounded.

Later on that day, we went up on the Berlin High-Flyer, one of the worlds largest helium balloons. It rises up to 150 meters high. I always wanted to go up on a hot air balloon, but this will do for now. The balloon uses helium to rise up and there’s a cable attached to it so that it doesn’t float away. But they said that even if the cable breaks, we would still be safe. However, they didn’t explain how we would be able to get down without the cable. We had a birds eye view of another Jewish Memorial (this one was huge; there was many blocks of different height that represented the different characteristics of the fallen Jewish people. We spotted the Canadian Embassy, which wasn’t too far from where we were. (We checked it out afterwards, it’s very nice in there.) After the balloon ride, we went to another large shopping mall and I was able to find a post office where I can send out postcards. That night, I did something that I’ve not done in months… I finally took a bath! We started to pack tonight cause we had a morning flight to Dublin. This was the only departure time.

On Thursday, September 22 2005, we arrived at the airport at 10am for our flight to Dublin at 11am. We were cutting it pretty close, luckily, we made it through security with some time to spare. This was the first time that I saw security use a hand held metal detector and padded everyone down. Maybe the big ring metal detector was broken? I didn’t take any motion sickness pills this time cause I miss placed them in Dublin. The flight was fine for me until the last 30 mins. I had to get up and go to the toilet. A few minutes after returning to my seat, I felt extremely sick on the plane. I think I broke into a cold sweat in minutes and I felt my hands shaking… I almost puked! (Which I really really really hate doing) Luckily, I was able to hold it in… otherwise, ewwwwww.

Interesting notes on Berlin
- Not much difference between West and East Berlin
- Graffiti is almost everywhere, lots of them look pretty good
- West Berlin has normal looking pedestrian lights while East Berlin has a short, fat chubby guy with a hat on. (but some of the East Berlin lights did get replaced by the West side lights, until the East Berliners protested)
- East Berlin is the only place in the world where the pedestrian guy has a hat (According to our guide)
- Lots of Germans can speak English, and they are nice.
- Germany has the third largest Turkish population other than Turkey
- Lots of Donor shops (most likely because of the large Turkish population)
- Many memorial sites to Jewish victims during the Nazi regime
- Lots of construction
- East Berlin is slightly cheaper to buy things than West Berlin
- Very multicultural

Nice T

Bo, proudly wearing his half-marathon t-shirt after running for a bit over 2 hours. It took place in Phoenix Park on Saturday, September 24th

Paris Pics, Encounter with Kev, Berlin Trip...

My Paris pictures are up: http://www.travelgoats.ca/Europe2005/Paris/

On the 4th of September, Bo and I were walking down the street and when we turned the corner, Kevin Foster was there! What a fluke, I had classes with this guy and I took him out to his first snowboarding trip to Sunshine. Prior to Dublin, Kev was in Brazil for the last 4 months. We went back to where Kevin was staying and met more people from U of C. Callum was also there, went boarding with him too. If his name sounds familiar, then it’s probably because he TA a lot of classes, 355/455 (Assembly and Hardware classes) I think he’s finished his PhD and got married (for 2 years). There was Pauline (I hope it’s spelled right) from Tim’s party, and others from the graphics department. It turns out that everyone was attending the Eurographics 2005 Conference in Dublin. Kevin is now the second UC person that I know that I’ve just bumped into in Dublin. We hung out and chatted for a bit before all going for fish and chips. It was cool hanging out with Canadians in Dublin. They’ve been here for 9 days already and all except for Kevin will be boarding planes to leave Dublin tomorrow. Kevin will stay for another day before leaving for Toronto on Tuesday. He needed a place to stay for a day so Bo and I offered him our place to crash for Monday night.

On Monday, I played guide and took Kevin out to a day trip to Bray, in County Wicklow. We were supposed to hike up Bray Head but I missed the turn and we ended up hiking to Graystones instead. So our 40 minutes hike turned out to be over 2 hrs. But then again, the view is awesome. We still made in back into Dublin on time before the shops close to get some dinner… we had hotpot that night and we introduced Kevin to Donkey Kongo. (Nintendo Cube game) I don’t know about Kevin (hope he had fun), I had tons of fun. But now, I’m going to blame him because after he left, I felt home sick.

Hopefully our upcoming trip to Berlin will keep my mind off of Calgary. I’m going to do a lot more planning for this one. We’re leaving on September 18 and coming back on September 22… to my beloved readers, please post comments, I’m feeling lonely out here! =)

We went to Paris...

...on Thursday August 18th for 5 days. We arrived at the airport 1.5hrs early but found that our flight was delayed by 30mins. The flight to Paris from Dublin is about 1.5hrs long and though we left Dublin at around 5:30pm, we didn’t land in Paris until about 8:15pm. Paris is 1 hr ahead of Dublin time. Security in Paris was not too strict. Finding the Metro station to get into town was a little tricky but we managed. We got out in Terminal 1 but the Metro is in another station so we had to take the free shuttle to the Metro terminal. Going into town by Metro will set you back 8 euros, but I wouldn’t recommend this if you had luggage, unless you don’t mind carrying it up and down the stairs while you’re changing lines and exiting the stations. We both had a backpack each so the stairs didn’t bother us much. It’s now midnight, but we finally arrived in our Hotel (Hotel Le Quercy, 2 Star). I did some research and found that many hotels were more economical to stay at than hostels. We paid 40 euros per night for the hotel and breakfast was included. It was not in city centre but it was only a few minutes walk from the Metro station, on the border of zone 2. Even if we did find a place in city centre, we would still need to take the Metro anyways. Tonight was unbelievably hot and humid. It felt like that China trip we took a few years ago. I had a hard time sleeping and instead of a blanket, I used a towel for cover. Luckily, it rained really hard the next morning so the weather was just perfect for the duration of our trip.

On Friday we got up a bit before 9am to catch the breakfast. There was juice, cereal, buns, tea, coffee and croissant. It turns out that today would be the only day that we got up early enough for breakfast, which ends at 9am. The first place we went to was the Arc deTriomphe. This big yellow Arc was in the middle of a huge traffic circle with multiple lanes and speeding vehicles. Crossing it at the right time would be a bit tricky but doable. We’ve seen people successfully crossing it. Personally, I would take the underground to the Arc. It would be so much safer and French drivers wouldn’t be pissed off at you.

From the Arc, we started to walk to the Eiffel Tower. From afar, it doesn’t seem to look very special. At first, all we saw was a radio tower, since only the tip of the tower was visible, we were questioning if that was the Eiffel Tower. However, as more and more of the Tower were expose, we realized that it was the Eiffel Tower and it looks brilliant. The view from the Palais de Chaillot is the best for taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower. The Palais de Chaillot (Chaillot Palace) houses 3 museums. But we’re all museumed out from London so we passed. Instead, we took a lot of pictures of the large chunks of metal, also known as, the Eiffel Tower. The line to buy tickets to the top of the Eiffel Tower by lift was very long, but the line to buy tickets to walk up the Eiffel Tower was quite short in comparison. Walking up was Bo’s first choice anyways, and though at first, I thought it would be an outrageous thing to do, I eventually surrendered to Bo’s preference. The walk to the first level was shorter than anticipated. I was only a tad bit tired after arriving on the first level. We hung out here for a short period of time, checked out the view, and took some pictures. The walk up to the second level was a bit longer than anticipated and I was quite tired after the walk. We took in the view and it was magnificent. I was quite proud of myself for successfully walking up the two levels of the tower. This would be the highest that one can walk, since the lift is the only method to get to the very top of the Eiffel Tower. The line up for this lift looks never ending. It was so long that they had to shut down ticket sales for an hour. So we decided to hang out for a bit on the second level and wait for the ticket booth to open up. There was a renovation to the Tower a few years back and though this move didn’t make the lifts go any faster, they did put in some shops and a restaurant. I had my one and only dessert in Paris, it was a waffle with whipped cream. Bo didn’t like it at all, and I couldn’t even finish it. The first bite was excellent but after that, it was like sucking down sugar! I think I consumed a whole week of my sugar quota in half of this waffle… eventually we made our way to the top of the Eiffel Tower (ET). The view and the winds are amazing. Even on a warm day, make sure you bring a jacket when visiting ET. We spent a long time at the ET and it started to get dark by the time we left. The lights on ET were on but the sky wasn’t dark enough for the lights to make ET shine. So that was our Friday. From here on, we were quite unorganized.

On Saturday, we got up really late, missed the free breakfast and left the hotel at around noon. Our first destination was Notre Dame Cathedral. Notre Dame is located on a little island in the Seine river that runs through the middle of Paris. It was made famous by the story of the hunchback of Notre Dame. It was probably famous before then but that’s how I know Notre Dame. The line up at first looked really long, but it was quick to get in. There were people going in and out none stop. It was quite dark inside, there were many candles available for the visitors to light up and put up. Admission is free but a donation would be nice. There was even a priest available for people to confess their sins to. The lineup is quite short but I passed. Its been never since the last time I made a confession. The particular priest available only speaks French, Italian and something else and not English. The English speaking priest was on break. All the glass windows inside has pictures on them. I wonder if they were the originals. Its hard to believe that glass windows can last so long. We sad in here for a bit and there was this creepy organ music playing in the background. I say its creepy cause it sounds a bit like the phantom of the opera music. After leaving Notre Dame, we took a stroll around this little island in the Seine river attempting to find the Sainte-Chappele and Conciergerie. Both should also be on this little island but they just eluded us and we found the Palais De Justice building instead. Bo assumed that this building took over the space cause it’s currently under construction. So we gave up looking and walked around Paris aimlessly. Eventually, we found what were looking for, but they’re closing soon. We will go there tomorrow. We came across many places that sell crepe. I wonder if this is was where crepe originated. I was tempted to get one, until I remembered the waffle experience I had on the Eiffel Tower… after some more aimlessly walking, we arrived at the largest Metro station in Paris, Chatelet Les Halles. I’ve heard that this station is not a friendly one to make connections at night because of the long tunnels. So I always remind Bo to find smaller stations to make our connections. But right now, this station is very lively. There’s a large shopping centre underneath this area and the metro station is located below the mall.

On Sunday, we got up and left at around noon. We’re in search of breakfast and found a nice seafood restaurant by our metro station. We saw ads for this restaurant and there was a large picture of a platter of mussels luring us in. The menu was all in French and I couldn’t understand any of it so we just ordered from the picture. But the picture always looks better then the real thing. When Bo’s platter of mussels came out, it seemed to have been blasted by a shrink gun. It’s just breakfast… this afternoon, we went back to visit the Sainte-Chappele and Conciergerie. However, we made it to the insides of the Conciergerie only. The line up for the Sainte-Chappele was quite long, we took a glance inside this place and it didn’t look like anything special. We thought that this place couldn’t top Notre Dame, and we saw that yesterday, so we skipped it. Eventually, we made our way to the Louve. This place is huge. We went down the pyramid to the information desk and found that they were closing shortly. Another reason why we should have done more planning. But things still worked out. We made our way to the base of the Eiffel Tower and joined the night bike tour. It was an American owed business so all the tours were in English. The tour was very nice. I would recommend it to anyone visiting Paris. They have sister companies in Barcelona and Berlin so we will likely visit them again. Our tour covered all the places that Bo and I visited but the difference is the time of day. Saw the Louve building illuminate with the lights and we biked around the fountain in the Louve. We did a bike by sneak peek of a lady statue with no arms (I don’t remember what she’s called) It was a 3 hr bike ride and we covered over 7 miles. Then we went on a one hour boat tour. We mingled with our group and enjoyed complementary wine from our bike tour company. We passed by the Eiffel Tower and it had lit up nicely in the dark with blue flashing lights. It looks magnificent and we have a picture to prove it. We also saw the statue of Mini Liberty. It looked so cute! We finally made it home with our McDonalds take out at around 1am.

On Monday, we had to pack up our sacks and get ready to checkout. Fortunately, the check out time for this hotel was at noon, so we slept in again. We checked out a minute early and went for some breakfast at the Japanese restaurant. Like any other day, I had nothing planned. After our delicious meal, we proceeded to the Rue Mouffetard. According to the pamphlet, this is “one of the Quartier Latin’s treatures. This lively street combines creative boutiques, friendly bars, and ample space for strolling” We got lost many times before finally finding the place. We wandered around that area for while. I had a large gelato; it looked brilliant and tasted delicious. However, this area didn’t look as lively as the pamphlet made it out to be. It was definitely aimed towards the tourist and I don’t think there were any French people hanging out there except for the employees of the shops. With the remaining time we had left in Paris, we walked over to Luxembourg and spent 15 minutes relaxing in Jardin du Luxembourg. There’s a beautiful garden in this large park area, with a pond where people sail toy boats.

London Pictures and our next trip...

London Pics: http://www.travelgoats.ca/Europe2005/London/

We have our next trip scheduled. We're going to Paris on Thursday Aug 18 for 5 days. Like our London trip, we have nothing planned. We will decided what to do and where do go when we land. But no worries, the guild book will steer us...

Trip to London!

We went to London on Thursday July 27 for 5 days. Because of the recent events, we decided to arrive at the airport 2 hours before our 7pm scheduled flight. We went through security without any problems and boarded the Aerlingus plane (though there was a 20 minute delay for no apparent reason) The flight from Dublin to London took only 50 minutes. We arrived in the Heathrow airport at around 8:30pm and took the tube to our Hostel. Some of the lines in the tube was out of service, due to some unfortunate events, so our tube ride took a tad bit longer (1.5 hrs) It was a short 10 minutes walk to our Hostel. By the time we arrived it was close to 11am. The reception was closed and we were checked in by the security guard, which was on his cell phone for the majority of the check-in duration. Even when he was taking us to our room, he still chatted away. We stayed at the IFor Evans Hall, in a dorm room for the University College London students. We booked a twin room, but ended up with 2 single rooms. The rooms are decent, clean and about the size of my room in Calgary. Except that this one has a sink. Each section of floor shares two toilets, a shower and a tub. Both sexes shares this same facility! The kitchen area is also shared but though there was a stove, there's no pots or pans and the sink had a pile of dirty dishes... We ate out quite a bit so the lack of kitchen utensils didn't affect us much.

London is a very beautiful city. The city gave me quite a positive first impression. Surprisingly, London turned out to be a bit cheaper than Dublin. Especially when it comes to eating out. The service is better and the food tastes awesome! London Rocks!


Friday was a busy day. I was so tired from all the walking. Our first stop was at Trafalgal Square. There were many grand statues on each corner of the square with several water fountains in the middle. I sat on the bench where I can see the statue of Kind George IV on his horse, overlooking the square. On the other side of the square, there were several lion statuses that kind of reminded Bo and I of the lion on the Hong Kong dollars. Trafalgal Square is a great place to sit down, relax and have your lunch or snack. Occasionally, bands would play music in the square. Today, there was a band that played jazz. The fountains were turned off when the band was there, so I guess they schedule these groups. Across from the square, I can see the Canadian flag. It must be the Canadian Embassy. We went into the Embassy and they had an exhibition of the cooperation of how the Canadian and the British soldiers fought in World War II. They also provided internet service and a lounge area for visiting Canadians to relax. So we hung out here for a bit. Then we search and found Chinatown. I felt so at home with so many Cantonese speaking Asians here. Finally, we can enjoy a real Hong Kong meal.

After lunch, we went to the National Gallery, and took the guided tour. There was much to see and so little time. I'm sure one can easily spend several days in each of the museums. But we moved on after the guided tour and did a quick walk through the National Portrait Gallery, before heading over to the British Museum where we spent the majority of time in. Words cannot describe the grandness of the British Museum. We got back to our Hostel at around 7:30pm and I just crashed and slept.


On Saturday we walked around our Hostel area. We walked through the Camdon Market. There were many different things for sale, from clothes to food. It reminded us of the outdoor street shops in Hong Kong. Today we watched Stomp. I always wanted to watch Stomp, ever since it was in Calgary. This show consists of people making music with ordinary stuff from around the house. They used brooms, garbage cans, sinks and a bunch of other stuff. An excellent show, I would definitely recommend it. Later, we went over to the Westminster area, where we saw the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and London eye. Shortly after arriving, rain started to pour on us heavily for about 1.5 hours. Luckily, we packed our Helly Tech jackets. We were one of the few that was still walking around on the streets during the heavy rain. We stopped by a Japanese restaurant for dinner. We haven't had any sushi for months, the last time we went to a sushi restaurant was back in Calgary!


On Sunday, we went to Victoria and Albert Museum and joined the guided tour. Then we went to the Science museum for a short show before going for lunch at another Japanese restaurant. Then we went back to the Westminster area to take more pictures of Big Ben and the London Eye. Close by there was an exhibition of the Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanjing. It's about the Japanese occupation of China in the second world war. There was very graphic and disturbing images and information. I felt sick. It was horrifying to know that a human being can do such things to another human being. I think this was many times worse then the Holocaust. You would be lucky if you were simply killed! For more info, check out this site: http://www.gendercide.org/case_nanking.html

From Westminster, we went to look for a bus that could take us over to Buckingham Palace. After walking 10 minutes, we realized that it would probably be easier if we just walked there. We passed through Green Park and Hyde Park on our way there. They look like nice places to sit down and have a picnic.

After a long walk, we arrived in front of Buckingham Palace. There was a nice fountain in front of the gates and more huge statuses of lions. They're similar to the ones in Trafalgal Square except that these ones has someone on them. We took some pictures by the fountain and of the palace. Eventually, I made my way on top of a lion and sat on it's back for a picture. I'll try to have some pictures posted soon.

We're flying out today, Monday, so we had to pack our backpacks and carry them with us as we visited the Tower of London and the Science Museum. We were on a tight schedule today. Our flight leaves at 7pm but since we need to check in 2 hrs before and it takes us 1 hr to get to the airport, it means that we must leave for Heathrow at 4pm. From our hostel we took the tube to the Tower of London, and took some pictures of the London Bridge. We opted not to go into the Tower and decided to go for a good lunch. We made our way to Chinatown and I had an excellent bowl of rice noodles with roasted duck. I haven't had such tasty roasted duck since I was in Calgary. After fulfilling our stomach, we went to the science museum. I think I can spend at least a few days in here. There's so many interesting things to learn about. Today was pretty tiring cause we were walking around with our backpacks all day. Next time, I’ll pack much lighter! In fact, who needs a change of clothes? =)

Today when we flew back to Dublin. I decided to not take any drugs (motion sickness pills) cause it was only a 50 minutes flight. Luckily, I didn't puke or anything... it's a good first step, but I dare not to go without it on an international flight.

I'll try to have the pictures posted soon. It should be up there since I have no job and obviously should have time to write up the blog and post the pictures... but I had no idea that I could be so occupied with nothing! Well, I’m looking for another job, learning to make new dishes, reading up on ASP.NET, learning to write Chinese… keeping myself busy. Still homesick though.

Observations of London:
- People seem to look nicer and wear nicer clothes
- All museums do bag searches
- We didn't get searched when we had our bags with us on the tube
- Very much like Calgary with the multicultural faces
- Very tasty Chinese food, comparable to Calgary
- All museums had no admission fee, but had a donation box
- Every corner we turned, there was a theatre
- Tube is very very very convenient
- People are nice
- Taxi's look funny. They have 2 fold down seats attached to the back of the driver and front passenger seats. So 4 people can sit comfortably in the back

Movies...

We watched the Wedding Crasher and War of Worlds. Wedding Crasher was funny but I think it would probably appeal to guys more. I can't believe War of the Worlds did so well in the box office. It an alright movie... probably good to see it once but I wouldn't want to watch it again. The two movies both have a typical hollywood ending.

Today we went to a photo gallery. It was a football (soccer) theme, so all the pictures were about football. It didn’t appeal to me too much because I’m not a football fan. The pictures were taken in many different locations around the world. I guess it’s trying to say that one commonality between everyone around the world is football…

Bo bought a book today. It’s called ‘My Life by Bill Clinton’. I would say that the book is about Bill Clinton, perhaps his autobiography? I wonder what compelled him to buy this book? I give it a week before he finds something better to do or read.

My computer at work crashed...

... and I lost everything in my profile! The application that i've been working on for the past few months is gone... luckly I backed it up on one of the servers so I only lost about 2 days of work. The application that I'm currently building is a VB.NET windows appplication. 'I was responsible for designing and developing an automation application which automates the CD replication process with the Rimage™ machines. This includes sending production order media components and print components to the disk replication device and the printer.' Does that sound impressive? I hope so, cause it's in my resume... so my last day is on Wednesday, July 27th. On the 28th, Bo and I are taking a trip to London for 5 days. Yes, we did see the news about the unfortunate events that occurred in London...

Anyways, I added links to fellow bloggers on my blog, it's near the top left corner. Give it a mouse over and the links will appear. (Fairly simple Javascript and CSS) If I missed your page, that's cause I don't have a link for it. Send it to me if you like a link to your page.

All about Bo...

Last Sunday, Bo got up really early in the morning even though he didn't have to work. Bo signed up to participate in the Adidas 5 miles challenge. Way too early for me to get up and run 5 miles. (I don't think that I can even run for 5 mins without stopping) Bo left at 8:30 to make it to the start of the run at 10am. He was able to run it in around 45-50 mins. There's going to be an Adidas 10 miles challenge next month, then a half marathon challenge in September and a full marathon in October. Bo is starting to train for the Dublin marathon in October so I think he's planning on participating in all those runs. I had thought about participating in the marathon but that thought lasted about a few minutes. I find it difficult to think about exercising when i'm stuffing my face with chocolates and chips and drinking pop. Hey, can someone in Canada check if the coke cans has'vegetable extracts' as one of the ingredients?

Riverdance at the Gaiety...

We went to see the Riverdance in the Gaiety Theatre on Saturday. The Gaiety Theatre is not a huge theatre so none of the seats were horrible. We were sitting in ground level, about 6 rows back with center seats. We bought what we thought were the best seats. This theatre has two more levels and though we were in the best seats, I would likely go for the first row in the upper floor. Even though each row on the ground level had a slight incline, I was too short to get an absolute clear view of the entire stage. This also be because there was this 'big head' lady sitting in front of me. However, I still enjoyed the show very much, and would consider going again if anyone's interested. (Riverdance will be in Dublin until mid August) The show was about two hours long, with a 15 minute intermission in between. I don't want to say too much about the show, you can come see it for yourselves. We watched the afternoon show so it was 6ish when it ended. We almost got tickets to go see Elton John that night. We were ready to pay for them until I found out that they were standing tickets and the seated ones would have been another 60 euros more. Oh well, I think it was a good decision not to go anyways, since the show was scheduled to start in less than 1 hour and we had no idea where it is...