A Do-It-Yourself Trip in Galway

What brought me to Galway? I would say it is Jenny dear. According to her colleagues Galway is a nice place to visit. So here we go GALWAY! Before reaching Galway we stopped by at Pei's home which next door is her marvelous bakery workshop. Once she opened the door, we all went 'yayyyy'. Pei was so generous for us eating and sampling her good stuffs.

Pei's wonder tarts

Today Galway has become a popular tourist place in Repulic of Ireland. It is only a few hours drive from Dublin. It has an atmopshere which is same like when you visit Edinburgh. Lots of foreign tourists and excursions available. Instead everyone here decided to follow my DIY excursion. I picked up some of the excursion leftlets and start drawing out routes and plans. It is easy to plan since we have the car plus it is cheaper.

Some weird stuff seen at next to the motorway to Galway

My initial planned route: starting from Galway --> Blackhead --> Cliff of Moher --> Galway
Then turned out: Galway --> Ballingvaun Bay --> Blackhead --> Ballingvaun Junction --> Cliff of Moher --> Galway

My planned route using the tourist brochure

1st scene is Dunguire Castle

Behind Dunguire Castle

The Burrows

Until we reach the Ballingvaun Junction

Break for lunch

Sundried tomato

Nightime in Galway. This area was full of Irish pub and free Irish music.

*actual date May 2010

Best Spring Ever in Ireland

It was my great idea to book this trip so to be with Mei & the saints there and also to have a break from work during my week. We bought the easyjet ticket flying from Newcastle and that time was before the airlines disaster due to the volcanic ash. Mind you a week before we travelled, there was another volcano eruption hence cancelling all the flight to Ireland from Newcastle. But our flights to / back that week after were fine.

I'm so glad to be in Ireland. I miss everyone. What a bless to be in the church life. You should join me in the church life. You get the enjoyment everywhere in the world and where ever you go and live. This time in Ireland we have Sharon & Ray brought us out to tour Belfast city and the Trouble sites / attended the book of Roman's seminar in Belfast and met somelocal Irish friends / babysit little Daniel and ate a feast at his home that filled me outward but also inwardly / experienced Annie's warm hospitality. Then Mei driving with us and Jenny to visit Dublin, Galway and also the Cliff of Moher. In Dublin we have the Lord's table meeting and good fellowship with Pei Pei, Kenneth & Shirley, Alferdo & Catriona at their home. Kenneth even treated us nice Si Chuan cuisine before leaving Dublin. We did the Giant's causeway too. All in all the trip was awsome, please go check out each of the highlights underlined here.

*actual date 22 - 27 May 10

Belfast, The Troubles and Us

First day we in Belfast and we got Mei to pick us from the airport. Sunny weather here, nice! Everytime we have a sunny day, I felt bless because sunny day is hard to afford in the UK. Sharon & Ray, originally from Phillipines took day off to be with us and show us Belfast. David from Birmingham is here too for the Belfast seminar.

Belfast, the main city in the Northern Ireland and is bigger than Newcastle. It has more taller buildings than most cities in UK. And no chewing gum stain on the floor! Sadly it has The Troubles too. I only know the Troubles was due to the political conflict hence war and fight occurred and still occurring between these two christian groups. The people with Catholic and the Protestant background seldom go along together due to there was a time in society, discrimination was seriously bad against the Catholic ones (usually poorer or lower class citizen and not supporting the Queen). The Protestant ones are the opposite. So you can identify yourself by the hanging flags at that area to tell where you are now in Belfast.

It get so bad till a wall and gates are needed to separate the two areas.

Tourists do come here to take photos and also print their name on the wall.


Here is the loyalist area. Meaning only for the loyal ones here.

Hope this trouble will end soon not just good for the people but also to end the disgrace to God. It is very ungodly for either group to treat their brothers that way when they still say to worship in Christ.

Anyway we also went to Queensland University,

Belfast City Hall (where Titanic, the film have their interior layout especially the grand staircase all copied from this place) and there was also the first ever continental market in Belfast that week and I tried my first Ostrich burger. sosolah~~

Ulster Museum, found inside the botanical garden (the history about The Troubles is here and don't miss the Ice Age exhibition there)

and many shoppings street and malls. The Victoria Albert mall will definately delight or sadden a person I know who also is an architecture from home. He has an idea for a mall as Victoria Albert but got rejected by the engineers due to they think it was impossible to build. The whole building is unique which sorta like indoor shopping but still seem like an outdoor.

There is GBK too and the burger was like 5 stars ***** burger, meaning so so good. Their promotion time is Mon to Fri at 2 - 4pm, £4 instead of the full price (£6 - £8). So I chose the best and popular one.Original price was £8.00 for this bacon, cheese and Angus beef with tomato chutney.

You can also see the whole Belfast city centre when you go up the spiral located centre of the mall.

*actual date 22 - 27 May 10

Back to the Old British Past Times

**First of all, my bad. Please accept my apologies for not updating for such a long time. I’m learning to post regularly. Please continue to use the comment and chatter box feature to leave any message. Now, let us talk about museum….

It was a hot British summer and we four young girls decided to pay this place a visit. The Beamish Museum has always been a well known place for people in the North East. It features the live in 1800 to 1900. For me this is a very special museum because everything in there is alive. Yes…ALIVE....just like the movie – Night At the Museum starred by the main actors Ben Stiller, Robin Williams and Owen Wilson. Ooooh..how creepy is that. *LOL* Precisely, it is actually very interesting. This is a living museum. I love this place. If I have known earlier I would have brought along my picnic basket and making sure it is packed with the best British picnic food like luxury potted shrimp/lobster as spread on crackers, parsnip crisps with black pepper, rich smoked cheese, heavenly filled Cornish pasty, strawberries and clotted cream, nice bottle of wine or cider, and the list goes on and on….I love picnic very much and I think I inherited that especially from my dad.

So....Every museum has an entrance so as this one. I don’t think anyone will miss it. The museum is located on several hills and valleys.

And of course you may choose to walk or get the tram or the bus. Remember we are now back to the olden days in Britain. So the locomotives should be consistent to that time's trend.

First is the farm. Actually there was the 1800 period, but I'm gonna skipped that for you. *Cheeky grin*

That closet below is the toilet. No wonder WC means wash closet. *LOL* Look closer and you will notice there is a bench with two holes on top. I think you will figure out what to do next.

The oven actually has real fire and the picture on its right is them smoking the meat to make smoked bacon. This is found in the room on the second floor directly above the oven.
Now we are in the 1900. Here is the town. There are shops, banks, dental surgery, court room, sweet shop, sundry shop and the printing shop.
This man was playing music out from his old wooden box. He was whinning it like you would normally do with your music box.
The above was a demostration of making honey comb sweet. It was a combination of syrup, sugar and somemore sweethening or hardening materials. When the yellow thing has harden and cool down, they will dismantle it into bite size pieces. Everyone there get to sample a piece so did I. =P
Here is the school and the school yard.This piece of board is where student uses a metal nail to scratch on it to write their answer.
Horse carridges. There are the high class and the lower class one.

We are now in the middle class home. Below is something their servant will bring to them every morning to wash their face.

The army camp. There was live gun fire exhibition.

The print shop. This reminded me about the Britsh evolution period which some history I learnt while in school.

Then we continue to the mine. It was actually a real coal mine. Inside was dark and cold.

It was an enjoyable and quite educational trip for us. I will go there again when we get the hot British weather back. Gladly the snow has not hit us in the North too badly. I shall blog about that on the next post.