Grafton Street is the main shopping street of Dublin. It was a short 100 metres walk or so from Hotel Buswells. At the northern end of this pedestrian mall was the Trinity College and the College Green and at its southern end the St Stephen's Park.
The whole street was lined by mostly boutiques and international brand shops, fast-food chain, cafes and restaurants. The Grafton Street Cafe - an old building dating back to 19271 was once the Whyte's Academy amongst whose students were eminent personalities like the Duke of Wellington and Robert Emmet.
Most shops were having their 'summer sales' with reduction up to 70% in some of the shops. From the crowd that filled up most of the shops - it did not look like Ireland was in a state of severe recession.
Pakdokter could not help but notice the presence of many Malaysian students in Dublin. For one pakdokter knows that there are many Malaysian medical students who study at the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland for their medical degree. But from the eavesdropping of a group of Malay students along the street - pakdokter realised that many of them were also studying Economics, Accounting and Finance. Pakdokter overheard them discussing offers of job they got from Ernst and Young, PWC, Petronas,ExxonMobil etc etc etc. And this crop of young and fresh graduates have been offered a starting salary of around RM4000 a month! Not bad. These guys and girls must have been top or good students with first class honours degrees from their universities.
The Grafton Street was also a place where there was many buskers and street performers did mimes etc for some pennies. At one end of the street, there was a booth with posters attacking Israel and a group of activists calling for a boycott of the Jewish state.
a street puppet show...
there was no wind..but his tie and hair were wind-swept....
all for some coins from the crowd....
when someone dropped a coin into his tin
he would drop his brief case before going
back into his statue-like pose...
boycott Israel now....!
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