Dublin: The River Lippey and the Ha' penny Bridge...

Saturday, 30th July 2011

River Liffey runs through the city of Dublin, dividing the entertainment and shopping district of Temple Bar and Grafton Street to the south and the historical O'Connell Street with the GPO to the north. In fact it would be inaccurate to say the districts to the north of the river is the historical district as the St Stephens Park and the Dublin Castle - two important sites during the Easter Uprising of 1916 were located to the south of River Liffey. In fact, as pakdokter later learnt from the few tours and from pakdokter's reading - so many sites in Dublin are of historical significance and it would require at least a 2-week stay to visit and appreciate them all.

From the O'Connell Street, pakdokter walked along the northern banks of River Lippey. The river bank was lined by pubs and bar and pakdokter crossed the river at Ha'Penny Bridge - an old pedestrian bridge whose name was derived from the fact that when it was first built the folks who walked throughthe bridge had to pay a toll of half-a-penny.

the Ha'Penny Bridge...

a close-up of the Ha'Penny Bridge..

begging on the bridge....a sign of the bad times...

no, not a woman in purdah...

a local in a hooded sweater....

he was cold and hungry probably...

we had a light lunch

at the Merchant's Arch Bar and Restaurant..

a good ole fish and chips..

pakdokter's partner only had a bowl of carrot soup...

the Ha'Penny Bridge thru the door of the bar..

Dublin : The O'Connell Street..

Saturday, 30th July 2011

From the northern end of Grafton Street, pakdokter walked passed the Trinity College, crossed the bridge over Lippey River towards the O'Connell Street. This is the city's main street and it claims to be the widest street in Europe. The centre of the street is decorated with statures of angels and of personalities of historical significance to Ireland. D'Spire is a 120 metre landmark in the middle of the street in front of the GPO ( General Post Office) building. The GPO is one of the last great public buildings of the Georgian era. It was the headquarters of the An Post - the Irish Postal Service and was built in 1814. It was the headquarters of the Irish republican Army during the 1916 uprising against the British. Bullet holes on the building columns and statues are a reminder of the bloody battles that took place there.

the southern end of the O'Connell Street....

students and tourists taking a rest in

the not so hot of a summer....

the Lord and his angels...

D' Spire....

the historic GPO building...

the GPO Building..

Dublin: Grafton Street - the Main Shopping Street of Dublin........

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....!

The Many Ways to Tour Dublin...

Saturday, 30th July 2011

Pakdokter has learnt, from the many years of travelling, that the best way to tour a city is to walk the streets. The main tourist areas of Dublin - at they appeared on the map pakdokter took from the hotel reception - were all within walking distance from our hotel. And despite being in the height of summer, it was actually a very cold summer. Mornings were easily about 10 degrees celcius and on most afternoons the peak temperature was between 15 to 18 degrees celcius. This made it more easy to tour the city on foot.

As pakdokter walked the streets of Dublin - pakdokter could not help but notice the many different ways one could tour the city. The pictures below are self-explanatory.

These hop-on-hop-off bus are nowadays a common facility in most cities world-wide. Even our own capital-city, Kuala Lumpur, now has such a service in operation. It cost 17 Euros per person to take this bus tour which could be used over 2 days. Some of the tourist sites are located quite a distance away from the city centre and would be too far to be reached on foot - so this hop-on-hop-off bus would be a good choice. The buses travel on a fixed route with stops at locations of touristic interests. And there would be a bus coming around again to pick one up every 10 to 15 minutes. On the bus, there was a multi-lingual translation audiophones which keep you informed of the sites of interest. Otherwise if you understand English ( albeit with a heavy Irish accent and lots of Irish humour!) it would be best to hear the driver narrates to you the history, stories and jokes about each of the places the tour covered. Pakdokter would recommend to just sit on the bus for a complete bus tour of the city first which would take about one and a half hour - then to continue on the bus and stop at the places that interest you.

As pakdokter sat through the bus tour - pakdokter told himself that when pakdokter returned home pakdokter must check out how the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus of KL is.

these horse carriages were seen outside the St Stephen's Park

just to the south of our hotel,

but pakdokter was not sure which parts of the city

the carriage-tour will go to..

and pakdokter wondered if the tricycles below

were driven by university students earning money

during the summer holidays to pay for their university fees....

The yellow coloured boats on wheels or the 'Duck Tours' are also a common feature in many cities these days. Pakdokter first took a 'duck-tour' in Boston many years ago. It was a very exciting ride both on water as well as on the streets, witty,informative and interactive tour with a very articulate tour guide-cum-boat/bus driver. As one can see from the picture above - the tourists on the 'duck-tour' all wore the 'Viking' head-gear and from the constant screaming and shouting from the tourists on the boat - they must be having a really great time.

Dublin also has a modern tram service but perhaps this was not the best way to tour the city.

Of special interest in Dublin was the 'bicycle-rental' facility which pakdokter noticed at various parts of the city. One makes the payment to rent the bike from the coin-booth and takes the bicycle for the specified hours of the rental and can return it back at the many other stations where they can be taken out or parked. Our city authorities should come and study this service and perhaps consider starting this facility for our city folks. This is indeed a very 'green' initiative which the city of Dublin has embarked upon.

Dublin Here We Come......

Friday, 29th July 2011

The trip to Ireland was planned many months, earlier in the year. One of pakdokter's golfing buddy at our club, Mr Zahardin a.k.a. Mr Dean O'Malley - was planning to return to Dublin to visit his sister-in-law for her wedding anniversary. As pakdokter had never been to this island - Dean's invitation was gladly welcomed and a 'driving holiday' was planned well in advance. It helped to have someone in Dublin to suggest the hotels and the itinerary.

The flight to London on Malaysia Airlines took just over 12 hours. As it was a morning flight, pakdokter was awake throughout the journey and managed to finish one of the 4 novels by Yasunari Kawabata which pakdokter had packed for reading during the holidays. It was a great read and pakdokter was surprised that pakdokter did not read Kawabata's books earlier.

The transit at Heathrow was for about 2 hours - as our luggage had been checked-in to Dublin - we did not have to lug our bags from Terminal 4 where we arrived to Terminal 1 where the BMI flight to Dublin took off. It was only a short 45 minutes flight from London to Dublin.

Although we arrived at our hotel at almost 7 in the evening -it was still bright and sunny but fairly cold despite July being in the height of summer.

Pakdokter's partner had booked to stay at the Buswells Hotel some 3 or 4 months ago and she got a very good deal from the early booking. The room, with breakfast included, cost just below 100Euros a night - for a comparison - when she wanted to extend her stay in Dublin at the end of our holidays - all hotels in the same class sold for more than twice the price we got from our early on-line booking!

Hotel Buswells was located in the city centre near the Government House - as such the traditional and pretty bar at the hotel is a favourite meeting place of the politicians and celebrities. Throughout the 4 days pakdokter stayed there - TV cameramen and reporters were always almost stationed outside the hotel to catch some of the VIP's for their opinion and comments on current issues.

From the hotel, it was a short walk of 100 metres to Graftyon Street - the main shopping street of Dublin. The lovely historic Trinity College was also a short walk away. In fact the most of the main areas of tourist interests of Dublin were within walking distance.

As we were tired from the 16 hours of travel since we left home - we decided to have our dinner at the hotel's Trumaan Restaurant. Pakdokter took fancy of the fish dish which came wrapped up in 'bak choy'.