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I was crossing over the O'Connell Bridge on my way home the other night and passed by a very familiar scene - the River Liffey and Ha'Penny Bridge at the far end.
Dublin might not be the largest nor the most historic European city, but if you slow down your pace to treasure its uniqueness, Dublin could be quite picturesque.
Together with Alan and Aravind, we met up one of our ex-colleague last Saturday afternoon at his house. The weather was very warm by Dublin's standard at 25 degree celsius. Sitting round a wooden table at the backyard terrace, we had a cuppa and cookies while catching up with each other. He is an Irish and was loving the sun; Alan and his wife were dodging under the shade. ;p
That night, we had our dinner with Alan and Kher Xing at Mandarin Oriental Restaurant. Seafood with beancurd, chicken and vegetable with salted eggs. Yummy! :)
Mandarin Oriental is by far our favourite chinese restaurant in Dublin. The owner is from Hong Kong and the food served are especially palatable to us Malaysian. ;) We've not been to the restaurant for about half a year. The food still tasted as good.
One of the places I wish to travel to before I die is the state of Israel. Being the focal point of the 3 great monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - it's the biblical Promised Land to the Jews, home to the Solomon Temple and also the third holiest site in Islam, Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Holding a Malaysian passport and being an independent traveller, the bureaucratic arrangements to set foot on Israel are complicated. As such for my next holiday, I found an interesting alternative - Turkey!
Some of the greatest ancient cities - the Hellenistic Troy and Pergamum, the Roman Ephesus and the Byzantine Constantinople - are located in Asia Minor, modern day's Turkey. Turkey is a transcontinental country where part of the land belongs to Europe and the rest to Asia, being separated by the strait of Bosphorus. Part of the ancient Silk Road also passed through this land. Not only does Turkey contain some of the most complete ancient ruins and monuments in the world, it's got beautiful beaches along the Aegean Sea and Mediterranean too.
I'm going to soak in history and the sea in 2 weeks time! ;) Siew Leng and I are taking a package holiday for my flights and accommodation this time round.
Day 1 - Flight from Dublin to Izmir. Land transfer from Izmir to the resort town of Kusadasi where we'll be based at. We'll spend the rest of the day orientating ourselves at the resort town.
Day 2 - Our first highlight of the trip, the ancient city (or ruins) of Ephesus! This is where St. John the apostle and Virgin Mary spent the end of their life here. The gospel of John is said to have been written here and St. Paul also preached at the Great Theatre here twice. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Temple of Artemis is also located here; but there's nothing much to see as the temple has been damaged over the course of history and only a handful of Corinthian columns are left standing.
Day 2 - After lunch, we'll head to the hilly town of Sirince nearby which is famed for its Greek rural architectures and vineyards. Some travel guides suggest Sirince is photographers' paradise. Hehe! I'll find out soon. And we surely are going to do some wine tastings too!
Day 3 - Excursion to the Greek island of Samos. Yes, we're taking a ferry day trip to Greece! If you still remember your high school's mathematics - the Pythogoras Theorem, Pythogoras was borne at Samos. We're going to take it easy and chill out at the Greek villages and seasides.
Day 4 - We'll be taking an overnight bus from Kusadasi the night before and arrived Istanbul early morning. After checking into our hotel, we'll head straight to the famous Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque and romp the Grand Bazaar. We'll probably spend the night tasting authentic kebab, blowing the waterpipe Shisha and attending a Turkish belly-dancing show. ;)
Day 5 - Conquer the Topkapi Palace and cruise the strait of Bosphorus. We'll be cruising under two of the greatest suspension bridges in the world at over 1 km long. During the evening, we'll wash up at one of the atmospheric Turkish bathhouses, Hamam before taking an overnight bus back to Kusadasi.
Day 6 - It must be tiring after taking 2 overnight bus journeys during 2 of the last 3 nights. So we'll chill out at the sandy beach of Kusadasi right at the doorstep of our resort. We might do a scuba dive or snorkelling at the Aegean Sea and spend the rest of the day sunbathing. ;p
Day 7 - We're returning to nature - Pamukkale. The distinctive stalactite formations were formed by the natural hot springs and tectonic movements of the earth crust. Certain sections of the hot spring are opened to public. We're going to swim in these aqua blue natural pools! :)
On top of the Pamukkale are the ruins of the ancient city of Hierapolis. We'll spend rest of the day wandering the ruins and return to Kusadasi during the evening.
Photos courtesy to various photographers copied from www.flickr.comOn a lovely afternoon more than 2 months ago, I went to check out Herbert Park which is nearby our apartment in Ballsbridge. It was early Spring and was still rather chilly in Dublin when cold breeze bashed against your face. The 48-acre park is only 15 min walking distance away. :)
On my way to the park, I made a short detour to visit the Parish of St Bartholomew. It's a cosy church consecrated in 19th century.
I was strolling alone and it was rather quiet around the church compound. For a moment, I felt so peaceful.
Herbert Park is another 5 min away. I entered the park through the Herbert Park Hotel's entrance.
The park was so serene. It was not crowded, nor it seemed eerily deserted. Irish are indeed one of the friendliest bunch of people in the world. While strolling around the park, I was greeted by almost every folk whom I bumped into. Most of the strollers were retired old folks. I find that old folks here really know how to enjoy their life. A number of them own a holiday house somewhere in Southern Spain or France and spend their day reading books, enjoying wines and the beautiful seascape scenery.
And they are very kind and nice to animals. It won't be surprised seeing people feeding the birds and swans with expired breads. :)
I was taking pictures around this beautiful pergola, where an old lady offered to photograph me. We chatted briefly and our conversation revolved around the hard times of the financial crisis. She is such a lovely person. Unexpectedly, upon parting, she read me an Irish poem! I couldn't recall every phrases of the poem. I only remember the message was that no matter ups or downs, good or bad, Ireland welcomes my coming and going and I should always be cheerful. Wonderful lady, doesn't she?
I passed by the flower garden and the tulips were starting to blossom! It was so colourful and beautiful.
It was an enjoyable and relaxing walk except that I had to dodge the drizzle for 5 min under a tree! :)
Spirit of Manila Airlines is a low-cost airline based in Philippines and Manila Skies is their inflight magazine published bimonthly. In their April/May issue, there was an article on Dubai tourism.
Above is an excerpt of the article copied from their magazine's website.
3 months ago, I was approached by the editor of Manila Skies, requesting the high-resolution file of a photo taken by myself in Dubai and my permission to use the photo in their magazine publication. I was hysteric and elated, by all means! That was the first time ever my photo is being considered to be used in publication. I emailed over my photo as discussed and was looking forward to the next magazine issue.
However, the editor informed me that they had changed their mind at last minute and used another photo instead. Heck! "Return my jpeg file!" - as if this could help.
Obviously I was disappointed and dejected.
Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai by Nelson ChinI was walking to the city centre last month on a foggy day when I stumbled upon Dublin's latest engineering masterpiece - the Samuel Beckett Bridge.
Samuel Beckett Bridge spanning across River Liffey is designed by world renowned Spanish architect and engineer, Dr Santiago Calatrava. Santiago's designs and creativities never fail to amaze me. I visited the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia 2 years ago, which was design by him as well. The design of the building complex totally blew my mind off, both structurally and architecturally. 
This is Santiago's second bridge project in Dublin after the James Joyce Bridge further upstream. The main span of the bridge is 123m long and the arc pylon is 48m height. It could be rotated mechanically about its concrete pier to allow larger ships to pass through when necessary. It's not really a huge bridge structure relatively. Nevertheless it's still a very gracious cable-stayed bridge.
The contract was awarded to Graham and Hollandia joint venture and is scheduled to open to public next year. The steel bridge superstructure was fabricated in Rotterdam by Hollandia and was only towed to River Liffey recently. The bridge structure has yet to be lifted to its concrete pier then, pending the completion of some finishing and commissioning works.
The layout of the cables and arc pylon are meant to resemble a harp lying on its edge. Harp has been a political symbol of Ireland for centuries. 
Marvelous!
Having spent the whole morning at Jumeirah, we went to Dubai Mall for lunch.
En route, we passed by many modern towering skyscrapers along the Sheikh Zayed Road. These buildings were non-existent merely a decade ago. Imagine the billions of dollar that have been spent by the Emirates state to put Dubai on world map.
That's the newly-opened indoor aquarium at Dubai Mall.
Burj Dubai, is undoubtly the tallest structure in the world by all records. Standing majestically at over 800m, Burj Dubai is almost twice as high as the 452m Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia. I felt so minute standing at the base of the megastructure.
The Gold Souq of Deira Dubai. This's bizarre; basically most of the shops lining the street were selling gold, 22ct gold!
We strolled around the area, gold shop upon gold shop. I have never seen so much gold in my life, until as if they were unreal. ;)
Abra, being used as water taxi to ferry people across the river of Dubai Creek. This form of transport was very cheap, AED1 one way!
Emirati costumes. In fact, there were still many locals wearing these costumes at the streets. All of the staffs at the airport were wearing these costumes too.
We thought of seeing the city from another perspective - from the river. No other tourist to share with us, we hired a private abra for an hour river cruise at Dubai Creek. Emiratis are adamant. I bargained for about 10 min and was only able to reduce AED10 to AED90 for the private cruise. Well, thinking it was less than €10 per person, we took the deal. :p
Dubai Creek is home to the historic sea port of Dubai, or Dhow Wharf as it's being called. Dhow is a traditional Arab sailing vessel with lateen sails. Many dhows today still dock at Dubai Creek and the wharfs are still bustling with activities.
Silhouette of the Burj Dubai and the Emirates Towers during sunset.
Dhow Wharf.
The sceneries along Dubai Creek were indeed picturesque. With cold breeze bashing against your faces as the abra cruised, it's just so relaxing. :)
He's our captain onboard - the cool man who refused to give me further discount! Darn him!
The sunset was warm and glorious. This is my favourite photo taken during the trip.
After the cruise, we proceeded to the Bur Dubai Souq. We were rather tired and thus just walked around the souq briefly before heading to our last destination of the day.
Bastakiya District. It's home to many reconstructed buildings in traditional styles - with the Dubai Mosque looming in the background.
Bastakiya also houses some nice museums and galleries. It was getting late and some of the museums were closing during our visit.
Traditional wind towers.
We decided to call it a day. I'd love to visit the Arabian Peninsula again, and probably head to the dessert for sand activities and overnight at Bedouin camp next time round. Siew Leng is not so fond of Dubai though, having met some hostile-looking Emiratis at the souqs. :)
Next, we were going to meet my friend, Chow for dinner. Guess what, he brought us to a chinese restaurant! I wanted to try Arab food, Arab spices! *frustrated*
