Ireland and Northern Ireland

Yes, its two different countries! Next on our Spring break itinerary is the Ireland and Northern Ireland. For your information, Dublin is not part of the UK. They use Euros, but they still drive on the left side. Anyway, so we heard, Ireland is a super scenic place. Although there’s nothing much to do, but the scene over there are enough to take your breath away. Plus, Dublin is the home for Guinness. So, you can actually go for a brewery tour!
Throughout our stay in Ireland and Northern Ireland, we stayed with Paddywagon. They are a big chain in both the countries, having hostels (value for money) and conducting tours around the two cities. So if you stay for more than 3 nights with them, you get a free tour from them. Besides that, they also offer airport transport for free!

Happy days in Paddywagon

So, the first day is Dublin. We went to the Guinness Brewery on St. James for the tour.

Guinness

With the tickets, you get to have a free pint of Guinness at the Gravity Bar (which usually costs 5 euros per pint in pubs) and also a shot in the tasting lab. Yes, before a Guinness can be qualified as a Guinness, experts do actually QC them by tasting in the Tasting Lab. And then, you can also try to fill your own pint of Guinness. Like what boyfriend did. Certified! Haha.

Boyfriend in the background

And the next day is Sandemann’s free walking tour to understand why there is Northern Ireland and Ireland and not only one Ireland. Interesting history!
To eat in Dublin is fairly expensive. For a few meals, we actually opted for McDonald’s instead of proper pub food! A full Irish breakfast can easily costs you almost 10 euros while a Guinness beef stew can take another 10 euros away from you. But the Sandemann’s tour has incentives from this particular pub called O’nells.

We get a main and a drink for 10 euros instead of the normal 20 euros. So we finally got to try the Guinness beef stew! And it was really really good!

Guinness beef stew

Mushroom bacon soup

Next stop is Belfast, Northern Ireland. From Dublin to Belfast, we are actually crossing an international borders. But since the 80s or the 90s, things between the two countries got better and thus, no more tight security checks while travelling between the two countries. As our tour guide have said, you might not even be aware that you’ve crossed the border. We took a 4 hours bus from Dublin to Belfast and reached in the evening. Since it is spring, we still have day light even time like 8pm. And a must see thing in Belfast is their long stretch of political mural, which I find it quite fascinating!

Imagine you drew all the things on public walls of Malaysia/Singapore, the next thing you know is you are in court. Well, we do have graffiti in Malaysia, but it’s all xxx love yyy, or zzz is here. Meaningless! After resting for the night, we took the free tour from Paddywagon to Giant’s Causeway and Derry/Londonderry! Look how beautiful this is?? Our tour guide, Troy, is a funny person with a good sense of humor. He is all excited bringing us into the nature while telling us all his Irish jokes in his heavy Irish accent. And most importantly, he brought us to this place called Causeway Hotel for a nice lunch. (Well, he practically eats there everyday). Now some picture of scenes!

The Carrick-a-rede rope bridge...yes I can't believe I actually crossed it

Giant's causeway. These are all made from valcano's lava

Giant's Causeway

Blue sky, blue sea. Lovely

A cute couple, telling the whole world nothing could beat them, not even the waves from Giant's Causeway. Romantic

Compared to Dublin, Belfast is a cheaper city. First night, we had pub food! It is called Brennan’s bar, just across the Europa Hotel. We heard about this bar from our friends and they heavily recommended it to us, describing the cheeseburger as heavenly. So boyfriend and I decided to try it. But, it was unfortunate that their cheeseburger was out, so we had pie and a mixed grill instead.

Mixed grill with champ

Pie and fries

One side dish that you must have in pubs here is CHAMP. Champ is actually mashed potatoes, with loads of butter and cheese, and some spring onions. It’s….no words can describe it actually. Delicious! And in the Giant’s Causeway Hotel, we had this cheeseburger and Irish coffee (whisky + coffee). No Ireland trip is complete with it. The cheeseburger was just okay and boyfriend and I had decided that we are not big fan of Irish coffee.

Cheeseburger with bacon and champ

Irish coffee

After the trip from Giant’s Causeway, we took away our dinner of jacket potatoes and cheeseburgers (yes, again) from this shop called Spud for only 5 euros, before taking the free bus back to Dublin. Paddywagon’s staff were kind enough to let us on the bus!

2 large baked potatoes with cheese and bacon=2 pounds

So the last day in Dublin was spent by going to and outskirt trip, again free with Paddywagon, to Glendalough, Kilkenny and Wicklow Mountains. This is also a back-to-nature trip with a long stopover in Kilkenny. Glendalough means 2 lakes in Irish, and let the picture speak for itself about this place.

One of the lakes in Glendalough

In Kilkenny, we had pub food again. And yes, if you’re wondering, cheeseburger again! Besides that,we had Irish stew, which is cooked with mutton and served with some bread and butter. I should say the Irish stew is especially good. If tastes a bit like our chinese lamb stew. Ahh..comfort food. Kilkenny is a small town by itself. Nothing much to see actually but it’s a good getaway from the more expensive Dublin.

Yes, you got it right, cheeseburger!

Mutton Irish stew

After this trip, it was back to school and facing my FYP report all over again. Thank god it is all over. No more travelling posts until summer holidays.