Liverpool:
FOOD! Dim sum with stick and the guys. Poker. Home cooked. Failed. Haha. End of the world. Basilicas.Cool graveyards. Manchester. Clarks. Cocktails. Kopparberg. Where are we going. Migraine. Antacid. Plasters. Plaster your head lah plaster! Keris incinerator. Ugly libraries. Anfield. Huge ass dog that tried to eat us. A park called Ding. Latino. Italiano. Chinois. Pastries! Albert dock. Tong Fiona Tim and friends. Penguins! Retard. Tong Fiona Tim and friends again! Sherlock Holmes. Dim sum again. 2 bananas, a chinese-english menu and 20 minutes spent matching the chinese words. Poker on the train. More penguins! Take aways. I seem to be trying to bankrupt him. ATMs. Taylor Swift. MnMs. West wing. So much for trying to stay awake. Fat cheeks Good bone structures. super Nerd!! Goodbyes =(

London:
5 hour bus ride. ugh. jon, arif, jon's apek hairstyle. ce dong. vin shoon. chinatown. half a duck. only half a duck?! xin lyn and shen. london eye. packed. cold. austrians dancing. arif can rembr their dance now. countdown. 2 brits who knew all the songs. awesome fireworks. time pasts so fast. cried. tears of joy? called somebody. called somebody whilst crying. still cold. jon, policewomen and random dude who blocked jon's face in the picture. free tube but no bus. walked. did i mention cold? arif's first stoning moment. arifs cousin's place. spicy breakfast. arif's cousin's in law owned a nasi kandar so what we ate was the real thing. the way i like it. missed lyn by mins at victoria.

Sheffield:
Jons apartment. Interesting posters. Snowed heavier. Jon cooked steak! must remember recipe. snowed even heavier cus arif looked like a snowman when he came back from outside. hogged the laptop. felt bad. antisocial. but couldnt resist. ha ha. was late in picking lyn up. walked back. dropped by uni. Dyslexia support building. Perak building?! snowfights. 2 person snowfights. Jon cooked again. uncooked pasta, my bad. yogurts.football games. snowfights v2.0. lyn and snow angel. arif and snow writings. playstation. did i mention i suck in halo? jon and convertion rate depression. horrible bus ride to Manchester. too hot. peak district was pretty tho. Enn swan from Manchester. Vegetarian dim sum. 50% at Pacific. ireland here we come!

Paris:
Long bus ride from airport into town. Very useful metro.No rain. Yays. Crazy winds. Nays. No snow. Yays. Fear of Airport closure/ strikes. Nays. French pastries. French cuisine. French. Bonjour. Louvre. Notre Dame. Notre Dame to Louvre. to Eiffel. On foot. Did I mention crazy winds? Climbed 2 stories. Upper part closed. Shame Notre Dame's bell tower was closed too. Chinese food. If it's too good to be true, it usually isn't. Champ d'Elysee. Shanghainese couple. 1k Euro cash. Each/2 person. Louis Vuitton. So out of place. Tax refund lol. Snoring. Jon. Talking. Me. Sleepless. Lyn. Official snore stopper. Arif. Montmartre. Carrefour, still the same. Apples still has crunchy. Pigalle still as raunchy. Moulin Rouge. Chat Noir. Kebabs. Free entrance and Louvre. Mona Lisa. Madonna and rocks. Raphael. should have taken a picture of Raphael dang. Lyn; I'm not to blame, it was that gypsy girl!
A bit too early at the airport, felt kinda bad. oh wells.

Venice:
Upgraded to another place due to renovations. Awesome Another Place man! like a 5 star hotel. Ultimate stoning sessions. Huge ass pizzas. Canals. Bridges. Lanes. Crooked lanes. CS! Warm. Jon setting new fashion trends. Lyn and her Casanova obsessions. Italian Job and Victoria the famous courtesan. Hooked on the iTouch. Wifis are THE bomb when on tours. San Samuele! Lyn and Nathan. Skype. Arif go away! More huge as pizzas. Tavern San Traverso. Masks. Handpainted, not made in China! 500 euro notes. Rialto. Zattere. Old folks home island. No gondolas. Traghettos! Maybe it wasn't a traghetto. Shrug. Limping and bandages. :( Good weather. Nice atmosphere. More stoning moments. More snores. Train to Firenze was so expensive!

Firenze:
Only 4 hours there. Enough to show similarities with Rome. Beautiful Basilica tho. Naked men. Naked David. "Picture? it zis Zimpossible!". Waffles. Pizza and pasta. Definitely would return to that rest if permitted. Boboli gardens were closed. Rude receptionists. pissed. Bought a bag.

Pisa:
B&B was so pretty and quaint. Something Arif's hse would look like if his mum had enough money and time on her hands. Sky tv! Grey's anatomy. Nip & Tuck. Chips. Random pictures. Miracle Square. Pisa. Cathedral. Apparently all buildings seem to be leaning only the Pisa tower leaned more. 15 bucks to go up. >.<. but went up anyways. Pretty picture from above. Could see mountains. Some funny name I cant remember but it wasn't the Alps. Left phone at B&B. Had to go collect it. Flew back to London.

London:
South African cuisine with Yvonne, Ce dong, and later Shen. Candles and knee high tables. Realized that 'talk talks' should definitely have Yvonne in them. We talked talks. ;) Everyone seems to be doing well. Somewhat. Food was very different. Whole new experience, altho reminded me of Turks.
Got lost finding hostel. No proper address. Alone. Phone was dead. I was scared man. Hailed a cab, nice man went around trying to look for it. Even waited till i was inside the hostel before driving off. :) Felt really good meeting up with the housies. Port wine anybody? Port egg tarts too! Confirmed the tickets. Topped up phone. Camden market on the morrow. Very funny HK couple. This Penang uncle. GG's hokkien is really quite good ah. Pickpocketed. Only used the pouch like 4 times too. :( Sucky dinner at Chinatown. Clarks at Oxford no stock. Highlight of the night was definitely the play. Watched Les Miserable. Teared where Fantine sang SuBo's song. Éponine so korlian wei. but it was splendid by all means! Can't believe people can actually sleep off during the show. ~.~ 4 days without internet, unbelievable.

"V-Day was invented by women to get the men in their lives to ignore the TV for a week — six days to organize it and pull out our hair, one day to pretend we had it planned from the year before."
~Mario Daniels, 25, Brooklyn

On a closing note: It's Streamyx Turkiye version here. Im going to die in Penang man.. =D

***Digression~*

Hey why everybody dont like my Mo Li Hua one?
PFFFTTT.

Guys, whatever happened to the getting to know our ancestry roots part?
FINE la, I'll change it. to like Red Hot Chilli Peppers or something. Something more 'IN'. Cheh.


***
Right anyway next update!
Us quintets just got back from Galway about 9pm just now.


Most of the pics will be up on Facebook, but I'll elaborate just a bit anyway.



Galway; A place that rains more than Dublin! (and some say Malaysia - urs truly, Krysp)

WL, Krysp and I reached there about 3pm the day before. Yah, did i mention the bus was at 12 noon but i thought it was at 1pm (cus i remember asking WL to book at 1pm) but anyway we reached there juuuusssttt as the bus was about to leave. Lol, talk about close, I NEVER wanna do that again! (doesnt help that after this im pretty sure Krys' gonna go "u sure or not?" x1241515879 times before we leave on a trip.... like how she used to =X )

3 hours and unknown minutes later, we reached a rainy Galway. Drizzling, it was about 4pm-ish when we stepped out of the hostel and looked for a place to eat. I talked to KZ before this and she recommended MacDonagh's fish and chips. So we walked over to Spanish Arch's area to have lunch and uh. . . . I kinda lost all the pics here. dang.

Anyway the restaurant was quite well decorated with plaques and awards like ;- the best chips in Ireland! or uh.. how this restaurant in HK copied and used their names for the chips. I'm surprised i haven't turned into a puddle of oil after eating there, seriously. I suppose they deserve credit for serving good varieties of fish (ie- cod is not the only option available) but the amount of oil and fat involved was just... scary.

The Spanish arches were probably part of something more magnificent before but today they are just 2 small little arches by the river. we were like uhm okay.

Then we decided to walk over to SaltHills. and before i say anything else, I'd just like to take this opportunity to quote someone; "Salthill should be on a hill, tht's why it's called salthill!"





It's okay Kryspe, I wont strangle you. Cus Moses won't let me. I mean, it's just more than 2 km's, crazy winds and heavy rain right? Yeah, no problemo~!!

Dinner was simple and sweet in McD's. Meh, I kinda binged a bit, felt like it's been ages since i had an urge to eat at McD's. Fellowship was good =).

WL and his 真愛 (translation : True Love) theories la, what the heck; lol. He makes it sound so simple and correct as if it's the most logical thing on earth, where you'd go "man, why didn't I think of that?"

ps- I still don't believe in 真愛's. nyek nyek.

JH and GG arrived around 9 and they went for dinner at Fat Freddies. Kryspe and me just pigged around in the hostel. We retired around 1am, and yes, it was still raining. It never stopped. =X

*I made a bet with JH, saying it was definitely gonna rain next morn; loser buy's a pizza. I was soooo sure I was gonna win, cus when we woke up it was raining, and quite heavily at that. But, when we left galway city towards the coastal routes, the skies cleared up really nicely. Okay, now I dont know who wins..*

ANYWAY, next morning we joined a tour by the Galway Tour Company. I forgot the name of the tourguide cum bus driver, but he was a typical irish man, irish accent, with a lot of "you with me?"s and a real knack for promoting GTC. He kept telling us how much we've saved by picking GTC haha, but then again, I do like his commentaries a bit. Like how he was telling us about the sheeps; "when Mr Sheep sees Mrs sheep and says HI, they proceed to... if you know what I mean.." hahah. And the infamous 'Moo-bah' cries by the cow-sheeps found around there. Yes, you read right. Cowsheeps! Genetically, I know its kinda impossible, but lads, we're in Ireland, yknow, the land of leprechauns! so yeah, cowsheeps actually exist! And i've even got a picture to prove it too!




As he drove along, he gave us much insights into the history of Ireland and Galway, and the rural areas around. Surprisingly, county Clare was home to quite a number of castles. We saw so many on the way and this is just one of it.

First (real) stop was a faerie fort! Woot, remember those stormforts I posted in the Kerry trips? Well this time we were actually brought into those forts, although this one was made of earth. From afar, you don't really get the size of it, since it just looks like a circle with rocks around it. But its completely different once you step in; to think that medieval people not only built 2-3 straw huts in the middle, they brought cattle into the ring at night and even dug canals around it. Mr Tourguide got us so hyped up when he mentioned 'secret pathways' (everybody say OOoooh now) but when we saw what might/could have been one, it was kind of a let down. haha, too much mystery novels here.
*I dont have a decent picture of the fort here, so I'm just going to help you reduce your loading times* :P

Next we headed to the Burren, a HUGE hilly area of rocks and lime stones, by the sea. Most of the plants there were ones that can be found in the Mediterranean or Artic areas. Apparently before the last ice age, the Burren was undersea, thus explaining the odd flora. And we were not supposed to even touch them flowers or "I'll kick your arse and then you'd go to jail", says our dear tour guide. Spectacular views, strong winds and totally unpredictable weather aside, it was a memorable trip. Most of the picturesque spots were actually burial grounds. =X


Okay the post is getting frickin long so i'll just skip straight to the Cliffs of Moher part. We had lunch at the visitor centre (hey, i think right, i have this tendency to get cheated during lunches in tours. this makes it the second time i'm paying for overpriced overrated food, but at least this time it was only me) =(

I'll let most of the pictures do the talking cause no matter how much i try to describe it, I think it'll just fall short of the immense beauty portrayed.





Got home a few hours before this and YX was waiting for us with FOOD (Chicken, baked vege + cheese, Tom yum = shllrruuppp). oh man... seriously, one day i'll dedicate a whole post just to advertise her. If you know her, then you'd know how she cooks too. Ichiban man! Bet or no bet, we were fed like winners! ;)