Off to Dublin!

14th & 15th September - Departure and Arrival Date

At Changi airport.
We are getting ready for IRELAND!

However, our flight was delayed for about an hour. Due to 1 of the passenger's luggage was missing.

We were all getting uber excited about flying but the delay was such a chore. Okay maybe I'm the only one getting excited as I have not sit on a plane for YEARS.

Okay get back to the topic.
So we were supposed to depart at 2305 but end up the plane only took off at 0015. By then, all of us were half asleep. The flight was alright. Some of us typically knock out in the 13 hours flight to London Heathrow while others watch movies and eat.

When we reach London, we had to take another flight to Dublin as we missed our initial flight which departs at 745. We got our replacement flight and managed to reach Dublin airport around 10 plus in the morning.

(video of us in London airport)

When we went to collect our baggage at the belt, we realized that our 2 tripod were missing and did not see them on the belt at all! We had to enquire about our missing tripod bags at the baggage counter. Julian, Huizhen and Bernard went over to report missing baggage while the rest look after the belongings. I guess they met a problem in explaining how a tripod bag looks like. I think they describe it as a rifle bag. WOW.

After reporting, the staff said that they will send our tripods to our hotel once they have it. So now we had to find our way to Kingston Hotel. Julian asked Kym, Joshua and I to check out at the tourism board which bus we can take to our hotel, and the lady told us that there’s public transport BUS 746 which goes to Dun Laoghaire (which is a small town where our hotel is located) but it takes an hr half to reach.

Time was an issue as we were all dead tired after the delay and transferring of flight and the thought of lugging our heavy luggage up on a public bus just put us off. So we asked if there’s a private coach which send us to the nearest and we managed to get on it.

We got on the bus, cost us 8Euro each. In the bus, there was a very kind couple that direct us how to get to our hotel from where we alight (which is at Royal Marine hotel). The girl who collected our bus fare has long blue nails and thick mascara, chewing bubble gum. I guess it's her vacation job. *shrug

The most challenging part is here.
After we alighted and on the way to Kingston Hotel, we had to go through this ridiculous turn-around thingy which has just enough space for a person to go through at a time. And guess what? Due to insufficient space for our heavy and bulky luggage to go through the turn-around-thingy, beside that was a locked gate. So all the macho guys in our group, (which is nearly none) try to get our luggage across the gate one by one. Huizhen and Novem the 2 macho girls went to help the not so macho guys after seeing them carrying it so XIN KU. As for me, hee im not a very strong girl as you can see. I was holding the DV camera and busy shooting this ridiculous yet memorable scene. PLS REFER TO VCR~

(video)

After the torture, we all were super tired, all thanks to my luggage (weighs 27kg). We made our way to our hotel.

When checking in, we realized that our names were all jumbled up! We were laughing at how our names can be so funny and nevertheless, we got our own room cards and its unpacking time.

Our rooms were warm and cozy, but kinda give us a pretty weird feeling. Indescribable. Oh well, we shrug it off.

OUR ROOM VIEW.
We went to check out Julian's room. He's got the nicest view of all man! But the corridors leading to his room was pretty eerie...
Check out the video!

(video)

After being excited about where we gonna sleep for whole 2 weeks, Julian suggested that we should walk around our hotel area. And guess what we found? The cheapest shop we can find in Dun Laoghaire!

THE ULTIMATE 2EURO SHOP!

EVERYTHING'S ONLY 2EURO!
And all the shops dont accept 500 EURO!

We walked around the hotel and checked out MAC, BURGER KING's prices. We also went to bookstores and all their nude models book were artistically done. Interesting.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008