Ireland - 2004

Once again, I have got a chance to attend a conference in different place. This time, the location is not so far... it is a republic of Ireland which is very close to UK (not the northern Ireland) although it comes with the most expensive VISA fee of 42 pounds (i.e. more than Schegen, USA, Japan, Turkey, Poland...)

Due to my very tight schedule during those days (e.g. K. Aun's BD and LeOr wedding), I have only spent four days there purely for the main conference without travelling around (T_T). However, I have managed to have a short sight-seeing in the city center.

What I like most in Dublin (the capital city) are its classic tourist information centre (above-right), the informative counting down crossing signal (above-left) and the step-style pedestrian bridge (below-middle). The others are quite the same as the other countries.

The hotel (City West Resort) is quite elegant but very expensive (ie.e. my single room is ~155 pounds/night, which is the most expensive one that I have ever stayed... where the provided facilities are not the best). It might be because of the golf courts (which seem to be normal when compared to a larger & nicer golf courts in Thailand. I was rather wonder why rich people spend their money here instead of a nicer & cheaper place and service facilities in Asia.

The event went well with a lot of nice presentation. One workshop that I like most is about the economic plan of Ireland which is a really interesting plan to develop country. I am trying to get the hold of the slideshow and may show you if it is available.

As shown above, there is a helicoper parking area in front of the hotel, where they had quite some regular helicopers that came to park. Below is a picture of salmon which seems to be a main starter dish that I have for almost every day while I were there. The rest of the photos here are taken from different areas of this golf resort.

J a m e s o n D i s t r i l l e r

For the first night of the conference, we have got a chance to visit the local famous Whisky museum "Jameson Distriller" and also had a dinner there.

I was quite impressed with the tour through the Whisky-making process, and both local Irish-style food and shows. I really think that it was one of the excellent conference dinner that I have ever attended.

Picture on the left is me with our Cambridge gangs. The next one from its is our tour guide with the 120 year old Whisky for a try (too strong for me, e.g. it tastes like a pure alcohol).

The good things about attending a conference is to make friends with people from the other universities. One interesting fact that I have noticed is the way Asia people often be friend to each other quite quick (and love taking lots of photos @^_^@).

Below middle is the picture of "Irish Coffee" (e.g. Whisky = sugar = coffee = cream) in its special glass. and a delicious Whiskey chocolate! (below-right)

G u i n n e s s

On the third day of the conference, the organiser brought us to the famous Guinness museum & factory. The place is quite interesting since it seems to be very very old outside (e.g. the first large factory in Europe) but it is really modern inside.

The white rectangular thing in the circle on the below-left photo shows the rental contract that Mr Guinness (the owner) sign with the local goverment for a very cheap land-rental price per year (I forgot the cost some thing less than a pound) for 9,999 years. I believe that it can be either the local goverment want to give the land for free, or the inflation rate has been very high in the pass years so that amount of money used to be very high in the pass...

The museum was quite modern with a number of interactive things and multimedia information around (e.g. the barrel that I stood next to in the photo on the right-hand side has a television in it!).

The building has seven floors in total. I have only got time to walk around the first three floors and then attended the reception on the glass roof (As I have heard, it is the highest one in Dublin).

The first few floors depicts the process of how to make the Guinness (aka Black bier) and the later floors show some developement and involvement of the technology that come along with its development. The fun part here is the way the museum organised in "arrow" path way so that it made thing quite easy to wander around without any lost of information :)

Guinness believe that it is a "black gold" since this alcoholic has made lots of profit... not only to the owner of this company, but also back home to their country as well. Since they announce that the factory is a preserved national building, I guess that the export economic may somehow depends on this ancoholic drink (apart from the growing proportion of software and chemical export industry that they are trying to promote with the 0-5% corporate tax!). Therefore, it is somehow seems to me like one of the symbol of their nation.

That's why there is a very famous pedestrian area in Dublin city center dedicate for pub and night life -- The "Temple bar". I have visited the area in the morning, where it was too unbelieably quite.

Some of my Cambridge friends went there (the temple bar) on the first night after our Jameson Distriller dinner (which finished around 11:30pm) and hang around there until 2am. They told me that the cost of bier there was rather expensive (e.g. around 3 euro).

Here is the photo of me on the roof floor of the Guinness building. The whole floor consist of several transparency glass wall from the floor to ceiling with some informative description about the importand landmark on the surrounded view. Anyhow, Dublin city used to be a heavy industrial city. There wass not much scene to view.

We (the asian gang) were quite enjoy taking photos around. Picture on the right is me and sharon, a nice Chinese lady. Actually, I've got a number of nice friends here but I forgot to take photos with them!

My background is the 'huge' Guinness factory, which still produce the drink to distribute around the world.

I am so surprise that it locates in the heart of Dublin (very close by the city centre).

The dinner that night was on the second floor (above).

It was quite impressive. I sat with Cambridge friends and learnt a lot about the different of European nations, languages and many more.

A i r p o r t