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Ah, Dublin! Rarely more than a hundred miles from my doorstep, yet neglected and bypassed for so much of my life unless deemed useful as a means of transit to somewhere more exotic. No longer I say! 2009 was going to be different. So after a typically lazy New Years Day, I was off in the direction of the whole other country we “nordies” call ‘down south‘ (original, eh?).
Why do men in Prague carry their briefcases just for single lone sandwiches? Why are metro tickets sold in newsagents and not at the adjacent ticket office? How can two relatively normal looking individuals receive so many sneers? How many zoos have Melody and I visited together? These questions and more remain unanswered. Except the last one – the magic number is four.
It’s late afternoon. The light has dimmed with the overcast spread of angry clouds. Our minibus is speeding along a wet highway towards Lo Wu – the very last stop on the Hong Kong MTR before the Mainland. I happen to ask what time the border closes at. It doesn’t. This isn’t any conventional frontier between countries – Hong Kong and China are technically one.
A delicious dinner at a nearby Italian Restaurant (owned by real Italians!) is followed by a care-free walk in the tenuous mist to Princes Street where we find the festivities still in full swing. The crowds have dispersed and the atmosphere is more subdued compared to the commotion of the night before, but it’s a pleasant change. True it’s a New Year, but nothing feels too different.
I met Melody off the boat on Friday. In the following days, I attempted to show her some of Belfast’s splendid landmarks, of which there are undoubtedly many! We dandered the pavilion (of the Odyssey), played pool, walked a bit through the Cathedral Quarter, and hung out in Auntie Annies until Leigh and Gareth rolled in. I feel like Belfast has shown a new side to me recently.
