Dublin

Day 1: (Photo of the first glimpse of Irish shores!)
We actually got to WALK ONTO the plane which I thought was really exciting!!!! Instead of walking through the long tubey thing and straight onto the plane, we got to walk outside, and walk up the stairs into the plane like they do in movies! Haha I was very excited, whilst Jenna and Elle thought I was strange.
When we arrived around 8 in the morning we caught the bus into the city centre. The bus only accepted EXACT change! So Elle ended up paying en extra pound or something because they don’t give you change. (unless you keep all your receipts and collect them at some office or something!)
Anyway our hostel was RIGHT next to O’Connell street, pretty much the main street in Dublin! We spent the morning walking around and shopping on Grafton street, then made our way back to the hostel for a good sleep! Whilst walking around we happened to see the GPO (General Post Office) which is supposed to be a tourist attraction, to me it was just a grand building lol.

That night the four girls, Tash, Elle, Jenna and me went to a pub where I had a shandy with my Irish stew, that came up to a whopping 17 Euro!!! And when I converted I was horrified that that came up to $30+!!!!!! Haha anyway, I’ve learnt to stop converting, because I am getting paid in pounds! But it’s still an expensive meal..back in Ipswich a pub meal at The Thrasher costs 5 pounds, pint of beer plus steak burger and big chips!

Day 2:


Tash, Nick and me got to do HEAPS of sight seeing! My favourite was our first top - Trinity College! (Photo: left) It was a gorgeous university with cobble stones and pretty buildings! But the main attraction there was the Long Library (I think that’s what it’s called, with The Book of Kells). I had no idea what it was, but later learned it as like 7th century manuscripts of the 4 gospels! It was really cool, the exhibition there talked about the scribs and the book binding, and like the decorative techniques..and how to emphasise certain words in the manuscripts they would make the first letter of the word all fancy. Heaps of symbols and stuff, like serpents and stuff being used throughout the manuscripts to mean different things..stuff along those lines. Kinda reminded me of english..all the analysing. Haha but I thought it was pretty cool! They had on show other bits of old manuscripts and stuff which I thought was cool! They didn’t actually have The Book of Kells on show, which meant entrance was only like 3 pounds! So bargain! Haha, saved me like 7 pounds (and I’m extremely pov right now..so you know, anything cheap is good I say!) Anyway my favourite was the big long library. Their book shelves were all lined up one in front of the other, reaching to the very top of the roof! There were two layers, and so for the second level, in order to access all the book shelves, they had cut away sections in the book shelves that you walked through! A friendly old man pointed that out to me, you could only see the ‘hole’ in the book shelves if you knew where to look. I didn’t even think about how they would have accessed those books if he hadn’t told me!
After seeing that we headed down to the National Gallery (which was nothing compared to London) and then down to Christ Church. (Photo: right)
There was a priest or whatever they’re called who wouldn’t let us into the church unless we were there for the evening prayer. It was 430 when we arrived, and the prayer started at 5! So we ended up staying for the prayer which was interesting! There was another priest guy, who prayed from this big book, and two people (who looked like deacons or elders or something) opposite who would stand opposite reciting after him or some call and response thing. There was Tash, Nick and me sitting on the pews listening, plus two other young girls who were clearly in our situation, and then one other ‘real’ praying person. It was interesting to watch anyway. The church was cool, with a big crypt underneath!
That night we all went to The Temple Bar, like the actual TEMPLE bar (because apparently Temple Bar refers to the whole street full of bars and clubs), and that was one awesome bar! They had really good Irish music, and the place was packed with people! Anyway it was impossible to move, so Tash, Nick and me went to another bar just next to it. It still had awesome atmosphere, and I tried a Jameson Whisky (which an old man at the gallery told me I HAD to try whilst I was in Dublin, and visit the distillery, which we hadn’t). So yes, I did feel like an old, white, rich old man sipping away at my whisky, but it was sooooooooooooooooooooooo good!!!! Followed that with a pint of beer and I had had enough!!!!!!!!!! Face as red as a tomato.


Day 3:
Day trip down to Glendalough!!!!!!!!! Down south I think in the Wicklow mountains,
beautiful scenery! It was an overcast day which was a shame :( but the scenery was still gorgeous! Sally gap, was a place in Glendalough where PS I love you was filmed, as was Brave heart and a couple of other movies! So us girls got all excited haha. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous and my camera did not give it any justice because it didn’t bring out the earthy colours nicely! But that’s okay, it was still picture perfect!
The tour guide was a jolly old irish bloke, haha it was so funny, he held out his arm to me and offered it to me as he was showing us around the sites, and he was like “you’re a gorgeous girl! Has anyone told you that before? You must have a line of boys after you! No, two lines in fact!” hahahaha. It was so awkward, I felt like saying “Is it because I’m asian?” haha. But no really, the people in Dublin are sooo friendly.
We had a coffee stop where I had a 5 euro (Dublin was crazily expensive), Irish coffee. SOOOOOOOOO good!!!!! Baileys coffee!!!!! It was so good!
And we also saw snow at the very top of the mountains!
Glendalough had to be one of the best days!




Day 4:
Last day we took it easy since we had already seen so much in the two previous days! Tash, Nick and me went down to Kilmainham gaol, a name I couldn’t pronounce. Haha so when asking for directions I just had to point at a map. All the people we asked were really nice. To get to the gaol we walked past the Royal Kilmainham Hospital which is now turned into a gallery, but we were a bit confused, we did walk past the hospital but not into it..we think.
The gaol was really cool. The Eastern Hall????????? I THINK thats what it was called, or something like that, the main part of the gaol was really cool. A lot of movies have used it (But I cant remember their names) and the guide was really good. A lot of Irish history that I guess would have meant more to me if I knew anything about it! But I learnt the gist of it, that Ireland fought for many years for independence from the British, (man this is embarassing if I’m so wrong so I’ll apologise now in advance), anyway in 1916**(thanks U. Tony haha) there was an uprising, and the leaders were caught and executed in the gaol (which is one of the reasons it was so famous). Anyway there was this one story, of one of the leaders who was to be executed, he was granted permission to marry his fiance Grace (forgot her last name, forgot his name too sorry). Anyway so they had this little chapel in the gaol, and throughout the service they weren’t allowed to say anything to one another. Also it was completely dark, except for one tiny candle which was held by the guard or something. And after the service they were only allowed ten minutes in his cell, and his cell was filled with guards all along the wall, and another guard standing at the door with a watch counting down the ten minutes. After that she was led away, and she stayed at the gaol until his execution when she heard the gun shot.
Anyway in the exhibition there was a letter from ..i think his name was James Buckwell?? Asking Grace to marry him……and reading the letter, and hearing the story (well it’s not just a story - it actually happened!) was just so moving, and very sad! She ended up continuing his revolutionary actions or whatever you call it..and ended up being imprisoned in the same gaol years later, but on a life sentence (cause she was a woman).
ANYWAY, after the gaol we went to the Guiness Storehouse which was pretty cool. The tour
was very….modern, like it was self guided, except at the beginning they had a little bit of an introduction. But it wasn’t like walking through a museum, it was all pretty cool and interesting. And then we went up to the Gravity Bar at the very top for our free pint. I totally missed the floor where you got to pull your own pint and get a certificate !:( so I regret not doing that!!!! But it was very cool. And the storehouse, the architecture of it (Haha Pam), it was shaped as a pint class. So like the top levels, ie the gravity bar plus a couple of the other floors at the very top, was like all glass or whatever, to resemble the head of the pint. And then the bottom floor was like the bottom of the pint glass and stuff. Haha it was pretty cool.
Anyway I hadn’t had a guiness before them becuase I wanted my ‘first’ guiness to be at the store house. Haha it had a spectacular 360 degree view of the city which was heaps cool! So of course we took lots of pictures, and again more friendly old Irish men jumped into the photographs. Haha. There were also a wedding couple and their guests from England that came all the way to the storehouse which I thought was amusing!
Anyway that night we went out to Temple Bar again, but being a Friday night it was ABSOLUTELY PACKED! So we ended up heading to the airport, where we waited for our flight the next morning at 630am!!
So yes, I was absolutely shattered when I got back that day. But it was absolutely AWESOME :) Dublin is a far better city than London, less busy, more friendly!

London long weekend!

You guys will all be so proud of me haha.

Not boasting or anything, but i'm just really surprised at myself, even though i've only been here a few weeks i can already feel myself growing more independent :P haha.

Over the long weekend Nick, Natasha, Elle and me headed down to London. Before we left I booked our train tickets down to London, found really cheap tickets (£7.90 x 2 for two single tickets), normally if you buy it on the spot it's like £30+ single!! So i was really proud about that :) Called up the taxi company to get us to the station nice and early at 6:15am! (okay i know this doesn't sound all that big and independent right now..but I promise you it sure was stressful and daunting when you have no idea what to do!). I also booked our accommodation, 2 nights at YHA Central London, so i found that online and it was cheap for london (£25 a night)..could have got it cheaper..but we left it a bit too late..so the only room left was a private 4 bedroom ensuite!!! but that's still cheap for London! the youth hostel was actually really really really nice! better than the motel's I've stayed at back home!!!

So on top of booking transport and accommodation all by myself (with the help of Natasha and NIck's credit card..and we're just going to ignore the slight mishap of me double booking the accommodation and paying an extra £200...........which we did get back 100% when we arrived!! so all is good) i also am pretty pro at catching the underground now :D!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (funny how i figure out the England transport system faster than i do the Australian one :P )

Saturday:

When we arrived at Liverpool St station we all got oyster cards, and we really had no idea what we were going to do, no planned itinery or anything..whcih admittedly was a bit stressful. But it was all good, we caught the tube down to westminster, and as we walked straight out of the station there in front of us was the Big Ben! Which was pretty cool. (haha funny story, when i was younger and I visited London with Rachel and Dad, we were on a bus and Dad was like 'oohh coming up is the Big Ben!'..now i heard him say 'big BEND' and so i was full getting ready on the bus to play like dead people (ya know when you let your body go limp...otherwise known as 'corners') by which time i actually missed the 'Big BEN'..) but ANYWAY got to see the Big Ben a lot easier this time. Headed down to Westminster abbey, Parliament House, took heaps of pictures in Parliament Square which was really pretty. We then headed down to Parliament House to take more pictures, saw the Queens Gallery (Nick and me didn't actually go in..we couldn't bb to pay the fee! and i had a funny feeling I had already been there 2 years ago when i visited London....it's quite funny, it was only as we were seeing the sites that i remembered i had already seen all of this with my family!! but it was good to see them again, esp since the sites WERE free, and it has refreshed my memory :) ). We then headed down to Trafalgar Square and saw the National Art Gallery where we bumped into one of the achers and her son from back at school! Then went to the YHA....

Sunday:

anyway the next day we saw Tower of London, London Bridge (which is a really crummy old bridge..the really big pretty bridge isn't in fact the lonodn bridge! but we all think itis..but i'm ont quite sure waht that pretty bridge is called..), london eye..and we saw all those sights in the snow!!!!!!!!!! it started snowing on us which was really exciting! haha i love the snow. first time snow has actually FALLEN down on me..if that makes sense. haha but yes..it WAS FREEZING.

and in the evening Nick and me when to Holy Trinity Brompton, which i'm pretty sure is the chruch that Mum and Rachel were talkinga bout two y ears ago when we were here!!! when we met up with Mel Hsu....................but anyway the chruch was really goood! they have a full on book store underneath and stuff...worship was great, haha lotsa brooke fraser..woot. haha. or more accurately, hillsong but brooke fraser's stuff. I was pretty worried about how on earth we were going to get there, and again my independent boost kinda flicked on when nick and me had to find our way to south kensington, and then walk to the church before it got dark, in the freezing cold and snow! but we got there fine, and so there was another good feeling of accomplishment. we went to the 5pm service, and Nick loved it so much (i think he really missed his worship) he wanted to stay till 7pm..but i was feeling relaly bad, i had a really bad headache (yes mum - it's been my first headache in AGES ie, since I got to England..and i think it was just tension headache..cause off carrying around my backpack everywhere).

Monday:

last day in London, woke up to SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW. it was soo cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3-5inch snow EVERYWHERE! haha. so we decided to go shopping at oxford st? but alas ALL THE SOHPS WERE CLOSED!!! okay, a tad bit of an exaggeration, but most were because apparnetly none of the buses were working cause of teh snow, and some underground railines were closed, and on liverpool st station all the trains were delayred! but some were still open, and i managed to buy ONE thing..which is a surprise. haha iw ill upload a photo of it for you guys later.

It was quite stressful trying to get the train back to Ipswich. The train was supposed to leave at 3pm, an we arrived at Liverpool St station with like 8 minutes to go. I was the only one who hadn't caught a trainf rom Liverpool St station back to Ipswich, but even so the others still had no idea what was going on. So I was kinda freaking out (as I do) and so I tried to ask the ticket lady why our platform number wasn't displayed on the big screen? She wasn't much of a help, didn't bother explaining to me the system (casue we had NO idea what to do). Anyway I FINALLY figured out that pretty much all the trains were delayed, hence it didn't matter which train we caught, we just had to catch the next Norwich train, which explained why the station was at a stand still. I should have took a picture, everyone was just standing int he middle of the station, standing frozen staring at the big screens that displayed the train times and stuff. It took us a while to figure out why they wre staring there, and why suddenly, all of a sudden at the same time, big masses of pepole would start moving in the same direction. Tuirns out you have to stand there, wait for them to display what platform number your train is on, and everyone has to no joke run to catch the train to make sure they get a seat (becuase since all the trains are delayed....everyones just trying to grab wahtever train they can to get to their stop). It was soo chaotic, all because of the snow. So whilst us gaps were frolicking around in the snow and taking pictures with all the snow, the rest of London was inwardly groaning because they knew the transport difficulties that would arise.

Anyway we ifnally arrived back home, by which time i immediately threw off my wet socks and jeans and jumped into a nice hot shower!!

Interesting facts that made me realise how much of a tight ass/dag/like my dad i am:

- I was no joke so SKIMP with my money, i bought £1 walkers crisps (6 packets) £1 bag of 6 apples, and £2 box of cheerios that lasted me the whole weekend!!!! so I was soo looking forward to lunch today, which was my first proper cooked meal since Friday! and it was roast too..yumm..with yorkshire pudding :P

- haha i also bought a small bottle of milk to have with my cheerios, i felt like the biggest bogan, i would take handfuls of cheerios and a gulps of milk, slush it all around - and that would be my breakfast haha. But aynway, to keep my milk nice and cold (cause it was so warm, central heating, in ou room) i kept the milk outside on the window ledge. haha. it's funny, before i would laugh at my dad for doing things like that...shows how much you're like your parents ay?

- Friday night before we left I stole a loaf of bread from the staffroom and made a whole heap of peanut butter and cheese (Separate..not together) sandwiches for the train trip down. haha.

- (this is just for my parents) - Yes, i did wear my sexy money belt ALL the time (containing my passport and cash), despite the fact that we were staying in a PRIVATE room!

- i've officially been dubbed as the 'organised' one by Nick and Elle..which makes me laugh. haha. Nick was like "I need your help booking my flight to SA." and i'm like "WHAT?! i've never booked a flight ticket in my life!!!" haha. and he's like "but you're smart at this stuff" so hear that guys? guess i'm supposed to be full travel smart and independent now :P

London long weekend pictures!

London Eye

Tower Bridge

Big Ben

Plane shot just for you James

Pretty trees in Parliament Square?

Parliament House

Buckingham Palace

My milk on the window ledge..covered in snow haha

I've forgotten the name of this park....but what's more important is the SNOW!!

Elle and me in the snow! 

Some photos

Orwell Park School

View from my room, front gate and SNOW

View of the sports field and SNOW

the river by the school, it's actually FROZEN

L-R: Jack (Lucy's bf), Josh, Jenna, Natasha, Nick, me, Lucy)

Hello to Ipswich!

Hey guys!
Okay - you've got to believe me when I say that I've been trying really hard to update you all back home on what's been happening. I've tried sending round group emails but they've failed..'cause everytime I either get interrupted, or the page gets deleted, or the 'send' button disappears! (I don't think the staff computers like gmail that much).
Anyway I finally have internet on my macbook..but because the wireless blocks off pretty much every site it's a real pain to use. AND i don't have internet up in my room..'cause the signal doesn't reach it much.
It's really hard to know what to write, or what to say to you guys back home. To me, there's nothing really that interesting to say.
Working days are from Monday - Saturday, Sunday we get a day off, and Wednesday is also my day off. I pretty much work from 8am-8pm (depending on when my duties finish).

I enjoy working here, the teachers are really nice, some of the kids are really cute, some are incredibly bratty.

One of the gaps here, called Nick is really into apologetics, and whilst on signing out duty (making sure the kids parents sign their kids out of school properly) was reading a book on apologetics when one of the teachers walked past. Anyway the teacher asked Nick whether he was reading it as a believer, or a searcher. And when Nick answered, 'believer', Rob (the name of the teacher) was like 'cool' and struck up conversation. Anyway Rob and his wife are christian, and so they invited Nick and me to have a prayer meeting with them at lunch time which was really cool. It's now going to be a regular thing..but our first meeting last week went really well. It was just really good to share and pray. So today we went to church with them, a baptist church in town (20 odd minutes away). Their service reminded me EXACTLY of bilingual service (except in english lol). The hymns, the order of service with the congregational prayer, the way piano accompaniment in the corner haha. the communion, the way the pastor led the service. It's scary how similar it was to back home. I think the service was way too traditional for Nick (charismatic) but I thought the sermon was really good. The pastor was a gifted preacher, and he was preaching on the heart, and how it's the heart that leads the body and stuff..I think Nick would like to continue to find more churches in Ipswich which I guess is more what he's used to, but I really like the church (plus it means I don't need to public transport it..and I can get lifts). 

I know a lot of you guys from church and stuff have been praying for me, that God will provide, that I'll stay strong and all that jazz..and yeh, I can see how He is being faithful in answering those prayers. I've had more time to just chill out in my room, listen to talks on my ipod, reading my bible..so yeh, thanks for all the prayers cause God definately is answering them :) It's been a comfort to have Nick around, it means we can support each other throughout the year. 

Long weekend is coming up, 30th Jan - 2nd Jan and Natasha (a girl from Canberra), Nick and me are planning to go to London for the weekend, just do a bit of sigh seeing (and some much needed shopping!). Some of the other gaps (Jenna-from nz, Lucy - old gap, Josh - old gap) are planning to road trip it and just have some 'fun'...but yehhhh, you guys know me..i would rather do the old school sight seeing and stuff :P 

Anyway I don't really have much else to say..oohhh i had my first guitar lesson on Friday! it was soo much fun! He was teaching me classical stuff, and it's a lot of fun. it's a bit weird, since i'm used to playing the piano when i'm reading the notation. but it's good fun! haha Jamie he taught me wonderwall :P he was like 'do you know this song?' and i'm like "...nooo...but i've heard OF it 'cause of my friend Jamie" haha. 

Today I also walked along down to the river with Jenna and Lucy, the school is situated right next to the river. It's absolutely beautiful, i'm definitely going down there again with some cheap wellington boots and my camera! it's green pastures everywhere, all nice and flat with big houses here and there! but I have been warned against going down there by myself, because apparently the foreshore of the river is a known spot for single men to meet one another............like it's been advertised on websites and stuff as a meeting place...so yes..i've been told not to go down there by myself..but i think i'll be quite safe during the bright daylight haha.

Anyway congratulations if you've made it down through the whole post - don't worry i don't think i'll be updating often because to be perfectly honest nothing 'new' comes up (unless we go away and go traveling). 

Until next time!

Sarah 

PS Contact details: skype - leung.smy@gmail.com

snail mail - Orwell Park School
Nacton
Ipswich
Suffolk
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