Belfast, Northern Ireland 230208 - 250208
12:38 AM Edit ThisLast weekend my exchange mates and I took a Ryanair flight from East Midlands Airport to Belfast in Northern Ireland. Interestingly, this place is also part of UK. It's approximately 1hr flight to George Best Airport in Belfast. 
Our airport shuttle to East Midlands
JY & Derek at the Ryanair check in counter
View of the planes from departure lounge
At the boarding gate!
That's our flight! Woohoo~
the Wheel of Belfast
A statue with a cone on his head.
Titanic was designed and built in Belfast. This year they're having a "Titanic MAde in Belfast Festival" which is during Easter holidays. So that's a miss.
Titanic memorial statue
Belfast City Hall
Statue of Queen Victoria
Shiwei
The orange Orange shop
Spires Shopping Mall... which is also a church. We didn't have a chance to go in tho.
Our airport shuttle to East Midlands
JY & Derek at the Ryanair check in counter
View of the planes from departure lounge
At the boarding gate!
That's our flight! Woohoo~
the Wheel of Belfast
A statue with a cone on his head.
Titanic was designed and built in Belfast. This year they're having a "Titanic MAde in Belfast Festival" which is during Easter holidays. So that's a miss.
Titanic memorial statue
Belfast City Hall
Statue of Queen Victoria
Shiwei
The orange Orange shop
Spires Shopping Mall... which is also a church. We didn't have a chance to go in tho.We headed to our hostel to check in, only to find that the rooms that we were staying in is in another block that's bout 10mins walk away. Apparently that's the better accomodation and the gals were glad that there's HOT shower bcuz reviews from the website wasn't very good. After that we went for dinner.
Lebanese food for dinner! Chicken and mutton kebab... VERY NICE!!! Satisfying dinner comes at a price. haha but it's worth it. Most of the restaurants are closed by 6pm and the pubs came alive. So this Lebanese restaurant called Byblos was one of the places serving dinner.
Night view of City Hall
@ waterfront
This monument is situated at the end of the waterfront. She's actually standing on a globe which is taller than us! So imagine how tall she is... really cool~!
First stop, we arrived at Carrickfergus. A little harbor town with a castle of King William III.
We left the town for another town... check out the view along the coastal route.
Arrived at the other harbor town.
This valley is caused by melting glacier. See how steep the top is? Reminds me of the great flood when glacier walls break, with the water behind thundering through the terrains eroding the lands to cause this sort of landscape.
We stopped over at the Fullerton Arms for our lunch. It's a bar cum guest inn. I ordered sandwich, which was cheapest on the menu. hee...
After lunch, the coach made a short stop at White Park Bay. One of the most scenic coastal views around Northen Ireland.
Part of our tour was to stop by Bushmill Distillery. Bushmill is a very famed whiskey brand. There's still a debate as to where Bushmill was originated from; Ireland or Scotland.
Me, Derek, Hazel and Yisi taking photo with a 1608 whiskey and their sovenirs.
And we finally reached the highlight of our trip. Giant's Causeway!!!
It started raining when we reached. Not a very good start. But after a short audio-visual presentation bout the Giant's Causeway.. the sun was out ^.^
Rainbow after rain. We saw the end of the rainbow...No pot of gold though.
the winds up here are VERY strong! Seriously you need to make effort to walk against the wind. It's as if it can really blow you away.
What's so special about the Giant's Causeway you may ask. This. Rocks that are formed naturally ages ago by lava flowing into the sea. It's amazing after so many years of erosion, they look so uniformly hexagonal!
Jareed and I
Yisi and Seehwei walking back from the coast.
Ben & I
Hazel
Ben doing his thing. trying to throw SW off the cliff..
Head of the Giant
Lebanese food for dinner! Chicken and mutton kebab... VERY NICE!!! Satisfying dinner comes at a price. haha but it's worth it. Most of the restaurants are closed by 6pm and the pubs came alive. So this Lebanese restaurant called Byblos was one of the places serving dinner.
Night view of City Hall
@ waterfront
This monument is situated at the end of the waterfront. She's actually standing on a globe which is taller than us! So imagine how tall she is... really cool~!
BELFAST DAY 2 - 240208
Jared and I walked around town in the morning before catching our tour coach at 10am to bring us to Giant's Causeway.
First stop, we arrived at Carrickfergus. A little harbor town with a castle of King William III.
We left the town for another town... check out the view along the coastal route.
Arrived at the other harbor town.
This valley is caused by melting glacier. See how steep the top is? Reminds me of the great flood when glacier walls break, with the water behind thundering through the terrains eroding the lands to cause this sort of landscape.
We stopped over at the Fullerton Arms for our lunch. It's a bar cum guest inn. I ordered sandwich, which was cheapest on the menu. hee...
After lunch, the coach made a short stop at White Park Bay. One of the most scenic coastal views around Northen Ireland.
Part of our tour was to stop by Bushmill Distillery. Bushmill is a very famed whiskey brand. There's still a debate as to where Bushmill was originated from; Ireland or Scotland.
Me, Derek, Hazel and Yisi taking photo with a 1608 whiskey and their sovenirs.
And we finally reached the highlight of our trip. Giant's Causeway!!!
It started raining when we reached. Not a very good start. But after a short audio-visual presentation bout the Giant's Causeway.. the sun was out ^.^
Rainbow after rain. We saw the end of the rainbow...No pot of gold though.
the winds up here are VERY strong! Seriously you need to make effort to walk against the wind. It's as if it can really blow you away.
What's so special about the Giant's Causeway you may ask. This. Rocks that are formed naturally ages ago by lava flowing into the sea. It's amazing after so many years of erosion, they look so uniformly hexagonal!
Jareed and I
Yisi and Seehwei walking back from the coast.
Ben & I
Hazel
Ben doing his thing. trying to throw SW off the cliff..
Head of the Giant
Well we only managed to spend effectively 1 day 2 nights in Belfast, which is definitely not enough to explore the place. We didnt get to go museums, visit Queen's University nor taste their famous Ulster Fry breakfast. And by the time we're back from our tour, all the shops are closed.
Although Northern Ireland is part of UK, notes issued by Northern Ireland CANNOT be used back in UK. Tho I don't know the true reason why, it make it seems as tho UK's ostrasizing Ireland. Yup, so pple travelling there, use ur NI notes there unless u wanna collect it for keepsake, which I did. hee...
A little sovenir from Ireland ;)
