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Belfast - 15th January
A bonus to living in UK is cheap flights! So we took a long weekend and flew into Belfast, trained down to Dublin and flew home. Visiting cities in winter has it downfalls as it’s usually raining and bloody cold! Ireland was freezing, a few degrees colder than Leeds for sure.

There are still a few bomb walls in place around certain buildings like the police station which were always targeted in the inner city. You should see the police cars, they are like little paddy wagons in NZ, but decked out like armored swat vehicles. Even all the sirens are housed in cages on the roof!

I knew the Europa hotel had been bombed several times, but wasn’t aware it was a staggering 37 times. The tour operator reckoned it was the most redecorated/refurbished building in all of Ireland! Just another one of his witty little jokes…… This statue was created to signify peace.

We walked around Belfast city, which really isn’t that big and jumped on the open top tour bus. This tour was more like going to a comedy show, the tour guide on the bus was fantastic, told you lots of history about the city and the famous sites as you drove round, and was a joke a minute!

Here we have the Town Hall, alot nicer than the Auckland Town Hall, and the insides are stunning.

I was surprised at how segregated the communities in Belfast were still. After the signing of peace agreement I thought Belfast was one big happy city, but the high peace walls between the communities are still there and still in force. The gates on the walls are closed in the weekend. Quite sad when you think it’s driven by religious disagreements!

The Harland and Wolff docks where the Titanic was built are still very much part of the cities history. Like Leeds a lot of the industrial areas are being turned into inner city apartments. The town clock is on a slight lean due to the sands it was built on built on moving all the time. There's quite a lot of cool artwork along the river, like this huge fish. It's made up of heaps of smashed ceramic.

And of course what town would be complete without a mobile sperm unit!

Dublin - 16th January 2007
Just over two hours and we were in Dublin. Our hotel was on O’Connell Street, which is the main drag so we were right in the centre of town. Again we took a ride on the open top bus, although no witty commentator on this trip, it was prerecorded and no where near as entertaining.

Now of course no trip to Ireland is complete without a visit to the home of Guinness! We spent about 2 hours going through the Guinness Factory which, as you would imagine is full of history about all things Guinness. At the end of your tour you get your free pint in the bar which is located at the top of the brewery, it’s surrounded by glass so you get great panoramic views across Dublin. Really overcast day and the shots through glass, but it gives you an idea.