Cork to Adare   30/8/2009

We had an amazing Irish breakfast at our Cork B&B, provided by the incredibly friendly Tony and Avril.
Left Cork after visiting the cathedral and their beautiful university with an interesting collection of Ogham Rocks carved with the oldest writing in Ireland.

Bill, Jenny and David outside our cottage.

It was great to meet up with Jenny and David in Limerick. We are all thrilled with our gorgeous cottage for the next week, just outside Adare (the white one is our cottage). It couldn’t be more perfect, except no wifi, hence no blog updates.


Weather wise we have all 3 seasons (spring, autumn and winter). No summer in Ireland! No wonder the countryside is so beautiful - 40 shades of green.


We have visited some wonderful evocative, romantic ruins over the last 3 days - the Rock of Cashel, Hore Abbey and Clonmacnoise. We have also visited Bunratty castle and folk museum - a whole days entertainment.

Jenny battles the elements.

Ruined abbey at Adare.

We have been having cosy peat fires in the evenings. Yesterday we saw a large expanse of bog where the peat comes from!

Hongkong to Cork, Ireland   24/8/2009         

Tai O, Hongkong

Tai O turned out to be very interesting. It is a genuine fishing village, full of stilted houses connected by a labyrinth of raised paths. It is a bit voyeuristic really, as you can see into most of the houses and in fact you actually walk through some of them. The people were very friendly and helpful, as were the people in Hong Kong, even though it is a busy, bustling city.

Blarney Castle.

Surprisingly, slept quite a bit on the 12hour flight from Hong Kong and after negotiating about 25 kilometres of corridors at Heathrow to the Air Lingus terminal, we finally arrived in Cork, Ireland.

Cork is a service town with some fine buildings remaining from it’s time of prosperity as butter exporters during the late 18th century. There is a fast flowing tidal river through the centre.

We visited Blarney Castle, 8 kilometres out of town - a very romantic ruin in lovely grounds. Declined to kiss the stone. We have enough blarney already!   Anyway, it‘s full of hundreds of years of other people's saliva.

Welcome to our European trip, August 2009

Hongkong

Hong Kong Harbour

We arrived, Friday evening, safely in Hong Kong after an uneventful flight on Virgin Atlantic.


Saturday morning started with a walking tour around old Chinese streets - the Ginseng and Birdsnest Street, Herbal Medicine Street and Antique Street. Even in a modern city like Hong Kong, the drying happens on footpaths and roads. By lunch time we were hot and dripping so we headed off up the escalators to Soho to a chinese tea house for wontons, fishballs in rice, noodle soup and egg tarts, airconditioning and 44 litres of water and chinese tea. Then it was down hill through markets of wilting vegetables, fish and meat and fancy shopping malls to the pier. From here we took a relaxing Star Ferry harbour tour - super great if you want to know about high rise buildings, corporations and the amenities of five star hotels. Back at our very comfortable City Gate Novotel Hotel, we took advantage of their delicious buffet diner.

Dried fish.

Today, Sunday, we are going mall crawling at outlet mall attached to the hotel and then to a traditional fishing village call Tai O on Lantau Island, before our late night flight to London.