Belfast

A couple of weeks ago Liam, Hannah and I made our respective ways (my first Easyjet experience, fine but they won't shut the hell up the entire way trying to get you to buy this/donate to this/join this) to Belfast for a weekend in Northern Ireland. They'd hired a car for 24 hours so I even got picked up at the airport like a special person. Cars also allow for impromptu name-related photo ops:

The next day we drove up the Antrim Coast to the Giant's Causeway because it's a "area of outstanding natural beauty" and boy, they weren't lying, not that I captured it very well in my photos.

There were also lots of gorgeous wee fishing villages that we drove through on the way. We had fish and chips in an Irish pub, which was similar to Irish pubs everywhere except that here they just call them pubs and it's not only the staff with accents.

When we got to the causeway it was crawling with tourists:

But still awesome.

That evening we planned to go into town for dinner but instead we made about 7 litres of Pimm's cup in our hotel room and eventually got takeaways from a place called "Thai-tanic".

The next morning we went to pretty much the world's lamest castle.

Apparently the original 12th century one was burnt down in the 1700s and so they built this one in the mid-19th century (that's practically brand new by UK standards) and remodelled the strange, empty series of rooms that function as a visitor centre in the 1970s.

Good scones, though.

Then we went on one of the open-topped buses that are a mainstay of tourist destinations everywhere. Here the guys handing out flyers were super-competitive at making you go on their one. I think we went for the right one in the end, they gave us a discount and the guy selling the tickets shared his fudge with us.

Their parliament is pretty fancy, apparently it got covered in manure during WW2 so the bombers wouldn't spot it at night.

We also went around the neighbourhoods where The Troubles happened and past all the barbed-wire covered fences, murals etc. It was pretty interesting but felt a bit strange that this is now a tourist attraction, given that it's only recent history and that these people still live here.
Didn't stop me taking photos, I hate to say.

Because we were visiting soon after the twelfth of July in the Unionist, Protestant pro-UK neighbourhoods there was miles and miles of Union Jack bunting everywhere, which looks quite fun and festive but you have to keep reminding yourself that it's actually a strong political statement. I didn't get a photo but this one gives you the idea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shankill_july.JPG

I don't remember what this building is, but it has a tree growing out of a window. I love modern ruins but some dude has bought it and is going to turn it into a flash hotel.

Despite the religious violence thing, Belfast is a really awesome city with a great feel to the town centre and I'd love to go back. If you live there, you have pretty much no choice but to live in a house that looks like this, though:

British confectionery review #1

One of the most exciting things about travelling for me is the chance to try new and exciting junk foods. Scotland has a lot of the same chocolate bars etc as New Zealand but there are still enough new varieties to keep me going for a while.
Today I finally tried Tunnock's Tea Cakes, made in Scotland but sold everywhere.

They come in boxes of 6 or 10 and are individually wrapped in foil which makes it feel like you're eating something more special than just a biscuit.
I'd gathered that they were a kind of local version of the mallowpuff, but although the concept is the same, the execution is quite different.

Mallowpuff marshmallow is quite rigid like a normal marshmallow but this stuff is all soft and sticky and collapsible, a bit like marshmallow slice you get in bakeries but even gooier. You definitely couldn't do that thing where you crack them on your forehead and peel the chocolate off bit by bit (did anyone else do that? ... just me?) It doesn't taste like much but it's quite yum. There is a biscuit base and chocolate outer but no jam layer.

In a side by side comparison I think the mallowpuff would win, but I won't have any trouble finishing the box.

In the background you can see the wrapper for a Caramel Wafer, also made by the fine people at Tunnock's. More on that later

Dubai

I was in Dubai for 30ish hours to break up the journey. I could've had a stopover in Bangkok instead but I figured that I'll probably make it to Thailand for a proper holiday sooner or later whereas the UAE, not so much.
I got there at 5.45am local time. Their airport was big and shiney and strangely empty.

I promise that's the only airport photo I'll post. Bangkok airport was similarly shiney & fancy and even more so compared to the complete dive that is Heathrow.

As I'd been warned, there's not a whole lot to do in Dubai that doesn't involve spending vast amounts of money. I went to the only mosque you can go to there because it has been de-blessed or whatever to let my heathen feet tread on their super-plush prayer carpet.

Ah, so majestic and ancient! Except it was built in the 1970s.

The tour guide gave a talk on the religion of Islam, their dress etc which was interesting though she was obviously a converted British expat with a strong east London accent which didn't quite match the surroundings.

In the afternoon I went to the Bastakiya quarter which is their "heritage" district. It was very pretty but mostly empty because it was too bloody hot to walk around in.

Those tower things were a kind of pre-air con ventilation system used to cool the inside of the buildings but they weren't doing me much good. I probably drank about a litre of water in the 15 minutes I spent wandering around. Then I tried to find the museum, which took me another 20 minutes blundering about in the unbearable heat.

This is the museum which is in an old fort, mostly inside but this bit is just through the entrance. I only mention it because that was where I slipped on one of their sandy ramps, got a bruise on my ass the size of a toffee pop (that I couldn't even show anyone), and just about burst into wretched-jet-lagged-running-on-3-hours-of-sleep tears.

In the evening I went to the gold souq. It was more like a mall with open shop fronts than the market-y kind of setup I was expecting.

In the bits of Dubai that I managed to walk around in, I was surprised that I was frequently the only female, and the only Westerner. You get massively stared at.

The next morning I'd booked to go up to the observation deck of the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building.

You have to book ahead, if you just rock on up it costs 4x as much (probably works out to $180). So I had booked a time for 10am, got to the Dubai Mall at that time (when the mall opens), then spent 15 minutes trying to find the damn entrance to the Burj Khalifa bit because Dubai Mall also happens to be the biggest mall in the world, and I asked about 6 different people for directions but then just nodded vacantly when they answered because I'm rubbish with people with strong accents, ended up going down to the loading dock twice, eventually got there at 10.30 where luckily they didn't seem to care that I was late for my allotted time AND the lady on the info desk said I looked like Amelie which always improves my mood.

Basically your money gets you a ride up a super fast elevator to the 200th floor or something (not actually the top of the building), an impressive but smoggy view of Dubai, and plenty of info panels about what a Great and Glorious achievement it is with thanks to the UAE president who bailed them out when they ran out of dirhams.

Then I had a look around the rest of the mall which includes the world's biggest candy strore (disappointingly small, actually), an Olympic-sized ice rink, and the world's largest acrylic panel:

I would've rather seen it when it was like this, though: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1253700/Dubai-Mall-evacuated-cracks-appear-giant-aquarium.html    

Dubai is hot. Seriously freaking hot. Like, 42 degrees the day I was there, so hot that it dictates the way the city is organised/built. You just can't walk around for more than a few minutes so you have to taxi everywhere, some streets don't even have footpaths, and as I said, pretty much the only place I saw any other Westerners was in the mall. I really liked the cultural aspects: the dress, the language, even the music they played in the taxis. Unfortunately, they don't really make anything of this - it's all about doing what you could do anywhere, but on a bigger scale (& more expensively, natch). So I'm glad I went but I can't honestly ever see myself going back.