Canary Wharf

I've been working around here for several months now. It's pretty impressive - especially the towers.

Babbage's Difference Engine and Calculators

One Saturday morning we headed off to the Science Museum for a gawk. They some of Babbage's difference engines there to view - the oldest computers / calculators. Huge contraptions. Pretty cool stuff if you're a computer scientist.

The New Guinness Red ... hmmm :-)

Guinness have brought out a new brew of Guinness called Guinness Red. I think it might only be available here in London - haven't seen it at home yet. It's pretty nice - subtly sweeter than the normal variety.

Sushi

Tried Sushi for the first time ever. Pretty nice. Not nearly as fishy as I expected. John had a few more plates than I did ...

Fire in Stratford

There was a huge fire out in stratford. We didn't know where it was coming from at first. It looked like Canary Wharf was on fire. The whole sky was full of smoke ...

NFL in Canary Wharf

There was an NFL exhibition match in the city on the weekend. They brought an oversized player down to Canary Wharf ...

Taking Security to the Extreme in the Nanny State

I think they're taking to counter terrorism to the extreme here ...

IMAX

We went to the IMAX catch Beowulf. It's so big its incredible. The normal size cinema screen is dwarfed by it. And to make it even better we were watching in 3D - A what a film to pick for 3D :-)

The London Eye - Part 1

I say part 1 because I still haven't gone up it - but it looks great on the South Bank. Watch this space ...

Greenwich Observatory

I loved this place. Steeped in history. The Prime Meridian of the World. ... sounds very important. 0 degrees east and west is marked by a laser just outside the observatory ... hmm - or is it? Apparantly if you have your GPS receiver handy the meridian line is about 20 meters to the left - for "military reasons" so I'm told.



Apart from that, in the museum downstairs has Harrisson's H4 timepiece - amazing! The first accurate enough watch to calculate longtitude.



Upstairs in the observatory was a telescope where you could see Pluto.

Notting Hill Carnival

Our first weekend here we randomly met an old friend of Nici's in the tube station. He brought us down to Notting Hill where the famous Carnival was on that weekend. It was pretty cool. It seemed like a really affluent area and completely shut down for the weekend - there was a really fun band dressed as superheroes, where we stopped for ages.

Trafalgar Square

When I was here when I was a kid the big attraction was the millions of pigeons that lived in trafalgar square. However, some big spoil sport meany banned feeding the pigeons and now all that's left is protestors and random art on the empty fourth plinth.

The Millenium Dome

The largest tent in the world, cost a billion to build, totally flopped when it opened, and in a last ditch effort to recoup some costs the UK government did what it does best and privatised ... within a very short space of time the newly rebranded "O2 Dome" became a big success. I'm yet to go to a gig there, but the cinema there is great :-)

The Sweet Free Checkout

I'd like to see the one that isn't sweet free ...

Pop Art

There was a pretty cool pop art exhibition in the National Portrait Gallery. Lot of Andy Warhol paintings - remember the Maryln Monroe screen prints?

Big Ben and the Houses of Parlaiment

You can't go to London without going here. Henry VIII used to live here. ... so there's quite a lot of history attached ... all I wanted to see was big ben chime :-) ... although it was very impressive.

West End Theatre

We tried out our first west end show - Footloose - great fun, we had a great view ... have to go see another one pretty soon :-)

The National Gallery

We were walking around Trafalgar Square and noticed the National Gallery at its top end.

Walk in, turn right and staring you in the face are Van Gogh's sunflowers. What a start to a great collections. This place is a must see ... go have a look.

Welcome to London 25-8-2007 to ... whenever!

Phew! After a hectic six weeks trying to get settled, I'm finally getting back to the blog. I'm in London now, and it seems I'll be here for quite some time to come. Lots to see, lots to do and I'll be a long time getting through it - loads of fun!

Climbing Carrauntoohil 16-8-2007

Myself, Rob, John and Jim headed of to climb the tallest mountain in Ireland - Carrauntoohil. The mountain isn't far from Killorglin in Co. Kerry. There's two routes up the mountain. We decided to take the 'Devil's Ladder Route'. The devil's ladder is a small but very steep ridge that you have to climb at a certain point in the hike. The scenery here was spectacular - you wouln't think you were in Ireland at all. It took us 3 1/2 hours to get up and 2 1/2 to get get back at a fairly easy pace. I must try it from the other route the next time - the Carra Route. Beautiful!












The very top of the mountain was cloud covered and made the whole thing very errie. Somebody had managed to haul a giant, iron cross and haul it to the top at some stage over the years.

Puck Fair 10th to 13th -6-2007

A few of us headed down to Puck Fair, in Killorglin, for the weekend. The Puck fair is a bizzare festival which kicks of with a goat, captured from the Kerry hills, that they hoist up onto a giant pedestal for the duration of the fair. Between putting him up and taking him down is three days of festival in the town. Here's a video of the goat (Jimmy) going up with "Puck ar Buile" theme tune being sung.







Killorglin's actually in a pretty beautiful part of the country. Not far away was Rossbeigh where we went for a swim on the second day.



The town is also on the edge of the Magillycuddyreeks mountain range, where Carountoohill, Ireland's tallest mountain is ... Very beautiful.

Sneem

The hike to Sneem didn't have the same great views as the first day, but the terrain was just as hard! We finally got there after 8 eight hours - making much better time than the day before. Sneem, funnily, seemed like a smaller version of Kenmare or an even smaller version of Killarney. A nice town, good atmosphere, especially during the day as a constant stream of tour buses traffic people through the town.

Pub? Church?

On the road to Sneem we passed this unusual pub made from a converted Church of Ireland church. I'll let you form your own opinions :-)

From Hike from Kil...

Kenmare

After 9 hours our first days hiking finished in Kenmare. Quite a nice place - a bit like a miniature version of Killarney. We rested up big time for more of the same tomorrow, when we'd hike to Sneem.

From Hike from Kil...

The Windy Gap

After a steady rise for a couple of hours, we got to the top of the windy gap. Looking back you can see the the entire Kenmare road, back to the national park. Looking the other direction you can see Kenmare and Kenmare bay, several miles ahead.

From Hike from Kil...

From Hike from Kil...

Oh, and yes, it is very, very windy!

The Old Kenmare Road

The Old Kenmare road begins at the top of Torc Waterfall. It's a narrow windy track, over the mountains to Kenmare and is long closed to traffic. The trip affords some spectacular views and is very much untouched country. Lakes, waterfalls and freshwater streams dot the landscape and harly an animal is to be seen. No farming seems to be underway here now - all we saw was the occasional, ancient farm wall and at one stage what seems to be a graveyard with lots of burial mounds.

From Hike from Kil...

From Hike from Kil...

Occasionally you pass another hiker (usually German or Dutch the day we went), but apart from that you're on your own. Very quiet, very realxing. We had lunch beside a waterfall in the middle of nowhere ... say no more.

From Hike from Kil...

From Hike from Kil...

Torc Waterfall

A little further on from Muckross was Torc Waterfall. Very pretty. After a steep climb to the top there was a very nice view of the lakes behind us. This was also the start of our trek up and over the mountains to Kenmare.

From Hike from Kil...

From Hike from Kil...

Muckross

Muckross and Killarney have almost grown together at this stage and after a short stroll we'd arrived at Muckross Abbey and Muckross House. This was only mildly impressive - Far nicer were the lakes of Killarney that they stood beside.

From Hike from Kil...

From Hike from Kil...

From Hike from Kil...