Pop that cork!

We almost didn't make it down to Cork, My boyfriend's job seems to be under jeopardy at the moment, well we have known this for quite awhile, The restaurant has got quieter and quieter as the weeks go by. Theres always been something to blame it on,

for instance, the bad weather is keeping people away since they have stopped doing delivery,

last week was back to school time and parents obviously didn't have any money left.

 I want this bag

but then this weekend it got considerably worse, we saw the restaurant is up for sale on Daft.ie, and they haven't even told my boyfriend or any of the staff there Then to put the cherry on the cake, they didn't pay him this week.

Which meant Cork was more or less out of the question. :( until my Mom finally agreed to pay for half of the hotel and I used some spare cash I had in my post office account and off we went.

Off we set we got the bus from Dublin to cork, and as usual were late, and ended up getting the worst seats on the whole bus, second from the back, with an extremely noisy and drunk, rude polish man behind us, who was more of a Dub than the Dubs themselves.

We couldn't wait to get away from him and rush off the bus and head to our lovely hotel, The Gresham Metropole. very nice hotel, although a little noisy at night time, We went to Tasty Oriental for dinner. It was really good and very reasonable 35 euro for 2 people. 3 courses.

The next morning we woke up bright and early, (because of the traffic outside) and had our traditional irish breakfast.

Then headed off into the city to explore, we went to the English market, then to St. Fin Barres Cathedral, University College Cork (I have to say it is almost as big as UCD) then we went to an art gallery which my boyfriend loved, it wasn't like a traditional gallery you would see in France, it was much more contemporary.

English Market

University College Cork

St Fin Barres Cathedral

Art Gallery

We were planning to go to FItzgerald park and Mueseum, but it started lashing raining and we were starving, so we gave it a miss, but sure theres always next time.

We got on our bus at 6 and were glad to see their were no drunk polish men around. We made it back to Bray at 12 and I crashed out on the bed straight away my poor little legs were walked off me!! lol

See you in China~

Yesterday was a sad day for me but I knew it was coming all along, I had to say good bye to two of my good friends Edison and Jia Qi they began there journey to fly back to China at 6AM this morning. There both flying in different directions one heading South, One heading North.

But basically it is bye bye Ireland for good. Which is quite sad, but all is not lost, I still have both of them on my QQ and I will be able to keep in touch with them ^^ and I also promised I would visit them in 2012 (If were not all dead lol, you know the end of the world conspiracy? do you believe it?) Especially Edison.

Me and my boyfriend touch wood, Are planning to fly to China for Chinese new year to stay for about 2 or 3 months. This will be my boyfriends first visit back in almost 5 years. So I think it will be an emotional to visit to say the least.

But its quite lucky, Edisons city Shenzhen is very close to my boyfriends city. So no matter what I will definitely get to go there ^^ Jia Qi on the otherhand is from Jilin (similar to my sisters name Gillian hehe) I don't really know anything about that province, so if I want to go there I will have to do some research.

Shenzhen

Jilin

But since me and my boyfriend plan to spend a week in Beijing, I am sure he will be able to fly there to meet me and my friend Jin Ma who lives there)

But anyway these days the list of places I want to visit in China are escalating all the time and I am sure I won't be able to visit all of them in one trip lol. Heres the list (the top ones are the ones I definitely want to visit)

My boyfriends city obviously

Shenzen (Edisons city)

Hong Kong (Edisons city)

Bejing/ Hebei (Jin Ma's city)

Henan (Ming's city) (A new friend I don't know to well... just met him during my last summer module)

Jillin (Jia Qi's city)

Xi'an (Want to see the terrocatta army)

Hangzhou (I saw it in the drama Love Keeps going and i heard it is the paradise of China)

Hainan ( The Hawaii of China)

I'm sure by the time we book our tickets I will have added more lol and hijacked our whole trip lol!!

The Waterford trip - Fail lol

On Sunday my boyfriend came home from work late, things are starting to get crazy at his work again. @.@ anyway as soon as he came in he said quick get dressed up, Ping and his new girlfriend Cherry are staying in a hotel in Bray

Heres a picture of Ping and Cherry

So we rushed out the door, literally and met them in the Martello in Bray and chatted for awhile and decided to make plans for the next day. Ping was thinking of going to Wicklow. But to be honest I didn't think there would be enough stuff to do there. So in the end we decided we would go to Waterford and stay in a hotel down there. So we all agreed to meet at 10'oc on Monday morning and get KFC for breakfast and hit the road.

It all sounded so great, then when we were walking back to our apartment, my boyfriend got hungry and we decided to get fish and chips. Then a series of unfortunate events followed. We got shortchanged by 10 euro. so I had to go back and complain, then we went back to the apartment and my boyfriend said I didn't bring my key did you? no...

Our Landlord owns a pub about 5 minutes away so we walked there and explained to one of the bar men that we had forgotten our key and then he said the boss is away in Spain and all the keys are kept locked in his office, but his wife will be here tomorrow so she will be able to help you. OH SHIT

Then we thought maybe we would try sleep in my boyfriends friends house. but i was wearing contact lenses and had no cleaning solution or anything with me. Also it was 2am so we decided our only option was to walk to my house. So we walked up and crept into the house and my boyfriend had to sleep in the spare room and i slept in my room.

I couldn't sleep a wink because i had been drinking and he couldn't sleep because he felt like a criminal. He left my house at 6am before my family woke up and walked around the seafront until the bosses wife gave him the key.

Halleluyah!

Then I packed my stuff to go to Waterford and then my boyfriend said I don't want to go wahahaha i'm too tired. But in the end we got in Pings car and set off. First stop Tesco, where we bought wayyyyy too many snacks! Chicken drumsticks ribs, chicken nuggets, sweets, red bull, coke, fruit, nuts you name it,

Then we drove aimlessly for about 2 hours and ended up in Wexford??? We missed the Waterford turn. so we had to turn around and head back. then we got to Waterford and spent an hour trying to find a non fee paying carparking space mission impossible.

Then we went shopping in the small shopping centres, then the next mission find a hotel, that we can afford....  we walked up and down and around and could barely find any. then we went to the tourist office and they gave us a map and showed us where the hotels were.

Ping and his girlfriend went searching while me and michael ate our ice cream merrily :) then they found possibly the most expensive hotel in Waterford, with a swimming pool spa, free parking and so on.

I can't swim, Ping can't swim and Ping's girlfriend Cherry can't swim. so I thought it seemed like a waster of money but dispite my efforts to persuade them to go to the one down the road, for 60 euro. it had to be this hotel.

Then we got the car brought it to the car parking space. bought new swimming togs. Ms. Cherry was extremely choosey lol I want padding I want such and such colour blahblah. then we went for dinner.

It was a restaurant right beside the hotel. Ping looked at the price and said yup lets go here. Not even checking what was on the menu. Surprise, surprise it was Indian and guess what they all hate Indian food. lol

Then we went back to the hotel to relax and then we went swimming!!!! I have to say dispite my lack of enthousiam about the swimming pool it actually turned out to be the highlight of the trip!

The best part was they had lots of equipment for people who couldn't swim like floats and so on. So once I used them I was flying along :) and they also had a hot tub. which was a first for me!

Then we went back to the room. relaxed. couldn't sleep, tossed and turned all night and then woke in time for the breakfast buffet. Then we drove back to Dublin and went to the cinema to see Bad teacher. It was a nice ending to the trip.

But the moral of the story is don't go on a trip unless you have a plan, you know where you are going to stay, where your going to eat, and most importantly what your going to do. Thrust me it would of saved a hell of a lot of arguments.