Morning walks on Killiney Beach

One of the best things with living in Killiney is the beach. I have never lived closer to the beach in my entire life, not even in Edinburgh...It's a mere 2 minute walk and there I am, strolling down, enjoying the breeze and the magnificent views.
Only pity really is the cobbles as they are rather unpleasant to walk on. Well, what do you do when you have serious problems with erosion. :(

Anyhow, I try to go for a walk at least once a day, preferably twice. Sharon and I have been really good going for our morning walks with Marley and now when she's off to the sun and lazy beach and coctail life I've been taking him out myself. He's a funny dog, loves running down the beach barking at the birds, stalking them and then running out in the sea, swimming for a while and then up again on the beach. For some reason he loves to chew on sea weed...guess it's like us and chewing gum.

Well, am on my way to Diarmuid's now for a lazy weekend. Take good care of yourselves my dear friends!!

Another picture of Marley chasing birds and eating sea weed.

"Mmmmm....I like sea weed...yummie yummie!"

One very happy Marley.

Marley on our morning walk, Killiney Beach, Dublin.

Killiney Beach early this morning.

Holiday in Asia

In the end of March until the end of April I went with my family on a long nice holiday to Asia. First I traveled from Dublin to Malmo via London, where my parents and my brother met up with me. The day after we flew up to Stockholm where we spent the night at my sister's place. From Stockholm we took the ferry over to Helsinki and then train to Moscow. From Moscow we traveled on the Trans-Mongolian to Ulan Bator were we spent a week (in the city and out in the Terelj National Park in a Ger camp). After Mongolia we went to China (first Beijing and then the Yunnan province in the south) and finally Tibet.
Below you can see some of the pictures that my brother Martin took with his mobile phone. Not the best quality, but hey... ;)

Enjoy.

Me doing some serious shopping in the silk market in Beijing.

My bro and I.

Mom and dad...

Mom enjoying a few.

Even more summer palace.

More summer palace.

The first car in China.

Summer palace.

My dad in the Summer Palace, Beijing.

Beijing.

Beijing skyline.

Map of Lhasa and surroundings. We were in Yangpachen traveling up along the mountain range.

It was cold, windy and quite dramatic.

We were high up. The mountains around us being at around 7000 m.

Something different than the Alps.

Prayer flags.

Place for worship.

Hotsprings in Tibet.

Out in the wilderness of Tibet.

Lhasa skyline.

"Can you please put on the kettle sweetheart?"

Another picture of me in Drepung.

Me in front of one of the buildings in the Drepung monastary.

Mountain view, Drepung.

Doing some step aerobics in Drepung.

Drepung monastary with view of the mountains.

One of the largest buddhist temple in the world, the Drepung temple just outside Lhasa city.

A typical Chinese "joint" in Lhasa. Nice, extremely spicy food, lots of chili.

Traditionally painted house in Lhasa.

More markets in Lhasa.

Marketplace in Lhasa. "Lookie lookie, very cheap!"

Lhasa roofs. In the top right corner you can see Potala, the most sacred place in Tibet, the palace of the Dalai Lama.

Jak Hotel in Lhasa, Tibet. The hotel personell had the morning "wake up call".

Valley in China, Yunnan province. Looks a lot less green than it actually was.

Huang Hu river. It was big, it was green and it wasn't actually that dirty. Yet.

Folk dance at the Lugu Lake, one of the few living matriarchical societies of today. They don't even have a name for "man" or "marriage". ;)

So that nobody would forget the beauty of the Mongolian national anthem they cut it in stone.

The 13th hole at the golf course in the Terelj National Park. (My brother Martin met the owner, an Uzbek with whom he had a long and fruitful discussion in Russian.)

Irish pub in Ulan Bator, early March 2006. Really good gig and nice beer. ;)

Apple cider and fleeing brie, or...just a really nice weekend

Here we go, Linda's back blogging. Believe it or not, finally I have some time to spend on this egocentric part of the net. Please don't tell Grainne, she'll just through another report or analysis on me. :(

Anyhow. Weekend was great, apart from the tedious laundry I had to do on Saturday morning. Got up way too early for a weekend, but when I had gotten the first load in I just snoozed in bed, watching "Mythbusters" on the Discovery channel.

After lunch I took the Dart up to Clontarf where Diarmuid picked me up. Got completely pampered throughout the weekend, wine and dinner, you name it. ;)

Originally we had planned to go on a daytrip up to the Hills of Tara, but breakfast was just a bit too nice and we didn't get out until early afternoon. So instead we went to the farmer's market in Farmleigh (http://www.farmleigh.ie/) and bought some really nice cheeses (including one brie that looked as it was trying to escape, but oooooooooohhhhhh so delicious), bread and cider from Brittany (Bretagne). Also got some very nice fudge that we somehow managed to keep our hands off (almost).

So, am feeling very good today although my head still hasn't woken up. Considering how good I was in the weekend (apart from the small, tiny, hardly identifiable pieces of fudge) I should be able to enjoy something fairly unhealthy. Have a craving for some nice, thick and creamy yoghurt...mmmmmmmm.

Hope to get myself a digital camera soon so that I can upload more pictures. The below ones are pretty bad as they were taken with mobile phones. Please bare with me. I'll be a good friend from now on, keeping you all updated on the twists and turns of my soap opera life.

Lots of love from a not so rainy Dublin.