Ireland Travel Experience - Part 5

                                                Tourist offices in Dublin offer a Dublin pass which is very helpful to cover the major attractions in the same day avoiding the rush in getting entry tickets. We took that pass for 35 euro per head from the tourist office in the old stone church in Dublin. They gave a tour package guide and maps for visitor's attractions. By 10:30 a.m in the morning, we we went to Christ church cathedral - unfortunately it was closed due to some security tightening schedules. So it is better to plan your day tour by checking the timings - opening  and closing hours of the sights you are going to visit. 

Then we entered into the DUBLINIA and started taking snaps with the historical and medieval Ireland culture, people and environment. It was a fun ride to get the viking and medieval exhibition experience @ Dublinia. You get a feel like you are visiting a viking warrior by wearing those viking armors and holding the weapons.By 11:00 a.m we went to St. Patrick's cathedral and spent half an hour there exploring the history of cathedral and Saint Patrick.

After that we were headed up to the Guinness Store house where we saw a big queue lined up. After waiting in the same queue for about 10 minutes, we came to know that for the guys who had Dublin pass, there was no need to stand in the queue. Then we rushed inside soon and reached the first floor. Taking few snaps, we started exploring the store house built by Arthur Guinness. Every where it was Guinness only - Guinness T-shirts, Guinness cups, barrels and then Guinness beer. We were able to see the process of making a beer - brewing, meshing, fermentation etc.

Source was mainly barley and yeast. There were tasting rooms for whoever wish to taste 1 pint of Guinness beer.Then we were moving on to the next floor by escalator as it had 7 floors in total. Once we reached the top floor, there was a gravity bar which gives 360 degree view of the entire Dublin city. We did a lot of walking on the same day to reach Kilmainham Gaol - it is an old prison in Dublin. But as we went after the closing hours of visiting the jail, we were not able to enter it. The day tour is not yet finished here...

To be continued ...

Ireland Travel Experience - Part 4

                                              After finishing 2 tours , it was time for us to know more about the city we stayed -Dublin - capital city of Republic of Ireland. Almost all the major places in Dublin gives us a treasure of Ireland history, knowledge, culture and so on... To list the places we have visited in Dublin are: National Gallery of Ireland, National Library, National Art , History and Animals Museums, Stephen's Green, Phoenix Park, Dublin Zoo, Dublin Castle, Chester Beatty Library, The Naughton Institute science gallery, Trinity College - Book of Kells, Dublinia, St. Patrick's cathedral, Howth Harbour, Temple Bar and Guinness Store House. I will just start explaining in the order I visited these places.

National Museum of Ireland is divided into 3 categories - Animals, Birds and Art or History museums. 

When I was visiting the museums full of birds and animals, I felt like watching all animals and birds staring at you at the same time. They were looking so real.Then we entered into the art museum which was categorized into Ancient Egypt, Chinese, Prehistoric, Medieval and Modern Ireland. During prehistoric times of Ireland, Latin was the most spoken language.In National Gallery of Ireland, it was full of 18th and 19th century paintings and sculptures. It was also filled with European and Irish paintings.

Stephen's green shopping center is one of the beautiful shopping mall in Dublin. Here you will find a collection of all major shops. It is a good choice for shopping dress materials from TKMaxx and Dunne's stores, perfume from The Perfume Shop, and showcase and Irish gifts from Caroll's.

More interesting information about Dublin to follow in my next article.. Soon I will update with more and more Irish beauty in the form of photography from my website.

To be continued ...

Ireland Travel Experience - Part 3

                               Though you can get more information on the history of cork from internet, I will just explain here what the tourist guide explained to us during my second tour to Cork city and Blarney Castle.  Cork which means a "marsh land" was set up as a monastery in the beginning of the 5th to 6th century by St. Finbarr. 

This monastery was built on the hill beside a river. Some cathedrals were also built beside the monastery in the medieval times. The monks will ring the bell and were involved in different activities. They believed creating objects of worship is the real worship in God. Vikings started to arrive in Ireland to trade the objects of worship in monasteries from the monks. They setup trading settlements with local tribes. English in 1100's pushed the vikings out. Both English and Irish markets are present in the Cork city. Along with the history explained by the tourist guide, we reached the city @ 11:50 am. The accent is different in Cork. They used to add a boy/girl at the end of the sentence. E.g: How is it going boy ? Where you want to go girl?

After finishing our lunch in the cork city, we headed to Blarney Castle - one of my favorite castle in Ireland. Those who kiss the Blarney stone in the castle, will gain the eloquence and persuasiveness - in short they will get the gift of the gab. The castle was really unique and I felt like I am there in the same historical time period when the castle was built (600 years ago).All the steps inside were spiral to reach different levels of the castle - courtroom, family room, priest room, kitchen and the blarney stone at the top. 

Though we missed to watch the Blarney house and fern garden there, we were proud that we kissed the blarney stone - hope there is an improvement in the eloquence of my speech now ;) Also we spent some time watching the poison garden, caves etc. Gaelic and Irish languages are spoken in some parts of Ireland with English being spoken the most. The county championship for players is arranged by GAL - Gaelic Athletic Association. We were wrapping up our second tour @ 3:55 pm and headed back to Dublin and reached home by 6:30 to 7 pm.

To be continued ...

Ireland Travel Experience - Part 2

                                 As far as my stay in Dublin, the weather ranged from 0 to 15 degrees Celsius with wind, rain, breeze, fog and snow divided over different days, weeks and months. Also I saw snow fall for the first time in Dublin, but it lasted only for a few hours on that day. Coming back to my second tour, it happened the second day itself after our first tour. This time it is Cork city - south west region of Ireland.

Started @ 7:00 a.m in the morning - seems like sun rise is by 8 to 8:30 a.m and sun set is by 4:30 - 5:00 pm in the winter seasons of Ireland. It was kind of long dark nights and short bright days. Had a break at one of the service station when cork city was 150 km away. It was drizzling rain and chill wind in the morning. Our first stop was Rock of Cashel  at 9:10 a.m.

Took some photo shots and attended a audio visual session for about 20 minutes describing the history of Rock of Cashel from12th to 16th century. St.Patrick's Rock and St.Dominick's Abbey were the major attractions. Then while heading to the cork city, it was full of snowy mountains and evergreen grasses with lambs and cows seen at some of the lanes.

The tourist guide or driver was a lady who was talking non stop like an RJ 24/7 explaining about the history of Cork city, castles, counties and flags of Ireland. There were 3 major counties and all counties have a nickname. Cork is the Rebel county. They owe their plantation / rebels. County Cork is near to the limerick county. Roads were all straight and clean through out the city. We entered the county cork by 11:10 a.m. Some call Cork as the true capital of Ireland.

Cuban revolution war book has more information about the Irish counties, women, culture etc. Entering into the Cork (30 km away), the roads were covered with fog and snow at both sides. The leaves on trees and grasses (herbs and shrubs) were almost yellow and orange in color all the way. More history on Cork city and rest of my second tour will be continued in Part 3 :)

To be continued...

Ireland Travel Experience - Part 1

                     When you are away from your home land to a different land or island, you would have captured more moments and visions in the form of experience. I thought of sharing some of those excited moments when I was in that wonderful island - Ireland.

I would better start off with the tours which I went while I was there in Dublin - Capital city of Republic of Ireland. My first tour was to the Cliffs Of Moher  - which is located in the south west part of Ireland. We have lot of tour packages available in Dublin - We have collected all the tour information from the Tourist office located in the Old stone church, Dublin. Departed from the tourist office at around 6:50 am in a tourist bus with the tourist guide and driver being the same person. Had stops @ service stations for break fast and rest rooms. Then stopped @ our first sight seeing spot - King John's Castle and grabbed some snaps around the castle. 

Then the bus started off through Limerick city to reach one of the 7 wonders of Ireland - Cliffs Of Moher. The weather was exactly in favor for us to catch the magnificent beauty of the cliffs.

We would have spent one and half hour @ the cliffs and had some photo sessions. Once we started walking to get different view of all the cliffs, we were not feeling cold though cold air was hitting us from the sea.

After cliffs, we headed to the Doolin village for lunch - had vegetable soup, garlic bread and sandwich. Then we were off to Limerick county along the seashore to catch a glimpse of the lime stones.

Then we started wrapping our day tour on the way back to Dublin via Galway county pausing for a glance on the Dunguaire castle near Kinvara. Reached back Dublin by 7 p.m. So from my first tour itself, readers would have understood about the major sight seeing places in Ireland - castles, churches, coastal cities and natural mountains enriched with historical information.

To be continued ...

POEM 11 - Organs of 21st Century

Eyes ...
Always in search of unseen world,
Recording events of your mind,
Picturing hidden images of your brain,
Longing to see unseen beauty.

Ears...
Always in closed state with head/ear phones,
Listening to hundred things and doing nothing,
Hearing only the unheard words all time,
Forgetting to hear when it is the right time.

Nose...
Breathing polluted air and getting suffocated,
Forgetting the smell of real nature,
Changing colour in different weather and places,
Losing proper communication to fellow organs.

Tongue...
Speaking more mixed languages than its mother tongue,
Spitting words before processing it from main core,
Tasting food without knowing its good for health,
Telling sweet hundred lies than a bitter truth.

Hands...
Sculpting statues out of unbound imagination,
Writing words in the form of poems,articles and stories,
Painting emotions in the form of nature,humans and art,
Helping those who are in need of it.

Fingers...
Typing thoughts and ideas into computer keyboard,
Playing classical and rap in musical  keyboard,
Crafting art with a needle and thread into fabric,
Counting the stars over and over again.

Legs...
Walking in the woods to reach unknown destinations,
Running in the rain to follow lost directions,
Dancing out of pain and happiness for meaningless songs,
Jumping out of joy for reward less results.

Brain...
Always in search of abundant knowledge,
Gathering unlimited capacity of useless information,
Discovering artificial intelligence and robots,
Processing faster giving hyper tension to fellow organs.

Heart...
Always beating to live long enough,
Seeking for infinite love,
Longing for truthful friendship,
Tolerating the unexpected sorrow from expected tomorrow,
Pumping the real happiness to overcome the failures of future....!

All the other organs too would have something to say in the current century...


Regards,
Siva

Article 3 - Escaping from technology addiction

How we can escape from getting addicted to technology? I don't think who are already addicted to it won't be even interested to discuss such a topic. But at one stage they will realize they are missing some important and happy moments of their life which is blind folded by the mammoth growth of technology. In my previous article I had explained about the impact and those missing moments or sweet memories.

Majority of technology is in the form of internet in laptops, iPods, iPads, tablets, computers, smart phones and other upcoming future generation gadgets which are controlling the human race at a fast pace. Though we cannot blame the internet invention itself, we can at least try to escape from getting addicted to it.  Now a days almost are all are getting addicted to most of social networking sites and some even stay online chatting over weeks, updating statuses with out having any breaks, chatting to brothers and sisters who stay in the same house but in different rooms, chatting to some unknown persons whom you have never seen in your life etc..

Probably they can all shutdown their systems and go for a walk in the garden and listen to the songs of birds and enjoy the power of real nature in the form of sun, moon, rain or rainbow. It seems really disconnected when human face to face communication is overwritten by assembly languages, matrix codes and programming algorithms. Probably all can visit their old childhood friends who reside in native places, can share their experiences with friends who work in a different domain or probably meet the elderly people who have not even heard of face book ;)

We can teach those kids who are addicted to games in smart phones or Xbox to play some old games which are extinct or not even heard. They can play hide and seek in the twilight or dance to their favorite music or play cricket or football or any of their favorite out door games in the play ground under sun light which all adds up to their health in the form of exercise and immunity.They can play some word games with parents which improve their language pronunciation, communication and vocabulary. They can listen to the fairy tales and historical stories from their grand parents which will teach them history, culture, relation and affection. They can read some useful physical books, participate in sports,poetry, art or painting competitions or at least give it all a try in their own home and show their talents to parents or relatives or neighborhood friends. All these extra curricular activities are real fun and really motivates the children for their studies too.

 Its not only kids, even adults and elders are spending hours and weeks before their favorite smart gadgets without even giving enough time to sleep. May be we need to go back to a time period where there were no gadgets or no electricity and watch over those people who survived with basic needs. So many inventions had helped people a lot, but it had made them work less physically and mentally. For example, invention of two, three, four (or more than that) wheeler vehicles made people to travel to long distances with ease but at the same time they got addicted to it in such a way that even for nearest shop or house, they are making use of them only. May be they forgot the use of their legs or forgot how to make them walk :) They are not even able to make use of stairs in order to go to first floor from ground floor, as escalators and lifts have made their legs to rest in peace. As a result, I am not saying that people can participate in some survival of fittest reality programs or to live with out internet (may be electricity) for 1 week in order to save from technology addiction, but at least try to breathe some fresh air free of technology, gadgets etc and take a break and go on a tour to your favorite vacation spot. Always think that humans should control technology and know their limits and restrictions and it is not the other way around.

-- Siva Subramanian. 

Article 2 - Impact of Technology on Human Memory

Vanishing are those days where kids used to play sports out in the sunshine, where adults used to meet their friends every week, where elders used to attend family functions, celebrate festivals in their home towns, where people used to say hello or hi to their neighbors.Apart from the daily work life, technology of television and internet has completely acquired those good old days which are merely memories now. 

Instead of running for a competitive race in the playground, kids, adults, teens and even elders are playing Temple Run series in Tablets. Instead of observing the nature in silence with a little country side walk,people are rushing in peak hours to their destinations in polluted and populated roads over the weekends. Instead of listening and enjoying the music of real birds, all are playing Angry Birds in iPad.  Instead of realizing and enjoying the value of their own native place or country, people are raising their eye brows and admiring the beauty of far away places and countries  which they can only dream of visiting. Instead of learning their own mother tongue language and converse to fellow humans, people are interested in learning tons of programming languages to communicate with machines.Instead of calling close friends and relatives over mobile phone, all started chatting in Facebook over the same smart phone (Meeting them directly and talking had stopped long back).

Even for simple maths calculations and help on medical advice, people are relying only on Google search. Then what is the use of children memorizing all maths time tables in their school life. We are not able to even remember the phone numbers of father, mother ,brothers or sisters or best friends as all contacts are stored safe in smart phone and synced to cloud. Over all technology is not only affecting memory, but also restricting human body, mind and soul. So instead of humans controlling technology, technology is controlling humans. Emotions, laughter, happiness are all tied up with machines now which was expressed between humans before. Thus technology is leaving a trace of old time as a treasure of memories which we are gradually forgetting now....

Its better we start saving some sweet memories which live short now a days. So how we can escape from being addicted to technology in order to understand the human brain power?

Will be continued in my next article,

Siva

Article 1 - Evolution of Technology

Various topics on technology always peek through one of technology's child internet every now and then. To list a few:

a) Technology - is it a boon or ban ? 

b) How technology has changed human's outlook toward the world in the last decade or century?

c) Are humans becoming addicted to technology use ?

d) Will artificial intelligent robots acquire human era in the near future?

Also we have been seeing so many science fiction thriller movies ranging from 2001- A space odyssey, Stealth to i-Robot, Matrix and War of the worlds where technology tries to overtake human life, memory, body, soul and everything. Now a days, no body can imagine a day without smart devices like mobile phones, tablets, laptops which is inter connected by the source as internet. If these are the recent inventions, then the previous major inventions like electricity, transportation including two, three and four wheeler, trains, airplanes etc have become the basic needs of day to day life.

The truth is that the new inventions in information technology are made to forget about the old ones.Cloud computing, Sixth sense and Google glass will make us forget about external hard disks, pen drives, laptops which in turn had made compact discs, floppy disks and personal computers disappear. But now even smart phones are becoming transparent. In the near future, every one will have their data in cloud locked with a secured account and password online.

If you want to meet some one 1000 miles away, your visual 3D or 4D projection can reach there in seconds and he will get a feel that he is talking to your clone. Every body is locating their destination in Google maps before they set out their journey now. But soon you can see the location route and destination point itself in front of you in a 3D projected satellite view like the scientists seeing island of Pandora in Avatar movie.

We cannot always predict how the technology will be evolving through out as the chain of inventions will never cease. Though these inventions are helping humans in various ways, they should not possess a threat to the humans.

Signing Off-

Siva

POEM 10 - COINCIDENCE

Rain, Rain, Rain, it always rain,

When you travel without an umbrella...

Rain, Rain, Rain, it doesn't rain,

When you travel wearing a rain coat holding an umbrella ...

Train, Train, Train, it always leaves at right time,

When you have reached one minute later...

Train, Train, Train, it is always late,

When you have reached half an hour early...

Bus, Bus, Bus, it is always the wrong one,

When you wait for the right bus in rush hour...

Bus, Bus, Bus, it is always the right one,

When you wait for an auto or taxi...

Phone, Phone, Phone, it always rings,

In your busy schedule from wrong numbers to credit card agents...

Phone, Phone, Phone, it doesn't ring at all,

When you expect a call or you are alone and free...

Money, Money, Money it is always not enough,

For a mind jumping from Landline to iPhone or Cycle to BMW....

Money, Money, Money it is always sufficient,

For a mind which values happiness more than money...

Time, Time, Time - you do not have enough time,

When you are in a hurry rushing to do things at the last moment...

Time, Time, Time - you always enjoy time,

When you have planned it well and execute things at the right moment...

Poet, Poet, Poet - you do not have one,

When you are breaking your brains to write one poem,

Poem, Poem, Poem - it always comes to the poet,

When the poet thinks everything else except writing a poem....

What a coincidence...