Belfast

is the fairly small capital city of northern ireland. the Belfast City Hall is probably one of the most outstanding building in the city centre:

the city hall sits just outside the shopping area. Victoria Square is one of the main malls there, and it has a glass viewing dome:

to be fair, there’s not much of a view though:

Queen’s University is another major building in the city – it’s also the largest landowner in the city centre. Belfast is largely a ‘student city’; it empties out during the holidays as all the university students go home.

i think it’s because of the university that there’re actually quite a few asians (i.e. chinese) in belfast. and there i was hoping to be special and unique! i also saw several asian women married to caucasian men in belfast too, which was surprising since belfast really isn’t a cosmopolitan or global city by any stretch.

anyway, here’s another pretty building:

we went to the Museum and saw pictures of the Irish Elk (Irish Deer?), which had gone extinct but was enormous:

i also had the Koppaberg cider which i really like – perhaps my favourite flavour of all is this:

must also introduce the full irish breakfast – or the Irish fry – which comprises an egg, tomato, baked beans, sausages, bacon, soda bread and potato bread. the latter are delicious and i wish we had those here too:

for some reason, batteries sold in the UK – of which northern ireland is a part of – come with a rather unnecessary warning:

and this is apparently not an uncommon sight in Belfast:

it also turns out that other countries fine people for littering – “i’m sure you get punished for littering anywhere in the world”, said the boy – which makes me wonder why that Singapore does so is made such a big deal of.

When i was in Japan, some teachers used to introduce something unique/special about Singapore to the students by going, “You get fined for littering”. Or ask me in a slightly incredulous voice if it’s true that there’s a fine for littering here. Maybe it’s the severity of the fine that makes it worth talking about: