Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Dublin 2008

The annual trip to Dublin saw me visiting the city for 3 reasons.
  • To catch up with friends.
  • To visit the Funderland fair.
  • To defend my two-time go-karting championship.
After a few hours at the airport, due to a slightly delayed flight Friday evening was spent having drinks and a lovely Mongolian Barbecue in the Temple Bar area

Saturday morning was go-karting day and I don't know what had happened to the track but you had to steer into the bends really early if you were to get around. As a result I was unable to get to grips with the track, pun intended, and wasn't doing as well as in previous years. In the end I came 4th and had to relenquish the title to Richard. It gives me a good reason to come back though!

After a quick break, we then made our way down to the Funderland arena for the fair.

This was the sight that welcomed us to Funderland. This year they were debuting their new coaster, Shockwave.

Salvaged from Luneur in Italy where it has been sitting in storage the ride was rescued and with a train taken from Slagharen in the Netherlands they had a winner on their hands. It was beautifully smooth and not showing its age at all. (Have I just made a coaster sound like a wine?)

Indoors was the usual collection of fairground rides. Roller Ghoster was a fun pun of a ghost train that was supposed to have coaster elements but rather than let you drop they'd brake the car just before and have you guided down.

We didn't ride Take Off this year. Its cool though!

The Rotor was new and not something I'd tried for years. I had planned to try to rotate upside down whilst it was spinning but they'd crammed too many people in and there wasn't enough room to get around without kicking some kids in the head.

Tom looks a bit tentative.


Extreme is a strange ride, you have to jump up to get into the seats and it spins me so much that the blood rushes to my head and away from my feet. When the ride comes to a stop I have pins and needles in my legs from the knees down, which makes the jumping out the seat kind of awkward. This is what it looks like when moving.


This was also new for this year and apparently won't be coming back as it was making too many people ill. I'd never ridden the KMG Experience before and I won't be revisiting it either. The forces throw you sideways into the restraint before flipping you in all sorts of directions. It looks like this when moving.

By comparison the Frisbee was pretty tame and they'd run it on just enough power to get close to the roof without going through it. Some poor women on this threw up but caught it and swallowed it. Lovely! Her kids were pretty concerned for her though, I just found it funny.


The fair was great and I'm hoping to go out again in a couple of months this time to Cork where they will be setting up base next.

In the evening we went back to the Temple Bar, this time to Luigi Malones. I'd been there before last year and the food was still good!

Sunday morning was spent checking out Dublin again to see what had changed.
Heheh Maddy pastings. I'm quite sure Kate would like the free advertising.


I think I'd seen some of Maser's work before but can't recall where. Probably in Shoreditch. This was found on the outskirts of the Temple Bar area.



New to O'Connel St this time around was these weird animations which I later found out were part of an art installation by Julian Opie, famous for the Blur album cover with the cartoon faces.

Something is a little bit wrong at Dublin Airport.

But not the new terminal which looks amazing. The departure lounges contain lots of famous quotations from Irish poets and writers.

All in all another great weekend in Dublin, and I can't wait to go back to Ireland and this time it'll be to Cork where I've never been before.

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