Culture Night / Killiney Hill Climb / 38km Walk from Howth to Bray!!

Friday, September 22 was Culture night. Culture night is an annual event in Dublin that celebrates arts, heritage and culture. There are many different free events and venues that people can go and check out. The first thing that we went to see Friday night was a Mews. The Mews was where the horses were kept. We walked into the room and there were stables where horses used to be kept, and It looked like a barn, but once we went up the stairs, it looked like a regular house. It had 4 bedrooms, many bathrooms and a kitchen, It was really cool! It is now an Air B&B.



Next, we went to the Iveagh House. The Iveagh House is the headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Dublin. It was first a house designed for British Clayton, and later it was bought by Benjamin Guinness. It is only open 3 times a year, and Culture night is one of the times. There was a huge line to get in, but we were able to get in and do the 45 minute tour of the House. 




Inside was very beautiful. There were some very nice statues, and the house looked very luxurious. 






After we were finished with the tour of the Iveagh House, I went to get Ice-Cream while everybody else went Home. Then I walked back home and went to sleep.
Saturday, we had our hill walk planned. We had made a plan to climb killiney hill at 2:00 PM on Saturday, September 23. A lot of people were not able to go because they had other things to do. Boan and I met up near St. Andrews College, and took the dart to Killiney Dart station to meet everybody. Once we all got there, we had a total of 5 people. We had Me, Boan, Carolina, Eszter and Alana. It was nice to have a small group of 5 people, because climbing the hill was very fun. 

I remember climbing Killiney hill in the past with my Family, and we took the regular path, but this time, we actually climbed up the hill, as in took a very steep path through a ton of shrubs and prickly bushes to the very top. It was way more fun and challenging. Here is a picture of the start of the climbing of the hill.






It was very steep, but it was very fun because we found this one place under the trees that had a swing. 




After going through narrow steep paths and through thorny bushes, we finally made it to the top. We came up on some white rocks, and then we saw the Obelisk right away. 





After spending some time at the top of Killiney hill, we took the easier way down, that included a better man made path. We went down a different way, and at the bottom, there is a playground. I remember going to the same spot last year in Transition Year for orienteering. We saw a lot of dogs while we were walking down to the playground. They were all climbing Killiney hill that day as well apparently.





We hung out on the playground for a while, then walked down to the Dart Station. Saturday was very fun, we got to climb a hill the fun way, and play on the playground on the way out, and it counts as CAS for school. 

Sunday I had a huge event planned again. This was something I signed up for last week, and it is a walk from Howth to Bray for Cystic Fibrosis. Boan and Kim were both doing it with me. I woke up Sunday at 7:30 AM to get ready. Boan was going to pick me and Kim up from my house in a taxi, and we would take it to Howth. We all got in the Taxi, but it turned out there was a huge bike race going on, so we got out of the taxi and walked across the Liffey where we cought another taxi to take to Howth. We got there right on time, about exactly 9:00 AM. 

Boan, Kim and I are all in Howth, top of the picture.

There were a lot of people there wearing the purple shirts we had gotten. They were handing out free food, bananas and waters for the walk. Kim bought a sandwich for Boan and Me before we started the walk which was really nice of her. Boan spotted a very inspiring drink at the shop.
 

The walk started around 9:30 AM. In the beginning, it was really nice because we were walking at a solid speed of about 10 minutes per km, and we got to see Bull Island as we were walking from Howth toward the City Center. I was using MapMyWalk to map exactly where we walked. We walked pretty much right on the water. We ended up getting to the 3 Arena and crossing over the Liffey. 




At about the half way point which was about 17km, there was a spot where spar had some tents and had free food for the people doing the walk. They had bananas, drinks, and free sandwiches also. We sat down to take our lunch break, and I ate the sandwich Kim bought for me, then another one from the spar stand.



The walk was very nice, because we were walking right next to the water, and it was so beautiful to see everything around us. It was also a very nice day out, and sunny most of the time which was awesome. We continued our walk on. I cant describe how long the walk was, but we just kept on walking. We stopped at this place on the beach that was like a square wall, that had some cool graffiti on it. 




I saw on the Snapchat map that Alec was in Dun Laoghaire, so when we were passing him, he came and said hello to us. He was on his way for lunch.



After talking to Alec for a bit, we continued our walk on. We walked toward Dalkey, and then we would walk past Killiney hill toward Bray. On our way through Dalkey, there was this really cool place by the water that we stopped to rest by, and some kids were doing parkour. We all stretched our legs since they were getting really tired.



We saw Max on the snapchat map as well, and when we got to Dalkey, he came out and said hey to us as well, and he gave us 2 bags of sweets which was nice of him. We talked to him for a while, then we continued on. We were about 23km through the walk at that point. We continued to walk, and eventually we ended up getting to Bray. When I mean eventually, I mean after 2 or 3 hours. This was a very long walk, and the end reception was in the Royal Hotel in Bray. I stopped my map, and here were our final results.



The reception at the Royal Hotel was very nice, because we got food and water. Most of the people were there already, but the food was very good, it was rice and some Indian food with chicken. They had a lot of purple balloons so Boan and I each took some home. We took the 145 bus home. It took about 45 minutes on the bus to get home. 

Once I got home, my legs were very sore, but not as sore as they have been before. 

5IB Party, Rainbow Run!!!

Friday, September 15 I had my party for IB students. We invited everybody from 5IB, and most people came. We bought a ton of food for the party on Thursday. We went to Dunnes and got a lot of stuff. 

We set it all up on the table in the kitchen on Friday. It looked really nice. All of the parents talked in the kitchen downstairs and the students were all upstairs partying. 

I had gone to the South Korean market on Wednesday to get a lot of Coco Palms, but I forgot to hand them out at the party. The party lasted until about 11:00 PM, and it was very fun. Everybody was dancing and having a good time. 

After the party, we cleaned up, and I went to sleep since I had a 5k to run Saturday. Saturday I was going to the Rainbow Run, which is an annual event in Dun Laoghaire. It is a party and a run where you get small bags filled with colored powder that you can throw everywhere, and you get covered in colors. Also, during the run, people throw colors on the runners. 

Saturday morning, I got up around 9:00 AM. Right when I woke up, people were washing my window in my room from the outside. They wash all the windows on my street once in a while. I planned to meet Juho at St. Andrews at 10:30 AM. I went to the bus stop, but the next bus was not coming for 10 minutes, so I took a cab to St. Andrews. I met Juho by the front gate, and we walked down to the Booterstown Dart station. We got on the Dart, and rode it for a couple of stops. We got off at a stop near Izzies house, and walked to her house to meet Izzie along with Jenna, Leigh, Carla, Maria, Miranda and Rosie. They had all slept over at Izzies house after my Party. We met them then went to Insomnia to get coffee. I got a hot chocolate and a muffin. Then we walked to Dun Laoghaire. 

Once we got there, we met up with Molly and Isabel. We all signed in and got our glasses and number. 

Then I went with Juho and Molly to Dunnes to buy myself a white T-shirt, so that all the colors could show up better. The party started at Noon, there was a stage with a DJ, and a band also. There was a ton of people there, and we were all dancing for about 2 hours straight. Juho can do backflips so he did some at the party. It was insane.

Leigh, Juho, Rosie and Me. 

The run started at 2:00 PM. We were already pretty tired from dancing for about 2 hours. We all got lined up to begin. We were running from the starting point, all the way to the end of the West Dun Laoghaire Pier, and then back to the starting point. I ran almost the whole way. It was very tiring, and I tried to run the whole race without walking. I ended up walking for about 30 seconds near the end of the 5k, but then decided to run again. It was a good practice 5k for the Run in the Dark, which will be more serious. I ran the 5k in 28 minutes, which is pretty good since I only started training September 4. Im glad I had this run to practice for the Run in the Dark. My goal for that run is to get under 25 minutes, just like last year, but maybe even 22 minutes. 

This Rainbow Run was a really awesome experience, and I will be able to use it for CAS. This is the first real CAS experience that we planned. Im surprised at how many of us there were, and Im sure we will have many more fun activities like this in the future.

Finish line of the 5k 

The next 2 people to finish together was Juho and Molly. They did a very good job. We saw everybody finish, and then there was a little after party. Once we all got back in our group, Juho, Isabel, Molly and I left to go home. We were all taking the Dart, and Juho and I had left our bags in the Registration building, so after we got are stuff, we walked to the Dart station. I got off with Juho to go to his house really quick. He is living with a host family so I got to see his room. We cleaned the color off of our faces then went to catch the 46A towards the town. I got off and said goodbye to Juho and went home.

I got home around 5:00 PM. I had to take a quick shower before we went out to dinner at Chameleon. It is an Indonesian restaurant right next to the Liffey. We took a Taxi to the restaurant because it was raining. It was nice looking inside.

Levi and I shared the Java set menu, which is 7 tapas. We shared that, and Oma and my Mom shared the Vegetarian set menu. The food was very good!

After we were finished eating, we walked home.

Sunday, I woke up at 10:00 AM. I got a lot of homework done in the morning, because I thought we had a plan to go on a walk in Killiney, but it got rescheduled later for next weekend. After doing a lot of homework, I did piano. Around 1:00 PM, I got my backpack and went out and about for a few hours. 

First, I walked to Subway to get some food. After I finished my sandwich, I walked down into Temple Bar, to the shop called Candy Lab. They have candy from the US, along with drinks. I got some Arizona Ice Tea drinks, then continued to walk across the Liffey to the Korean Shop. There, I got some Coco Palms, and some noodles for me because I like to eat them right before I go to sleep. I then walked back to my house. 

For dinner Sunday, we had a Turkey Breast that Oma prepared for us. It was very delicious!!

-September 15-17, 2017

5IB Carlingford Trip!!

Friday, I had no school because me along with the whole class of 5IB went on a trip to Carlingford. We went to Carlingford Adventure Centre for Friday and Saturday. Friday, we had to be at school just like any other day, and I had packed my backpack the day before with clothes, a swimsuit, a towel, and other things I needed.

Friday morning, I got to school at around 8:30 AM, and we left on the buses around 9:00 AM. The trip to Carlingford from Dublin was about 90 minutes. On the way to Carlingford, we stopped at a little mall, which had some places to eat, including Burger King. I got Dom and I 20 nuggets, with fries and a drink. They were very tasty, and I took the crown with me on the bus. 

We got to Carlingford around 11:00 AM I would say, and we walked to the Carlingford Adventure Centre where we would be staying. It had rooms for us to spend the night in, some common rooms with a pool table and pingpong tables, as well as a cafeteria where we would eat Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. We put all of our bags in a bag room since our rooms were not ready yet, then had Lunch after we listened to the rules of the place. 

For lunch we had chicken tenders, and french fries. I got mayonnaise for my chicken and fries, because I love mayo. The lunch was very good, and after lunch, we got all the things that we would need to go do water activities. We walked down to the boathouse, and changed into our wetsuits. The first thing we did was pier jumping, which was pretty fun. I jumped 3 times in total, it was a pretty far drop, and it was FREEZING. The first time I jumped, I was very shocked in how cold the water was, but if you lay still in the water, you stay warm since the wetsuit makes all the water in it warm. 

After we were finished pier jumping, we went kayaking. It was 2 people to one kayak, and I was with Juho. We had a white kayak, and once we got into the water, they asked us to kayak to different areas, but they had us kayak on our knees, then standing up, then standing up but only on the edges of the kayak. I was almost certain that Juho and I would fall in, but we worked really well together, and could Kayak standing up perfectly fine. It was fun to watch other people fall in though. People were tipping each other which was also fun to watch. 

After kayaking, we changed back into our clothes and walked back to the Adventure Centre for Dinner. We had Rice and Curry with chicken in it. It was good, but it was not as good as real curry. 

After Dinner, we had one more activity, which was a walk in the dark but we were all blindfolded so we couldn't see. Each person in the line held on to the persons left shoulder in front of them. Each person was suppose to call out what they were encountering so that the person behind them knew what was coming up. It was very fun, and tested our communication.

We had free time from 9 PM to 11 PM, then we went to bed. In the morning, we had to pack all of our things and clean our rooms before we had breakfast. For breakfast there was some cereal, and toast. After breakfast, we went to do some activities in our groups.

We did an activity where we had 3 boards, and our whole group had to travel over a "swamp" but we could only touch the boards, and the boards could only touch the rocks, not the grass (swamp). We also did an activity where we all were holding an octagonal board, that was a maze for a ball, and we all had to guide the ball through the maze to the center of the maze. The catch was only one person could talk, the others could not talk at all.

After doing some more activities we had lunch. After lunch, we had our final activity, and my personal favorite which was Lazer Tag. Well, it was not Lazer Tag like in the dark, and with the black-lights because first of all, it was outside during the day. We each got a gun that shot lazers, and we had to try to hit the sensor on the head of players on the opposite team. We each had a gun with a cord that connected to our head sensor. If we got shot in the head we would loose a life, and we had 30 lives in total.

It was way more realistic, because we had a scope with a little dot in the middle of it to aim. I was on the Red team. Each game lasted about 25 minutes I would say. We beat the Blue team 3 out of 3 times, which does not seem like a lot, but we played for 90 minutes or more overall. It was very intense, and we were all very tired after. It was so fun, and I guess we won because we were communicating better, had better strategies, or could just aim better in general.

After we were finished playing that, we walked back down to get ready to leave. We got a picture also:

There is Me, Boan, Erik, Lluis, Yonghwa, Juho, Pierce, Molly, Dominik, Izzie, and Carolina. 

We left Carlingford on the bus around 4:30 PM. I felt pretty sick on the bus, my throat was hurting the day before, and I think I had a pretty bad virus going around. It was a cold, but it gave you a fever also. I was really tired most of the way home, we got to St. Andrews around 6:00 PM. I took the bus home from there. 

Sunday, I had to do a ton of homework and stuff before school again on Monday. I did my Math HW, along with my Spanish homework, which took like 90 minutes, and other things as well. I ran Sunday night, even though I was still sick. I ran 5 times around my park, which is 2500 meters, which is half of a 5k. I ran it in 12 minutes. My goal this year is to get under 20 minutes in the Run in the Dark. It is a really insane goal for me, but If I train every other night for September, then in October and November try to train every night, I can run 5000 meters under 20 minutes. 

-August 8-10, 2017

First time playing Rugby / Korean Supermarket!

Tuesday morning, before I went to school, I went to Coffee Angel. It was about 7:45 AM, and I was ready to walk out the door, so I went to Coffee Angel to get something to eat for breakfast. I walked over there, which took about a minute, and ordered a scone and a homemade cinnabun. I got jelly for my scone. I have never seen anybody put jelly on a scone back in Michigan, but here they are made fluffier on the inside so you can put jelly on them. 

Tuesdays at school, I have PE for 2 periods in the morning. This Tuesday we played a variation of rugby. You had to tag the person with 2 hands to make them pass the ball backwards. I never had played rugby before so I kind of had to learn as I went, but when I learned all of the rules, it was pretty fun. 

In physics Tuesday, we did an experiment where we had to heat 50 ml of water and record the temperature of the water each minute for 7 minutes, but we were not allowed to use any type of typer. It was a pretty pointless experiment, and we had to do this 3 times. I guess the point is that we cant always be accurate when measuring things, and we should always have + or - a certain value at the end of our measurements.

After school on Tuesday, and after dinner also, I went across the Liffey to a Korean Supermarket. It was the same supermarket that I went to the past weekend, the one that had pool tables on the second floor. I went there to get some Korean drinks. I wanted to get some of the drinks I got last time, but also some new ones, so I got some cinnamon ones for my Oma, and then a ton of the Coco Palms for Pierce and I, because those are my favorite. The guy in the shop recognised me from when I was there over the weekend, and asked if I liked Korean drinks. I told him they are very good, and I put the stuff in my backpack then took a bus back home. 

This is what I got from the Korean store. 

Wednesday was my half day. I had Theory of Knowledge today, which was fun. I also had a double physics class and a double of music. In TOK, we watched a video about a guy who was explaining what TOK was, and near the end of the class, the computer started to play random funny noises. It was really funny, so we had to stop the video and turn the volume all the way down for the rest of the class.

In my double period of music, we got 2 pieces of music that we started to analyse. We also talked about different musical modes, and medieval music to renaissance music. It was very interesting. After my double of music, school was done for the day, so I started home. I did not go home first like normal, because the store on Grafton called CompuB told my mom that they finished replacing her phones battery. I went to CompuB to pay for the fix. My mom said that I could have that phone if we got it working again. They found the problem, which was the battery, and replaced it. It is an iPhone 6. I was going to buy a new one, but this is a much cheaper option.

After I picked up the phone, then I walked home from Grafton street. Thursday (tomorrow) is my last day of school for the week because I will be going to Carlingford during Friday and Saturday. It is an Adventure Center and 5IB and 6IB are going. It should be very fun!!

-September 5-6, 2017

1st Week of School - New Korean Restaurant!!

Last week was my first week of school, even though we started school on a Tuesday. The Monday before I started school, all of the students who were going into 5th year had to go into St. Andrews from 9:30 AM until 2:30 PM for a meeting. It was a waste of time in my opinion, but this guy was teaching us how to study efficiently, and other habits we should get into. It was pretty boring, I was really tired that day I remember specifically because we were just sitting for 4 hours doing nothing. 

Tuesday was our first real day of school. In each of our classes on Tuesday, we just went over what the year would be like and what the course entailed. I had PE for 2 periods on Tuesday. That was pretty fun, we played softball. I am bad at catching but it is fun to run around. I had HL Math Tuesday for 2 periods in total. I understood mostly everything the first day, but after Thursday, I wanted to switch to Standard Level. 

Wednesday was a half day, and we had our first Theory of Knowledge class Wednesday. It was pretty fun, and our teacher was really funny. I also had Music for the last 2 periods of Wednesday. There are only 2 people total in my Music class. It is just Molly and I, which is kind of nice since we already know a lot about Music so we can just get right into the course. We were suppose to download a software called MuseScore which would allow us to write music on our laptops for different instruments. 

Thursday was when I decided I needed to drop down to Standard Level Math, which is still equivalent to the Leaving Cert Higher Level Math course. I switched to Standard level math on Friday and Im glad I did because I did not understand anything we were doing Thursday in HL Math. Thursday night we had an IB meeting at St. Andrews at 7:30 PM. It lasted about 2 hours, and I gave out all the invitations to an IB party my mom and I were hosting in about 2 weeks. 

Friday, I presented in Spanish about what I did over the summer, I talked about going back to Michigan, and going lobstering in Maine. The word for Lobster in Spanish is Langosta, and Pescar Langosta means to go fishing for Lobster. I finished Friday with 2 periods of Music and History as the last period. I think I will enjoy History as my last class on Friday, because it will be more chill since it is at the end of the day and week. 

Friday night, we went to a restaurant called 'The Bank' that was down by the Liffey. It is really called 'The Bank on College Green' but everybody just calls it 'The Bank'. We got to sit upstairs on this cute floor where you could look down on the 1st floor and see everybody sitting. 

For a starter, I got the soup of the day, which came with bread and butter. The soup was very good.

For my main dish, I got a 8 oz burger. It came with some french fries (chips for Irish kids) and 2 sauces. The fries were delicious, and so was the burger, I ate the burger without the bun because I could not have eaten that whole burger with the bun and everything. 

After we were done eating at The Bank, we walked over to The Gaiety Theater which is near St. Stevens Green. We were going to see 'Riverdance' which is a play that has traditional Irish music and dance in it. It was really awesome, they had the people who played the music on stage. There was a guy who played the flute, one who played the violin, or fiddle I don't know the difference, and one who played a horn instrument. I loved the music the most, because they were very talented. After the play, we went to Ginos to get some Ice-Cream. I got Snickers and Bubblegum Ice-Cream and Levi got a chocolate crepe.

My weekend was very fun, on Saturday, I went to Subway for lunch around 2 PM. I finally found my Subcard somewhere in my house a couple days ago so I could use it at Subway. I also got to work on a new software I might purchase called FL Studio 12, which is another Digital Audio Workstation that I am learning to use. 

Sunday was the fun day. I was going to go out to get Lunch with Alec, Pierce, Boan, Yonghwa, and Juho at 11:00 AM. I woke up and took a shower Sunday morning, then walked down to meet everybody around 11:00 AM. I met Boan, Yonghwa and Juho by the Shopping Center. We walked down Grafton Street and stopped at Brown Thomas to look around. We met Pierce and Alec after we were done in the store, and then continued to walk to the lunch place. 

The restaurant we were going to was across the Liffey. We finally got there, and to enter the restaurant, we went through a marketplace that sold fish and other things. The restaurant was called Brothers Dosirak. It was a traditional Korean restaurant. I ordered the Korean BBQ Beef Dosirak which was "Thinly sliced beef, marinated in homemade Korean BBQ sauce, served with mixed vegetables accompanied by 4 side dishes and a dessert".

It was incredible, and we got free wings also since they were so nice. Yonghwa and Juho spoke to the restaurant owners in Korean since they spoke the same language. They are both from South Korea, and Boan is from China. I got a picture of my food.

From Left to Right, there is Boan, Yonghwa, Juho, Me, and Pierce. 

After we were finished eating, we went to this place that was a South Korean store on the first floor, but we could go upstairs and play pool since they had a pool table. We had to pay of-course but it was very cheap. 

I got some drinks from the market before we left. I got one kind that was grape flavour, and another that was cinnamon punch. I brought them home Sunday night for my family to try. Here are pictures of each of them.

After we were finished playing pool, I walked home with all the things I bought at the South Korean Market. For dinner Tonight, we had steak and fish. I had my family try the different drinks I bought at the Korean Market. I loved the drink in the green can, it was very sweet and tasted delicious.

-August 28 - September 3, 2017