Question: How can one have an enjoyable evening when the day has been extremely windy and quite wet on top of it?
Answer: Attend an Indian-themed dinner party; eat, drink and be merry, and meeting a lot of new people. Once one decides to brave the weather of course. ;)

Mo and Kathleen hosted this dinner party over in Ranelagh but when I arrived, I was quite the lone soldier. Nary a familiar face except those of my hosts and a few friends I know would not arrive till much later. Fret not. Through the course of the evening, over tasty and well-spiced Indian food, luscious desserts and mango lassi, I’ve met and spoke to some very interesting people. (It also felt like a preview of what’s to come in my upcoming big move, where I’ll play the new girl and try to build a whole new social circle.)

During the first hour though, I found comfort to be near the kitchen, observing the cooking (and be one of the first to get something to my plate when they were cooked) and learning a few things about Indian food. I love Indian food, but for some reason, have never really added them to my repertoir of dishes to cook. It must be remedied.

Overheard at Dublin Castle (not verbatim of course) and my personal takes:

“This statue of Lady Justice is controversial for a number of reasons. If you look at it, what do you find missing? Yes, the blindfold. Lady Justice is supposed to be blind to status, wealth, power and race, but in this depiction, not only is she not blindfolded but her gaze hooded, as if to conceal something.”

Weeeell, historically the blindfold is not really part of the iconography of Justitia, although she does hold a straight gaze. She probably also won’t have a little smirk like this one does.

“Lady Justice is also facing inward, turning her back to the people of Dublin. Her scale is a working scale, and on rainy days, it used to tip to one side, as more water flowed into the plate with the finger pointing at. This cannot do as the scale should remains balanced, and a hole has therefore been bore on each of the plate to allow draining away of the water.”

Certainly, to turn her back to the city is not something she’s supposed to do but the British Authorities made it this way. I also remember a friend mentioning previously that the tip is to the side where the Revenue Office is. I have no idea where the Revenue Office is in Dublin Castle, so I can’t verify this. You can spot the holes on the plates in this picture though.

“Take note also of the sword that she’s holding. Normally, the double-edged sword points downward, to indicate the violence should always be the last resort. However, this sword is pointing upwards, symbolising her willingness to use violent and wielding power over the people.”

In my opinion, holding would be an inaccurate description even. The sword is perching from her side in an almost careless manner. Seems to me she is more concerned about holding up her stola. I have also seen a number of statues of Lady Justice with the sword held upright and at times, posed as if ready for battle. The sword, however, does not represent violence but the prevailing power of justice.

With the extreme changes in weather around here, I was pleasantly surprised to see flowering blossom while strolling the campus ground of Trinity College Dublin. And it’s only mid-January, yay! The little birdie is therefore the cherry on top. ;)

If you are visiting Dublin and intend to have a look around Trinity College, may I suggest that you download the podcast of Science Safari: The Trinity Trail to your iPod, together with accompanying brochure and map for extra guide. All these can be downloaded free. Enjoy your visit.

The phone started buzzing early in the morning. It was my aunt, and the next I knew, I have an invitation to (free) breakfast. Yay! We went to Donnybrook Fair on Morehampton Road. The restaurant sits above the food grocer and deli of the same name, accessible via a spiralling staircase near the main entrance. I can’t think of a better start to the day with an order of Eggs Florentine and a glass of smoothie.

I admit it, I am a fan of Donnybrook Fair. They have delicious fresh ready-to-eat meals over at the deli, they stock a good range of organic produce and products, they sell goodies not found elsewhere in the city (Amedei chocolate immediately springs to mind) and they also run cooking and wine tasting classes. It’s an enviable playground for a foodie.

To top it all, the restaurant serves great seasonal food. Sure, buying at the grocer and/or deli comes with a price tag that may not suits all (look out for their frequent promotions to get better value of your Euros), but the menus of the restaurant are fairly priced for Dublin. I’d highly recommend it.

This black and white gem can be found at 46 Fitzwilliam Square and has been touted as the most photographed door of Dublin (well, the hop-on, hop-off bus tours love to show this off, so no surprise there). Now, here’s a little trivia I learnt from a friend – while it is the entry to a Georgian townhouse, the door itself is from the Edwardian period. Still, I think it still fits well into the old English feel.

I managed to grab a few other shots of the more ornated doors to Georgian townhouses nearby and you can view them from this composite image at Flickr. The red and the maroon doors are both also located at Fitzwilliam Square, whereas the blue door is located at Merrion Square.

The majority of the Georgian doors, however, are less flamboyant than these but no less colourful and interesting in their own rights. There are many features to combine to make each door unique, including the colours of the doors (normally single colour per door set), the flanking pilasters (usually with doric or ionic capital), the entablatures (from simple to elaborated) and the fanlight transoms (may be plain, may be frosted, may be stained).

Part of what’s beautiful in inner city Dublin, particularly in Dublin 2, are the Georgian townhouses (with brightly and solidly coloured doors) which surround a Georgian square. There are three Georgian squares in the southside of the city – St Stephen’s Green, Merrion Square and Fitzwilliam Square. There are two other Georgian squares in the northside in Dublin 1 – Parnell Square and Mountjoy Square.

Back in the days, if you were some wealthy Lord or Lady, you’d live in these townhouses that face the greeneries of the square. If you were less affluent, then you’d be relegated to townhouses that flanked the roads nearby. One such example is Baggot Street where this photo was taken. However, not all properties along the thoroughfare remain in the same style. Some have been replaced by buildings with hallmarks of modern architecture. Not many of the new buildings are as pleasing aesthetically, but the distorted reflection certainly makes things a tad more interesting to anyone passing by.

I’ll try to photograph some fancy Georgian doors tomorrow and share them here.

Modern city life can be very impersonal. Add rat race to the equation and now, not only we can easily dismiss things that are irrelevant to us, we also often forget what is it to be kind to someone who crosses our path whom we don’t know and whom we may never meet again after that chance encounter.

This message, seen on Dame Court today, is a gentle reminder that I should always care. Kindness comes from the heart, is sincere, freely bestowed, and ultimately, there should be no expectations. Acts of kindness by others taught me to be kind in return. There is no place in society for excess selfishness.

Kindness can be as simple as a bus driver who waits for a passenger who is rushing to catch the bus but haven’t quite yet make it to the stop; a traveller offering a fellow traveller the use of mobile phone to tell his/her loved ones that his/her flight has been delayed; a passerby buying a hot cup of tea and some sandwiches for the homeless man huddling at the corner of the stairs; a worker extending invitation to a new colleague to join him/her for lunch at the canteen; a flash mob entertaining weary crowd and lifting their moods (let’s for a moment forget about the publicity value of this effort).

I am playing an amateur weather forecaster tonight.

After the crazy amount of rain that we got last night, I woke up this morning to a thin layer of snow but otherwise a bright and sunny winter day. Sometime in the afternoon though, it started to drizzle and later in the evening, it turned frigidly cold. It feels like we’re getting all seasons in a day. I guess weather gods have hard time deciding which condition to unleash on us.

So I had a peek at the thermometer-barometer-hygrometer. The thermometer registers about 17-18°C/63-64°F (and yes, this is chilly for indoor temperature *), the hygrometer indicates a fair humidity level, while the barometer marks between “rain” and “stormy”. Somehow, I feel there should be a snowy option, perhaps sitting between “rain” and “fair”, where “change” usually is.

Afterall, rain is characteristics of low pressure, whereas high pressure is usually associated with a cold front that brings about clearer skies. Therefore, for the barometer to sit between “rain” and “stormy” right now, it doesn’t seem quite right. Hmmm, maybe the gadget is broken?

I shall recheck the measurement in the morning.

* Not that we have much choice. Current water shortage in Dublin means water restriction is in place (often, for some 15-16 hours daily – on New Year’s Day, 20 hours!!) and it wrecks havoc with our heating system that requires water to run.

Ireland is one of the few countries that do not use postal codes, but in Dublin city, there’s still some sort of code system in use in accordance to postal districts, numbering from 1 to 24 (although currently there are no districts of 19, 21 and 23). Areas to the north of River Liffey are odd-numbered, whereas southside areas are even-numbered. As you can see, Waterloo Road is situated in Dublin 4.

This may not be true for much longer. In recent years, introduction of national postcode have been discussed, delayed, tendered (and cancelled), re-tendered (and awarded) etc. It was supposed to be ready by early 2008, then early 2011, and now words have it that it’ll be in place by the end of 2011.

The big freeze is set to return to Ireland, with snow forecasted for the weekend. Daily temperature for the last few days have been dropping bit by bit but not enough to prevent me to go out for a walk and meet up with my friends.

The lake at St Stephen’s Green Park is today semi-frozen. On one of the frozen icy patches, a pair of mallards decided to bicker for some 10 minutes (I have no idea why I stood there and watched the going-ons for that long) before being distracted. Nearby, a little girl began tossing bread morsels into the water, effectively becoming the favourite visitor of the park among the mallards. ;)