Meng's Travels: Belfast

I am writing this post on the train from Belfast to Londonderry, or Derry, as most people around here called it. I want to see Derry but I don't want to spend the night there. I was told by a Northern Irish girl I met while traveling in New Zealand, that it is not the safest place. So I am taking this early morning train to Derry, spend a few hours there, then take a 3:30 pm bus from Derry to Galway.

I've been staying at the Global Village Hostel in Belfast the last 3 nights. Why did I pick this place? When I looked in Hostelworld.com, it gets a very high rating from travelers. I also read the reviews because most people who stay at hostels are in their 20s'. Some of them just want to party all night or go out "clubbing" and come back to the hostel and make a lot of noise. I stay away from those. Global Village is a small hostel in a converted residence with 3 floors. It has a good-size kitchen and TV lounge. In other words, it has all the amenities that you need when you travel, including wifi. It is not far from the city centre and near Queens University. I paid 15 pounds a night for a bed in a 4-bed room. You can see pictures and read more about what they offer at the Global Village website.

It takes about 15 minutes for me to walk from the hostel to the city centre. The beautiful City Hall building is the focal point of the city centre. Around it are shops, restaurants, pubs, churches, etc. Right in front of City Hall is Donegal Place where all the nice shops are, There are also many small streets radiating from Donegal Place, with shops and restaurants.

President Bill Clinton is very popular in Northern Ireland. He played an important role in brokering peace between the Catholics and Protestants. There is a plaque in City Hall that commemorates his visit in 1995. You can read more about President Clinton's role, as seen by BBC News: Clinton: His Role in Northern Ireland

The hostel, being near Queens University, is almost part of a "college town." There are many shops and restaurants on Botanic Avenue. The first evening I was in Belfast, I found a small Chinese restaurant. Looking inside, I saw that the customers are all Chinese and there is roast duck and Chinese BBQ pork hanging in front of the kitchen. This tells me that this is a typical Hong Kong-style restaurant selling rice, noodles, won-ton, etc. The name of the restaurant? "Same Happy." My kind of restaurant.

Belfast is also famous for being the place where the Titanic was designed and built. You see many Titanic-related structure and activities here. They created a "Titanic Quarter," where there is a museum near the shipyard where the Titanic was built. On a T-shirt I saw at Carroll's, a big gift-shop chain in Ireland, it says: "Titanic - Built by Irishmen, Sunk by an Englishman."