BELFAST & NORTHERN IRELAND (from my traveller's log)

12 november 2005

The journey begin at the crack of dawn, we gather at Dublin Mosque as early as 6 am, in the autumn goin winter, what do u aspect, 6 am is dark. Thou, the journey only begin at 7am. I took a seat besides kak H, thou my heart was not feel like nor dislike, I guess I been taking for granted and only wanted to sit with thus you are familiar with…but that will only bring not more than just a loss, loss of the opportunity those who u can actually be friends of urs,

She was a quiet person unless u stimulate her to talk, her words was neatly arrange and spoke, masyaAllah, this is example of a good muslimah, and should I say she is istiqamah in what she do. i have a chat, a good chat with her, she said, she also found herself in ireland, Alhamadulillah, during the journey, she read her tafsir and one religious book(I cant remember the title).

The journey went for 3 hours long, but that was actually short as the road was a beautifully made highway. I sleep all the way until we reach Belfast, as nite before I didn’t sleep. Then the journey went up towards northern ireland along the coast

Down hill demesne and Mussenden Temple

Our first stop, the mussenden temple. A temple at the edge of a hill at the sidea of the ocean. U can feel the strong wind swept over ur face…but me…it almost blown away myself…it was really…really strong as nothing came as obstacle to the wind.

Begun in 1776, Downhill was the romantic vision of Frederick Hervey, Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry. The Earl Bishop created an elegant mansion at Downhill, which now lies in ruins, and on the nearby clifftop he built the circular Mussenden Temple as his library, modelled on the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli.



We were enjoying the scenery that we didn’t realize that the others has gone to the bus



Dunluce castle


It was raining heavily when we reach the castle, my desire to
view the castle was put off by the strong wind that brought with them the water from the sky…but Alhamdulillah after a while, the rain slowly stop and I was lucky to have a glimpse at that castle. It was beautiful. Thou it has wrecked here and there but the room and partition can be identify, it excite me as its like a puzzle. You have to guess which is room function as what...




Giant causeway

that ain't the snow, it's the bubbles from the sea

Who discovered the Causeway? The discovery of the causeway has widely been attributed to the Bishop of Derry (Londonderry) who visited there in 1692 and subsequently brought word of its existence to the learned circles in Dublin and hence to the courts of London. A year later in 1694, a fellow of Trinity College, Sir Richard Bukeley, presented a paper to the Royal Society in Dublin which outlined this 'amazing' discovery and so started the debate on how it was formed Also in 1694 and contributing in depth to this debate were the Reverend Dr. Samual Foley and Dr.Thomas Molynuex. At that time theories abounded about its formation, from it being created by men with tools to a natural occurrence or by the giant 'Finn MacCool'. While the Bishop may have brought knowledge of its existence to a wider world, the first witnesses to this natural phenomenon would have been the hunter's and gatherer's who settled at Whitepark Bay after the last ice age (10,000 years ago), they would have travelled around the then densely forested north coast by boats and would have come across the causeway on their travels, perhaps from them that the enduring myth and legends of Finn MacCool arose.

MashaAllah, can't believe my eyes when i first saw it

Scientific facts - The causeway was formed during the early Tertiary period some 62 - 65 million years ago over a long period of igneous activity. Three lava outflows occurred known as the Lower, Middle and Upper Basaltic. Lulls occurred between the outflows as is evident in the deep inter-basaltic layer of reddish brown 'lithomarge' which is rich in clay, iron and aluminium oxides from weathering of the underlying basalt. The causeway area would have been situated in an equatorial region at that time, experiencing hot and humid conditions. This came about due to the fact that the earth's crust is floating on moving plates known as 'tectonic plates', these move slowly but over millions of years they can travel thousands of miles. The hexagonal columns of the causeway occur in the middle basalt layer, the same formations can be seen at Staffa in Scotland (Fingal's Cave) and they also occurs in the the surrounding landscape of North Antrim and in fact many other parts of the world.

The fascinating pattern that we see in the causeway stones formed as a result of rock crystallization under conditions of accelerated cooling, this usually occurs when molten lava comes into immediate contact with water, as happens today in Hawaii, the resulting fast accelerated cooling process causes cracking and results in what we see today at the causeway. For more information on volcanism please follow the link to the right where you will find references volcanic activities and their outcomes including 'column jointing' as occurs at the causeway.

I was laughing reading the other story on how this causeway exists

The Finn MacCool Story

the view from the side

There are many heroic legends surrounding Finn MacCool, comparisons have been drawn between him and the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Finn was reputed as being the leader of the Fianna, the guardians of the King of Ireland whom he formed from a rough bunch of warriors in an elite group of men who transformed under his command into the manifestation of justice and honour, they were the people's heroes. Finn's famous son whose mother was the goddess Sadb, is said to be buried in Glenaan. It is worth noting that many of the great legends of Ireland are based or linked to the north coast of Ulster, There must be some correlation between this and the fact that Whitepark Bay was where man first settled in Ireland.

However in this section we will concentrate on his role in building the Giants Causeway. The story goes thus:-

Finn a renown warrior was going about his daily duties on the north coast when one of his adversary, a Scottish giant called Benandonner started shouting and ridiculing Finn's fighting prowess. This angered Finn who lifted a lump of earth and pelted it to Scotland as a challenge to this giant. The Scottish giant retaliated with a rock back to Finn shouting that if he could get his hand on him, he would make sure that Finn would never fight again adding that unfortunately he could not swim the short distance across the Channel, so Finn would be spared that fate. Finn got enraged by this and tore large pieces from the cliffs, he worked for over a week pushing these into the ocean bed and made a sturdy causeway to Scotland, when he had finished he shouted 'Now you'll had no excuse' to come over and do your best. Fearing to lose his own reputation and pride the Scottish giant had no alternative but come over the causeway. Finn was tired, having not slept for the week he worked on the causeway and did not feel ready for fighting. He thought about how he could buy some time and recuperate to face the Scottish giant and came up with an ingenious plan. Quickly he made a large cot and disguised himself as a baby ...... and waited. The Scottish giant arrived at Finn's house shouting, 'Where is that coward MacCool', Finn's wife said the he was away but sure sit down and have a cup of tea, he'll not be long. the tea arrived with a cake in which Finn's wife had placed some stones. Benandonner took a bite and broke one of his teeth, and thought to himself, this Finn must be a tough boyo to eat cakes like this, not to be outdone, he finished off the cake and tea, breaking two more teeth in the process. He noticed the baby cot and the baby inside it and his eyes widened in fear, he thought to himself, my goodness if this is the size of the baby? What size is the Father? He reached his hand in to touch the sleeping baby, half out of curiosity and half as a sign of affection, Finn bit the tip of his finger off. Benandonner was shocked by this and thought to himself, if this is what the baby is capable of, what must the father be capable of and what could he not do! This thought terrified him, the fear got the better of him and took to his heels and ran like he had never ran before, back across the causeway to Scotland destroying it as he went



13 november 2005

that morning, we leave our hostel that morning, but we still manage to take some pictures, yey it was really nice…besides our hostel is a field that was green with cute sheep, opposite it was a large filed and ocean. As we arrive in Belfast, our first destination was the carboot.

the rainbow seen from the front of our hostel

Queen's University, Belfast

we stop for our lunch with the background scenery of queen’s university. It was really cold, I can’t evel feel my hand touching the rice. There are very few students studying in this university and you can even count with your fingers. Then we perform our zuhr and asar jema’a at one of the hall. Now I’ve to make myself used to praying not on any comfortable floor with praying mat such.floor, grass, newspaper all will be my praying mat from now on

in front of the gate

Ulster Museum,
the museum keeps all the treasure of ireland, from industrial machine, how product are develop and the most important event of all, the war that has been haunted ireland for the past few decades. Time was constraint, that I could hardly see all the treasure exhibits in the museum

inside the museum

Far out

if God had intended people to fly,
how come he positioned airports do far away from downtown?

taken from 1001 things to make u smile

word from the old man

abah always told their children to travel

and for me, he asked me not to return home during summer instead he asked me to travel
i couldn't agree more....
i only have two summer, three winter, two easter break to explore this globe and definitely i have to use this time wisely

like my brother, he used to study in australia, an island which was 7 hours far from home
towards the south pole, and to travel to other continent was far and will cost more money than as i stay in europe which got plenty of place within my reach (obvioulsy the flite ticket will be cheaper and i will benefit from the currency)
as people say love can defeat everything, (as a muslims, not everything )
yet he already been to part of uk, europe, and even japan

sometimes i wonder, my love for travelling was influenced by my father's words or was it genetic....hihihi.....well everybody will know the answer, even a school kids

the journey begins here......