Some photos I took at the Dublin Zombie Walk today, where about 10,000 people, both young and old, dressed like the living dead and took to the streets in search of brains! Such a crazy, fun experience with amazingly creative people! And…all in support of charity!
Zombie Official
Zombies in Dublin
Zombie Nurse
A rainbow of color at the Dublin Zombie Walk
“How would you like to dress up as a clown for the day, prance around Dublin city and promote International Children’s Day by doing some free face painting?“,was the question that started it all.
“Ummm of course I want to dress up like a clown and prance around the streets of Dublin!!”, was my speedy reply!
And so started our plans for International Children’s Day in Dublin! We recruited a few other active, fun-loving couchsurfers and some of my friends from Uni until we had a sizable troupe of clowns. We put a load of bottles of bubbles, face paints and raided our wardrobes for the most eye-catching, vibrant, and colorful clothes we could possibly find!
Clown Troupe Marching to Work
Riding the Bull...entertaining ourselves!
On that fateful saturday morning, we all gathered on Henry streets, outside the early leaning centre (we were aiming at kids, so seemed appropriate!!) and set up camp. We had bubble blowers, jugglers, face painters and a general carnival atmosphere all around us. We put up a little sign that said “Free Face painting” and waited….
Slowly but surely parents with their young offspring in tow approached us to enquire about what we were doing. They kept asking, “How much does it cost”, or “How much is the face painting?”. They simply couldn’t digest what we were saying, “It’s FREE!” They kept trying to find the catch. Were we some religious group? Were we going to start handing out leaflets and forcing customers to take them? Nope. Just free face painting. Just spreading the love and putting a smile on as many people’s face as possible, which is payment enough in my mind.
Out dedicated Bubble Blowers; Linda and Betsy
Our little tigers
Soon enough word spread, and we had queues forming from all angles to avail of the free face painting. Some people were so chuffed with the end result that they kept offering to give a few Euro, which he politely declined. It was such a great feeling just to do something for FREE and know that your making loads of people, both parents and children happy!
It was one of the most fun days I have ever had, but after hours of jumping about, surrounded by hyper activity, shoutings, laughing, the clowns were exhausted. So around 6pm, as things quietened down, we decided we deserved a well over due pint!! We set off towards Grogans on South William Street but not without some hilarious tangents along the way!
Tired clowns at Break Time
Busy beavers
We formed a train and danced our way in and out of random bars and restaurants. We stopped to take a picture with our mate Bob The Builder and even stopped traffic as we marched across Dublin’s busy streets!
One of the funniest moments came as we were waiting to cross a street and 4 of us clowns stood alongside 2 local Guards. One of them turned to us and said, “What have we got here? 3 clowns?” And I looked down the row at us and at them, and cheekily said, “Try 6!“. Luckily at that moment the light turned green and away we ran, in search of more smiles and some long over due pints! An amazing day!
Six Clowns standing in a row!!!
Relaxing with a pint after a long day at work!!
More clown friends!
How do I sum up Halloween in Korea? I can’t. It was just way to random to put into words. When I was on the subway home at 9.30 am, dressed as a zombie and sitting beside a blue smurf, looking across at a line of fully kitted-out Korean hikers who are staring back at me as if I had 2 heads (which in fairness,I probably did!), I began to recount the craziness of the previous 14 hours. Yes, that’s right…F.O.U.R.T.E.E.N Hours!!
As Halloween is not widely celebrated in Korea the places where one could purchase a costume were limited. This really encouraged people to localize their costumes and use their imagination. The results of this shortful were nothing short of awesome.
In my friend group alone we had; a bruised up Korean Love couple, a MAN dressed as snow white, a guy many people failed to notice was dressed up as he only had a bitta blood running down his nose covered in white powder (…cocaine addict in case ya didn’t catch on there…!), two Zombie Korean school girls, a pirate, a golden snitch ..( a la Harry Potter!), a blue smurf… (the ultimate Irish Smurf!), and an aweosme Rag doll with a hand-made rag dress. An eclectic bunch to say the least.
The Golden SnitchSmurf Tara and Rag Doll Lee
The Big Hairy Box
Smurf and Rag-Doll (Tara and Lee)
In the first bar we went to there were some seriously awesome characters. My favourites included; a hot couple with home-made Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber costumes, a guy dressed as a ‘big hairy box’, some hot guys dressed as indians with pretty much close to no clothes on, a dominatrix geisha and her slave and BEST OF ALL… an english guy dressed as an Ajamma(old korean woman), who spent the whole night sweeping the floor and blasting people with random korean phrases.
Another truely unique and awesome character was a man who made a brief appearance in a hospital gown (escaped hospital patient…?!) He was hooked up to an IV, and the regualr water bags had been replaced by a bottle of Soju (potent korean alcohol) and Kimchi (spicy fermented cabbage and the Korean staple). He randomly wandered around then just left…to go back to hospital I guess!!
Me as a Korean school girl with my hot Indian!
Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber Couple
Peace Man!
From the first bar we continued back to the main strip of Itaewon, where we got our fix of delicious street food in the form of turkish kebabs, then proceeded on to Seoul pub, where i met some lovely Irish people and a guy dressed as a giant PEACE sign (when he turned around it turned into a giant F-YOU sign, which was classic.)
Next we headed up a big hill, known in Itaewon as hooker hill, as it’s full of…you guessed it…hookers. Despite this we ended up in an other worldly bar where some woman (at least *I think that’s what she was) took me on a loop of the dance-floor, teaching me some coutry 2-step. So random. A few more hope around the dancefloor singing to ‘Save a horse, Ride a cowboy’, a dinks run upstairs for cheap jello-shots and we were on our way again.
Looking rough...matching love couple
Spiderman and Snow-White vefore they pounced on eachother
The Subway Ride home....
Next we headed to Hongdae where we eneded up in Bricx, a club way too chilled for our liking, so heading across to GoGo’s and FF’s where we bopped along to whatever was playing and ended an awesome night. O r so we thought. As they were ushering us out at 8am as the bar closed, we decided to head BACK to itaewon in search of an Irish breakfast but instead ended up drinking cheap Korean beer and eating hash browns in Mcdonalds.
When you end up in Maccy D’s at 10am two things are certain…
1. You’ve had an epic night.
2. It’s, without doubt, time to get your ass home to bed. Which is exactly what we did.
Every halloween in college I would plan my oufit out for weeks, dying or sewing fabric, practicing how I would do my hair or how I would paint my face or body. In fact I never felt it necessary to wait until halloween to dress up, I used to do it at every opportunity possible, be it a ‘worst dressed’ party ran by the DCU Style Soc, The summer ball, a drag ball, Slappers and Rappers event, Christmas party, toga party…whatever it was you would find me in some crazy outfit, often the ONLY one in fancy dress. Not that it ever bothered me.
This Halloween I am going to be in Korea and cannot seem to find any of the resources I am looking for to find the perfect outfit. The school is having a halloween party on Saturday for all the students and we must dress up. I wnat to but alas I have no idea what to wear or wear to find a costume here in Korea. I am feeling sad. I want face paint, and masks and crazy accessories yet fear I will find nothing. If anyone has any awesome ideas please comment let me know.
For the moment here are some of my past outfits, so you can get an idea of how much I love fancy dress occasions! Enjoy!
I love clowns!
Sexy Santa's (Kelly and I)
'Pool Party' in college!! Can you believe SHE won worst dressed and not ME?!
Me as a Mermaid at the Aqua Ball
I splurged a whole weeks wages on a New Years Eve Pirate themed cruise of Sydney Harbour, which was being organized by The Globe. The (outrageous) price included a dinner on board and ALL YOU CAN DRINK all night long. Happy days. Getting ready was as much fun as the cruise inself. Candace, another Canadian I befriended, and I spent the afternoon getting ready. I had to ‘leg it’ to the fancy dressshop in Bondi Junction to look for a hook, an eyemask and maybe some funky fishnet tights only to came across about half of the hostel looking for similar accessories! In the end I bought most of my outfit in a nearby charity shop and dollar store, which turned out to be a lot more original and a LOT cheaper!
The cruise was due to set sail at 6.30pm so the gang from the hostel, about 30 of us in full Pirate costumes, made our way down to Darling Harbour, with beers in hand. The strange looks we got from people were priceless. In fact I’m pretty sure the guys may have scared a kid or two. When we eventually made it to the Harbour our cruise was nowhere to be seen. We did come across an awesome tall ship which we charged towards.
The guests on board the $1000 a ticket luxurious vessel observed us with curiousity and we returned there amused gazes with fierce looks! How dare they sit there, looking all pretty on sipping expensive champagne on OUR ship! We eventually found our boat which was a far cry from the mighty Pirate Ship we failed to board, but which we loved all the same for its copious amounts of free alcohol. We spent the evening mingling on deck, dancing down below to all the latest hits and had front row seats to the most spectacular, mesmesiring, fantastic fireworks display I have ever witnessed.
We sailed out of Darling Harbour as the sun was setting on 2009 and sailed back in, a liitle drunker but a lot happier in 2010.
A great decade, a great year and a great night.
Arrr me mateys group shot
A shadow of my former self
Pirate chat
Sailing into the Harbour
Sunset cruise
Acting like ruthless pirates!
Smile! You're in Syndey!
Fireworks at midnight
Happy 2010 from Sydney
