Geography Project - on Shopping..

Dubai Mall

The Dubai Mall is the world's largest shopping mall based on total area and sixth largest by gross leasable area. Located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, it is part of the 20-billion-dollar Burj Khalifa complex, and includes 1,200 shops. Access to the mall is provided via Doha Street, rebuilt as a double-decker road in April 2009.

Candylicious, Dubai

Spanning over 10,000 square feet, opened its doors at the Dubai Mall - setting the record for the largest sweet shop in the world.

Westfield London Shopping Centre

There's 311 shops in Westfield Shopping centre. It was developed by the Westfield Group at a cost of £1.6 billion. It opened on the 30th of October, 2008. The centre is noted for its size: with a retail floor area of 150,000m² (1.615m ft²), the equivalent of about 30 football pitches. At the time of its opening it was reported to be the largest shopping centre in Europe.

Heladeria Coromoto, Venezuela

In the Andean town of Mérida is the largest selection of ice cream available anywhere in the world. Heladeria Coromoto holds the Guinness World Record for the widest variety of ice cream flavors. Its menu includes varieties such as smoked trout, garlic, coca-cola, avocado, hot dog — nearly everything imaginable. There are over 830 of them.

Gems Gallery, Thailand

This shop is considered as the largest jewellery shop in the world situated in Thailand. More than 4 million people and over 300 leading companies visit Gems Gallery Pattaya every year. Gems Gallery has become the place where visitors to Thailand come to shop for jewellery. There are more than 2000 staff. They speak 17 languages. Anything sold at Gems Gallery is both certified and has a lifetime guarantee.



Mall of America (Minnesota, USA)

It has a theme park and a wedding chapel.

Mall of America opened in 1992 and is the third largest shopping centre in North America. It has a gross area of 4,200,000 sq ft available as retail space. Inside is a cinema, Nickelodeon Universe theme park, aquarium, adventure golf, flight simulators, and a comedy house.

The Grand Canal Shoppes (Las Vegas, USA)

It has indoor canals, where gondolas will take you around the building. It is anchored by a flagship, high-fashion Barneys New York shop and contains many designer and upscale boutiques. Live performances can be found throughout the shopping centre.

Istanbul Cevahir (Istanbul, Turkey)

Located in Istanbul, Turkey, it brings 343 shops, about 50 restaurants, 12 cinemas, including a private theatre, a bowling hall, a small roller coaster and a glass roof with the second biggest clock in the world under its roof.

Aricanduva Shopping Centre (São Paulo, Brazil)

Its slogan is "Gigante como São Paulo", which means "Gigantic like São Paulo."
It's the largest shopping centre in Brazil with over 500 shops, 14 cinemas and 14,700 parking spaces. It opened in 1991.

West Edmonton Mall (Alberta, Canada)

The Largest shopping centre in North America includes indoor wave pool, amusement areas, hotel, restaurants; 20,000 parking spaces. It opened in 1981 and has over 800 shops with 3.8 million square feet.

South China Mall (Dongguan, China)
Based on gross leasable area, it is the largest shopping centre in the world, and ranked second in total area to the Dubai Mall. But it is largely vacant. It has been 99% vacant since its 2005 opening as very few merchants have ever signed up.

Scifest.

Yesterday all the T.Y's and a few first years went to the Institute of Technology in Tallaght. We had to be at the school really early at like a quarter past eight.. The journey over there didn't take very long and when we arrived, we queued up to find out where our projects were to be displayed. We got a bag with a pen, a wristband, a ruler and a few other things :) We also got tickets to certain talks that were on throughout the day. Me and Sarah M did our project about the factors which affect your memory. We had to set up in a kind of smallish room with about 20 other projects. A couple judges came around to ask us questions about our project - what it's about, how we did it it, etc.. The building was really nice and colourful. At lunch time we got to go to the cafeteria place, which was packed and it was really hard to find somewhere to sit :/ Then I went to a talk on crime and science, which was really interesting :) After that, we waited at our stalls to see if anyone came around with questions on our project. Then we were told the winners. Loads of people in the school won. Mine and Sarah's project won something too :P It was a good day overall :)

Gaisce Hike!!

Last Friday we had our Gaisce hike in Kippure, Co. Wicklow. We left the school at around 3 o'clock, but the bus got stuck so we didn't actually drive out until after 3.20 :P
The drive there was actually really short and probably didn't even take a full hour. There were three houses that we all stayed in which were all connected by a little balcony thing, but it was unstable so we weren't able to go onto it :/
We were given ten minutes to get ready before we left for the hike. We were introduced to the hike instructors and they were all really nice :) On the first day we had our uphill hike because it was scheduled for rain so we had to get this part of the hike out of the way before the weather got bad. The area was really nice, but the hike was soo tiring! It took like four hours to get to the top of the mountain and back again. The walk down was way easier than going up, but it was slippy with all the muck and everything so I kept falling over! :(
When we got back to our house, we unpacked all of our food and we realised that we brought WAY too much. There was only ten of us staying for one night and we brought enough to last us a month!! We had our dinner and it was really fun being there :) I think the time in the house was probably the best part of the hike :L
The beds weren't the most comfortable mattresses, but it was okay and after a few hours I finally got some sleep.. Then we had a quick breakfast, showers and were on our way for the next hike!! This one was much easier because it was on flat land. But there was still loads of walking and it was much boggier than the other hike. It also rained a bit. Then it was time for the high ropes :) It was really good but I was too tried to do much! I tried some things, but I didn't get very far up.
Then we got onto the bus and went home. It was so much fun and I didn't even care that it was on a Saturday :D

Retreat

Yesterday, we went to Glendaough for our retreat :) It was a really good day, even though it rained loads towards the end..



Geography Project

So in geography we're doing a new project where we have to choose a hobby and write about it. We have to incorporate some geography stuff into it too and then post it on our blogs. I'll probably do mine on the piano :)

Back to School after Easter..

Easter is over and we're back in school now. We have a new project for geography - we have to write about a hobby we have and how it relates to geography, like what it's like in other countries, it's history, etc.
I'm still not sure what exactly to do it on :/
And this Friday is Swim a Mile, so I'm looking forward to that :) I don't think I'll be able to swim a mile though, maybe a few lenghts :P

Assault Course..

Yesterday we went to Puddenhill in Meath for an assault course called Braveforce. I wasn't looking forward to it at all before, because there were no showers so we were going to get hosed down instead :/

But it was actually really fun :) It was exhausting and some of the things were terrifying - like we had to climb up massive nets and walls, with no harnesses :O and go through piles of mucky water, which was disgusting but it wasn't too bad in the end because we didn't have to go into the really deep water if we didn't want to :) I was surprised that I was able to finish it. We all smelled horrible afterwards, so it would have been good if they could put some showers in there :/ I'm glad I did it though :)