TOP GEAR LIVE IN DUBLIN '09

We arrived in Dublin in the morning, checked into our hotel, had lunch and did a bit of shopping and then took a nap in our lovely suite.

The Dublin Wall of Fame / Getting ready to leave our hotel room.


Got out of the cab at the RDS Simmonscourt and even though it was freeeezing cold, we just had to camwhore with these Top Gear banners at the gate!


Morgan Aero 8


Caparo T1




Open Hoods




1973 Mazda RX3 coupe... 13B stage 4 rotary engine... / We stopped for some super yummy Irish Bulmer's Cider.


The boy in his newly bought Scuderia Ferrari hoodie!


Basically, before going into the seating area, there's a Top Gear Hall of Fame with lots of cars (cartoon themed, vintage, supercars... you name it they got it) as well as booths offering vouchers/samples for thrill adventures like racing, bungy jumping, skydiving that kinda thing. We arrived only an hour before the show's start time so we didn't have that enough time to check everything out ):


Our Diamond tickets & Vip/Paddock Tour wrist bands! We bought the highest possible category of tickets, we really are super true blue singaporean-style-kiasu-fans :)


True to their promise, the show started with rumbling engines and balls of flames!


Stunt driving! Right on the stage! More than four or five stunt cars on stage at the same time! Crazy stuff!


Clarkson, Hammond and May demonstrating/racing with their 3 "vehicles" all self made with appliances found within the home like a leave blower etc etc!


And then Jeremy Clarkson did the "Cool Wall" just like he does on every episode of Top Gear televised on BBC. If you don't follow Top Gear, every week they put up some photographs of cars into categories of "seriously uncool", "uncool", "cool" and "subzero". Hammond and Clarkson usually discuss it with the audience and try to get votes, but it's really funny because most of the time Clarkson just uses it as yet another way to take the piss out of Hammond's height by placing cars Hammond likes into "uncool" and "seriously uncool", but way up high on the board where Hammond can't reach it. (I can't believe I'm posting this "seriously uncool" photo of me even though I look beyond hideous)


There we are on the screen, right next to him! Can you spot us? Jeremy Clarkson was THISCLOSETOMYFACE. OMG, I was SO excited! Just for the record, CLARKSON is my favourite of the three (: I love his sarcastic, grumpy humour! I really wanted to shout OMG I LOVE YOU but I was chickenshit and way way way too nervous and my heart was thump-thumping like crazy! Yes, I'm sure you get the idea: I am to Clarkson; the average Singaporean teenager five years ago to F4? 5566? I am crazy fan girl, there I said it.


Then the three of them started racing in 3-wheeled cars which kept toppling over!!!!!


Audience Racing. Basically, the audience is divided into 2 groups, and the speedometers for each side are fuelled by the voices of the audience on the corresponding side. So the louder the right side screams for example, the faster their car speeds? Mighty cool even though we lost ):


They actually played car soccer on stage!!! Like soccer except without using feet... but using the car instead? With goalposts and everything!


The show ended with the STIG! doing the first ever indoor loop-a-loop. Crazy cool.




Backstage passes, Paddock tour!




Upclose & Personal with "D4RKN355" and "GH05T", amidst all the other stunt/race cars we saw on stage..


Interviewing one of the stunt racers, the only woman stunt racer with the crew :)


"Some guys have all the luck"




Ended the night taking a ride in the Renault simulator.


And then we cabbed back to Temple Bar for dinner before heading back to our hotel and crashing.

For a girl who refuses to get her driving license, I sure am pretty damned crazy about this show. It's really so much more than just a car show though! It's really really hilarious, amazing and entertaining.

Take it from a girl who could only identify cars parked in her garage and couldn't tell a Honda apart from a Toyota before she started watching Top Gear.

Some of my favourite episodes/challenges if you're interested (I swear it'll keep you thoroughly entertained, alternating between being on the edge of your seat & in fits of laughter!)

The Vietnam Special Part 1

(you should be able to find parts 2 to 8 under related videos at the end of streaming Part 1)

The Bolivia Special Part 1


And if you're in UK, you should be able to stream all episodes from BBC2 HERE.
Enjoy (: