5-8May2008: London, UK

First Time Europe



The musical Billy Elliot has Billy jump like this in the poster. :)



Wherever there are Chinese, there is a Chinatown.



Leicester Square.



With my ex-colleague, Ah Koon, in front of national gallery.



With my beloved best friend, Mei Siang, in the underground London tube.



One of the mummies at British Museum.



The statue in front of Buckingham Palace.



Buckingham Palace at behind.



Camden town. Many shops selling gothic and punk stuff.
A good place for cheap shopping too.



St Paul's Cathedral. This is where Princess Diana and Prince Charles got married.



British Airways London Eye.



We are at the highest point in London Eye.



The famous Tower Bridge.



Thames River.



Incredibly fine and very beautiful House of Parliment.



Big Ben (大笨钟) and part of the Parliment House.

Nature Hong Kong: 4May2008

Chang Chou (长洲)



At least 5 friends said they wanted to see me off at airport, but in the end, only Ah Fat turned out.
But it is ok, afterall, it was 5am in the morning.



Chang Chou （长洲）, the outer island of Hong Kong.
It is still a fishing village and many of my friends don't dream to see this kind of 'view' in the modern skycrapers-filled Hong Kong.
This island is the hometown of the only Hong Kong Omplypic gold medallist. Forgot her name ...



It was the yearly Bun Festival （抢包山）.
The real event will be on a few days later and there was a carnival before that.
The bamboo structure is where the bun will be put.



We didn't get to see the 'real' huge bun mountain, so we would satisfied with this small one.
A friend asked, who is this hot chic?
Erica, my buddy when i was an exchange student in Hong Kong University.
It was ... 6 or 7 years ago.



We went hiking and cave exploring on the island.
The weather was very hot, may be 28 degree celcius.



The island is very big and it would take at least 3 or 4 trips to get to all the nature trails.



Finally, this is how people think Hong Kong "should" look like.

Srinagar, India - 27 July 2007

Hindu Temple .... Mosque ....


i said good bye to Michael and moved to the recommended houseboat of Bas and Mikel. Both i met in the bus from Leh to Srinagar and then met again at Mughal's Garden.

It was a simple family run houseboat. i was happy that i would again have the companionship of friends. Then 3 of us went to the Hind temple on the hill. From the hill, we could see the nice paranomic view of Srinagar but the usual security check that you found in Srinagar was a bit nuisance.

When we came back in the afternoon, i went to the muslim shrine and Jama Masjid with the Danish guy who was also staying in the houseboat, Thor. We couldn't go to the shrine as there was prayers going on. But we went to the mosque and it was beautiful and peaceful. Years back, there were bombing at the shrine and killed several foreign tourists. Like usual, there were eager local to talk to foreigner. Thor had quite a few conversations and i just sat quietly on the lawn with the local family people.

It was a pleasant afternoon. We then took bus to go back to the town and had a nice Chinese noodle meal to ease our grumbling stomach. We both talked about our country and Thor is an easy person to talk to. We found that, we would be in the same bus to Delhi tomorrow.

The afternoon ended with internet.

The evening dinner was a family-like scene. Bas shared his jokes and a bit of his love story with Mikel. They are loving couple. They met in Vietnam years back and eventually developed a long distance relationship and finally Mikel moved from Germany to lead a life with Bas who is still studying in Holland.



A sikh family requested to take picture with Mikel and Bas near to the Hindu Temple on the hill.



Paranomic view of Dal Lake from the hill.



The local old couple sitting on the lawn together with me at Masjib Jamek.
There were very friendly to me.



The houseboat family, at their tiny small kitchen.



View from the veranda of houseboat.
It gets misty and peaceful with birds chirping early in the morning.