Holland

Started having hayfever today, which means summer's here. Been a long time since the last update. Just came back from Delft and The Hague. Had a chance to walk through Delft's town square and catch a few quick pics. It was actually nicer than the pictures show, should go and get a proper camera soon. It's what you would envision what European city should look like: canals, bicycles and cobbled streets. Very nice city (more of a town, really), wouldn't mind going there again for holiday and enjoy the place properly.

Cold cold snow

Woke up this morning and this is what I saw out the window. Normally I like snow, but I'm having a cold now, so I'll be waiting for the warm sun to come up!

Berlin

Back from Berlin, didn't go around for a look so nothing much to say about the city. Only managed to take one picture, when waiting to fly back in the airport. Was obviously snowing there, but luckily not heavy enough to delay the flights.

First Sunrise of 2007

Just back from holiday, and trying to adjust back to life in England again. Thanks to jet lag, had to fall asleep last night at 8pm, so I spent New Year's Eve snuggled up in my warm bed, sleeping my head off. Not an entirely bad way to celebrate a new year, come to think of it. Was woken up at midnight by the bangs, whistles and flashing lights in my window when the fireworks went off. Didn't have the energy to drag myself out of bed to see it, though.

Woke up at 5am, feeling fresh for once since I left KL. Had a slow lazy breakfast, and then went for a run. Nothing beats a run at dawn to clear out the clogs and wake you up. Not a cloud in the sky, unlike the rain and floods back home, :) . I'm sure it was psychological, but running with the first sunrise of a new year is was espescially refreshing. So that summed up my New Year "celebration". Different from the usual noisy stay-up-all-night and wake-up-the-next-day-hungover celebrations of previous years, eh. Going shopping later when the shops open, not going to miss the winter sales again this year.

Heidelberg

Was in Heidelberg for Mon-Thurs this week. Was busy so didn't get to see round the city. It's supposed to be a university town, and some of the buildings I did manage to see on the way to the airport were the typical German cuckoo clock style houses. Picture of Heidelberg taken from the web, to show what I missed! But it was a business trip after all, not there for a jolly. But does seem a waste though, to travel all the way and not see the pretty part of the city. Never mind, hopefully there'll be a second chance.

Helsinki

Just back from conference in Helsinki. No pictures this time, I keep forgetting my camera.

Trip was good, apart from Heathrow. I know the security is supposed to be heightened, but it was the queues at the check-in counters that were amazingly long, not the security checkpoints. If the queues are snaking along the whole building, you'd think they'll have more than three check-in counters open, eh?

AND they lost my luggage, how they managed to do that on a direct flight is beyond me. It eventually got sent to my hotel the next day, just in time for me to change into some clean clothes before my presentation. They didn't seem to have opened and searched my bag, so it wasn't a security reason, maybe it got left behind when they were loading up the plane.

I'll stop complaining about British transport now, or else I'll never stop. I have to stop complaining about a lot of things in general, or else I'll end up becoming a grumpy cynical old man.

At least Helsinki was good. Tiring but productive trip, weather was great, city was very pretty, people were nice, food was good, and at least their nice airport was not falling apart and imploding from congestion (OK, maybe just one more grumble!).

Keh poh cat

Was cooking dinner in the kitchen when I had that wierd feeling that someone was spying on me... That's the neighbour's cat by the way. Always comes round for a visit. She disappeared for a while since last winter, but I guess she's back.

And that's the bonsai tree you guys bought for me a while back. I haven't been trimming it down, so it's slowly growing from a bonsai tree into just a plain old tree, but it's still alive and healthy, and that's the most important thing!

Hotel with a cheesy past

Helsinki. Aaah, been a long day. Just finished all day meeting, then back to hotel room to finish up some work, then down to the hotel restaurant for much needed dinner (Dining alone in a hotel restaurant, how exciting!). Now to winding down a bit, watching the Germany vs. Poland World cup game, with Finnish comentary. Finding out that football is actually quite boring without commentaries (or at least commentary you'd understand).

Rewinding back to Monday: arrived at Helsinki on a flight that was delayed for an hour. It was 11pm before I got to the hotel, and the sun was still up, with blue skies and all! I forgot Helsinki was 2 hours ahead of London, and was wondering in the taxi why the streets were so empty before I realised it was already so late.

Hotel is quite nice with useful free wireless Internet connection. Room is unexpectedly large but has an unusual shape and has some strange architectural features. According to a sign in my room, the building used to be a "cheese factory and dairy research lab" from 1931-1992, and a Nobel prize winning chemist called Artturi Virtanen spent his career here. He got the Nobel in 1945 for "research in agricultural and nutrition chemistry". Sounds like he got it researching about cheese to me.

Our meeting's hosts organised a boat cruise round Helsinki yesterday night, so at least managed to see some parts of the city. My impression is Helsinki's a nice place, but not particularly interesting. There are some interesting Russian-looking buildings (the Russians used to rule Finland), but the rest of the place is pretty standard European city type buildings. It looks like a nice place to live in, though. Very Scandinavian: bicycles everywhere, trams, harbors and boats, an air of affluence. Weather has been fantastic, no clouds, and about 20 degrees. I'm sure things change in the winter when the sun disappears and the sea freezes over.

(Left-right) View of the port and trams from my hotel room; and a view of somewhere in Helsinki (don't ask me where).

Pre-Helsinki

Nothing worth writing about the past few weeks, hence the long silence. Weather's been really hot and sunny, which is great during the daytime, but bad if you're trying to sleep without air-conditioning.

I'll be going to Helsinki tomorrow (for some meeting) and back on Thursday, which should be interesting. But having said that, I seem to find all northern European cities very similar anyway. Filled with the same kind of architecture, same sort of people, same food and same weather. Probably won't have time to go around to have a look round Helsinki, but I'm scheduled to go to Helsinki again in September for a conference, so there's going to be plenty of time then.

Rain and sleep

Nothing exciting to report this week. Have been raining the past few days, picture is taken from my back door few minutes ago. Having a thunderstorm now, and still quite warm so it's a bit humid, kinda like back home now. Still, nice to be indoors with some tea when it's raining hard outside.

For some reason haven't been able to sleep much the past few days, so feeling a bit blur. Can't really see the reason why, maybe just too much coffee at the office. Could even be too warm. Will have to go to bed early tonight to catch up on sleep, hopefully will won't have problems falling asleep tonight (the sound of rain'll probably help lull me to sleep!)

Cycling in the Springtime

Yesterday was one of those perfect days. Blue skies, sunny (but not too sunny), warm (but not too warm). Went out to do some shopping in a complex about 20 minutes cycle away, and took some pictures of the cycle paths I use (since you're always asking!).

The thing about England is, although it's cold, rainy and cloudy a lot of the times, once the weather turns nice (which is amazingly rare), the whole place transforms into the pretty England you always read about in Enid Blyton books or tourist brochures. Maybe after being deprived proper weather for most of the year, any amount of blue sky is treated with hysterical joy over here. So, I took my bike, camera, and set of to the shops!

Anyway, as the pictures show, there was a huge explosion of flowery mayhem all over the place. Wild flowers everywhere, the trees were flowering, my back garden was flowering, flowers growing through cracks in the pavement...you get the idea. The three pictures on the left shows English suburbs in springtime. This actually shows the same cycle path I go through in my daily 10 minute commute to the office, so it's actually a very nice, relaxing one (if it's not raining, of course). The stream (left) is about 2 minutes from my office, and the middle picture is on the cycle path right behind my house, and the one on the right is somewhere in between the commute.

BUT, I wasn't going to the office today, so made a turn that took me into a more countryside setting. Bees buzzing around, wild rabbits jumping out of your way, the faint smell of manure from the farms. Nice to live at the edge of town, doesn't take much to get to places like these. I'd like to say that I emerged in a nice English village full of old cottages (which actually does exist around this area) and had tea and scones in a cosy teahouse, but that's not what happened. I actually emerged at my destination: a shopping complex, bought a couple of things (one of them being hayfever pills, for obvious reasons!) and had a coffee in Starbucks. Well, can't have everything, eh?

So, now you know my daily commute, and what cycling in England is like. And that's why I do it all the time: nice, relaxing, eco-friendly, and most importantly, cheap! Won't be travelling next week, so can relax a little. Will post again next week.

Dublin

Dublin was nice. I was only there for two and a half days, and most of that was spent in meetings, but from what I saw, Dublin had a nice busy scene, but not frantic like London, and a whole lot friendlier. One bad thing was the traffic, though. Maybe I was always on the road during rush hour. Anyway, didn't really have an opportunity to take many pictures, the one on the left was taken in a street in the center and shows the Dublin Spire in the background, the pic on the right is the Custom House (taken from a moving car, so not a really good picture) which I think houses government offices. Hotel I stayed in was on the outside of the center, but was really nice, with nice big rooms, golf course, spa and so on. I always mean to make use of all the facilities in the hotels I go to, but always forget to pack swimming stuff and sneakers. I'm usually to tired at the end of the day anyway. I need to go to Dublin as a tourist one day, maybe next time I'm there I'll stay on for a few days extra.

First post: catching up so far.

Here's the first post of my blog. Mom's always complaining that I never tell her what I'm up to, hence, I'll try to keep this updated once a week so she knows! So, recently, what have I been up to...

29-30 March...Oslo, Norway
Was there for a meeting, didn't really do anything touristy there. Was surprised to see a foot of snow on the ground when landed, since London was 15 degrees already. Went from airport straight to meeting. But in the evening the hosts brought us out for dinner in a posh restaurant at the harbour (picture left is a castle at the harbour), pretty nice food, but it was so foggy there wasn't actually much to see. The next day the weather was nicer, but that day was just spent in meetings, then straight to the airport to catch the plane home. Didn't take many pictures, I'll need to make use of my mobile phone to at least take some pictures of the places I've been to!

7 April...London
Felicia, whom I've not seen since undergrad years at Queen Mary, was in London for a couple of days, so I went over to meet her up for a day. Last time I saw her was 1998 (6 years, man), but she hasn't changed a bit. Started out by going to the London Eye, which is the big ferris wheel they built opposite the Houses of Parliment. Had very good views of London, and our timing was impeccable, since the clouds and crowds came in just as we were disembarking. Then spent a long time catching up on things while having lunch, British Museum and dinner (well, there was a lot of catching up to do). Then went to see the musical The Producers. Being a Mel Brooks musical, it's an aquired taste, but I think it was great. Not as heavy as some of the others musicals I've been to. Anyway, had a really good day. Hope to see Feli again, hopefully not in 6 years time, eh.

14-16 April...Broadstairs, Kent

Easter Holiday weekend, went with friends Wendy and Choo, or Choo and Wendy, wherever you have one, the other is normally there also. Maybe I should start calling them as a single entity...Chooendy, or Wenchoo. Broadstairs is about two hours train to the east of London, and it's a typically English seaside village. The main reason for the trip was to visit my old flatmate Jon and his wife, Maggie (Jonggie?). They recently moved there from London, and also recently had a new baby (yeah, pretty hectic year they've been having so far). Karmen, as the picture on the left shows, is, as with all babies, very very cute. Broadstairs was a nice place, picture on the right shows us walking next to the beach, with the typical English white cliffs. Couple on the left is Jonggie, the one on the left is Wenchoo. There also seems to be a lot of nice restaurants for such a small place, with lotsa nice seafood. Would be nice to be back in summertime, when the sun is shining, and Karmen would have grown by a couple of inches by then!

Next week...

I'll be going to Dublin next week on business. Will at least try to take some pictures, and post it here when I get back.