Lamma!

Went to Lamma Island with Yan for a relaxing afternoon.

Got a few pictures :)

My current wallpaper!

And the one and only windmill…

The Golden World

Sometimes something great just comes out unexpectedly.

Kristof and I went to explore the old messy yet beautiful Yau Ma Tei on a romantic evening.  It was romantic because we spent a moment in one of the roofs on an old building where we could see the beautiful full moon.

To my surprise, we’ve got quite a few good photos :)

This is one of them that impressed myself, haha.  I love my camera!

It looks like a total different world, a Golden World, a hidden world from our eyes.

Dresden

Chapter 2

 

Dresden was a very beautiful city!  It’s known as “Florence on the Elbe”.  I explored the city by bike - you can borrow it for free from the hostel I stayed in.  The main problem that I had with the old bike was that, it wasn’t designed for a small Asian like me, it was slightly taller for my size!  Though it was old, I had a great time riding it, going everywhere I wanted - I sort of felt like I was a whirlwind :)

 

 

 

90% of Dresden was destroyed back in the World War II, the restoration started in 1950s by the communist regime.  It was a bit disappointing to see the Frauenkirche (picture on the right) looking as good as new, other than that, everything was quite to my taste - serene, beautiful and old.  Picture on the left is the Hofkirche, one of the landmarks in Dresden (I didn’t get in when I was there though, it’s a pity!).

 

 

 

There was too much to see and feel in Dresen.  The weather was wonderfully sunny, I went up to one of the museums in Zwinger overlooking the city.

 

 

 

Inside the Zwinger - you should note that the Galerie is closed on Mondays - it was not as huge as I imagined it to be, it didn’t even look very much like a castle, but well, I learned to enjoy myself.  Besides, Jonas (the friend whom I bumped into in the tram when I first arrived) and I spent a good afternoon lost ourselves in all those great paintings.  I felt very artistic :)

 

Here is a pictures of myself lost in the city… and was writing my friend an email (you can even see my old bike there!).

 

 

There was so much going on in Dresden, with all the construction work and those muscular young construction workers!  Wah!  It was all so lively!  (Actually, there were so many galleries and exhibitions too)

 

 

 

I rode and rode and rode on.  There I was, sitting by the River Elbe, enjoying the beautiful view, listening to the singing of birds, staring at the amazingly blue skies, looking at the casual passers-by and writing postcards to my friends.  Everything was just perfect.

 

 

 

Watched the World Cup (Spain vs Holland) with a Spanish guy and his mother sitting in a beautiful restaurant (you can even see it in the picture below) , had a lot of good food (not so expensive!) and a beer.  It was a bit weird because all the time I supported Holland but I couldn’t cheer for them with the Spanish sitting next to me, haha, I dozed off in the end because of jetlag.

 

 

At the beginning I thought Dresden was a bit boring, and couldn’t enjoy it much.  Everything was old, the styles were more or less the same and I was feeling very lonely.  Even my butt was hurting from riding the bike.  However, after staying there for 3 days and saw more of the city, I fell in love with it.  I think it is a very nice city to settle in if you love art and enjoy the quietness.  (It wasn’t quiet where I stayed, there were so many pubs and bars!)  Dresden has everything.  It is one of the German cities which you just have to see and spend a good afternoon strolling the beautiful Elbe river bank.

Europe trip 2010

Chapter 1

 

I was off to Europe again in July for 3 weeks.  At the beginning I journeyed alone, then my best friend Yan joined me.  I’ve seen a few more places, met and talked to some very interesting people, learned so much about Europe history and of course, took so many beautiful pictures!

 

Anyway, I will lift the veil now and show you what I saw.

 

 

 

The Schonefeld airport in Berlin was quite small, unfortunately.  I had, however, successfully managed to find my way to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof for my train to my first stop - Dresden.  I saved my yoghurt on the flight, and only swallowed it when I found the train to the Berlin city centre!

 

 

 

I was showered in the beautiful Berlin sunshine.  The weather was so awfully nice!  I had an hour or two walking around the Hauptbahnhof, I wrote my first journey entry sitting under the bridge shade, overlooking the beautiful River Spree.

 

A good start!

 

 

…or not.  I wouldn’t say my short train ride from Berlin to Dresden wasn’t eventful.  First, silly me forgot to bring the credit card which I used to buy my train tickets, so I had to buy a new ticket (and holy cow, I bought a few tickets using that credit card!); and second, the air-con on the train was kaputt!  Now that was very unforgiveable!  Those nice people who shared the little compartment with me on the train were really nice, they thought I could speak German - well, I sort of do, but it just wasn’t so good as expected - so they kept talking in German to me, haha, to my surprise I understood them quite well!  The picture was a good one :)  We had to fan ourselves!  It was too damn hot!  Even I was sweating!

 

Things got weirder.

 

After I arrived Dresden looking quite as un-beautiful as one can be (well, that’s how you’re gonna look after 13 hours on a plane), I bumped into my friend on the tram to my hostel.  Now, that was a very curious thing.  This German friend I had never met before, he’s a friend’s friend, whom I supposed to meet only afterwards.  I was sitting there when he got up the train, we were staring at each other, he basically just came up and asked me “Are you Joey????!!” and I was dumbfounded.  How small is Dresden!  How amazing is this world!  (Until now I still cannot explain why he could just recognise me as we had never met before, may be it was very obviously that I look like… a Joey!)  Anyway, he was leaving town at that time, so we were to meet later on.

 

 

My hostel overlooking a beautiful European-style building.

 

So finally I was there in Dresden, alone!  I managed it!  This was the first time I travelled alone to so far away, alone.  It was wonderful experience, I fell in love with it only afterwards - I didn’t enjoy it so much at the beginning, this I have to admit.

Purpose

 

To cheer myself up…

 

 

P.S. I am not alone in this world.

6.4

 

Date: 4 June 2010

Venue: Victoria Park

 

Charles asked me whether I would join the memorial in Victoria Park, of course I could join.

 

 

I nearly cried.  Cannot forget what happened on 4 June 1989 in China.

China has too much to do in order to be a democratic society.

 

 

 

This day.

Another hour in the park…

 

I couldn’t love photography more.  Taking pictures makes me really happy, I am so contented when I could just shoot.

 

Anna and I went to Hong Kong Park (again, yes I know) during our lunch break.  It was a very beautiful day, summer has finally come :)  Sunshine, blue sky, white clouds and green grass.  My whole body was shining under the golden sun!

 

D90 really is an amazing camera!!!!!!  I’m lovin’it!

 

Let’s start the “just another Hong Kong Park” day tour :)

 

A testing picture.  I forgot how Nikon D90 was like, wow, the colours were so vivid - may be it had something to do with the beautiful weather!

 

This is my 3rd favourite of the day :)

 

The Koala building - Lippo Centre where I once worked.  Oh, I even bumped into my first Scottish boss, he was walking right pass me, probably didn’t recognize or see me.

 

CPL is a really great tool, it enhances the colours of the objects!  My best picture of the day!

 

The colour was too vivid it hurts my eyes.

 

So very 3D…………

 

My colleague told me she bought a heart-shaped pan.  When I saw the plant I immediately thought of her and wanted to show her this.  I suppose it’s a very romantic kind of plant :)

 

MY FAVOURITE FLOWER!  Have to capitalize it - just in case you forgot :)

 

This plant dazzles me…  it’s not dead!  This is how it looks!  Don’t you look down on it!

 

The light captured my eyes right away when I saw the great big leaves (the left picture was my 2nd favourite of the day).

 

On our way back to the office…  It would be nicer to see Bank of China in the back though.  The composure isn’t bad :D

 

The weather was too good to be true.  I sneaked into the conference room with Anna, closed the door behind us and started shooting.  The main problem was the reflection.  I got good angles so it wasn’t so obvious.  :)  This isn’t a great picture but this is what I wanted to capture - what I see when I daydream in a meeting, HAHA!

LeSportsac

 

I’ve got my first LeSportsac bag :)

It’s a very nice bag!!!!!

 

 

Special edition :)  I simply love the calligraphic print in front!!  I love words, they mean so much.  The bag was quite expensive (in my opinion anyway), but, haha, lucky me got some sponsor!  Hoorah to my good karma (special thanks to Anna)!

 

Do you see how lovely is that Matryoshka doll?!  I fell in love the instant I saw her!  (Of course with the 2 yellow birdies on the cute little house too!)

 

And… I put every little thing in there :D

Fujian - Day 4 Wuyi Mountains

 

Date: 5 April 2010

Venue: Wuyi Shan, Fujian

 

The train from Xiamen to Wuyi Mountains took 13 hours.  It was a night train, and I could hardly get any sleep.  There wasn’t much to see at night, some tourists groups were getting on and off the train in the middle of the night…  I don’t think I enjoyed it all that much anyway.

 

Upon arrival, the train assistant came over to talk to us about the hotel.  Molly insisted we should get off the train to compare prices, the rest of us didn’t have any opinion - hey, we were exhausting, I could hardly open my already-too-small eyes.  After talking to 2 assistants, Molly gave in and said we would stay with them (it was rather funny though, when those 2 assistants tried to talk us into staying with them, the 3 of us didn’t understand what they were saying, I sort of waved at them saying “we don’t understand you, talk to the other girl”, haha, aiya, our poor Mandarin!).

 

Hotel was once again very cheap, Yan and I were staying in one room while Molly and Kimmy were staying in the other.  Very quickly did we take a shower and out we went again.

 

Breakfast was easy to get, and yeah well, cheap.  We got on a bus then got off in front of the gate of Wuyi Shan.  Immediately, a few rough farm women came up to us, asking whether we were to buy tickets.  Molly did all the talking then before we knew it, we were following one of the women.  Molly said they were the aborigines of Wuyi Shan, they knew their way to avoid checking tickets.  Haha, to be honest, I was glad we followed her in, that saved us so much money!  In was the famous Yunv Hills (少女峰) at the back in the left picture.

 

The woman led us the way was rather stout and very strong as well.  She knew her way, she was talking very fast without taking a break.  Ay, it was very sad, city girls like us have no chance outrunning her!  A shame really!

 

On our way to the “Tiger Howling Rock” (虎嘯岩).  Very very very steep.  Our lead said “OK, you follow this path and I will meet you at the end, here is my number, if you don’t see me later then call me!” then off to the other way.  Hah.  Smart move.

We took way too long to walk the trail.  We enjoyed taking silly pictures and having fun :)  Do you think the rock in the picture looks like a fish?  Yan was posing a fish - in case you can’t tell.  Haha!

It really was a very nice trail - except it was way too steep.  Very quiet and very green.

There were so much to see on the way.  One of them - the very steep natural rock at my back.   It wasn’t a very good picture but well, you see how steep it was at least!

At the bottom of the steep rock, there were some sticks ‘supporting’ the mountain, there was a story behind these sticks: old people believe if they put the sticks there to ‘support’ the mountain then their backs wouldn’t ache anymore.  However, nowadays, they said if you put a stick there, you’d have a 靠山 (it means someone who’d be there to look after you)!  How superstitious!

 

If it wasn’t so challenging to climb all those crazily steep rocks, here was another: The Thread of the Skies.  You have to squeeze yourself between two narrow (way too narrow!) big rocks and thereby see “the thread of the skies”.  Haha.  Very silly, isn’t it?  But we were tourists, that’s what tourists do, being silly and do whatever that is stupid!  It wouldn’t be bad if the weather was nice and if there was a blue sky… but the point was, it was very wet and started raining.  Hahaha, the rocks were all wet and so we were half soak after this.  I won’t ever go inside again, “I will see you on the other side, bye bye!”

On our way back to the hotel, we saw the rafts - it was one of the must try in our list.  Looking very romantic, yeah?

There wasn’t much to do in the end, we went to this temple.  There was this middle-aged Hong Kong man walking next to me eating some candy, I asked him what it was, he gave me some to try.  Haha, obviously he thought I was a local girl and said my Cantonese didn’t sound very native.  HAHA!  How was that even possible?!  He later on caught up with us and helped us take this picture :)

 

We talked about how horrible the Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka Shing was.  Haha, what a day!

 

P.S. The stout lady said we should get up at 5am the next day to climb more mountains and take the raft.  We had to obey.  That night Yan and I slept at 8pm, HAHA, crazily unbelievable, right?!

 

Stay tune for our last day in Fujian :)