Category: travel

Oxford is a lovely city. Filled with Gothic towers and noble schools. I went to Oxford on a Sunday afternoon to take photos because I wanted to visit the colleges in the late sunlight, which in July means around 7 PM. I forgot that all the colleges close to visitors at 5 or 6. So I ended up with few photos or anything. C’est la vie. It was still fun to walk around the city. To Blackwell’s miles of books, traditional ales at The Turf Tavern and of course the great only-appearing-in-the-evening Donner Kebab Vans! They even serve Veggy burgers!

You can see the rest of the Oxford, United Kingdom, July 2007 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].

London! What can I say… I lived there once, would love to live there again if I could afford it—and find a job! When I lived there I took a lot of photos, alas that was before the digital photo revolution (at least before my personal digital photo revolution.) I did visit once before on a business trip and took a few photos [confusion.cc]. This time once again I was on a business trip. Staying in Stains I only had occasion to visit central London on one day. I took a long walk from Waterloo Station cross the Themes to Parliament Square, up to Trafalgar, down the Strand and Fleet Street. To St. Paul’s and across the Millenium Bridge to the Tate Modern. Along Thames walk past London Bridge. To Tower Bridge, across Tower Bridge beside the Tower. Past the Monument and back to St. Paul’s. Along the Victoria Embankment back to the foot of Big Ben , across the Thames again, past the London Eye and back to Waterloo. And with my feet hurting and both camera batteries dead back aboard the train to Stains.

The Photos are not great but they are what they are. You can see the rest of the London, United Kingdom, July 2007 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com]. Enjoy.

I’ve been to Ho Chi Minh City before [confusion.cc] but didn’t get good many good photos. This time I was on a business trip and had less than 6 hours to wander around and take photos. However, I think I have better shots this time. Funny.

Since I only had a few hours of free time when it was not raining and since my hotel was right downtown by the opera house I could walk to the central market and to the Saigon River ferry terminal. Most of the shots were taken on those walks—and in the central market. The remaining shots were taken in and around the Chinatown Market across town. I did not visit Chinatown on my previous trip so I took a cab there and back this time. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to find any of the many temples and such near Chinatown. Oh well next time.

I also managed to find the same Bia Hoi place that Candice and I drank at on the last trip. I took the guys I was working with there for an ‘authentic Vietnamese experience’ and again it did not disappoint. At least this time I was not the only white guy there—all three of the people I was with were in the same boat.

Anyway. Even though I did not take a lot of photos I am quite happy with the quality of the ones I did take. Next time though I hope I get to go to Hanoi. HCMC is interesting but I’d rather spent my time exploring new places than revisiting the old… at least for now.

You can see the rest of the Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, June 2007 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].

Hong Kong has always been a surreal place in my mind. Associated with all that was the British Empire, filled with the shadows of the Triads, and overflowing with commercialism. The opium dens are long gone but after spending a weekend in Hong Kong I’m happy to say it has not lost all it’s mystical status in my mind.

I didn’t spend a lot of time in Hong Kong so the parts are saw were limited to the big sites: Ngong Ping on Lantau island and it’s Giant Buddha [wikipedia.org] as well as Victoria Peak [wikipedia.org]. Rode the Star Ferry [wikipedia.org] across the harbor and wondered the streets of Mong Kok looking for bargain and good photos.

Victoria Peak was fun, the view is wonderful—though the constant smog kept it from being beautiful—but the trip up on the Peak Tram [wikipedia.org] with it’s 45 degree upward climb was the best part. The buildings seem to grow out of the slope at a 45 degree angle. A bit scary on the way down as you plummet slowly down the same 45 degree slope—backwards!

The big Buddha on Lantau also suffered from the problem of smog. Up on the Ngong Ping Plateau you can’t tell where the smog ends and the clouds begin.

In the end the best part was wondering around the many street markets near the hotel in Mong Kok. The Lady’s market, Goldfish market, Flower Market and Bird Garden were all within a few minutes walk. I really enjoyed the Bird Garden with it’s wall-to-wall bamboo bird cages and the constant cacophony of songs. On the other hand I really don’t like the fact that these hundreds of birds are caged for their song. And while the owners and shop keepers seem to dote on them I can’t help but feel sad that the caged bird must sing.

And then there’s the food. Most of the famous Hong Kong street food is outside the realm of my menu being a vegetarian but there seem to be a decent number of vegetarian restaurants and those that I tried were good. The most adventurous I got with food was chòu dòufu [wikipedia.org] or stinky tofu… an offensive smelling lump of deep fried soybean goodness. Smells like rotting vegetables, tastes.. ok. I’ve even gone out and had some here in Singapore since I got back. If you get it fresh out of the oil and hold your nose it’s not half bad. Now how long till someone makes a durian stinky tofu puff?

You can see the rest of the Hong Kong SAR, China, May 2007 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].

What can I say about Moscow that I have not already said [confusion.cc]? Well I really only had a few days to look around, the rest of my time was spent working. The main attraction, the must see, was Saint Basil’s CathedralRed Square [wikipedia.org] and the Kremlin [wikipedia.org]. These sites are the first things that come to mind when one things of Moscow, or indeed of Russia.

The first stop was the Kremlin, no bags allowed so only take the camera lenses you think you will really use. Ah… the once (an future?) beating heart of communism and home of the Tsars. Of the 5 churches or cathedrals on my ticket 4 were open the day I visited — the fifth seemed to be under renovation. Unfortunately you cannot take photos inside any of them. A pity as they are beautiful. Covered floor to ceiling with portraits of saints and martyrs in vivid or faded colors. Giant iconostases [wikipedia.org] gleaming in gold and silver. In the Cathedral of the Archangel [wikipedia.org] I listened to a quartet sing classical Russian Orthodox hymns, I should have picked up the CD.

Outside the walls of the Kremlin is of course Red Square. It’s easy to imagine the giant square echoing with the stomping of the Red Army’s soldiers and the rumbling of it’s missile trucks as they pass Lenin’s Mausoleum [wikipedia.org]. It’s a strange feeling standing in front of Lenin’s Mausoleum where Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and the other leaders of the Communist Party surveyed Red Army during the Cold War. I was in middle school when the Berlin Wall fell and Gorbachev’s glasnost [wikipedia.org] and perestroika took hold so I guess I am in the last generation to see the Soviet Union as the Cold War foe and standing at it’s heart was surreal.

One of the things I remember most about the last year of the USSR is a political cartoon in an insert to my 8th grade yearbook showing a Russian babushka lady picking up the last potato in an otherwise empty grocery store and wondering why she waited in line for days. One of the symbols of that era forms the eastern side of Red Square: The GUM department store or State Universal Store [wikipedia.org] was, according to my Lonely Planet guide, once the epitome of all that the political cartoon in my year book was poking fun at. However today the long lines and empty shelves of this gigantic Victorian building built between 1890 and 1893 are long gone. The windows of the Moscow St. Pancas are filled with Louis Louis Vuitton and other brand names. Capitalism has won…

Much more famous than the GUM however are the colorful onion domes of Saint Basil’s Cathedral, more properly called the Cathedral of Intercession of the Virgin on the Moat. The Cathedral dominates the psyche when one thinks of Russia, at least for me, more so than any other one thing. The inside of the cathedral is a bit of a let down, the rooms are all small and sparse. A few iconostases reside in the larger halls and some icons in other rooms but the inside is no match for the colorful and exuberant outside. Saint Basil’s is without doubt the one thing I wanted a good photo of. And I am disappointed with those that I took, perhaps one day I will travel back. Hopefully in the summer.

After a day in and around Red Square I spent a day at the Izmaylovo or Vernisazh Market just near my hotel (which by the way was massive with 5 buildings, I was in Alpha, and was build for the 1980’s Olympics). This market is somewhat of a tourist trap and is not a locals market, though there were a number of Russians there most of the real shoppers were tourists and the goods on sale are typical tourist goods: matryoshka dolls [wikipedia.org], Lenin and Stalin watches, Soviet Army uniforms, and the like—and a lot of old antiques. All that aside it was a fun day and I got a lot of presents of others; including a 20 piece matryoshka doll for home.

The rest of my weekend wanderings in Moscow are not worth writing about. Most of my weekday time was spent in the low rise semi-industrial outskirts of the city dominated by sullen communist era boxes of apartment buildings.

You can see the whole Moscow, Russia, March/April 2007 photoset on Flickr [flickr.com].