August 2008

After London and Oxford I spent a relaxing few days in Bologna staying with a friend from the company I used to work with who lives there. It’s a nice city, not yet overrun by tourists such as myself, though unfortunately a lot of it was closed as it was the summer holiday season.

Myself and a couple of my London friends hopped on the trains on Sunday morning and took a day trip out to Oxford. We had a lovely day doing the walking tour, checking out the Botanic Gardens, and trying out punting… then my camera went missing :(.

After Hong Kong I flew to London where a number of my Kiwi expat friends live, and spent a week hanging out with them and seeing the sights. Here’s some photo highlights…

After the long hot walks of the first two days in Hong Kong, I needed to relax a bit on the last day, so I decided to go to the aquarium… But first, dim sum!

I don’t know why, but I guess I’d always assumed that Hong Kong consisted of Hong Kong Island. Later I’d learnt that it had spread well onto the peninsula next door, but I didn’t realise there were more islands too. In fact there’s about 7 significant ones (plus a number of smaller others). On my second day in Hong Kong I zipped down to the central ferry piers and hopped on a ferry out to one of Hong Kong’s outlying islands, Cheung Chau.

Hong Kong does look very shiny at night. The panorama here is taken from Kowloon’s waterfront, where you go to see the 8pm lights show, and the second shot is from Victoria Peak.

It’s already 26°C by the time my flight from Melbourne landed in Hong Kong at 6am, and it’s only going to get worse. So I decide to walk up a hill.

So I’m off again on a bit of a trip, heading to Europe again for RailsConf Europe, this time via Hong Kong, London, and maybe Italy.