Jing: 2:30 am on Mt Rinjani volcano in Indonesia

Camping just before going to the Rinjani summit at 2.30am

My guide for Rinjani (From Jing)

Rinjani in the background

There it is, the money shot!

Like for her last Volcano walk, this one is like the Wikipedia shot. The Rinjani caldera.

Rinjani photos

Jing's sms comments to me below. I've chosen a couple of the photos for posting via iPhone. I'll get to editing later. P.
Jing's SMS:
Sending in order of the village where the trek starts, then on the way to Rinjani, then the Rinjani summit, then sunrise, coming down to the volcano lake through steep hills of rocks, then went up again half way for 2.5 hours hard climbing before returning to the village via 4 hours hike through beautiful greenery ...

Rinjani Caldera

Near dawn yesterday. From Jing's iPhone to me Posted from my iPhone. P.

Approaching Mt Rinjani Volcano

This is from Jing and I'm sending via my iPhone to see how it works... P.

Jing climbing another volcano!

Jing is climbing this volcano today: Mt Rinjani, 3,726 metres in Indonesia.
I'll post her photos when she sends them.  This is from Wikipedia.

Some Photes

Another in the exciting series "Hedges of Hong Kong".  Note the sharp edge of this one
achieved with the Aussie-bought cordless hedge trimmer.  For Anne, who is considering mixed hedge.

Arlene holding up the cordless chainsaw that Mutti brought up to Hong Kong: risking profiling as a terrorist
as a result.... This is the Michaela tree, which has grown rather more than we thought.

Shot of Kowloon from the Central-DB Ferry.  The globe is a hot air ballon-type thing that you can tourist up

First day this season at the pool of Club Siena a couple of days ago.  Visibility 9km

Ditto above. Tall building on left is 108-storey International Commercial Centre.  On right 88-storey IFC2

A couple more piccies of Bromo

The earlier photos of the volcano are here.  A couple more from Jing's iPhone.  Great camera, that iPhone!

Hindu Temple in the clouds.  Note some of the hikers in the foreground

Sunset over the caldera

Bromo is the one in the foreground. The one at back is puffing out..
Don't know its name, must ask Jing...

Jing climbs Mt Bromo Volcano in Indonesia

Last week Jing went to Indonesia to climb Mt Bromo a 2,400 metre still-active volcano.  She was with a group of people, 20-odd, a kind of volcano-climbing club, from round the region mainly Indonesia and Singapore.
She took some piccies with her iPhone, and they're stunning; well done, Jing!
Some of them look pretty scary to me: check out the first one, looking down the throat of the active caldera. Jing said it was indeed scary, and felt like one slip of the foot and whooops....
She's heading off to another Indonesian volcano with the same crowd, next week: this one 3,750 metres. She says it's a bit addictive, so she's becoming, what, a "volcano whisperer"?

Wanna slip down here.  As Amy Winehouse would say: "no, no, no...."

The diaphanous waterfall 

The Chinese call this "Sea Cloud"

"It's steeper than it looks", says Jing.  Looks plenty steep to me...

At the top of Bromo ridge

Knife-edge walking.  Not for me: I get High Anxiety

This is similar to the photo in the Wikipedia entry. Bromo is the large one
in the foreground.  The one at rear is also active, not sure its name

The volcano whisperer on the top ridge

UPDATE: A couple more photos above this post, here.

Cooking the books

These competitions in The Spectator are fun and the latest one, "Cooking the books" is a hoot.  I think Anne, in particular, will like some of the "recipes"... I love the D.H. Lawrence Boef Chatterley and the Nabokov Apple Crumble.
The task was: "submit a recipe as it might have been written by an author of your choice."
Sorry about the images being a bit wonky.  They're not yet online, so I had to scan them.  Click on one, and enlarge and then ditto the second one....

Test video upload: Coldplay concert

Later: Mutti, you probably can't read this on your iPad... I can't on mine. That'd be because of iPads not reading "Flash", which Steve Jobs didn't like.... So you can only see on a computer.
This is a test upload of a video from iMovie.  It's John and Jing just before the start of the Coldplay concert last year in Hong Kong. (note: this is not embed from YouTube, but from my hard disk..).
Looks ok, I think I'll leave it. Now I know I can take video with the iPhone and post it, may do some more....
P.

The Koels are Kalling

The male Koels are calling again from the treetops around our park and in our garden here in Discovery Bay.  That means spring is around the corner.  The males perch on the top of trees and call out "Ko-el, Ko-el...", about a dozen times in a row, in a rising tone, plaintive and slightly desperate.  One assumes he's calling for females, but if so he doesn't seem to have much success.  After a break of a few minutes he starts again, and this goes on all spring.  You never one calling "ok, ok, ok... I got her, dudes!" (Maybe they're not the boastful type).
The one in the picture above is an Eastern Koel, which is an "uncommon non-breeding migrant in the ACT" (Canberra Ornithologists Group).  I wonder, will he call in Spring in Canberra, if he's non-breeding? And what's a bird doing being non-breeding, anyway??  Has he given up, or what?
Listen out next spring in Canberra; he's there in your trees, you won't mistake the call.  The Ko-el Kall.

The mixed Hedge.. and a few other photos...

How exciting, a post on hedges!
This comes about because when I was in Canberra a few weeks ago, Anne and I got talking about her plans for a new hedge in the front garden of Baker Gardens.  She was thinking of a one-species hedge while I spruiked for a mixed-species hedge. I admitted that when we put our hedge in 10 years ago, I'd been in favour of a single-species one, but Jing had wanted -- and therefore got! -- a mixed species hedge.  Jing was right, as usual (well, she's right even when she isn't, if you get what I mean...).
Anyhoo, here's a few piccies.  Click on photo to enlarge it.

The mixed hedge: Duranta, Gold Dust, Powder Puff, Michaelia, Bougainvillea
Grevilia, Callistemon Viminalis (weeping bottle brush).  Border of Anthureums.

The grass is a bit dry you'll note.  Winter is our dry season.  Fish pond at end.

Another enthralling photo: bamboo scaffolding on the
building up the road, as we do the 7-year refurbishment
I love bamboo.... Mutti helped me build a bamboo
bench, which I'll photo in due course.

The other day on the MTR subway: I noticed that literally
everyone around me was on their smart phone

Snow, snow, everywhere, but N. E. Italy!

An ice-covered car sits on a frozen waterside in Versoix, Switzerland,
one of many European cities affected by a sub-zero cold spell.

Check out the car at left, from today's South China Morning Post...
"HK flights hit as snow blankets London."[ref]

It seems there's snow everywhere in Europe, even in Rome and along the Med Coast.

But... as Anne says: "everywhere but in N.E. Italy".

And that's where she's heading off tomorrow to join Pen in the resort of Campitello.

Why, there was almost snow here in Hong Kong last week!  It dropped to 5 degrees on the coast: would've been a few degrees cooler on the upper slopes, and it can snow at 2-3 degrees, as we know... (but it didn't, which may make Anne feel better: there's somewhere else it hasn't snowed....)

BTW (i): today is the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen.  Here she is: IN THE SNOW!... I must say, she looks great, doesn't she??

The Queen, et al, in West Newton, yesterday, where there is snow.  Article here.

BTW (ii): With many people saying -- or bound to say -- that with all these cold snaps and record colds, etc, "where's the global warming"? I know Bub will appreciate my posting this vid below, from a site I wander around from time to time, which he might like to as well, Cosmic Variance.  It was posted as "Noisy Systems and Wandering Canines":

A nice day on the harbour

Enjoying the nice winter sunny day, temp about 20, light breeze, perfect.
The bit of the boom you see here is off the aft mast, called the "Mizzen".

I went out yesterday on Rona, a beautiful wooden Ketch built in 1895 ("Ketch" = boat with two masts, the aft one shorter than the forward one.  If the aft mast is the taller, then it's a Schooner...).
She was berthed next to Xena, and when I was there on Tuesday, Gilvin, Rona's "boat boy" (as they're called here; don't get upset...) asked me if I'd like to come out for a sail yesterday as they were going to test the new repairs to the main mast.  Gilvin was a guy we'd tried to get a visa to work for us on Xena, but we'd been unable to get visa for him -- cause we went about it the wrong way it turns out, whereas the owners of Rona went about it the right way (details way too boring to get into here....).
There are more photos of yesterday over at the Xena blog, here.
BTW: if you want to download this, it's better at the Xena Blog site, as it's a higher resolution there...

Pigs, Griffins, Farms, Coast, Segues and Boats....

5th Jan: Siena One Village Owner's Committee (VOC) has a roast pig to
celebrate the beginning of our refurbishment project. It's part of Chinese
Feng Shui, needed at the beginning of every project in this part of the world

Alison Dack, the VOC Chair, cuts the pig.  Alison was first Chair in 2002,
then it was me (05-10), and now it's Alison again.  The pork was yummm.

Photo of our courtyard Griffins guarding the house
taken from my new bamboo bench through the window

7th Jan at Banyandah, looking wonderful (all)

9th Jan: lovely gum (and beautiful people) on the cliff walk,
behind Annette's Parade, Mossy Point

10th Jan: PF showing top skills on the Segue ride, near Commonwealth Park

13th Jan: The Tilley Friday Crowd: David Edmunds on left, Padge on right
and Mark Thomas 2nd behind Padge. Others TBA.

17th Jan: back at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club to check out Xena,
come across Gilvin and his brother (we'd tried unsuccessfully to have Gilvin
as Xena's boat manager).  This is 115-year old Vandistad-designed ketch, Rona.

Gilvin on the stern of Rona. I'm just about to head out
for a sail on her, today.

Some photos

John and his Grandfather and Grandmother.  Wuhan, December '11

John checks out my first build and offers advice on the next one I'm to make

John in the backyard with Marcus and Basil, Dec '11

The ladies at Pacific Coffee, with the choccies I gave them for Chrissie....

My letter the featured on in today's "South China Morning Post"....

Those who speak openly about national issues are patriots, not traitors

Updated on Nov 18, 2011

I refer to the article by Philip Fang ("Brat in the family", November 9).  He said that Anson Chan Fang On-sang, Martin Lee Chu-ming, Jimmy Lai Chee-ying and Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun were in "open defiance", presumably of Beijing, and were thus a "Gang of Four". He also said they would be considered "seditious" if we had an Article 23 law, in part because they were not "grateful" enough for the mainland's alleged largesse. Grateful? That demand is not the sign of a mature or self-confident government. I was in Beijing during the dark days of the original Gang of Four, in the 1970s, when the government was certainly not self-confident. I recall how it was then - no freedom of speech, labour camps for dissidents; pretty much like it is now, it seems. To hear Hongkongers labelled thus is chilling indeed, especially when those so labelled are staunch supporters of freedom of speech. To call them a Gang of Four is a grotesque inversion. Mr Fang is just a retired interpreter. But perhaps - though let's hope not - he is a stalking horse for central government opinion. If this is what Beijing is thinking, it is even more scary. After all, Mrs Chan, Mr Lee, Mr Lai and Cardinal Zen, whatever we may think of their views, are by no stretch of the imagination "endangering state security". They are committed and concerned residents of Hong Kong - patriots, too, I would suggest - who speak openly and robustly about many issues that affect Hong Kong and the nation. That is part of the hurly-burly of an open society, part of working through issues and part of providing a safety valve for differing ideas. That Mr Fang should suggest Hong Kong has descended into "lawlessness and anarchy" through "open defiance" is laughable. It is all the more insulting coming, as it does, from a [former] mainland official - after all, on the mainland, the law is routinely flouted and on the mainland there are daily demonstrations by a population incensed by unlawful and corrupt officials. Yet the mainland, via Mr Fang, seeks to lecture Hong Kong on law and order and anarchy? Give me a break. It is to be hoped that Hong Kong people let Mr Fang know in no uncertain terms that his trial balloon is a lead balloon; it is, or ought to be, going nowhere. Peter Forsythe, Discovery Bay

[PF Note: The article "Brat in the family" is behind a paywall.  I copied it here]