Mutti, Anne and Bub in NZ...

Some photos from Mutti's iPhone, from their recent foray down under... or down even "underer", in New Zealand.  Don't know where all these are from.  Hoping Mutti can give a bit more detail in due course....  And I think Anne may have some more on her camera...

Lookin' good.  Just before a two-day walk

Hong Kong night

Left to right: Bank of China Building (I.M. Pei), Cheung Kong Centre
(Cesar Pelli), HSBC Bank (Norman Foster). Nestled between CKC and HSBC
is the old Bank of China Building, with China Club at the top.  In front centre
is the Colonial-era Legislative Council Building, and unlit front-left is the
WWI Cenotaph

I thought I'd post this picture taken on walk back to the Ferry the other night, on my iPhone.  We'd just attended a Reception given to Parents and Old Scholars of King's school, by the Headmaster, Peter Roberts.  Click on the photo for full size. I think it's rather stunning view....  Sam's place that I wrote about in the post immediately below, is right up the hill behind the new Bank of China building, and has views right over this and the harbour....

Sam's place

Sam's place,  "... famous for its parties..."

Last night Jing and I attended a party at Sam Chan's place at Bowen Road, high in Mid Levels. It was an affair to raise funds for the Flying Fifteen society (a dinghy class). Sam's been a FF15 champ for many years, and also races big boats -- his TP52, Ffreefire, is likely the fastest TP52 in Asia.  We raced with him last November in the race to Hainan Island, which he won Line Honours in record time and also on handicap...
It's a fabulous house, extremely practical for hosting hundreds at a party, also a great family home.  The 25 m. pool suspended in space -- the site's extremely steep.  A waterfall over the poole at the house end is heated in winter.... The views over Victoria harbour and the fabulous I.M. Pei Bank of China building are stunning, as if on the doorstep...
It's impossible to put a price on a house like this in central Hong Kong, as such places rarely change hands; but it would be in the hundreds of millions.
Photo above is from the architects, DCI Design [here].  They say:

Featured in Discovery Channels “Super Homes” series our involvement in this project included two designs: The first was a castle covering both sites and included a dramatic 50m lap pool at the back of the site which became a waterfall in a 3 storey entrance atrium. The Client then sold half of the site and we re-planned the project into its current format and the entrance ramp and car park were linked through to provide access to the second site.

The house is famous for its parties and the layout was designed specifically with this in mind. DCi is very proud of the organization functionality and space planning of this project.

The sailors at Sam's party.  Jing and I at table far left.  Bucket on my right 

Update (11 Mar): picture above, sent by "Bucket", Xena crew member.

BTW: no piccies yet from Mutti, Anne and Bub, currently frolicking in South Island NZ.   Mutti's phone has no connection, but they're having a great time and Anne tells me they've taken heaps of photos on M's iPhone, so hopefully some to post when they're back....

A bunch of Nepal photos

Jing arrived back last Friday, and here's some of her photos.  They went due North of Katmandu, 4 hours by bus, and trekked in the Gosainkunda Route, part of Langtang National Park, up to about 4,200 metres... (a couple of these photos double up from the last post...).
They're not in any particular order, I'm afraid...

Note the Latitude and Longitude are reversed.  The above coordinates
put you in the ocean, north-east of Greenland....

As opposed to, say, Monkey Fit...

Monkey Temple

High skies, clear air

Jing at 4,200 metres.

Lovely sunset at 4,200 m.

The guide, jams

Spring

Jing with a local

Cloud crowd in

Jing, 4,650 m

Higher skies, clearer air

Half kilo of Yak cheese.

Shop on a head

Porter poker

Local handicrafts

Jing with the handicraft lady

Ding dong merrily on high

Scary suspension

Tibetan village in the north

Tibetan village square

Tibetan couple, with butter churn

Flags and colours everywhere in the mountains

Nepal New Year's Day (same as Chinese)

Glacier

At times the snow was waist height

Himalayan Chuffs

With banner signed by the group

A high pressure chamber.  The guide carried this (deflated!) all the way
around the trek, in case of altitude sickness.

Bubbling brook

Watching a waterside cremation

Sadhus

Our bus

Jing's Nepal photos

Heard from Jing last night by SMS and she's now sent some photos.  Still don't know where in Nepal this is....  She's due home tonight, flight from Katmandu, so may find out then...
Here's some nice pictures she sent by phone and email....

Jing, somewhere in Nepal....

Nice photo.  Note moon and surrounding aura.

The map might provide a clue to where they are!....

Trekking somewhere in Nepal....

What is it: a musical instrument or Nepali food processor?..

The guide

Jing and ?...

Wheeere's Jing??

Well, she's trekking, somewhere in Nepal.   And out of mobile contact, one assumes....

She didn't seem to know much about the program, save that she was going with 9 others, was setting off from Katmandu, and trekking direct from there, to somewhere North, and staying in Tea Houses, not tents.

I did confirm, though, that she was not flying to Pokhara, and thence to the Annapurna Base Camp, as I did in 1995.  Her trek was taking off direct out of Katmandu.

She left on the 2nd February, and now it's the 17th.... I thought she was only going to be away for 10 days.  Oh well....

The last I heard from her, was when she sent the photos below from Katmandu on the 5th Feb.  Of which she just said, by SMS: "very dusty".... And was heading off to a backpacker's restaurant.  

I wonder if she'll like Nepali food, which as I recall was pretty much potatoes and lentils, with the occasional buffalo meat and rice.

I note, by the way, that they've started growing coffee in the Nepali foothills.

Anyway, the photos reminded me of the Katmandu I saw in 1974 on the way back to Oz from the UK, after our epic cross-Asia car trip, and then in 1995 when I trekked to Annapurna base camp.  By that timing, seems I'm about due for another visit, as yet another (nearly) 20 years have flown by between '95 and now....

Talking to Mutti this morning: she, Anne and Bub heading off to New Zealand at the end of the month, luck sods!....  

Here they are, Jing's caption-less iPhone photos of Katmandu:

Super Bowl Ads... fun and funny mini movies

Super Bowl ads are famous.  Click above for the Budweiser ad, a cute one.  As one of the commenters on YouTube said: "This was the most effective commercial ever, and I am now seriously considering buying a Clydesdale."(!)

[Mutti: click on the picture above: it'll take you to YouTube automatically.  Then click on the little triangle to get it to play.  It'll take a little while to load.  When it's running, then you can click on the double arrow on the bottom right of the screen to get it to Full Screen, which is the best way to view it.  Also: the link below, marked "here", does work on iPad.  It takes you to a Daily Beast site, which has a number of other videos of the ads. Some are really funny...]
Other ads chosen by the Daily Beast, some of them hilarious, mini-movies in fact, here.
If above doesn't work try
http://youtu.be/WuAAXCOUH6Q