Saturday, June 28, 2008

evening moonrise in harrow on the hill

 
 
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Views of Hong Kong June 2008

Just recently visited Hong Kong, unfortunately just for a day. But it was a very nice visit.

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Stayed at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, just next door to our HQ building. Lovely hotel.
 
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While waiting for my friend (more on that later), I noticed this very intricate set of gilded wooden carvings on the wall. Very impressive, detailed work. They were like panels carved out of wood and then linked together in a very complex but overall very pleasing manner.
 
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And a lovely bonsai tree just off the lift lobby. I love bonsai trees and have brought so many of them over the years. But never ever managed to grow and keep them. It requires multi year dedication, a certain stability in your life and ferocious patience, nothing that I can claim to have. But that is why I am always very impressed by bonsai gardeners. Very creditable. And they are beautiful meditation focus points. I can sit for hours looking over a bonsai tree and ruminate over my life or something. I know, I know, lazy bugger that I am. But, these trees speak to me :)
 
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these fruit was left on my table. For the life of me, I cannot make the name out, I have eaten them before but cannot remember the name. They look like alien eggs, no? lol, very nice, look like they are alive and suddenly pink coloured happy clappy aliens will pop out and go for my nose or something.

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Now comes the funny part. I first met Andrew Cook when we both registered for our doctorates at Manchester Business School. He went on to do a DBA while I did a PhD. Anyway, he turned out to be a kindred soul and the 3 years I was in Manchester, we literally painted the town red. He stayed back in Manchester and setup a great business in China and the UK, while I went off into the city. We keep in touch intermittently and then last year we managed to catch up, and of all places, in Hong Kong Airport. He was going off to the UK while I was off to Japan or some place, but we managed to catch up for dinner at the lounge.
 
This time, it suddenly happened that I had to go to HK at very short notice and 3 days before, I dropped a message to him, asking if he is in HK. Well, he was and we met up. He picked me up from the hotel and we went for a pub crawl in the Wan Chai district. I landed at 2300 hours on Sunday night, checked into the hotel by 0015 hours on monday night and was picked up by 0030 hours by Andrew, and we were out till 0400 hours. It is a great place to party, and as you can see from the photo of a men's room in some dingy girly bar somewhere, we had fun! :) Mind the ladyboys! :). I have to do this more, I am turning into a boring old sod.
 
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off to work after having a lovely breakfast with a colleague. Walking along one of the elevated passageways

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looking up towards the peak

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hmmm, why is HSBC having floors in the Citibank building, eh? grumbles.

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a view of the harbour from the office.

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this is like skyscraper heaven! another view from my office window.

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I had to jump into a cab to go across town to go see another team, and guess what? more sky scrapers.

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I always thought it would be tough to come up with new designs when you are simply talking about a tall up and down building, but no, I am continuously surprised at the ingenuity of architects.

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a vertical swiss holey cheese?

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there's that tall building again. I am not sure whether I like it.

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The central district.

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The Chanel Shop. view from my hotel window

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the cartier shop. Every second shop sells watches. What's with this watch obsession, guys?

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Van Cleef and Arpels

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Prada shop!

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Take Wing Pawn Shop? I am not sure if the name is right, do you really want your clients to take wing? but then, actually, perhaps you do want your clients to take wing... :)

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and then we have Hung Fat pawn shop. Curious, eh?

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man, those are some legs from Gucci.

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A street scene

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And now Armani

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night is falling...

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this was an amazing road, very narrow and very very steep.

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the garden in the statue square

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Sir Thomas Jackson, the first chief manager of our bank. Interesting, eh?

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And here's the head quarters building. Some fascinating history behind this building and do read up on it on the link.

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And night is falling on the skyscrapers. Here's the full slide show in case you are interested.

Views of Hyderabad

Just recently visited Hyderabad on business and took some photographs. For some reason, they did not come out right, but here are 3 that were quite interesting.

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I was at the Hi-Tech city and they have landscaped it very nicely, here's a view of some rocks just next to our offices and in many places, it looks like the buildings have grown out of the rocks.

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here's a view from the window of my office in Hyderabad. Its a beehive of construction but at the same time, they are doing some good landscaping indeed. Very nice place. Click on the photo's to get a bigger resolution picture where you can appreciate the landscaping.

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And then again, here we go, public transportation in India.

Views over a monsoon lashed sea

I was recently in Mumbai and stayed at a hotel which overlooked the sea. Lovely hotel and lovely vista's. Here are some of the photographs I took from the room

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you can see the sea being lashed with high waves and there were waves of monsoon rains sweeping in

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note the coconut trees on the top left hand side corner, they were bending with the wind but the trees in the middle, being sheltered by the buildings, were not. The houses here are very expensive, mostly belonging to the movie and film fraternity

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another view of the buildings which are mushrooming along the coast

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monsoon leaden cloudy sky. I love this season, it is heavy with anticipation, with rain, the air feels heavy and there is a feeling that something will happen any time, and then, BOOM, the heavens open and the flowers dance

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but construction goes on...

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The next day morning, no change....
 
Here's the full slide show.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Father's day card

This bought a lump in my throat, my little darling princess made this card for Father's day.

Here's the close-up of the poem:

Now that's a tear jerker, if I ever saw one! my tiny petite princess! :)

But I also got a proper card from her and another grown up card from Kannu (and a wash bag because my previous one was getting very tatty)

very blessed with wonderful kids! :)