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Unforgettable Tour?

I spent nearly my whole weekend reading up on nuclear energy, its discovery and current status. It all started after I watched "Decontamination: Losing the Sheltering Trees" - a NHK documentary about decontamination work in areas around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear event and how it has affected the communities there. 

The Fukushima event is one of only two nuclear events classified as a level 7 event (highest level - most serious) on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The other being the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. So that got me wondering about the current state of Chernobyl.

From my online search, I found out that work to build a new containment called "New Safe Confinement" to cover the old leaking sarcophagus (a huge concrete structure built in 1986 enveloping the destroyed Reactor 4) has started in 2012 and is expected to be completed in 2015. Now, I know that "clean-up workers" at the area are known as liquidators.

More interestingly, I read that since 2002, there were guided tours to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone which includes the ghost town of Pripyat but now the itinerary has been altered to exclude visits to the Rossokha village and the military machines graveyard as prohibited by the government.

Who would want to pay to visit this place, I asked so I looked for more information about the tour, read many articles written by people who went on this tour and browsed through their photos. Some descriptions about the tour:

- dreamlike
- eerie silence
- haunting
- unforgettable
- attracts people who like lonely, abandoned and deserted places

So would you consider going on this tour?

Home again

A big thank you to everyone who left me comments in my previous post. I have been back for some time, 10 days to be exact. Sorry for not writing a post earlier. I was busy sorting out things that were left undone while I was away.

No, I did not go adventuring to a mysterious remote place with no access to the internet. Just that I did not bring a personal device to go online while I was there. The place that I visited has this building:

Night view - all lit up

It was a short 9 days trip to visit my 96 years old grandmother. This trip is a treat for my mother and I from my sister who paid for all expenses. She also requested that I let it be known here that she also prepared many pieces of newspaper cuttings of sudoku and slitherlink puzzles for me to work on if ever I am bored during the trip. For the record, I completed 5 sudoku puzzles and 5 slitherlink puzzles during the 9 days.

Grandma and ma. In the foreground is the back of my head.

Basically, we walked, talked a lot and ate loads of good food. The best thing is seeing grandma and the bad thing is I gained weight. All in all, a short, sweet and sour trip.

Hanoi 2008

Time to reminisce: Three years ago (25-28 Aug 2008), my spouse went on a business trip to Hanoi and as usual I tagged along. We stayed at the Hilton Hanoi Opera Hotel.

Hanoi Opera House (next to it is the Hilton hotel)

After we checked into the hotel, we walked to a nearby cafe for lunch. I find it difficult to cross the roads in Hanoi as there are many road junctions without traffic lights and the local pedestrians just weave through the traffic confidently.

The cafe where we had our lunch

After lunch we walked to Hoan Kiem Lake (Lake of the Restored Sword). There were many people resting or exercising around the lake. We continued walking towards the Old Quarter and when we were there, we just walked a few streets before taking a taxi back to the hotel.

Turtle tower in the middle of the lake; Lovely big trees around the lake

We had dinner at Ba Mien Restaurant in the hotel before calling it a night.

Our meal at Ba Mien; The hotel room

Day 2-4: For the rest of the days that we were in Hanoi, I would accompany my spouse to his office where we would eat breakfast near his office and then he would go to work while I would walk back to the hotel which is located about 2km away. Then I would continue to explore the Old Quarter by foot with a map in hand. When it was about time for him to leave work, I would walk to his office to wait for him and then we would have dinner together before taking a taxi back to the hotel.

I walked past the St Joseph's Cathedral one day; The many motorcycles on the road

We ate at Quan An Ngon Restaurant many times as the restaurant is near his office and it serves a variety of traditional food of Vietnam.

Quan An Ngon Restaurant; One of the stalls

Alas, I can't remember any of the names of the dishes that we had.

Need to wrap the rolls ourselves;  Waiting for food

All in all it was a walking holiday for me as I did not buy any souvenirs nor did any shopping.

The many dishes we had at Quan An Ngon

Leuven, Belgium 2003

Back in Sept 2003, my spouse went for a business trip to Leuven, Belgium and as usual I tagged along. Leuven is known as a university town for one of the oldest university (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) is located there. From the airport, we took a train to Leuven and then walked to The Novotel Leuven Centre hotel to check in.

Hotel room and view of the Stella Artois Brewery from the window of our hotel room

Then we walked to the main market square (Grote Markt) which is about 1.5km away to do some sightseeing. After a while, it was time for dinner. As my spouse prefers to eat "South East Asia style meals", we found a Thai restaurant (Krua Thai) and had our meal there. I don't remember the dishes that we ordered. All I remember is that the food there is delicious.

Krua Thai restaurant where we had our dinner

2nd Day

The next day after my spouse went for work, I was left to explore Leuven on my own. I walked to the main market square again and took photos of the town.

Left: Town Hall     Right:  Saint Peter's Church

Then I walked to visit the Grand Béguinage of Leuven (Groot Begijnhof van Leuven), a restored historical area which originated around the 13th century to house a community of unmarried, semi-religious women (Béguine - definition from the oxforddictionaries.com : "(in the Roman Catholic Church) a member of a Dutch lay sisterhood, formed in the 12th century, and not bound by vows"). The area consists of streets, squares, gardens, parks, with houses and apartments built in traditional brick and sandstone style. Now students and staff of the Catholic University of Leuven live there.

Groot Begijnhof van Leuven

After all the walking, I was hungry. Since my spouse was not around, I was free to eat non "South East Asia style" meals. The previous night, I found great online reviews for this restaurant - Restaurant-Bistro Timory - so I made my way there by foot with the help of a street map. Had an enjoyable meal there - I don't remember all that I ate but I knew I had a waffle with ice-cream for dessert. Back then, I do not take photos of my food. The only downside about eating alone is that I had to carry all my belongings into the washroom with me and there was no one to "guard" my table.

Restaurant Timory

After a satisfying meal, I continued to wander around Leuven and noticed the many statues standing or sitting here and there so I took photos of them. Below are the photos that I took of the statues. The description and name of the statues are copied from this pdf file "A guide to the statues of Leuven" that I found online. This guide even states the location of the statues and has a map marking their locations. The guide contains many more statues than the ones I saw.

De Kotmadam - by Fred Bellefroid built in 1984 in honour of the kotmadam. “Kot” is Flemish slang for a student room, and the “kotmadam” is the landlady of the building, who would prepare meals for the students, tidy their rooms and help them when help was needed.

Renée - Reading a book entitled “Loveniers Armand”, the name of the sculptor. This statue is meant to represent the active female students in Leuven, built near Atrecht College, the first to offer university degrees in teaching to women. It was named after René Depret, head of the Merchants Association of Leuven and the Friends of Leuven Museums, among many other associations.

De Bakkers (The Bakers)

Dit Beeld Werd Geschonken boor - In memory of those drafted into the crossbow corpse (always 60 men strong) who trained along this pathway, outside the inner wall

Paep Thoon - an organist/jester at the Holy Sacrament of St Peter’s church in the 15th century, who used to tell the truth through dark humour;

Fons Sapientiae (Fountain of Wisdom): a university student who pours wisdom into his head by reading a book.

3rd Day (also the last day)

On the 3rd day, we checked out from the hotel early in the morning and my spouse left for work with all our baggage. I then took a train to the Brussels-Central railway station to do some sightseeing around Brussels. I've been to Brussels before in 1999 during a 2-week Europe package group tour but that was a short stopover so this time I bought a ticket at the Central station and got on a hop-on-hop-off bus tour around Brussels. I sat on the upper deck of the open-top bus.

Hop on hop off sightseeing bus

I did not get off at most of the stops (got down at only two stops), just sat there and enjoy the city sights. At Stop 9 - Heysel, I alighted from the bus and bought tickets for myself and my camera to enter the Atomium (built in 1958). Since my camera has a ticket, I took many photos inside the Atomium.

Atomium - ticket counter and close up

Exhibition hall inside one of the steel spheres

Escalators or stairs inside the tubes connecting the center sphere to the other spheres

More escalators and stairs in the connecting tubes

Observation deck and view from the deck

After boarding the bus again at Stop 9, I alighted at Stop 12 - Bourse-Grand Place (Grand Place square) where I walked around looking at the various buildings around the square, searched for the famous Manneken-Pis and had my late lunch there - a bowl of mussels broth.

I think this was where I ate my late lunch - the sign says "Poisson Viandes Fruit de Mer" (Fish, meat, seafood)

After lunch, I took my own sweet time walking around window shopping looking at the chocolate displays until I lost track of the time. When I realised it, I quickly walked to a bus stop and waited very long for a hop-on-hop-off bus to appear. I was so afraid that I missed the last bus and had to take a cab back to the train station. Fortunately a bus appeared after more than half an hour and I hopped on, only to find it crawling as the traffic was congested.

Traffic congestion

When I reached the train station in Brussels, I quickly bought a ticket and boarded a train to the airport. Met up with my spouse at the airport and took a flight back to UK.

Lesson learned: when sightseeing alone, must remember the time at all times.

Jakarta 2005

I've been to Indonesia only once - and that is to Jakarta for around 3-4 days in mid May 2005. My spouse went there to attend an exhibition and I tagged along. His employers' business partners brought us out for dinner on our first night there and I can not remember the name of the restaurant now. Apart from that dinner, I stayed in the hotel - Jakarta Hilton (now known as The Sultan Jakarta Hotel) the whole time for the rest of the trip so I did not see much of Jakarta.

Every morning we ate breakfast at the hotel and then I walked with my spouse to the Jakarta Convention Centre which is connected to the hotel via an underground air-conditioned tunnel. Then I would walked back to the hotel alone and strolled around the hotel's lush gardens before going back to my room to read a book. I ate all my meals at the hotel restaurants but did not use the other facilities. So should I visit Jakarta again to make up for the sight seeing that I missed the first time round?

Hotel's garden

Our room with two balconies

View from one of the window/balcony

Blue sky, green grass

Some photos of Ching Jing (清境) farm in Nantou (南投) County, Taiwan that were taken during my 2006 trip there. A very nice place to take a long, leisure walk.

Alone but not lonely

Feel the clouds

A burst of sunshine

That's me (in red)

No MATTA Fair for me

The first of the twice-a-year MATTA (Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents) Fair 2010 is on this weekend, from 12th-14th of March 2010 (10am to 9pm) at Putra World Trade Center (PWTC) Kuala Lumpur. I wanted to go and get a good travel deal but with no clear idea of when and where I wish to visit this year, it is no go for me this time.

Since it turned out this way, I just have to be contented with sitting at home and looking through our previous travel photos. Here are some photos from my 3-day Copenhagen trip from 3rd-5th of October 2002. We went there because our airmiles were going to expire so we used them instead of wasting them.

We stayed at the Ibis Triton Hotel, room 518. The above photo shows the view from the main door.

It has a very big bathroom.

We did not get to try the famous traditional Danish open faced sandwiches, "smørrebrød" because we were too full from dinner when we came across them but we managed to take a photo of them. They looked delicious so it was really a pity we did not get to taste them.

I am standing in front of the Kronborg Castle in Elsinore. This castle is the castle mentioned in Shakespeare's Hamlet and we spent a fair amount of time looking through each room in the castle. We also visited the Frederiksborg Castle but did not pay to go inside as there was not enough time to do so.

We went on a river cruise and admired the little mermaid from the boat. We did not manage to visit the Tivoli Gardens because it was closed during the 3 days that we were in Copenhagen.

As we went on our own, we spent most of our time walking to the castles from the train stations so we were very, very tired at the end of each day. But looking back now, it was a memorable short trip.