thank you, uefa

i watched the champions league final in thailand (and was the only one cheering for milan with so many brits around me) - so i skipped this part of the grand celebration. this is the centre of athens (syntagma square) around the time of the game. a big thank you to the english and italian fans that came over to athens to watch the game (and mess it up)...

:-)

the moment of truth

i couldn't help smiling yesterday in schiphol. i was boarding my transit flight to london city airport in my 3/4 pants, t-shirt and backback, and i was the only person on a morning flight not wearing a suit and having more than cabin luggage to take with me :-)

although the weather was bad (10 degrees and rain both in amsterdam and london) and i hadn't slept in more than 30 hours, i thought it was quite funny. i got back to work (straight from teh airport) tired but in a good mood. jetlag did kick in at afternoon time, but with a good night's sleep i am now officially over it and ready for the next big thing: friday i am moving to the new flat! boy, life moves fast...

some last photos from singapore and thailand

singapore skyline - friends in singapore (bulan, cha0, pedro, brenda, thomas, vega, liv, ying) - view from brenda's place - tasos & jervina - signpost at mrt - last night in thailand with the koh tao gang - coolerst airport in the world (koh samui - outdoor!) - nangyang island postcard - last sunset in koh tao...

the stories to follow during the weekend!

from Thailand with love

this is actually the chill out part / kind of greek island /part of my holiday. after 36 hours of travelling, we made it to Koh Tao island, and well, it's rewarding to be here even for three-four days only. malaysia - well, KL really - was a lot of fun. i find that place much more relaxed than the other asian capitals i've been to, but at the same time modern and relatively easy to navigate.

met with caro at the airport and stayed at pilli's and fabian's place, which was great. but basically we got lazy, and we only just saw the main sights f the city, spent time watching movies and discussing, and of course expored the nightlife. highlights would have to be the scrabble games, the salsa bar filled with chinese people dancing to latin american tunes (completely surreal but they were actually very good) and of course the petronas towers. a fantastic place to be indeed.

monday night we took the train to hat yai, where we reached after 15-16 hours. got the bus to surat thani, which was quite an experience as even the aircon cannot counter the heat in this country. we then relaxed there for a few hours, till we finally got the 8 hour night ferry to Koh Tao, along with alice and brian, whom we met on the train from KL...and the fun is about to begin...

well, i'm off to the beach now :-)

some more China photos

enjoy! now back to shanghai and soon to go on an excursion, before descending to kl on friday!

from china with love

i have been in this fantastic country for 5 days now - since i landed on sunday. and basically i have so much to write that if i start now i am gonna need a book and miss out on seeing more. i'll try to summarise though:

i landed in shanghai on sunday the 6th, after some 15 hours on the plane. very quickly you realise that china is more like another planet than another country. i left to beijing on tuesday and returning to shanghai this saturday after having seen the main sights. so far i definitely want to thank all people i met here for their hospitality (tzyy, sathe, carol, carlos) and others that have helped me a great deal before the trip (jenny, ying, sathe again etc.). i have met quite a few ppl that i had heard of before and finally got to hang out with while here and others who were friends but now are my friends as well. i might be forgetting smn so apologies in advance.

china is a fascinating place to be. you can see that in shanghai, that everything is moving fast and the modernisation of the country is going forward. but i'd prefer the term modernisation to westernisation as the underlying principles of the chinese are still based on their tradition, which i deem to be a good thing. beijing is more laid back in my perception and you can see the olympics coming, as there are olympic related works and mention everywhere. shanghai is also a big construction site, due to the constant growth of the city, but as they say, they may be larger in population, but it's a taller city in terms of buildings, as i found out for myself, and therefore smaller in size than beijing. that makes beijing a huge city, which i found out by walking for about 3 hours on the day i got here, for what seemed on the map to be a 15 minute walk. both places are a lot of fun, and for the fanatics (jenny?) - i am not able to choose yet :-) but there's plenty to do and see in both. the rest of the country i haven't seen yet.

other than that, the trip is so far everything i wanted it to be, only the duration for such a big country will always be short. the culture is so different, the language barrier is there but you would always get around and that's what i was looking for, a place different than europe. so far have seen plenty of museums, met different friends, been to tian'anmen square, forbidden city different parks, the ming tombs and the Great wall of china, which is really something. i also went out and enjoyed the nightlife for 3 evenings so far, and will be doing more of that, while currently trying to filter out which "non city" places i will visit. finally, i have been walking for more than 8 hours every day that i have been in china, and have used a bit of public transport as well, but prefer walking as i can see things first hand. i consider riding a bike here a bit dangerous, as everything moves so fast and the traffic in beijing is on the unpredictable side! :-)

there's so may moments and images to describe, but i won't go on for now. will probably go for this after i am back to london.

that's all for now, i'll let the photos speak for themselves, and don't know how my internet access will go from now on, but will try to keep it coming. see you all soon.

leaving

well, ready or not, here i come.

spent a busy week at work, and the result was that i didn't plan all aspects of my trip that i planned to. i only took care of a few must-do's. tickets, and part of the accommodation, buying my lonely planets, some clothes, and taking down a few friends' phone numbers. packing up my flat (by the time i am off to the airport, i should vacate the flat as well, as i am changing flats upon my return here in london).

but that's beside the point. today is the last day at work until the end of may. i'll start getting excited when i come back home to pack after work tonight. and tomorrow morning i am on the plane to shanghai. just a short rundown of the dates:

may 6-18: china (shanghai, beijing and elsewhere)
18-20: malaysia (KL)
21-26: thailand (Ko Samui & elsewhere)
26-28: singapore
29: back to london

i have mailed a lot of you guys and planned to meet up, but if i haven't reached smn, please mail me, or if you just happen to be in the neighbourhood! asia, here i come!