The view from Mt Ainslie

Some recent photos

It was good to see Zack and Amanda recently on their honeymoon. Here's a couple of photos from when we saw them (taken at Bondi):

I was surprised to see somewhere strangely familiar being used in an advert on a Melbourne tram recently:

I went a walk in the mountains south of Canberra, and came across plenty of hot macropod action:

We happened to be in Melbourne during the Commonwealth Games. Not terribly exciting, but there were some interesting 'cultural' events on at the same time: There was one fish for every Commonwealth country down the Yarra (and two for Australia). At night they spurted water.

The best thing, though, was this: a large inflatable tent by the sea:

Because the plastic it was made out of was translucent, it produced all kinds of strange lighting effects inside:

These photos are just as they came out of the camera. The tent was modelled on Iranian mosques, but made in (where else?) Nottingham.

Pakistani tram

For some reason to do with the Commonwealth Games, they got some people who normally decorate buses in Pakistan to decorate a Melbourne tram.

The 'Gong

Earlier this year we came back from Sydney via Wollongong. It's best known for its large steelworks and general industrialness, but this photo manages to make it look quite nice, really...

Photographs from my trip

It was good to see everyone again in England, and I really enjoyed Japan, as well as Paris and Lisbon. So here are some randomly selected photographs from the hundreds Phuong and I took.

Dinner at the New Gulshan.

Dinner at the New Gulshan again. You can see Andrew better on this one, Lijun worse, and Stephen's expression is all the more Gumby-like.

Rothschild museum at Tring. When I say that I think that zebras look good on shelves, I do really mean it.

Shira and me in Kensington Gardens.

In the pub in St Albans. Richard tries to work out whether John really turned up, or whether it is just a very well constructed waxwork.

Andrew Kanaber and I somewhere. Might be Hemel Hempsted.

Zack talks to the boxes, cause the face ain't listening.

Lisbon

I'd never been to Portugal before, and it was much sunnier than anywhere else... so happy smiling faces all round.

Phuong took this picture of the new bridge in Newcastle/Gateshead. He's very proud of it (and they're very proud of the bridge).

Insert your own caption.

Phuong tries to feed a picture of a donkey...

Lisbon is topographically splendid.

Paris

Paris over New Year was fun. The Parigianians eat an awful lot of foie gras over the festive period. They must almost run out of floorboards to nail the ducks to.

Phuong and I just before the accident.

(I'm only joking...)

Illuminations and funfair in the Grand Palais.

The window theme at Printemps was an English Christmas. As you can see...

...note flower-pattern everything.

Obligatory shrine picture. I took a lot of these, but I won't bore you.

TOKYO

Tokyo was an amazing experience. It is such an intense and exhilhirating place, and completely different to anywhere else I've ever been. And the trains. Let me tell you about the trains.
You see, there are the Shinkansen, but there are also the plethora of different private railway companies, as
well of course as the vast JR East network, of which the hub is the Yamanote line. And then there are the two different metro companies,
which interwork extensively onto both the JR and private lines. There are even services that go from Narita airport, on the Keisei line, onto the metro, and then onto another private company line to Haneda. Shinjuku station is the busiest, yet has no Shinkansen services at all
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Mt Fuji at sunset, from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building

Nikko is a beautiful shrine town up in the hills above Tokyo. This is the sacred bridge. Depending on how you look at it, it is either four hundred years old, or three years old (it has been regularly rebuilt).