Photo catch up announcement

As I'm about to leave Singapore for sunny London, I catch up with a few late posts as photo posts, it has been too long for me to remember any good stories!

Here to come:
- Vientiane, Laos
- Hokkaido island, Sapporo and Otaru, honeymoon 2
- Kyoto, Honeymoon 3
- Japanese food, honeymoon 4

Where are you from?

It has been a while since I have written a "special note", one of my little philosophical discussion with myself... But a question I was recently asked 3 times in the laps of 3 days prompted it.

 

It is rather frequent when abroad that I am asked where I am from and I never really know what to say! If I'm in Thailand for the WE let's say, I would tend to say that I'm from Singapore (because after all, it's where I came from for that particular WE!) but then people look at me weirdly, apparently my eyes don't look Asian enough...

This time, the 3 questions were asked in Singapore and all of them within the boundaries of the F1 circuit. (Post on F1 coming, R is playing with the photos!)

First while ordering beer, someone heard us speaking French and asked where we were from (in French), he didn't seem very satisfied with the answer Singapore... Neither did he seem satisfied with France, what he was looking for was Lyon/Burgundy.

Then the next day, we were asked to fill a survey at the entrance gate and to the question where are you from we said France, again False! He was looking for Singapore as we live here and have employment pass, he had another question later on for nationality...

And finally, metal detector guy asked me where I was from and this time I got it right, I said France and he was happy!

As you can tell, France is my go-by answer because in Asia people can not tell from my accent! (British people please do not laugh too hard...) and then they are surprised that my accent is not horrendous! :-)

When I was in London, I couldn't answer France to the same question as most people already knew that from the way I speak!

May be to please everyone I should go with:

"I hold a French passport, was born and grew up in Lyon (to be replaced by "Lyon, France" if talking to US citizen, they like attaching state to city!), spent most of the last 10 years in and out of London and currently live in Singapore" but that seems rather extensive knowing that most of the time the person doesn't really care...

So I'm still looking for the perfect answer but may be, as my physics teacher would say: "tout depend du referentiel!" (my answer should be adjusted to the referential!)

Apologies... but look forward to SriLanka, London and Japan

I have not been very up to date with the blog recently. I have finished telling you about Myanmar but I haven't even started Sri Lanka that we visited in January during the Chinese new year week! Since, time has been flying, I spent a month in London and I have some really pretty snowy photos to share, then 10 busy days in Singapore before R and I flew back to France to get married, followed by 2 weeks honeymoon in Japan. I now have one day for recovery in Singapore and I'm off to Angola for a month where I will not have time to update this blog, so really this is my apologetic post to advise in advance that I'm running late on stories and that is not going to improve in the near future! :-)

Happy 2012!

On this 2nd of January, I wish you all a happy new year.
Thanks for continuing to read this blog and I hope to bring you more stories and more photos in 2012.

Last year I attached a world map to my happy new year wishes. At that time, i had covered 17% of the world and I mentionned that the objective for this year was 20%. I now have to admit that I have miserably failed...
I have only managed 18%, to my defense I did say that without making it to Angola in 2011 it was going to be hard and indeed it was! The new countries of 2011 were Brunei, New Zealand and Myanmar that you will soon hear about.

2012 will definitely bring more countries, Sri Lanka and Japan are already booked and it does look like that I will be in Angola in April. Let's wait and see...

Anyway, here is the map and happy 2012!

Create your own travel map - TravBuddy

This month's photo: banc public (2)

My previous posting was done in such a rush that I forgot half of it!

So first here is a little bit more about my bench.

If you have been following my "this month's photo" serie, you know that I like to take the photo during the month of the theme. And you also know that I'm far away from a brilliant photographer and that my stong point is more the story than the photo (which can even sometimes be taken with the iPhone.........)

So here is the story about this one: This month has been short on trips, by that I mean exotic trips (I have spent way too much time stuck in the office in rainy London), so our trip to the Bako national park on Borneo was MY chance to get the photo!

This bench is actually a good reflection on Bako's environment: back to basic!

I would have loved to show you the view at the same time but really the number of trees and the sun would have killed the shot so I just went for this lonely bench. Actually there were quite a few like that around the loop, one was on a supposed view point but with a wall of trees in front, another was facing a big sign telling you it was your last chance for a smoke (before the vegetation turned drier) but this one had the remoteness factor built in!

I'll write the post on Bako soon and I can already promise some amazing animal shots (that R took, sorry I'm the writer of this blog he is the photographer!:-)

Second part of this post, finally here are the links to the other blogs:

Celiano, Cynthia, Guillaume, 100driiine, 4 petits suisses dans un bol de riz, A&G, Agnès, Alex, Alexanne, Alice, Anne, Anne Laure T, Aparça , Aude, Ava, Babou, Bao, Bestofava, blogoth67, Boopalicious, Carnets d'Images, Caro, Carole In England, Caroline, Cathy Brocard, Cekoline, Céline, Céline in Paris, Champagne, Cherrybee, Clara, Claude, Clem et Chat, Doremi, Doréus en Alberta, Dorydee, E, Edegan, El, Fabienne, Florian, florianL, François, Frankonorsk, Frédéric, Galinette, Gilsoub, Gizeh, Glose, Grignette, hibiscus, Hugo, Isabelle, Jean WILMOTTE, Jen et dam, JoAnn, Karrijini, Krn, Kyn, La Fille de l'Air, La Godiche, La Madame, La Papote, La Parigina, Laurabreizh, Laure, Lauriane, L'azimutée, LE BOA BLEU , Le Mag à lire, le via carmina, Le-Chroniqueur, Les voyages de Seth et Lise, lesegarten, Lhise, Lucile et Rod, M, M.C.O, magda627, Mamysoren, Mandy, Manola, margote05, Margouia, Marie, Marion, M'dameJo, Mérantaise, Meyilo, Nathalie, Niwatori, Nomade57, Noon, Nora, Olivier, Ori, Où trouver à Montréal? , Pavot de Lune, Rene paul henry, Sébastien, Sephiraph, Shandara, Sinuaisons, Sprout©h, Stephane08, Stéphie & les Cacahuètes, Surfanna, Tam, Tambour Major, The Mouse, Thib, Titem, Ty, Un jour-Montreal, Une niçoise, Urbaine, Urbamedia, Vanilla, Viviane, Xavier Mohr.

Sorry about the delay, but don't worry, my brain is already on next month's theme: Bubbles!

Best of SE Asia

I started a conversation with my personal trainer (yep, the one I hate on a regular basis ;-) yesterday evening which made me write this post. Subject: what has been my favourite WE away since moving to Singapore?

Mmhhh the answer in 2 words was impossible to decide on, so I created categories:

Best diving:
Layang-Layang, Malaysia

Best city:
Bangkok, Thailand

Best paradise island (difficult category):
Apo, Philippines
with Boracay, Kho Pi Pi and Gili coming close behind

Best jungle:
Bukit Lawang, Sumatra, Indonesia

Best cultural trip:
Angkor, Cambodia

Best hotel:
Waka hotel near Tanah Lot temple, Bali, Indonesia

Best hike:
Me: Kinabalu because I got to the top!!!
R: Rinjani, Lombock, Indonesia

Best food and drink:
Margaret river, Australia
With  Hong Kong as a great contender as well!

Best landscape (and photo shoot):
Bromo, Java, Indonesia

I welcome the creation of new categories through your comments!

2000 pages

I have noticed this week that more that more than 2000 pages of this blog have been viewed!
Thanks for reading!

That's all for now, I just wanted to share that with you :-)

Happy new year!

Happy new year everyone! Best wishes for 2011 to you and your loved ones. Thank you for reading this blog and keep sending comments in the new year!

I have done this map yesterday evening and there is still a lot of room for improvement!

http://www.travbuddy.com/maps/5976338

My resolution for 2011 is to reach 20%, not an easy one! Let's hope I get to Africa sometimes this year otherwise it will be difficult...
Looking at this map, you might notice that there are quite a few countries I have been to in Asia and I haven't told you about, that's because I'm terribly late with this blog! Yet to come: Singaporean wedding, Phillippines islands, temples of Angkor, kite surfing in Vietnam and Hanoi and HaLong bay.

I have started at least 3 of these posts, so there is hope... :-)

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

M.

Korean memories

Special post for the people who follow this blog and were part of the Korean adventure...

A nice little restaurant in Chinatown: the Red Pig, it has everything you need bugogi, dakalbi, soju, bake soju and even Mak geol li!

The prices are somehow a bit higher than in korea...

Unfortunately we weren't sitting on the floor but each table was equipped with its own bbq, that's ours warming up. Once the food arrived I was too busy eating for taking a photo... (sorry!)

Do notice the full glass of Hite! :-)

already 25

hey,

just to say that i'm celebrating my 25th post, a quarter of a century!!!

Next post will be about the little things which make Singapore a different place

Enjoy

I'm up to date!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just wanted to let you know that I'm now up to date with this blog! It took me a while to catch up but hopefully now I'll be on top of things!

Next one to come, Java, Indonesia, It's easter weekend, we are leaving tomorrow.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!