Blogyagi

This was a monumentally stupid idea. You can see from the photo in the last entry the two of the reasons why I should never have tried this. It’s a long way away and the air is full of sand and smog. The final reason is hinted at by the picture below. Duba is the domain of the car. I think I spent as much time trying to cross roads and work out which of 5 exits from an intersection was the one I wanted.

Burj Dubai from highway overpass - what was I thinkng!

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On holiday again. Alas unlike 2007, this is not a proper 10 week holiday but a 4 week taster of 2 or three countries. On the plus side, I’m going places I’ve never been as well as catching up on how things have changed in Dubai. Enough fake anticipation, I’m a week into the trip and sitting on the balcony of the Mayfair Hotel in Cairo, a so-called 1 star hotel but actually quite a lot better than that makes it sound. Let’s call it a 1-star bedrooms with 2 star service in a 3 star building. I like it anyway and it is certainly an oasis from the hustle and bustle of Cairo.

Anyway, Cairo comes later. First I had 3 days in Dubai. Don’t believe all the negative press you read about this place. It’s no ghost town. Every crane I saw was woreking. And it makes sense. In a world where you’re nervous about giving credit, giving it to those who do the banking for the oil producers is still a pretty safe bet. Anyway, I could go on about this for ages, but will save that for another post.

Rooftop at Sheraton Deira

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It’s amazing how upset people are becoming over this. A little hint for all you people suffering righteous indignation:

It’s their website and they can do what they want

Still upset. Good. Click on my link below and discover that there are other auction sites in Australia. If both of my readers sign up, I could make $4. There you go. Show those evil bastards at eBay what you think of them.

Go on, you’ll feel better.

Christchurch is a pleasant little city. The centre is the Cathedral
Square, containing surprise surprise a cathedral, as well as some
market stalls and The Chalice.

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I’m catching up on some of the older photos I have from my
trip. Before I came to NZ, I had two days on Surfers Paradise where I
eased myself into holiday mode.

I stayed in the centre of town on the 30th floor of the BreakFree
Beachcombers Hotel. Cheap room so I wasn’t facing the beach, but it
was across the road.

I was a full on tourist and went on the local “Duck” ride, a
combination bus/boat. It was a bit dark for photography, but here are
a couple of shots anyway.

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The air show over, we packed up our room and hit the road. With 6
hours to travel about 90km, we had time to visit some family and see
some sights. Our first stop was Lake Hawea, where Andy & Mike’s cousin
Scott was holidaying with his wife and family.

From left to right:

• Andy
• Scott
• Jonty
• Thomas (Tom-Tom)
• Trudi
• Mike
• Yours Truly

Lake Hawea is a hydroelectric lake, but of course is just as scenic as
the rest of the South Island.

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I went jetboating yesterday on the Shotover River just outside of Queenstown. Lots of fun. Took hundreds of photos. These are some of the few that came out.

Shotover Jet

Shotover River

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It was outside my hotel window, so in between forays to the bar, I took some photos.

A news article about the fire.

Click on the photos for larger versions. I was experimenting with different modes of my camera if you were wondering why it seems to jump back into daylight as it gets later.

Edit: Added some more photos this morning (20th)

Time: 18:38

Time: 19:25

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I never really finished my travel writing, and given what’s happening now in Kenya, I don’t really feel like it now. I’m glad however that I had a chance to spend some time in Western Kenya, and saw Bungoma, Kapenguria, Kitale and Eldoret before they became famous for all the wrong reasons.

I may or may not write about the elections, suffice to say my future plans are somewhat up in the air. As soon as I know what I’m doing, you’ll hear about it here.

In the meantime, I’ve reacquainted myself with several old friends by signing up with FaceBook and LinkedIn so I’ll be penning a few words here soon to say what I’ve been up to for the last few years. That was my plan for tonight, but I got sidetracked by Chinese scrapers so this entry is actually about nothing.

If you want to keep up with news on Kenya, this news aggregator has a lot of articles.

For nothing except your time.

For nothing except some missed interest in most cases