Merry New Year

It's been a while and I've not been back to my usual blogging habits.

Tiring month - December! Just came and it's gone. Got back from London on the 2nd, and Jeremy, Mum and Dad came on the 11th. Went to Istanbul, Turkey on the 18to to 23rd. and then it was Christmas, and New Year's coming!! What a month.

Will post Istanbul pictures up soon!

Meanwhile... Merry Belated Christmas and hope the New Year would be happier... =)

London 07

This is sort of my first holiday in a while...
So good just walking around aimlessly and catching up with old friends... and new-old friends.

Too bad Jun's working and Lawrence & Pete are at school... Anyway, I did manage to roam the streets of London... Covent Gardens, Picadilly, Leicester Sq, and even all the way to the London Eye (thanks to Pete who gave me absolutely wrong directions)... without getting robbed or mugged - everyone tells me how scary that is.

Sights of London...

And more...

Stayed with Jun and Joon Jae... THANKS JUN!!! (if you're reading this!). Pigged out at some Japanese Restaurant, and had this yummy desert platter at Haagen Dazs

Caught up with Pete and Lawrence over the next few days too! - we had chinese because of some cheena peh who had to have chinese....

4 Seasons - the Duck was as good as the one in Melbourne, but different.

And again.. we had Yum Cha / Dim Sum (chinese again!)

Greenwich!!

And yes we all got dragged to watch Arsenel - Aston Villa at the pub

Food... I always take pictures of food

Totts Spurs - Birmingham game

HI CHERYL!

This is from Yujun and Me......

We're here in London... missing YOU!!

NY NY!

I'm leaving NY tomorrow....

I got into NY to take my US Green Building stuff LEED exam. Prayed so hard to pass... and I did! yay!!! It was really a miracle that I pulled through this. I budgeted to take the exam twice... so now I have more money (AND TIME) to spend on walking around and doing some shopping!

Got into NYC on a Friday afternoon (day after Thanksgiving). Big sale everywhere. Apparently it's Black Friday sale (according to some Ting & Alice). City was so busy everywhere.

Times Sq Vicinity... Such a busy city. Never will find so many people in such a brightly lighted city anywhere in Singapore, Australia or Dubai!

Another Times Square shot

Met up with some really really old long time friends.... who took time off from his weekend work schedule to take me out!! Thank you! Appreciate that!

That was at some fancy desert place called Chika-something... can't even remember the name of the place.

And another desert place.... Seems that desert has better pictures... that's why no photos of main course meals.

Went to Macy's to visit Santa. OK I was really bored, but it was good fun to see Santa. I asked him for a new job.

Met Ting Ting and Alice yesterday on Monday. Everyone was away on thanksgiving weekend. Ting just got back from Toronto... Was really good catching up... Went to some little italian restaurant with huge huge pizzas. A small sized was equivalent to a XL in Melbourne! Yes it was THAT big.

Just the 3 of us...

Took a walk down to Rockafeller.... Too bad the Christmas tree was not lighted up yet!

Rockafeller!

42nd Street - Bryant Park... and Toys R Us

Charmin Toilets! They have this FREE public toilets on 42nd St. So weird! It was like a store... but it's free public toilets... Nice and reallly clean! With people to guide you to the different toilet numbers. How cool can New York get!

Central Park... Taking a walk back to the hotel!

Sobs... holidays are over for a while, but I'm off to London for another 5 more days! Then holidays would really be over.

Well... it'll be another 2 weeks at work, before I go to Istanbul with my visiting family! Woo hoo! Then it'll be Christmas in Dubai, then New Year Holiday... 2007 has gone by so so quickly! A year of travels for me.

Passed! I am a LEED AP now...

After many days of hard work (actually just 3 days of panic), I passed my accreditation exam. Woo hoo!! I was sort of preparing to do a re-exam... but now there's no need for it. Saved the money for SHOPPING...

Shopping here in New York is soooo good. Thanksgiving weekend... all the sales are on. Christmas decorations just came out... Ah... such a christmassy mood! Love it, just love NYC!

People here are really unfriendly though...

Staying at this extremely cray 2mx2m hotel room.... so crap...

Ah.. enough of my randomness... pictures to come. I didn't take that many anyway... Didn't feel as much of a tourist as I did the last time I was here about 3 years ago. how time flies.

Hatta Camping Trip

Pictures from our camping trip in Hatta on the 26th Oct weekend.

Set off from Sheikh Zayed Road to Hatta after lunch... Had my little KFC Chicken twister or something like that... 5 Cars in total - Prado, Jeep, Rover, Pajero and Ford (hidden at the back...)

Headed towards Hatta... went Wadi hunting. We all weren't sure if there were Wadis or not... So hot... where to find a Wadi? (Wadis are like streams of water in the middle of rocks).

Obviously Simon and Jordan were pretty sure where it was...

Ahh... we found the first traces of water. It was more of a long kang (drain). That is NOT a wadi.

Little Jedi and his whistling lollipop

Suddenly from afar, we all heard a loud splash! Jenny - first heroine to jump into the Wadi. It was good... quiet, no dodgy indian men around.
Arab graffiti on the stones - ah.. i thought they existed only in Australia.

Faith & Val...

Fossil Rocks - Hatta

A Bigger Wadi

Jedi still with his same lolli


Not-so-Grand Canyon. with Arab Graffiti of course.

That's Carrie - deep in thoughts...

and Mr Lee...

and David and his frog princess

and that's mee...

and Mr Lee, Mrs Lee, Miss Lee and Master Lee

The camping gang

By the time we left the Wadi grounds, we were sort of desparate to find a camping ground. It got dark as we drove out of the Wadi area.

Stopped by a gas station to fuel up. There was this Dubai car with Number Plate 3. Must be some relative of the Sheikh. Big hoo ha at the petrol station... but all of us walked in and out, not knowing and not caring who that guy at the door was. Haha... Must feel weird being such an important person. All the petrol attendants were fussing over him.

Anyway, it got really dark by the time we hung around the petrol station... Drove into the desert and found a spot to pitch the tent.

Not fun pitching tent in the dark. Some pitched tents, whilst some tried to get the cars out of the sand.

Simon and his not so fortunate car - got stuck - but it's common to get stuck if you sway sway drive over really soft ground.

whilst some others start burying their feet too...
This is what you call... ADD OIL TO FIRE - brilliant idea though. Kept us all warm
R&R after getting cars unstuck, pitching tents, starting the fire, cooking over the fire etc.
Nice and warm


Morning after...

No I was not pooing. Just brushing teeth. No toilet. It was hard finding a spot to do morning business. First you got to watch for human traffic, then you have to make sure that there aren't any camels around, then you have to do it really fast before the flies fly up your arse.

Gd Morning Val...

My home for that night

Morning Fire started again. It was freezing in the middle of the night.

Shovel + tissue paper = Ready to Pang Sai (poo)

Faith...

Camels that wandered to our camping ground!

Baa baa black.... camel

Deflating tyres...

Desert Gecko

Camel invasion

Was good camping!

Different experience... can't explain the normal camping and desert camping thing... oh well.. looking forward to the next one soon!