Dover Castle

We had amazing sights to behold at Dover Castle. It is a major fortress just on an elevated hill just around the south east tip of England.

One notable thing about the area is that it has a more natural feel to it, unlike typical castle which is dominated by solid stone. It makes it a perfect place to blend the strength of medieval story with relaxing feel of a green pasture.

As in other parts of England, people flock to the park during good days. It is not uncommon to see people lying down on the grass to even sleep during the day.

Night at the Museum

In early summer, they closed down Oxford street for cars and put in a promotion from Night at the Museum 2. The T-Rex doesn't look so big here, it must have been the special effect and sound that makes it terrifying . . .

Winchester

Summer is pretty good in England, it's not overly hot as some parts of Europe but just the right temperature to go out with t-shirt and shorts.

As I have got more comfortable with my workplace, I thought it would be a good idea to explore the English countryside.

Our destination was Winchester. It was the old capital of England before London took over, so there are a good mix of medieval stuff and natural countryside feel.

The main cathedral stood majestic on a blue sky backdrop and green pastures. A clear river flows steadily across the town with ample pedestrian path on the side. The small shopping street provides convenience and relaxed atmosphere typical of a medieval town.

Making Sushi

One of the positive side that the outside food is expensive here is that we tend to save money for dinner by cooking. And it gives us a push to learn new things. It helps that my flatmates are food-loving as well.

The good thing about sushi is that you can put various toppings in. It's a good and tasty way to clear our fridge. And since the main ingredient is rice, it is cheap and filling. The videos on the internet helps us to know how to make sushi and also the composition of the ingredients.

Rolling sushi is not difficult, but rolling a good sushi is. We had many broken sushi which we ate as we made. As we roll, I tend to put a lot of rice on the seaweed resulting in big sushis. This may have something to do with my perception on what is enough. Should do with less next time.

In the end, we made way too much, there's an extra tray of sushi when everyone's finished.

Brighton

Towards the end of winter, our first day trip from London was to Brighton. It is a coastal city just south of London. The temperature was still pretty cold at that time despite the sunshine.

We brought our packed lunch and had a short picnic on the beach. The coast is consists of peebles and not fine sand, which in a way good because our clothes won't get so dirty. We spent some time in the brighton pier, which is a theme park on top of the sea. Towards the evening, the weather got really cold. A visit here during the summer would definitely be much better.

Snowy London

I don't really know if I was lucky or not. There was snow in London in February, which fortunately was beautiful to watch and does not happen often ( as in every 10 years or so).

The downside was that it happened right on my first day to work. I was not sure about the dress code and so I was wearing suit. The thin leather shoes rather felt cold on the feet.

To make things worse, the public transport did not work. I went for the tube and wait 40 mins for train only to be told that the tube station was closed due to the harsh weather. Outside, the bus was not operating at all. Even taxi was difficult to stop. After another 40 mins, when my sole almost froze, I managed to share a cab with another guy and arrived at the office an hour late.

The scenery outside my office was beautiful. It was good that we have glass walls that I could see across the square covered in snow.

Delphi

The final chapter of my trips last summer was Delphi in Greece. It is around 2 hours bus ride from Athens. The town is located on a mountain overlooking a wide valley. The view from the top was amazing. Some of the restaurants there are built on the edge of a cliff so that people can enjoy the view downhill.

Delphi was the site of the Oracle in ancient Greece. I like Greek mythologies because it has many fantasy creatures and also because of its storyline. However, visiting the place is a different story as the mythology is often better than the reality.

The main place to visit in Delphi was an archeological site located on the mountain. Despite the ruins appearance, the site still gave some trace of its majestic past. Well, at least it is still good to enjoy because of the scenery, plus since we were EU students at that time, we got free entry to the sites.

Cape of Poseidon

Just an hour drive from Athens, there is this cape of Poseidon. We were lucky that the weather was pretty good when we arrived there. The temple overlooking the sea is now in ruins but at least it still shows the trace of the shape.

One thing I like about capes is that it has a wide horizon view of the sea. It brings tranquility and relaxing feel to look at the infinity. It also helps that the sea and sky is clear blue and not gloomy.

Athens

The final part of our last summer trip was a trip to Greece (it's almost a year now from the trip itself, indeed how lazy I am . . ). Athens looks more similar to Indonesia rather than the other parts of Europe, no piazza or medieval buildings, lots of cars on the streets. The exception was the existence of some ancient archaeological sites in the city. These sites, however, are much less glorious than it was in the past.

In the valley there was the temple of Zeus, only some massive pillars are left now. The main site was in a small hill housing Parthenon. Restoration works are in progress but I still feel somewhat pity that these once majestic buildings are becoming ruins now.

Below the Parthenon hill, there is the Mars hill or Areopagus where Paul presented the Gospel to the Athenians. It is not exactly the best place to sit and discuss anything as the hill is not flat. Perhaps the ancient people were just stronger than us.

Mini Switzerland

At the end of our swiss trip, we went to see a miniature park with some of the famous landmark and landscape of Switzerland in a smaller scale. It is hosted in a small town called Melide.

While the theme park was more aimed for kids/families, with small trains for children running around the park, it was pretty enjoyable. In particular, we could identify the landmarks that we visited before and also get to know the landmarks in other areas of Switzerland that we missed.

ICF Easter Retreat 2009

Recently, I attended an Easter retreat for the Indonesian Christian Community in the UK. It's refreshing spiritually, with plenty of good food as well. I had a good time meeting other Indonesian and, of course, to stop speaking English for a while . .

Lugano

Another small town we went into was lugano. It is the Italian-speaking part of switzerland and thus all the signs were in italian but with swiss flag.

The station is on the hill, so in order to go down and around we need to walk down through the city center. But it was a pleasant walk because the city center has a typical medieval pavement.

At the end of the walk there was the lugano lake. The lake brought about the feeling of calmness and freshness as it is surrounded by mountains.

Luzern

The next part of the trip was luzern, a small town easily reachable from zurich. The town as pretty with a river flowing across it. I like the river because it is green in color and not brown like in the big cities. Also the place is surrounded by mountains, so it feels closer to nature.

As with swiss cities, the houses are painted in a light colors giving extra feeling of brightness. And since we visited during summer, the flowers were blooming adding the richness in color.

One thing that is supposed to be famous was the dying lion carving on the wall, I couldn't remember why. I find it more enjoyable to going around the city and the rivers.

Desert Chapter: Rivers in the Desert

And here's the favor of God, that I was given a new, better job, even in the middle of a recession. And here is the story.

In the middle of November, I applied to a company in London. I hesitated at first, because they said the starting date was in April, which I thought was a bit too long, but I applied anyway. I was invited for a technical test. Unfortunately, I did not score well in the test and the company said they won't be proceeding with my application. Another rejection email, I thought.

Around mid December, the same company contacted me again with the prospect of doing another test, and so I did. They did not give me any immediate feedback. And so the Christmas and new year week passed without any news from the company.

Curious I asked the company, early second week of January. I got a reply only after one week. That was ten days before my scheduled departure for Singapore. They asked me for a convenient time for a phone interview. I told them about my flight schedule and asked them to arrange interviews withing one week if possible.

I did the phone interview on the same day, with an hour notice. Without much preparation, I think I didn't do very well on some of the technical questions. Still, they invited me for a second interview in their offices, in a week's time.

At this point, I had no other pending application and was preparing to give up my job search here. But I thought, I will also prepare well for this interview so that I can fly back without any regrets. The interview went well and I was offered a job the next day in financial software development. That was two days before my scheduled flight. Also, somehow they changed the start date, so instead of April, I started in February, just a week after accepting their offer.

I believe it's God's way of saying that he could still do a miracle in the last hour. Also that in times when my abilities failed and my confidence plummeted, God could still give his grace to save the day.

Desert Chapter: Letting Go

As I went through the dry land. It became more and more challenging. The winter nights grew colder and longer. The media brought about daily news about more job cuts and bankruptcy. Rejection notice came one after another. And so the confidence that I had initially of getting work in the UK faded along.

I came to a point when I thought that maybe I should go back to Singapore, where it is relatively easier to look for work. Not that the economy is unaffected, but because I still had permanent residence status there. I looked at my remaining pending application and booked a one-way ticket back to Singapore.

I started to think perhaps God had wanted me to go back and that's why I did not get anything in the UK. I was letting go of my dream to work here. A week into my flight date, I had no pending interviews, 1 passed test and 8 failed interviews. I was at peace then with the thought of going back to Singapore for good, when God shown me his favor.

Zurich

The next segment of the summer trip was to Switzerland. We went to Zurich on the east side. Geographically, the city is not far from Trento, but due to the mountains, the trip involved a detour south to Milan before going north again to Zurich.

For the trip, we booked a cisalpino train which reduces the impact when turning. This is helpful when we had to go through the mountain trail track.

Things are really expensive here, much more than in Trento, although the Swiss Franc is not as strong as Euro. I guess people here really earn a lot. One plus side was that we did not need to spend on city transport since we can hire a bike free of charge as a facility provided by the town council.

The city consists of two parts, the old town area which contains historic buildings and the modern part which has all the shops and financial center. I very much like the old town, which is beautifully crossed by a blue-green river.

Another thing that I like is the buildings. In particular, the variety of light colored building which brings about a sense of peace. This is the opposite of the dark colored building more dominant in UK. I wonder why.

Vienna (2)

After coming back from Budapest, we spent another night in Vienna. The main highlight of this segment is Schonbrunn Palace.

The palace is located a bit on the side of the city. However, it is easily distinguishable by its massive size. In particular, it has a huge garden which may be comparable to the one at Versailles.

We took a guided tour of the palace, and it was good, but we weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the palace. I think the interior is not much different than other palaces in Europe, filled with furnitures for luxurious living.

Around the garden there are mazes with walls of plants It took us a few minutes to find our way out, but it was fun. There's the kids section as well, splashing water, etc.

At the end of the garden there is a hill, which allows wide panoramic view of the palace. Thankfully, the weather was excellent then and we could get the most out of it, well, despite the summer heat.

Desert Chapter: Overcoming Complacency

There were two things which made me think about being complacent in my life. The first one was when a company asked me to do a Java test as a response to my application. I was quite confident with my skills in Java since I had a near-perfect score for Sun certification two years back. However, it did not turned out the way I expected. The test covered a wider range than Sun certification. Worse still, I messed up some fundamental questions which I would have answered well last time. So, I failed the test.

The second thing was an interview. As an opening question the interviewer was asking on what I was doing at the moment. To which I blurted out that I was looking for work. After the interview, I realised that I was effectively saying that I was doing nothing while looking for work. I did not get a second interview with that company.

All these made me realise that I was being complacent. I have replaced the desire to learn new things with past achievement I could put in my resume. And that is not a good thing for long term because of the dynamic nature of technology and also the technical atrophy that results from not using some technologies.

At this I decided to make use of the time to refresh my knowledge and learn new things so that at least my CV does not get outdated due to my rustiness. This realisation is another thing I find valuable from this desert experience.

Budapest (2)

On the second day we went to the Buda side of the city. There are several bridge going across the river. One of them ( in the picture) is for pedestrian to cross with some shops on the sides selling local souvenirs. Unlike the previous day, the weather was excellent on the second day which makes it pleasant to walk around.


We first headed to the Buda castle through a cable car. This allowed us to see the lower part of the city. The castle area is quite big. Instead of just structural defense, they also have shops, churches, restaurants and houses on top of the mountain. More like a small town there with buses connecting different parts.

The most impressive building on the castle area was the royal palace. However, it has been converted into a museum. I don't remember what museum it was because we did not go inside. Presumably some art museum. But the main building was well maintained and looks majestic.

To save time, we took a quick lunch with a local bread. It's spiral shape and pretty sweet with various topping. Not bad at all.

As we went down the hill from the other side, we saw more of the castle like structure with gates and lookout tower. I personally like these structures better but we just passed by and didn't stay there for long as we had our train in late afternoon and we wanted to have a proper meal before we went.

As we arrived at the river bank, we managed to get a snap of the Hungarian Parliament building. The building is unique with many domes and spires. We went into the building earlier in the day with a guided tour, but the picture looks better from the other side of the river as it captures the full building.

We continued to look for food. We had the address of a place from wikitravel, and it was pretty obscure. But it was a delight that the food was really cheap for european standard, the portion was generous and the taste was good as well. The dish is called Goulash, stewed meat with gravy speciality of that region.

As we finished our meal, we had some extra time at hand before our scheduled return train. We decided to make use of the time to visit a synagogue.

Synagogue is a Jewish place of worship. This is the first time I actually see a synagogue, and it was big, world's third largest or so. The look is similar to a European church, but there is no cross and the engraved words are in Hebrew.

We had to take a head cover before going in, which is mandatory for male. There was a bit of story of the synagogue as we sit and listen and we got to see some of the artifacts in the museum as well.

It was just the right time as we then took the train back to Vienna to continue our journey. Overall, although the language was indecipherable in Hungary, it was an enriching experience.

Budapest (1)

To balance my posts with some lighter things, here is the continuation of my travel (back) log.

Continuing from Bratislava, we went on to Budapest, Hungary. It's a mere 3-hours train journey from there.

First there is the cathedral. We went up the tower and look around from there. Unfortunately, the weather was a bit cloudy, so it wasn't as good as it should have been. But the size of the cathedral looks really massive and impressive.

From there we went to a museum. The good part of the museum building is that it looks like a fairy tale castle, with river flowing, bridge and main gate.

I can't remember exactly what it was, maybe some farming museum or so, but we didn't find it interesting to go in and rather just walk around the building exterior.

We had a pretty late lunch, but it was good. There are dishes similar to the one in Bratislava, the potato noodle, but the place had substantially put in more meat in it. In that way, it is much more decent meal.

Finally, at night we went to see the river. It separates the upper part (buda-castle) of the city with the lower part (pest) and hence the name of the city.

The city lights were very pretty. We walked through the river bank with a backdrop of a bridge and the Buda castle.