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More photos of Hong Kong and Taiwan have just been posted in Photos section. One might expect these to be more photos of my previously documented escapade - but no! You deserve nothing but the best, freshest visual delights so I went back to Taipei and Hong Kong, to get some new material. 

Taipei

Hong Kong

The temperature outside drops as winter claws back its domain. Thus the curtain comes down on a summer full of activity and I am reduced to updating my blog in an effort just to keep warm.

There were weddings-a-plenty this summer, first with my baby brother finally stepped up to the plate and made an honest woman out of Kiri. There were plenty of photos taken but luckily no reports of cameras getting hurt in the process. Now, I don't want to sound biased but the highlight of the day would have to have been the Best Man's speech. So far I have been unable to secure the rights to a copy for online publication, but efforts in that area are ongoing, so stay tuned. Other people who attended the day's activities also pointed out to me that there was some kind of ceremony that took place - but who really remembers that kind of stuff?

The other wedding was sprung on visitors turning up to my parent's house-warming BBQ. Halfway through the event I shuffled everyone into the lounge where a celebrant retied my parents' knot. This came as a shock not only to the folks waiting for a sausage or two on the night, but even some of my friends who were later told of the event. Some just hadn't twigged to the fact that my parents got divorced some 20 years earlier, possibly due to the fact that had been living together again for the last 15. For me this has brought up some rather conflicting issues. On one hand it's great now that nobody can call me a bastard any more, but on the other it feels a bit incestuous being my own step-brother.

As for my own personal adventures, work recently passed around the hat and collected enough to ship me off to Taipei, Taiwan. Not counting a couple of days in Singapore when I was 5, this was my first visit to Asia. I got to go up the world's tallest (occupied) building, the Taipei 101, on the world's fastest elevator (84 floors in 37 seconds) and snap off a few rolls of digital film. This wasn't made easy though. You aren't allowed any bags on the observation deck, have to pass through a metal detector and aren't allowed to lean on the railing. Despite this, I still managed slip through security with a big camera around my neck, two lenses stuffed in the pockets of my cargo pants and a metal tripod under my arm - so much for the metal detectors!

Hong Kong Airport

 

Taipei