Hi all,

Herewith, a brief interlude from my NZ tales, since an equally interesting topic has come up…

Question: What was your longest ever flight? I mean – without a connection.

Why do I ask? Because I’ve just flown an uninterrupted long-haul silly-haul that went like this:

It was a reeeaaalllly long night. Though folks who live north of the Arctic Circle will scoff when I talk of ‘long nights’ (their ‘long night’ lasts half-a-year!), for me this was perhaps my longest ever night – at least down here in the lower-mid latitudes. The plane took off at 9pm NZ time – when it was already dark, and 16 hours later landed at 5am Dubai time; that is, almost at dawn. It gets dark in Auckland around 6pm at this time of year, so that night for me lasted 19 hours. A personal record, I do believe.

Read on: What to do in an airplane…?

Hi folks!

As promised, more tales of the unexpected from NZ…

After Auckland, we drove south, heading for Roto-Vegas – aka Sulphur City. And the first place of special interest we came to en route was Hobbiton.

Yes, the village where hobbits live; rather – used to live; rather – where they were portrayed as living when a film featuring them was shot. And not just one film but several Lord of the Rings films – about the lives and extraordinary adventures of little people who live in underground lairs with round doors and windows.

Read on: a brief history of the set…

The last day of fall – that was two days ago. Now already it’s the second day of winter. And you, up there, were there thinking it was the last day of spring and the first of summer? Not everywhere :)…

Down in the Southern Hemisphere, nature’s getting ready for the season of rest and repose and relaxation. The evergreens proudly maintain their all-season status quo, while their deciduous cousins turn the landscapes into ephemeral red and yellow natural masterpieces to be hypnotized by.

Read on: A brave acorn became friends with a cheery coconut…

The brainteaser from yesterday’s post: ‘what’s not right in this [that] blogpost?’

Answer: the last three pix were of Melbourne! :)

Yep, for that was the next city on my itinerary. Now, I always like visiting Melbourne, but having to leave Sydney on the eve of its yearly Vivid festival to get to Melbourne, well, that’s just not cricket. Here are the pics from 2015 and 2013. Vivid Sydney is a festival that you really have to experience once in a lifetime if possible. There’s no other festival comes near. But I digress. Here we are… in Melbourne!

Another lovely city, but we saw hardly any of it this time: airport (‘welcome!’) > taxi > conference > speech (‘thank you, good bye, come again!’) > taxi > airport. And that was it! The only (non-work-related) thing worth taking photos of were… these here works of art on the walls of the hotel where the conference was taking place. Perplexing is the word I’d used to describe them. Mysterious too, perhaps.  What do you think? Oh, and… what, exactly, are the pictures of? :)

Oh well; I’ll just have to show you some work-themed pics – from CeBit Australia conference:

Read on: Work, Deja-vu and ransomware…

Dearest readers! Those of you who follow closely my globetrotting adventures on these here blog pages appear to have been neglected of late. But have no fear, world-wandering is here (again)!

Last week was yet another crazy one: five (30-50 minute) presentations at five events, a zillion interviews, meetings, conversations, business card swappings and assorted other business commitments in three cities in as many countries. That’s my excuse for why I’ve been quiet of late – again!

But enough of excuses. Let’s get this back up and running…

So here we are, back with more tales from my travels: the best bits, the odd bits, the curious bits, the beautiful bits, the plane bits, the airport bits, the hotel bits, the cuisine bits, and all the other bits… – you know the drill by now :).

The week kicked off in very special city on an endless sandy coastline along the Pacific. A city that features on my list of Top-20 Cities, meaning it’s a city that, IMHO, is simply must-see: It’s Sydney folks. I woke up in the morning, opened the curtains, and this is how the morning said G’day mate to me:

But!… After coming so far, and being so close to such terrific tourism possibilities, alas, we only had half-a-day free time. Oh, well. So off we popped to one of the three ‘centers’ of the city here. Sure, I’d been here before – several times – and taken plenty of pics too, but I just couldn’t resist taking some more, kinda to keep my archives ‘fresh’:

Read on: A beautiful corner of Sydney…

So what is an exhausted business traveler to do in Japan after a tough working week? Easy: you get yourself to a traditional Japanese ryokan!

We did the ryokan thing in the town of Hakone. I wondered at first why my super hosts chose this particular spot; I found out a little later – it’s right next to a not fully dormant volcano ).

Read on: Hot springs around!…

Another few days in Tokyo, another whirlwind schedule of meetings, interviews, and dinners with old pals. Speeches at conferences too: I’m just back from one where I was talking about cybercrime – and the interpreting was not synchronous (!). Yes: lots of pauses :). I was so exhausted I thought I might faint on the stage at one point. But I stayed conscious, just.

Sadly, there’s been no time for tourism, only shigoto – work. At times I feel like a zoo animal: fed at regular intervals, then having to play to the crowd at allotted times.

Mid-shigota, I came across this here sign on the wall of the business center I was in:

Now, as a frequent visitor of Japan, I know a few symbols. But only a few. My level of katakana/hiragana is just below… touching the surface. I mean, I can recognize my name in Japanese syllabary, but that’s about it:

It works out, in Japanese, Ka-su-pe-ru-su-kee! And if we apply that tiny bit of knowledge to ‘Conference Room’ in the pic below, we get…

Read on: What a wonderful language!…

In Tokyo on the weekend nearest the middle of May (this year – the 14^th –15^th) the Kanda Matsuri – aka the Kanda Festival – takes place every year. This is when all the residents of a district of Tokyo (I think just Kanda) gather in the morning all dressed up in traditional coats in the color of their streets, and take these here… let’s call them mobile holy temples (correct me please if my description is way off the mark), and carry them in a procession to Kanda Shrine:

Read on: A quick break, then up and off again…

Good day boys and girls!

I’ve been a bit quiet of late – but I’ve a good excuse – I had a real tough week: the schedule was tight and intercontinental, plus alarmingly… combative…

It all started in Moscow. Now, normally come the month of May, the last vestiges of the long cold winter – snow and ice – have long disappeared, at least by a month. Not this year. It snowed the other week! The weather was so bad – cold, windy, wet – that even the May 9 Victory Day parade was partially called off (the airborne part). Ye gods! And I was soooo looking forward to it.

Bad weather causing things to be called off – hardly anything new there, right? Well, actually…

You see, in Russia, the authorities have a habit of… making sure the weather’s good on special occasions. In Russian they call it ‘shooing away the clouds’. I don’t know the details, but they somehow shoo away clouds by… doing something to the atmosphere to make sure clouds don’t come close. Playing God? Maybe. Whatever, it normally works. My question: WHAT WENT WRONG THIS TIME?! I mean, the budget for seeing off clouds for the weekend must be huge. Hmmm, I wonder…

Early doors it looked like the budget was well-spent: the sky was clear and the sun was shining:

Read on: a sudden global malware outbreak…

The other week, in London on various work matters, A.S. and I managed to find the time to continue our stroll along the Thames Path. I say continue as I’d covered a good stretch of it before – last year I think, only with A.B., not A.S. Anyway, the Thames Path starts (or ends) at the Thames Barrier (near London City Airport) and finishes (or starts) somewhere up by the river head. Yes – it’s long. A whole ~300km long! And since, though not fully gym-shy we’re not quite Ultraman triathalonists, we take sections of this premium path separately when in town, this time from the very end/start – the barrier – to the Golden Jubilee Bridge, and from there we wander off-pistepath to other London places of interest, of which there are plenty, as you’ll either know or guess.

Read on: A brief summary of the previous segments …