Nota Bene

Hej folks!

You’ve seen what the Faroe Islands look like down on the ground. Now, let’s have a look at them from up above in a helicopter.

Hardly any words today folks; just a ton of oh-my-green-and-glorious pics for your viewing pleasure…

This is the north-western edge of the islands; the best pics were taken in the morning – against the sun. But I think a sunset view of these parts needs to be checked too. That will have to be for another day though.

Off flies our ride! But he promised to return a while later…

Oh how I wanted to get up some of those clearly volcanic peaks for trek/climb in such clear and beautiful weather. Maybe I will one day…

Stroll time – on the westernmost island of the Faroes – Mykines.

I like paths; walked a great many; but I can’t recall one with views all around as breathtaking as this one!

‘Faroe’, btw, means ~’sheep island’ in Faroese. Well, as I can vouch personally, nothing’s changed in thousands of years!…

This is the westernmost point of the westernmost island of the Faroes. Further west: Iceland, then Greenland, then Canada…

In closing – a few words about the Faroese climate.

Though my first impressions were positive, it does turn out that the internet doesn’t tell lies: the weather here is pretty darn awful generally. We were just very lucky: a full day of bright sunshine is very much a rarity here. More often than not it’s rainy, foggy, windy, murky and bleak.

(Btw – those are birds up in the sky; we didn’t see a single mosquito)

Rainbow!

Windy, as per usual:

So if ever you’re heading here – take some good weather with you. Otherwise…

PS: the hotel we stayed at was wonderful. Highly recommend: the Foroyar. The food was outstanding.

Cattle sheep grid!:

Grassy roof!

Kunst in the rooms…

…And in the restaurant:

And that, folks, is it from the fair Faroes. Gotta get back here and get some trekking in. If only there was a season when it didn’t rain…

All the photos from the Faroe Islands are here.

Hej folks!

First off: geography test!

Who’s heard of the Faroe Islands?

Ok, and who can point them out on a world map? I reckon not all that many. But that’s just wrong! Because these islands are so mandatorily categorically must-see – if only via photographs on a blog on the internet. So here you are folks – plenty of pics of these wonderful remote islands…

Read on…

Hi folks!

Can you guess what this is?

No – it’s not Malevich’s Black Square. Nor is it a rhetorical clickbait question.

Actually, if you look closely – if your screen shows it big enough – you’ll see something that’ll give you a clue, but you still might not get it…

Read on: Ok; the answer is…

Have you ever been inside a genuine fortress built by actual Crusaders? I hadn’t – and I’ve been to so many different interesting historical places in the world I’ve lost count. But finally, recently, I did it: my first crusader castle visit!

Here we are – a fortress built on a high, small patch of land jutting out into the sea that’s surrounded practically on all sides by steep slopes, and down below in the sea are the ruins of former piers and docks.

Read on…

Not long after leaving Japan, I read in the Russian press that there’d just been an earthquake there causing several deaths and a ‘transportation collapse’! Oh my Geiger, I thought, and quickly looked for more details on other sites on the web. Well, sadly they were right about the deaths – a few dozen, but ‘transportation collapse’? The earthquake was registered as a 6 on the moment magnitude scale. Sure, it gives everything a real good shake – but it doesn’t knock you, the dog, or the furniture over.

And ‘trains grinding to a halt’ (the article went on)? Of course they did; they’re meant to: special systems are installed on all the railroads to make the trains do just that! And besides, in Japan, there’s a magical 15-20-second warning sent out to all cellphones before an earthquake hits! How on earth that is possible I have no idea, but it sure is massively helpful. I’ve seen it for myself (back in 2011): we were in a car and a local’s mobile emitted a warning signal (so we quickly pulled up), and 15 seconds later the lampposts and traffic-lights started shaking along the road (it turned out it was aftershocks of the (9-magnitude) 2011 earthquake).

In Japan, all buildings, all roads, all bridges, all towers, all infrastructure – it’s all designed and built specially so as to withstand strong earthquakes. Even a 9-magnitude quake damages very little at all! So magnitude-6? You can work that one out yourselves ).

Sure, there’s rail disruption. Sure, the airports aren’t firing on all cylinders. But that’s it. And after a while – everything automatically starts to move and fly again. Japan is quite ready for earthquakes; it has to be.

Ok. That’s enough about earthquakes…

So, anyway… What were we doing in Japan in the first place? A few things; one of them – attending Interop in Chiba (near Tokyo):

Read on: all here!…

Konichiwa folks!

Here I am, back in one of my fave countries – Japan. The work ethic here is really quite extraordinary: they work a lot, then some more, then more, and then even more. Thankfully, they also know how to unwind of a weekend, which is what we needed to do after our long trip getting here. So off we popped – out of the big city and up into the mountains – to a ryokan with an onsen in the village of Hakon.

Never been to Japan? You really must one day.

Read on…

June in Tokyo is rain season.

We’d been warned, and figured we’d pack a brolly in our suitcases and would be sorted, but… oh my gush! I was not expecting it to be raining cats and dogs non-stop all day and night without letting up for a minute.

As ever, we were here on business, and, as ever, I needed my mandatory portion of tourism. But there was no chance of that with all the incessant torrential rain. Oh my grrrr.

Thankfully, we did get some Japanese rest and relaxation in before the rain began. We drove somewhere in the direction of Hakone, holed ourselves up in a ryokan, and immersed our travel-weary bodies in the onsen waters. Add to that a steady flow of Kirin and Sapporo, and later into the evening a few drams of both hot and cold sake (and Hibiki too) with a delightful nectarine chaser, and it all added up to wonderful way to wind down. But I’ll tell you more about that in another post.

Back to today (a few days ago). Mercifully it was weekday, so we didn’t really mind the rain.

Read on: about Hawaii …

Salaam Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and we’re headed to another splendid location. But can you guess it?…

It’s a place that’s practically unguessable to non-locals, even those adept at advanced internet searching. For this is a place that’s off the touristy-internety-beaten-track. Which is surprising really, since it’s so picturesque: mountains, gorges, glaciers, waterfalls… – and no tourists getting in the way :).

Read on…

Bukhara, Uzbekistan, is one of the oldest cities in the world. Estimated to have been founded more than 2500 years ago, it can compete even with Rome due to its lengthy history. It’s of course a lot older than Paris or London, and about three times as old as Moscow. There aren’t many cities that come close to Bukhara in terms of age, and also former significance – since it was one of the main trading hubs along the Silk Road.

You can read all about facts and figures of this delightful ancient city on the net. Here though, I’ll go through what remains in my memory from what we were told by our guide, adding just bits from the www to fill in any gaps.

Read on: Basics, science and art…

Hi boys and girls!

Herewith, my next dispatch from Hamburg – and another delightful tourist attraction.

If you’ve never been to this northern part of Germany, or never really planned on doing so, well, I’ll bet many of you, after reading this post, will want to get here asap and spend a whole day, as we did, at Miniatur Wunderland.

1500 square meters of model railway + towns and cities and homes and folks and domestic scenes (including intimate ones) and just about everything else, across different countries of different climates, and so on and so forth…

The attention to detail is just mind-blowing.

Read on…