Random Madrid...(19/9)

Sunday Ride...(29/8)

Geneva / Bellevue / Versoix / Coppet / Nyon / Rolle / Le Coutet / Morges / Preverenges / Lausanne (66km)

5 Swiss Francs...(29/8)

I was strolling along the hilly road in the centre of Lausanne. I was curious and stopped by an antique shop. The display was full of old coins of different face values and design. I looked at them, and I saw this 5 swiss franc coin. The appearance was like those which are circulating in Switzerland. I thought it must be a memorable or a special edition one. The year of production, as shown on the coin, was 1968. So it was like 42 years. Then I puzzled, how come it would value at 500CHF? Was 1968 a very special year, or were there some samples manufactured that had deviated from the conventional 1968 coins? I remembered that I had a 5-franc coin in my pocket...I took it out and had a look. Mine was also a 1968?! There was a 'B' below the year on my coin, and I stared at the coin in the display again. It was small but I guessed it was an 'A'. It must be an 'A' and so I guessed there must be 2 editions in 1968 to make a rare one more collectable and valuable. I was hoping to enter the shop to ask, but it was closed...anyway, I took a photo. When I came back and looked at the photo again. Oh it was also a 'B', and so why? My query was never answered...I thought about my coin. Oh, basically I ended my day trip visiting a porcelain museum, and I used the coin for my entrance. Funny though, let me check again my upcoming 5-franc coin when I get my next one...

Value is a matter of 'used-to-be', I guess.

UEFA Office...(29/8)

See the Light to Come...(20/8)

Seeing is believing, but sometimes it depends on how we look at things…
I like taking photos. The more I practise capturing moving images with my camera, the more I find an alternative way to interpret time and life in the surrounding. The advanced technology in photography enables us to take a picture simply with one click. It becomes too easy sometimes that action with camera simply replaces part of the sensational system of mankind to external happenings and stimulation. People may think that, ‘no worry, I have taken a photo for memory’, but how much memory do they keep just because they take a photo and somehow neglect the basic element to really ‘look at’ things carefully. The same phenomenon can probably occur in certain devastating humanitarian-related affairs when the actual happening is easily prejudiced by a few cliché photos that may not have fully captured the reality. Bearing in mind the tendency to be negligent, it becomes more of a technique to ‘define’ the photography objects and to ‘select’ the means of interpretation about the objects. Here I find the fun to be a camera person…
…As I see the peace and the beauty
…The hope and the future
...people and the life
…The globe of movement
…The totality of the universe
I spent a week in Warsaw this summer and went to Cmentarze Powazkowskie, a cemetery in the north-western part of Warsaw, to visit the grave of a well respected Polish film director, Krzysztof Kieslowski. The cemetery visit inspired me much to contemplate and appreciate life, and some of the ‘nature morte’ snapshots can be found here...
http://www.kodakgallery.eu.com/ShareLanding.action?c=jiw1j59.1exwy214h&x=0&h=1&y=z8mogq&localeid=en_GB_EURO

Particle Worship...(24/7)

Paid a worship-like visit to CERN in the morning, and existing from a further end of humanity, particle physics becomes another level of labyrinth from my knowledge and imagination. The 30-year project framework on proton collusion streams from a basic question of the beginning of the universe. The LHC, the super computer network, the curiosity of mankind, and the strategic positioning of the Switzerland, and here in CERN, there are clues for various perspectives from public governance to diplomatic policy, or from scientific research to visionary pursuit. The underground globe lies on a solid foundation of the next generation of know-how. We simply put our foot on the ground to pass through the process of questioning. A requiem to the debut 21st century.

Velo, vers l'eau...(11/7)

Routing: (Geneva / Chene-Bougeries / Chene-Bourg / Gaillard / Annemasse / Vetraz-Monthoux / Cranves-Sales / Viuz-en-Sallaz / St Jeoire / Mieussy / Flerier / Les Gets / Morzine)

Yet another wonderful but tough journey, and in this occasion an energy-consuming but eco-friendly means to participate in a cycling trip along the trail of Tour de France. Stage 8 of this year's tournament kicked start the first mountainous routing near the Switzerland border in the Rhone-Alps region, where I could viably follow the itinerary and ride on the route from Geneva centre. In order to stay way ahead of the players, I started my journey early in the Sunday morning. With my heavily basic and lo-fi city bike (or proclaimed by somebody as a 'classic' bicycle), the journey commenced smoothly, and with an expectation to climb up the mountain, I tried to keep my pace at a stable and manageable manner to attempt my 5-hr anticipated ride and reach the summit before 13h. The scenery along the road was magnificently like an extended moving painting in real terms. I started to catch some other audience practitioners from Vetraz-Monthoux area. The jerseys other cyclists wore coloured the path and since a very long time I finally felt a sense of recognition about cycling, and then scattered cycling partners started to joined me to challenge the sloppy journey from Mieussy. As a joyful event, residence of the region tried their different means to show respect to the mountain climbers. Gardening red and white flowers were used to make decorative maillot a pois rouges along the roadside, in addition to other bicycle-related slogans and messages. The yellow messages on the slope illustrated the French style of cheers and notions. Supporters arrived and set their beings with caravans, sun-bath towel, umbrellas, ringing bells, picnic tables etc. on both sides of the route, and every time when cyclists passed by them, a whole-heartedly expression of appreciation was given to the sportsmen, and then the spirit of Tour de France was passed to the next level on the slope.
The very sunny weather heated up the road, and it was a tough up-moving exercise for all the amateurs. I struggled much to raise my every level of altitude from the basic step, but a collective move became much of a motivation for cyclists and people with a bike on the way to carry on the hardship and perhaps still a self-esteemed glory-to-be. With my additional loading of the SLR camera, the unbearable lightness of being viewed by Kundera became a gorgeous flying move perceived by me. I added my weight to the reversed gravity and at the end of the tunnel, it was totally beautiful being on the summit. My parents called upon a stay on the top of the summit, and this was a metaphorical existence I have therefore breathed and sensed.

The French way of propaganda in the sports activities is lovely. A publicity parade hosted by the lane-long ad-wrapped vehicle troop commercialised the tournament in a receptive manner, and the freebies intensified the festive mood of the audience. Subsequent with the accidents occurred in the first half of the race, the champion arrived at Morzine at around 16h, and joined with the clamps and the praises, the day ended gracefully. The passion I found from the spectators in front of the TV report session lifted me a wind-breaking ride back to Geneva.

Bourgeois Jazz...(8/7)

How cliché would it be to have ever installed the festive atmosphere in the soundless lake-side town every summer, like the peaceful Montreux along Lake Leman? And becoming the 44th time of its kind, the Montreux Jazz Festival has continued to impress the participants and music-lovers who come over to seek for a speechless tone of hysteric enjoyment. My visit to this picturesque town during the festival showed me a different story of the classy quiet Swiss town that totally differs from my impressionistic visit years ago. I cannot agree more to the organiser to pick Montreux as the heart of the festival. Everything matched perfectly to the joyful mood of the jazz music: the bourgeois-style souvenir booths along the lake promenade, the elegant visitor crowd, the whitey tent of food stalls, the choice of regional food and drinks, the casual scattered clusters of visitors by the lake, the sunset and the holiday, and then, you begin to understand how a speech could be handicapped to echo the as-it-wish style of music world existed.

There is no way reminding you of any hectic notion in modern life, not even any occasional ripple reasoning our existence on the mirror of realistic reflection. Simplicity and enjoyment, I believe, could be the basic doctrine of the hippie-improvisation people share in the jazzy setting of happening in Montreux every summer. We need some warm-up to return to the less perfect world.

Cross-border flow...(4/7)

Track 1 of the cross-border journey:

Geneva - Cologny - La Pallanterie - Maisons Neuves - Douvaine - Sciez - Allinges - Thonon-les-Bains

Genève Cluster...(1/6)

Small city big people. A week has empowered the drilling cell of navigation and orientation. Without any prospective mode of spatial existence re-engineering, I found myself retro-imitating my déjà-passé backpack nomadism. Displacement encourages my reinforced respect to Taoist style of destiny. Moving from the collectivism to the international node of Chung King shadow (more)...
...you learn about yourself. It is the simplest way to diagnoses one’s materialistic need out of nothing. The city is internationalised, and it carries enjoyable talk in every spot, despite the varying level of profound perception and recognition. It is calm, and peaceful, as reflected by the enclosed lake. People practise their small dreams with big steps. Like every urban city, it digests the urge of time into its way of expression – a fair and unbiased motive with sincere gesture, but it is located too far from the spots of conflicts and unrest…

Another life...(23/5)

Ad Wrap...(22/5)

Phantom in Roma...(21/5)

A rejoice of the same story, but in Roma, where the theatre set a very classic Baroque style of opera house for the reprise of the story, and this took place in Warsaw, in Polish. It was the 3rd cast of the production I saw, and yet it was a spectacular session played by the Polish group. The intonation of Polish lyrics harmonized the melody of Andrew Lloyd Weber, at least I did not find much awkward sensation during the play (more)...
Seats were limited in the optimal size of theatre house, and the Polish audience seemed enjoying much their own version of the opera. Costume design was nice, and the stage management was good. The use of visual projection completed the utilization of space on the stage based on its non-far-fetch operational budget, I guess. A very value-for-money performance at last minute purchase point com.

Varsovie...(20/5)

Warsaw is like a small vacuum space of emptiness in my memory. My debut trip to the city should have been taken place 12 years ago. Becoming a turning point in pursuit of my meaning of life, the city awaited my strolling around until present that embraces me into its evolving city form of architecture and its micro-development in between the modernisation of Europeanisation (read more)...the bearing of the massive destruction in the WWII and the heritage of communist sense of city development. My impression to the city was a mixture of classical conservation and functional presentation of its short-span intensive historic experience. Pending my plan to start the journey to the Eastern Europe at a youth stage, I have role-played a diverging possibility in life, which awoke my sense of consciousness about my world of uniqueness and abandonment. As a gateway city to connect to my past and present, Warsaw has been stably developing right next to my awareness of well being for the decade. This day, I finally landed in the city during another transitional stage of life. Presented itself in its best panoramic mode of pride and unity, the city turned itself into a memory of the past as well. I was next to the ‘déjà-vu’ Stalinist model of the Warsaw Centre of Culture and Science – a pop-up reminder of my wandering in Moscow. Flights were flying over and over Warsaw, and I behaved in a group of collective memory, and everyone stood up when the sourness sank. Being the most robust economy in the region during the crisis, Warsaw has proved from its urban form and business stability with its energetic life. Zloty is a symbol of their partial insulation to globalised collective fluctuation. It retains people’s purchasing power and domestic demand. At least this has been my perception in the commercial centre that transactions have demonstrated. Like Berlin, Warsaw revived its appearance after the Second World War. The present moment was a replicate colourful Rococo façade of the old town. The East defined by defending the West, and now the West encircles and enriches the community again. A stunning presence of the remaining of the communist planning to me is the cold-façade of public housing in town. The public green between the residential buildings figure out a communistic belief of commonwealth. In this springtime of calling for another cycle of growth, the green vividly diversifies its form of life, and it landmarked its freestyle way of existence in contrary to the Anglo-Saxon gardening art form. Aged people tend to come up on stage in the area and along the industrial ulica to showcase their pride and glory about their city in front of my eyes. It is a call for the blossoming, or an actualisation of Joy Division’s mind in the name of ‘Warsaw’ to count down its ‘3, 5, 0, 1, 2, 5 go’…
‘…I was there in the back stage, when the first light came around, I grew up like a changeling, to win the first time around, I can see all the weakness, I pick all the faults well, I concede all the faith tests, just to stick in your throats...’ (Warsaw by Joy Division, as Warsaw)

Istanbul Express...(22/4)

Constantinople, a capital where I would not forget from my very elementary history class in high school, turns into a sophisticated capital waiting for its government call towards the West, or the East. The strategic location since the past has guarded the flow between the East and the West. It is unique in terms of culture, urban development (redevelopment), social integration and commercial development. I could tell how the European would perceive Turkey’s request for accession to the EU family, but a visit could affirm an understanding of the importance of Istanbul, as the capital of this bridge linking Europe and Central Asia (Russia and China), to balance the power between both direction, be it defense, commerce and trade, energy, environmental sustainability, cultural integration and disintegration. I came to know from the Conference about the involvement of Turkey in NATO, and its concerns about EU accession...(read more)
Geopolitics is a tricky part for the region, and then religious belief states another part of the story. My commitment did not allow me to stay longer in Istanbul, and as an express tour to the city amid the backdrop of volcanic ashes, I guess this journey should still be an enjoyable one. Meeting an amateur photographer at the Sabiha Gökçen Airport was yet another interesting story. Men-captured images should definitely be graffiti of human development and social activities in the post-modern world. Koc University was a resourceful and prestigious institution. Pegasus is an innovative budget airline, not only because of their courage to take off from the ashes and debris, but I like its idea to dramatise its safety trailers. How the airline world could figure out a way to attract passengers to watch their formality safety announcement? The airline has a clue to pleasantly tell.

Ciudad del Esperanza...(16/1)

Handful...(1/12)

The French way...

Pompeiian...(12/3)

At last, I arrived at the alley of the town, above and below the ground, I felt the cruelness of nature and time.