All posts by Birger

Nearly Done

I don’t like the well-known project status “I’m nearly done”…projects tend to stay in that status forever.

Well…the import of articles to this blog is nearly done. 😉 All content is available by now. But there are still a number of links to fix between articles of this blog. If a link still points to an address with lots of hex values and an “?OpenDocument” text in it then it’s not yet updated. Also one or the other thumbnail pic might still become a link to a larger version on flickr. But only few more will.

A completely different approach…

ATR 500 touching down in EDDL
ATR 500 approaching EDDL (actually touching down, but then the bun wouldn’t have worked)

It’s not Lotus Notes this time…it’s just a “normal” WordPress blog like thousand others on the net. It’s long time to say good-bye to Notes and I’m trying options…

My good old server at Strato died a hardware defect after years of service. A welcome opportunity to switch to a way of less care-intensive a web presence. Other events take up more and more of my time, which I no longer want to spend on server maintenance.

If you liked my Asia reports: Thanks for your interest! I will try to get them online again in a static version. The ones you know were in a Notes database, which will not come alive again. But the content is not lost. Give me time.

The Plum Rain of Shanghai

Seeing today’s weather I was on the brink of just staying at the hotel. Luckily a shopping center with Starbucks, Coffee Bean, and a lot of restaurants is attached 😉 But then I thought…maybe rain is a chance for some great shots and set out to the Bund to catch some tourists. It worked out. And pretty quickly. The Plum Rain is not heavy, but so fine that it blows everywhere. An umbrella is fairly useless. There is just 6 minutes between the first and the last photos shown here. Add 10 minutes on either side to get from a subway to the Bund and back and you have a good estimate of my time spent outside today 😉 Continue reading The Plum Rain of Shanghai

Expo 2010 – Gigantism Redefined

Today, eventually, was my first day at the Expo. My plan was to start in the late morning on the PuXi side, which supposingly was less crowded, and move over to the PuDong side only in the late afternoon, hoping that in the evening pavillion queues get shorter. Basically, I followed the area letters in reverse order, starting with E and planning to move all the way to A. The pavillions with the longest queues are all in A – Asia, which I would reach in the evening only. Than plan was good and I would recommend it again. I only spent a bit too much time in E and D, the PuXi side. Next time I switch over earlier. Continue reading Expo 2010 – Gigantism Redefined

Along the Shopping Routes

While I’ve never been much into shopping I have so much time that I can afford also checking out changes along the major tourist shopping routes, NanJing Lu and HuaiHai Lu. Only on my way back I learned from the news monitors on the metro that today there were “only” some 380.000 visitors to the Expo. So it would have been a good day for visiting the Expo, despite (or because?) it being a holiday. Now it’s too late…I will go tomorrow morning. Continue reading Along the Shopping Routes

Pudong Revisited

Wanted to see what it now looks like where I had lived some years ago. So I headed for Pudong, exiting the Metro at LuJiaZui, i.e. in the shadow of the tallest towers and all the fininancial high rises. Difficult to say if there are more of them now than back in 2007 😉 But the still very educating collection of yearly fish-eye photos from the top of Oriental Pearl Tower, which are arranged and displayed under the sail-like tent in the LuJiaZui Park told me: There are! But in fact…I wasn’t so much interested in them in detail. I walked around to check out the details. Continue reading Pudong Revisited

Shanghai cleaned up

Shanghai…finally…I’m back again in this city I’ve lived in for 2,5 years. I’ve longed to see Shanghai again. And now that I’m back I have the odd feeling of not having been away too long. Maybe that’s due to wrong expectations: Friends said Shanghai has changed dramatically. So I had expected not to recognize much any longer. But in my eyes it’s not that bad: While there definitely is a lot of changes these changes are “under the hood” (actually mostly underground ;)). True…there are certainly some new buildings, but I don’t see them as a radical change: There had been a lot of high rises. And now there are a few more. Continue reading Shanghai cleaned up

New Zealand

In December 2009 / January 2010 we are in a rental car trip through New Zealand. Given our tight itinerary I know for sure that I won’t be able to keep this web site up-to-date with daily blog articles. But I might be able to post some photos on Flickr every once in while. Check out my New Zealand album on Flickr!

Today’s Lesson: Check out Flickr!

Categories: ReiseNew Zealand

Originally Created: 01/02/2010 09:49:40 AM

Last Edited: 01/02/2010