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In the process of formulating a trip plan to British Columbia.
I’ve been starring and starring at the seductive images from Wickaninnish Inn for the past 2 days and I just can’t take my eyes off it!

I just WISH I had someone to go with and experience this place in its entirety, sea kayaking through the sound and all. Who knows? Maybe I should leave this for the future. Sigh

The public camp grounds near Lake George are simply refreshing.
The way the community bands around the entire freshwater lake next to the woods justs makes any Saturday afternoon seem great.
With the sailing and cabins and all, I really hope to go back again!

I love East Coast Park.
It’s that one stretch of beach that weaves the places most familiar to me together- yet it is so detached from the rest of the hustle and bustle. Just looking out at sea and the illusive city skyline in the distance with the breeze blowing is simply heaven.

On New Years Eve, this is a brilliant place to hang out to catch the large cargo ships shoot flares into the night while hanging out with your best buds at a BBQ. Too many memories of this place.

Great from the land, even better on a sail boat at sea! =)

Going in late October, it’s one of the few places open along the charming New England Coast.

Breathtaking views aside, please, please, please try the lobster chowder and clam chowder at the restuarants in Maine! It defines the experience!

My friends are going to Italy without me cause I’m stuck at the opposite side of the world! =(

Heh. I dream about this place. God, it must be beautiful.

My alma mater.
Everything about it rocks.

Viva La Victoria.

Shanghai is the city we’d all love to love. After all, it is suppose to be a glimpse into the future of rising superpower China. Perhaps I’m spoilt by the glitzy images from Mission Impossible 3 but I’m just not too impressed.

The Bund is exceptionally charming but avoid the Sightseeing Tunnel like the plague. Shanghai is at the brink of a economic renaissance, but culturally, it has yet to transcend that.

While I do see towering skyscrapers and faux-Japanese new-edginess in its restaurants and pubs like Shintori, and its youth dress like those in Harajuku, I also see a lost culture desperately clutching at anything foreign. Anything remotely local that they ought to be proud of is over commercialized to becoming a bore- I was dismayed to find the same shops and products in the otherwise remarkable Yu Garden and the riverside town of ZhuJiaJiao. Shanghai, as beautiful as it is, seems cladded in Starbucks and Ajisens. The Maglev Exhibition also hauntingly reminds me of a wannabe cousin to the Shinkansen.

It is a shopping paradise if you either don’t mind paying similar international prices for the usual branded stuff (there is great variety) or are able to gloss over the gross disrespect for copyrights. Personally, I find it sad to see how certain clothing brands are devalued by the presence of their ‘counterparts’ in the now closing XiangYang Market. The Nanjing Xi Lu pedestrian street is a must visit at nightfall- the environment there is simply refreshing.

The food is remarkably good- especially Szechuan Food and Dim Sum. Not as delicious as the food capitals of the Orient like Hong Kong, Singapore or Taipei, but more delectable than any Chinatown. It is, however, probably the cheapest tastiest Chinese food you’ll ever find. Do avoid curry and coffee unless you know it comes from a reputable source.

There is a lot of talk about dreams in Shanghai. The Urban Planning Museum is the perfect place to see this coming into shape- cumulating in Expo 2010. There is hope that with increasing affluence, the Shanghainese will move beyond mass-produced form-making façade-ism to more detail-oriented, spatially interesting architecture that will rejuvenate the city’s own culture. Do know however that there is a lot of art in this city. Art lovers will not be disappointed.

Listening to the Shanghai girl who insists to converse only in halting English to clueless Chinese customers despite her obvious knowledge of Mandarin in the foreigner-filled restaurants of XinTianDi, one cannot help but see Shanghai in that light- a schizophrenic city finding its footing between being proud of itself while rejecting its economically poorer heritage.

I have no doubt that Shanghai will grow beyond that phase- like how it reacted to the increasingly pollutive environment brought about by the building boom to the tree-lined streets of Century Avenue- it is poised to be a great city.

It can still be amazing however to see the transformation from old communist China to new communist sans-blogspot China.

Spend some time in the parks- this city has the greatest parks from the one next to People’s Square to listening to the porcelain orchestra in Yu Garden.

Sure worth a visit, if nothing than to just witness the architectural marvel of the Bund and the glory of the HuangPu River by boat.

Just hours fresh from leaving Melbourne.

It felt weird at first. To me, it’s just very different from Sydney. It takes time to get used to the trams, and if you are driving, the hook turns.

But after a Scenic Chopper ride over the Great Ocean Road, how could i not love this city and its surrounding beauty.

My favourite memories of Melbourne start from the amazing solemnity at the Shrine of Remembrance, the suburbarnism of Beacon Cove, the very amazement and humbling experience of the little penguins marching onto shore at Phillip Island, the scenery at Fort Nepean, to the foreshores of little homely towns like Port Campbell and Cowes.

The city itself is compact enough to walk. Also don’t forget Queen Victoria Market for some usual touristy purchases.

I’m still so flattered by Aussie hospitality and the sincerity they exude when hitting the stores at Swanston Street. Or maybe it is just me and the surf shops- Haha.

Travelling in Australia, you are usually hard-pressed to decide if you want to see the coast or the mountains. Wollongong gives you both- and more!

I was checking this place out with my friends and we almost decided this was the place to stay. It had almost everything on our checklist of dream places- a lighthouse, cliffs, coast, mountains- small enough to feel homely, yet big enough to be a city of sorts.

If driving, one might like to head up to Mount Keira to the west of the city- the views from the lookouts are spectacular. And even though they discourage you from heading up there after nightfall, the scenery then is even more breathtaking (you didn’t hear it here).

For me, the lighthouse at flagstaff point summed up Wollongong- it is pretty much a place where the mountains meet the sea. Just try not to look at the smoke chimneys from the industrial region and it’s a masterpiece.

I love this city- Darling Harbour, Circular Quay, the way the skyscrapers engulf you, the old buildings. Don’t forget the Harbour BridgeClimb. That is a great (but expensive) way to see Sydney!