Empire State Building

10 July 2007, weather is extremely hot and humid, apparently NJ/NY is in the midst of heat wave this week. Well, I should count this a blessing, after all the summer in Europe has been terribly wet and cold so far..

Workshop went well with client today, finished on time. Since Grace has a rented car, we decided to cross George Washington Bridge to New York instead of staying in New Jersey.

We went to upper west side of Manhattan nearby Central Park for dinner. The Cuban dinner was excellence, we shared our starters – calamari and oyster shooters. I ordered seafood paella and it came with a giant lobster and endless of scallops, shrimps and many others. I was struggling with finishing the seafood, let alone the delicious rice.

The night is still warm and young, since this is the first trip for one of my team members; we decided to give him a crush course orientation of Manhattan. We visited Empire state building, straight up to 86^th floor for the night view of NYC. The visibility is around 10 Miles, despite of the crowds; the night view was charming and magnificent.

Glamorous NYC

9th July 2007, 35 C, Humidity 99%, New York City

When I set off from Zoetermeer it was only 15 C, by the time I arrived at Newark airport it was 35 C in the mid afternoon. I have to literally strip off my layers of clothing to adjust to the temperature. Finally after the relatively chilled and wet summer days in June, I once again welcomed by the sunshine and the heat wave in New Jersey and New York. I couldn't wait but check out the NYC and heading straight to Manhattan in the early afternoon. Good to walk on 5th Avenue again and seeing the yellow cabs and the world's famous designer store along the way. Met up with Megan and Liz who happened to be also in NJ and we had a girl night-out in the NYC.

Charles Bridge

Charles Bridge's construction started in 1357 under the auspices of King Charles IV, and finished in the beginning of 15th century. As the only means of crossing the river in Prague, Charles Bridge used to be the most important connection between the Old Town, Prague Castle and adjacent areas until 1841. Also this 'solid-land' connection made Prague important as a trade route between east and west Europe. The bridge was originally called the Stone Bridge (Kamenný most) or the Prague Bridge (Pražský most) but has been the "Charles Bridge" since 1870.

The bridge is 516 meters long and nearly 10 meters wide, resting on 16 arches shielded by ice guards. It is protected by three bridge towers, two of them on the Lesser Quarter side and the third one on the Old Town side. The Old Town bridge tower is often considered to be one of the most astonishing civil gothic-style buildings in the world. The bridge is decorated by a continuous alley of 30 statues, most of them baroque-style, erected around 1700.

During the night Charles Bridge is supposed to be a quiet witness of medieval times. However, it didn't happen during our trip as we happened to visit Prague on the Easter weekend where everyone decided to go to Prague too. During the day, it is almost impossible to navigate through Charles Bridge without bumping into other people. It is a very busy place where painters, owners of the kiosks, and black sailors trade to carry away some money on the tourists.

The alley of 30 mostly baroque statues and statuaries situated on the balustrade forms a unique connection of artistic styles with the underlying gothic bridge. Most sculptures were erected between 1683 and 1714. They depict various saints and patron paints venerated at that time. Among the most notable sculptures, St John of Nepomuk. Beginning in 1965, all of the statues have been systematically replaced by replicas and the originals have been exhibited in the lapidarium of the National Museum.

St Vitus Cathedral - The Gem of Prague

Beautiful spectrum of sunlight in the cathedral
The heights and depths of the building

St Vitus Cathedral is the spiritual heart of the nation as the mausoleum of Bohemian kings and Prague's greatest landmark.

I am really impressed by the architecture of the cathedral and also by the astonished stained windows

These colour stained glass windows are stunning, the different facets of colours penetrate through and gently reflected on the wall are really lovely. The sort of enjoyments of the eyes are uncomphrensible. Whenever there is enough sunlight shines through the stained glass, the characters of the story as-if becomes alive again.

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Up-Closed and Personal Tower Bridge

 

Call me 'blessed' if you want, but I feel really blessed not just materially or career perspective  but also spiritually.  This Monday and Tuesday I had an opportunity to participate in another company event.  The event is an EALA wide event which stands for the regions Europe, Africa, Latin America.  The event took place in central London and right beside the famous London Tower Bridge.  There were about 10 of us representing the Dutch practice, 3 of us arriving early in London City Airport and have  a few good hours to enjoy the stroll by the bridge and early morning coffee.

When we checked into the hotel, all of the rest just got the normal low floor room but I was checked in to executive high floor with the perfect view of London Bridge welcomed me into the room.  I knew this was not by accident but the Lord was pampering me...The photo above was taken at around 5 GMT.

Finally this is the night scene of the Tower Bridge again after we had an enjoyable dinner (with never ending flow of Moët and Chandon champagne, excellence food) at a restaurant to celebrate the success and great place for networking.

In short, I witnessed the up-closed and personal view of Tower Bridge from the morning to the night.  Tower Bridge remains charming regardless of the time of the day.

 

 

 

 

 

From the land where the winds that shakes the barley

This is my first business trip after I joined Accenture. I was posted to Dublin for a business development project for 6 weeks. Dublin, the capital for Republic of Ireland, as far as my memory could recall, I have never experienced a complete dry day in Dublin. It was always rain be it in the morning, afternoon or night. Dublin is a very manageable city, every morning I walked from hotel to the office except on the rainy day. It is also a very clean city, since it is one of the first country that prohibit smoking in the restaurant, I was blessed to be able to experience the smoke free dining.
This photo is taken on two different nights, in the evening after I finished my work and walked from the IFC office back to hotel. Despite of taking different route, but I always walked pass this bridge and enjoyed the last few moment of the sunset.

White Tampere

This trip took place towards the end of November in 2004. I was working on a project that covered 3 different countries, Sweden, Finland and USA. This is my second trip to Finland, the first trip was to Helsinki in 1995. This is also the first time to Tampere, which is situated at the north west of Finland. The trip was not so straight forwards. I have to fly on small 25 sitters Fokker from Helsinki to Tampere. The journey only took less than 25 minutes. The first photo were taken in the Fokker flight, as you can see most of the white spots were lakes covered by snow.

The night view from the hotel. Tampere is a nice city and a little medieval like city. With the lights on, it looked even more magical. Look at the amount of snow, this photo is taken outside of my client's factory area. The snow are thick and difficult to walk.

The building of my client. There was no sunlight throughout the week. The brightest that I have ever seen is just like what you see now in the photo, grey is the brightest colour in the winter for this Nordic country.