A random walk down Borough Market

Last weekend I took some pictures at Borough Market, but I didn't want to take the same photos everyone has seen a million times. I somehow liked the umbrellas, although it was actually a sunny day.

Long way home

Actually my way home from the office isn't that long at all. Anyway, the first picture I took was on London Bridge. Magic light was all over the place, it was so good it made a dozen people stop and take out their cameras and phones to take pictures. It was frosty, sunny and foggy all at the same time, loved it.

Later on on my way home I bought a bunch of flowers...was experimenting with my new macro lens and here is the first shot with it:

While I had my lens ready I found the home of some spiders on my balcony...unfortunately none of the spiders showed up to pose for a photo...

Brighton Pier

I had family visiting this week. We went to Brighton and it was a really nice day, beautiful and sunny. The Brighton pier looks impressive from the beach. Fish'n Chips is a must, of course.

U wish

Just a random walk around my new 'hood...

Interesting to find so many advertisements at night, was wondering whether that meant anything...

You wish...

Upstream

A stroll along my new home, as I am moving house this week...lots to explore, lots to discover...

Orbit

I guess you are a lucky person if you have the chance to see the Olympics live. I totally enjoyed the evening at the Olympic stadium with a few friends, watching lots of new world records, gold medals and some very impressive athletics.

Here it is Mo Farah winning gold for Team GB over 5k, and he still is looking fairly relaxed. Also saw the amazing Usain Bolt, fastest man on the planet over 100 meters, and he truly is spectacular.

Talking about spectacular, I really like the 115m high Orbit sculpture in the Olympic Park.

Chelsea Physic Garden

In case you needed a little secret hideout I can recommend the Chelsea Physic Garden. Spent a few hours there, truly lovely. It's London's oldest botanic garden, founded in1673.

Some of the flowers and leaves are both edible and decorative. Some gardeners appear to grow them in order to attract pollinating insects such as bees, others may find use in cosmetics and soaps. Some even feature anti-inflammatory and anti-viral properties.

Passo di Stelvio

What a great ride! A few mates and I went on a 2,000 mile round trip from London to Paris to Nice to the French, Italian and Swiss Alps and back to London on our bikes. In between we had amazing views and beautiful landscapes sweetening our days. Passes like Stelvio, Furka, Galibier, all great fun.

Ni Hao

I had the great opportunity to go to China for a week. Just like everyone else visiting the country, I came away being very impressed.

What you see here is a snapshot of Hong Kong, which is a bit "China light", basically. On a Saturday morning you would find all the Ex-Pats having their croissants in french-looking coffee shops. You could be anywhere in Europe or in the US.

But don't be mistaken. There is some great culture to be discovered in HK. I particularly liked the famous Man Mo temple, located on Hollywood Street (sic!). The temple was built in 1847 for the worship of the civil god Man Tai and the martial god Mo Tai. The temple features a huge number of bell-shaped coils of incense in order to attract the attention of the gods. The rumour goes that some hundred years ago, locals came to the temple to solve disputes that could not be solved by British law.

The process of finding an equitable solution involved the legal system of the Qing Dynasty, which stated that both plaintiff and defendant should make a promise in the temple and write it - along with a punishment - on a piece of yellow paper. They then killed a chicken, chopped off its head, let its blood drip onto the paper, and burned the paper. It was believed that because the promise was made before the gods, if the individual broke the promise they would suffer the indicated punishment. Many Chinese preferred this justice system to the British system.

I do presume that the young couple getting married also wanted to seek some attention, but it might have been that of the photographer only...

The night market in Hong Kong featured a stunning variety of small enterprises. I liked this shop in particular. Doesn't get much smaller than that, does it?

This is some spectacular view from Kowloon island over to Hong Kong island.

But given I was in China for the job I also went to see some hospitals. The picture is very touching, I think, telling a story about a man taking care of his wife while she is undergoing dialysis treatment. The face of the old man tells the whole story.

Shanghai was also part of the route, so here is the amazing view from my hotel room on the 94th floor.

And finally, I had a few hours before my flight back to London, so I went to the Forbidden City in Beijing. Everyone has seen everything there is to see, I believe, so I will put up a photo that I hope is also reflective of what you can see everywhere in China.

Snow Patrol

We had a lot of snow last weekend here in London, well, at least for the UK average amount of snow, that is. Went for a walk along the river Thames and the funny thing was that dozens of people, totally unrelated with each other, got involved in a snowball battle, right there in front of Tower Bridge. Great fun.

Headonism

The beautiful Somerset House in London hosted an interesting Vernissage. A colleague of mine has a friend, Philip Levine, who was part of the exhibition himself, and I can highly recommend taking a look at his website www.headism.co.uk for some iconic head designs. Here, he wears a 1,000-Swarovski crystal piece, directly glued to his bald head. Fancy stuff.

But surely, the Somerset House also attracts people more interested in ice skating than art. Amazing panorama.