Summer is here, summer is here

Camps Bay beach the venue for this weekends Women's FIVB Swatch World tour finals

Kerri Walsh of Team USA serves against the no.2 seeded Brazilians with part of 12 Apostles mountains in the background.

Better view of the sand, sea and mountains

Sister team Carolina (left) and Maria Salgado of Brazil, Bronze medallists.

Had a great weekend, breakfast at a farm stall, afternoon beach and volleyball. It was the part of the SWATCH FIVB World tour and the semi-finals were on Saturday. Mens finals are next Sunday. It was the best Saturday beach weather this year and the water was perfect. Also enjoyed watching S.A defeat Wales in the rugby grand slam.

Sunday was the International Sithengi world cinema fest and saw a movie about the new "revolutionary" form of dance taking place in L.A called "Krumping"... was visually exhausting watching all the energy, simply amazing. Energized for a new week at work :)

New blog

Its much better and focuses on energy as opposed to my life which is getting less interesting by the day... so go check it out: www.xanga.com/jono_000 .( 3 zero's)
Scotland was great, was impressed with Edinburgh and Ji is settling in nicely there. Got a great place on the main street of the Edinburgh's 'Old Town' and she's sharing 3 girls from Saudi, Spain and Japan so its quite fun. Went on a Highland tour and learnt so much about the colourful and violent history of the Scottish. Loch Ness was of course a highlight, but did not get to see Nessie. Another highlight was the Mercat Graveyard tour to Greyfriars cemetery, scary fun. The weather was good for that time of year, the hottest October day in who knows how long, over 25 degrees i think! pics...






From top: National Gallery, Eilean Donan castle, Edinburgh castle and Fountain from the world fair - Paris 18 something, Ji with Haggis :)

Pictures

Always remember JiuZhaiGou and Huanglong... from left to right: 000, 111, 001, 011, 101, 100, 110 and 010
Sunset coming back from Knysna and Oudtshoorn business trip. Notice the fishing rods on the top right that were tied to the roof rack. This picture was taken with one hand on the steering wheel going at 130km/ h
Our accomodation in Oudtshoorn, 2 nights - African style bungalows. It was fun I guess. They had a great pool, but it was too cold to swim.
Part of the coastline along the garden route, South African East coast. This is just outside Knysna where we were going to try fishing, but the walk down to the beach was too high so we didn't.
Rhodes Memorial after lunch today. Our team went for lunch to celebrate a month of good work. I was invited along nevertheless. Had beer battered kingklip which was VERY good. The view up there was amazing today, am not in the mood to do much work now.

no fish caught off to scotland

Got back from the work / fishing trip on Friday. Thanks to the job, was able to see most of Knysna and Oudtshoorn, do a bit of fishing, have great breakfast every morning and also go to a wildlife conservation park. The wildlife park was a treat from the municipal guy we worked with that got us in for free. Beautiful animals all really well cared for, a change from Shanghai zoo where all the animals seemed a bit sad. Saw the lions shagging again, once again it didn't last a minute before the lioness walked off leaving the male looking very sheepish. There were a lot of comments from the women in the tour group, no comments from the guys. funny.


Anyways, next week Thursday will be going to Edinburgh to see Ji-Hye, she has 2 days off and am going for a week and a half. Should be great although heard its a bit cold that side. Flying to Glasgow which is an hour by train from Edinburgh. am excited and from other people that have been there, it sounds like its going to be fun. yipyip. Thats using most of my leave up, but this jobs just til Feb, so I'll have uni holidays once again. great!

Saw the movie "Crash" on Saturday. Didn't know what it was about before seeing it, but was very impressed by the range of racism it covered and that it wasn't afraid to just show it like it is or how everyone is thinking most of the time anyways. Strong cast with actors playing roles different to the normal hollywood movies they ordinarily appear in.

Still reading the Piano Tuner and also The Handbook of Energy Engineering.

Going fishing...

Next week we go on a trip to Knysna, Oudtshoorn and a town called George. They are all scenic holiday towns situated up the Eastern Coast of South Africa along what is called "The Garden Route" a stretch of coastline of pristine natural beauty. Am going there for 5 days of work. Staying in grand hotels and doing pretty easy work. Will take photos. My colleague is going mad about this trip and his eyes light up when he's talking about the preparation he's making for this fishing trip. Its actually really scary how crazy he is about fishing.
Although I'm not averse to stopping at a few spots to test the waters, I think he's taking it a bit far, he's actually going to collect mud prawn for us Monday morning before we leave. We're going to have the fishing rods tied to the roofrack of this hired vehicle. nice. Anyways, am looking forward to this trip away and hope the weather is going to be great. Otherwise it will be quite difficult to work with electricity or to go fishing. Hope to be back Friday before evening. Maybe off to Durban, another coastal city the following week. I'll go by myself and fly so then no fishing :(
Its the weekend!!!

currently reading: The piano Tuner

Sameness

Have fallen into a lull of routine and repetition. Everyday seems the same now and I crave something different. Coupled by the fact that I feel I'm being underpaid my minds been working a little more in trying to figure out a way to deal with this. Have contemplated escaping back to China for these few months preceding February. It would be Beijing this time.
Next week am off to Knysna and Oudtshoorn for work, two famous South African holiday towns, Knysna for its coastal charm and beauty, it's oyster farm and for being SA's favourite holiday city. Oudtshoorn is famous for having ostrich farms. Am REALLY dreading the work though as it seems overwhelming. I'm envisioning counting street lights, 1000's of them as part of an energy saving project. 1...2...3...4...5...6....... ........ 1...2....3....4... oh gees, off to Beijing!
About being underpaid, I tell myself, i'm not here for the money etc, but I'm getting less exposure than I thought and the intermittent conversations regarding the state of the world leaves one feeling depressed and makes things seem more hopeless. Its VERY depressing looking at stats on how much emmissions are being created by this, by that, by everything basically. Heard about a new car yesterday that has solar panels on its roof which produce electricity to electrolyse water and for Hydrogen and Oxygen, the Hydrogen fuels the fuel cells which run the car producing more water which goes back to be electrolysed from the solar panels. it's still a prototype science car though.

I feel Mandela is going to die soon, will be interesting to see what happens when he does. Need to get out of this lull!!!

Back at UCT

Its good to be back at UCT, seeing many familiar faces along the way. Today in the space of 15 minutes, I bumped into 5 people I knew. One of them a girl I chatted to once or twice 5 years ago, but the little grin we exchanged made my day :P

Last night a bum wanted money for coffee. I thought that was strange. Why not ask for money for something more necessary. Its strange.

Today a woman called me to open an account with their bank, but her telephone manner was not the greatest, she would say "WHAT??" whenever I asked a question and she couldn't hear clearly... so bad.

Am enjoying the environment in which I'm working. Seems everybody likes information and there are articles of interest pinned up on communal notice boards on a daily basis discussing things like petrol prices, Kyoto, the world green economy, jokes and funny stories, biogas etc... its cool.

My colleague told me about his girlfriend who has another boyfriend. he asked what would I do? haha. What a playa (the girlfriend) anyways, he's told her she's stupid and that its over. Tough question, what do you do if you have a bf / gf with another gf / bf???

Too many birthdays in September... September - gestation period = festive season. In the space of 5 days I've become aware of 7+ people celebrating birthdays!!! Birthday in September = less presents.