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I've always been fascinated by Wong Kar Wai movies, especially Chungking Express and Fallen Angels, so I decided that the first leg of my Asia trip would be a week in Hong Kong. I've recently been in the Middle East, but never in the Far East yet, I managed to get some cheap plane tickets, a lonely planet guide, and off I went with actually no planning at all.

After 14h hours of flight, I arrived at HKIA in the early morning, and then I realized that maybe I should have booked a hotel room before touching down. Apparently there was some kind of international fair going on and all decent hotels rooms were booked. I did managed to book something, but it was a suite in the YMCA Salisbury Hotel, way more than my budget permitted but a comfortable way to get back on my feet after the jet lag ( and sure beats sleeping on a bench somewhere ). Afterward, I got to experience the gloomy guesthouse that reminded me more of the Wong Kar Wai films mentioned earlier.

I've rarely see a city that was so "in your face" than Hong Kong, I'm used to metropolis, I visited a lot of them, I live in one of them, but even so, the visual/auditory stimulation was sometimes too much for me.

The main photo gallery for Hong Kong

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

London, I haven't been there in a little less than a decade. It was purely a tourism trip, no obligations, no one to visit, just pure tourism which is nice as the last trips have been business trips ( even thought they

St James Park

A really beautiful and relaxing park, i wish we had more parks like that in Paris, I especially likes that the transition between the park and the city is quite seamless compared to public parks in Paris that are usually surrounded by a 4 meters high fence.

Parliament Square

Of course, the parliament square with Big Ben was an obligatory stop.

The last few months have been pretty busy, but I've managed to do a lot of stuff and travel quite a bit. Which is a blessing as I didn't moved a lot in the last few years.

I spent a few days in Germany in Braunshweig ( near Hanover ) for a business trip, I did not have not time for visiting but I did manage to snap a few photos

Braunschweig : The medieval part of town was interessing, but alas, most of it seems to be restaured/reconstructed and so there was a lingering feeling of fakeness.

Hannover : Sadly, not many things to see over there.

I've actually been in germany only once before and by total chance it was a school trip ~ 10 km from Braunshweig. Of course, as it was something like 15 years ago, I didn't remember much, if at all, of it. Anyway, it was a short and much needed break, I was spending too much time holed up in Paris.

Sometimes, the week just start strangely and you get suck into something totally unexpected. Monday as I came into my workplace ( which I still need to write about in here ), I was told to get my passport as I was leaving in the next 48h to Jordan. After some rushed preparations and getting some partial information about the work I needed to complete once there and a uneventful flight, I arrived in Amman, Jordan.

My company, Easter-Eggs, made a custom debian install CD for our client the Maison de Science de l'Homme which is part of the STRABON project. This project entails the installation of Debian servers running tomcat applications in all country around the mediteranen sea. Anyway they had a conference going on in Amman, and they needed me there ASAP.

During the first few days, I managed to setup a small LAN with a gateway doing transparent web proxying/caching, dhcp and stuff which was more difficult than it should have been as the technicians I was supposed to work with had only a very basic grasping of english ( that was surprising consediring most people here speak a decent english ).

Then I had to make a demonstration of the installation during the conference, in French with simultaneous transtlation in English and Arabic. Of course I learned that I needed to do this just the morning before and I was completly unprepared and I wasn't even sure the CD I just remasterized was working. Fortunatly it turned out well in the end.

One of the reason for my presence there was to select and train if needed a local linux system administrator and that started my adventure with open source in jordan which is going to be described in his own post later on.

Anyway, I managed to visit a little bit of Amman during the last few days, it was my first time in the middle east and the experience was great, I'm going to post some photos very soon.

Stay tuned.

I'm typing this post on the plane from Houston to Paris, just a few minutes from new year's eve ( still waiting for the "sparkling wine" ).

I signed for my new job on Monday 13st of December ( more on than in a later post) and they were kind enough to allow me to not start immediately, so I decided to make a short trip to Austin as I haven't been able to go there for more than 3 years. Actually as I oscillated between "too busy" or "too poor" during those three years, I didn't leave France since I moved back to Paris in 2001.

So, I had a blast in Austin, the weather was very nice for this period and I managed to see almost all my family living in Texas, some of them whom I didn't saw for a few years. I really miss this town and the people there, and this time I managed to do some tourism in the area, I don't think I've saw as much of Austin before, even when I was leaving there. I took a ton of photos, 892 exactly, and uploaded some of them into the following galleries.

Here is a quick summary of my trip:

Getting from Paris to Austin was much more difficult then expected due the security and the weather conditions ( apparently leaving for a two week trips with only carry on luggages is bad idea, I got flagged by security staff and searched before even getting to the airline counter, the first of a long series of search ), it was very foggy in Paris, so my flight got delayed for two hours. After landing in Houston, I realized I didn't have the address of my uncle's house where I stayed or his phone number making getting throught customs a lengthy process. Having missed my connecting flight to Austin by a good hour, I had to wait for the last flight of the day, a wait much more bearable as I managed to find an open wireless access and power outlets in the airport departure lounge, apparently I wasn't the only one recharging his ipod but at least I wasn't crashing out on the floor .

After a good night sleep, my uncle and I went biclying to the UT Campus ( a good thing that I stopped smoking, I couldn't have done a 10 km ride otherwise as it was the first time I rode for three years ).

Unfortunately, the classes were already finished for this semester, so the campus was mostly empty.

A few days latter, I took the bus to downtown ( on a side note the bus system improved quite a bit compared to the last time i was there, and accomodations for bycicle riders and handicaped people are still the best I ever saw ).

During the weekend, I had the occasion of participating in a Sweatlodge ceremony, a traditional ritual of native americans. My uncle participates every few months to this and as I was curious, I spend most of the day there. As I wasn't feeling very inclined to partake on the spiritual side of the ceremony I took the role of Fire Tender, which meant I had to stay close of the huge fire and take out hot rocks to bring in the lodges, I once got too close of the extremely hot fire and melted part of my shoes' sole, but then I got to eat first because traditionnaly, the fire tenders got to eat first ( go me ).

A new sight welcomed me, the Frost Bank Tower which wasn't there three years ago. Otherwise, I strolled in the warehouse district to find some interessing bars/clubs to visit for a future evening.

As usual during christmas in Austin, there were lots of lights everywhere, but the two most notables ones were the 37th street ( a grassroots effort by the residents ) and the Trail of Lights ( made by the city of Austin ), I didn't upload those galleries yet.

One amazing thing about Austin is the amount of nature within the city limits, a family friend at whose place I was staying at, suggested I take a hike throught the Barton Creek Greenbelt.

I managed to get lost ( apparently I followed the river too far and went past the exit point ). As it was becoming dark I took what seemed to me the shortest path to civilisation and ended up into someone's backyard. On the same street, I asked someone for the correct way, and he was kind enough to drive me to the Barton Creek Square Mall ( I'm still amazed a the kindness of Austin people to complete strangers ). it wasn't warn, it was hot and there was lots of ( ice cold ) water. oh yeah, it was my birthday too :)

I spent the christmas day at Temple with my aunt's family.

I also spent a lot of time with my family, something I cannot do often, and I'm very fortunate to have been able to see most of them this year. My cousin is actually in the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso and his father/mother/brother are in Africa to visit them, I'll see them soon as they'll be staying a few days in Paris before going back to the US.

After buying the cheapest tripod i could find ( which was actually very nice for a $20 tripod, much nicer than the more expensive one I had at home ), I went shooting in downtown one very nice evening.

More stuff on a later post in a few days.