It has been 14+ long years since I last set foot in London. Well, London still looks the same - Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Parliament House.... Except that there is now this big giant ferries wheel called the London Eye which you see it everywhere, at St James Park, at Buckingham Palace, even from the windows of the restroom at the Queen Elizabeth II Convention Centre, where I spent 4 days attending a conference. ... read more

走在广岛繁忙的大街上，谁能想象，六十多年前，人类史上第一颗原子弹曾经在这降陆。1945年8月6日，美军B29轰炸机在广岛上空投下原子弹，子弹在600米上空爆炸，顿时把广岛移为平地，老百姓死伤惨重。 为什么美军要投下原子弹？这要追溯到第二次世界大战。历史在这里不想再说。总之，战争就是残酷的，没有人道的。 来到今日的广岛，除了参观那曾被原子弹炸过的建筑和和平公园，当然不能错过原爆博物馆。馆中详细记载了原爆发生后的情景，也展示了许多照片，还有一些被炸过的日常物品。看后令人毛骨悚然，更希望战争永远不再发生，世界太平。 ... read more

To save us the agony of spending a whole day in the bullet train from Hokkaido to Tokyo, we had a brief stop in Aomori. Not a wise move though, as the day was short in winter. We could not venture anywhere further than the town. ... read more

Our flight arrived in Tokyo in the early morning, around 7am. Since it was still early, we decided to head straight to Sendai which is 2 hours from Tokyo Station by JR Tohoku Shinkansen Line. From Sendai, we visited Masushima, which is known as one of the three most beautiful sites in Japan. We also visited the other most beautiful site in Hiroshima later on. JNTO website has good information on Miyagi Regon. ... read more

Today is our 15th day in Mongolia, one more day before we say goodbye. Here we are, at Kharkhorin, in Övörkhangai Province, adjacent to the ancient city of Karakorum. It is our second time to this place, having been here last June. The highlight of Today is the Erdene Zuu Monastery, probably the oldest buddhist monastery in mongolia. The monastery was constructed with stones from the ruins of Karakorum, the 13th century Mongolian capital. We spent the morning at the monastery and left for Ulaan Bataar around noon. One of our vans ran low on gasoline and had wanted to top up at one of the two stations in Kharkhorin. However, it happened that one of them ran out of gas, and the other ran out of electricity. We had no choice but to move on, ... read more