Life at Pretoria, South Africa

Today's my 2.5th day in Pretoria, South Africa...had a good nice flight on Qatar Airways with minor jetlag of about 6 hours...Ok here's something about the neighbourhood I'm staying at..it's called Rietfontein, Gauteng Province. The place I'm staying is at the Jakaranda Lodge..which was situated around this friendly housing neighbourhood. The place's really beautiful..what else can i say...here's the photos of the neighbourhood as well as the Jakaranda Lodge..

That's the place I'm staying

Along the roads, you can see a countryside type of neighbourhood

Some of the houses along the road

Mini garden

Can you spot the fence..electric and barbed summore..keng..

Ok that's about it on the neighbourhood I'm staying...and here's the about the Jakaranda Lodge..just a little information regarding the name Jakaranda, it's actually a purple flowered tree which is famous in Pretoria and there's a street blooming with Jakaranda flowers in Pretoria and thus dubbed as Jakaranda street..well not my luck to get to see those in the Spring season though..Ok nuff said, let's check the photos out..

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Welcome to Jakaranda Lodge

As soon as you enter you will see a block of smaller accomodations..

These are the blocks with carparks + double storey lodging

A small garden walkway up to other blocks

Clockwise from upper left, the front row, the back row and the front entrance...western style lodging..these are the double storey lodging

If you go down further, that's where I'm staying, a self-catering room with daily room service..though I asked them to take a rest for the sake of environment.the room doesn't need any cleaning everyday:D

The entrance up there..

And here's my room

How huge it is, I let you judge it..it's a very nice experience

View from the entrance

The kitchen + washing machine..complete set with refrigerator

I hope you enjoy this posting..watchout for more as I'm going to be here for 3 months..I'm gonna start my internship for UNDP tomorrow and wish me luck!
Ciao!

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Beautiful Furano: Sorachi Spring

Ok here's my very first post on Hokkaido..it was September 2007 when my dream came true..a trip to Japan and of coz first time to Hokkaido..and it's all courtesy of IPoS.. and I'm proud to be the only Malaysian as part of the network. Ok enough of granny stories..so this place is one of the first place I've visited as part of the field trip. We visited the Sorachi Head Spring which was situated in Furano, Hokkaido..the streams are very clean and of course it's drinkable...we had lunch picnic and enjoy the cool breeze around the forest...take a look at the photos below...

Clean spring and nice green carpet moss


The spring flows into the 'river' and that's where we climbed up


That's where we had our lunch picnic


Closeup shot of the carpet moss


Spring water gushing through



Well that's all for now folks...I will be posting on new place soon as I'm now in South Africa!
So see ya!

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Tokyo Tower and da Skyline

Hola!! Here we go..back to my Tokyo trip stuff..this time it's Tokyo Tower. It's located at Shiba Park, Minato, Tokyo. With its height of 333 meter, it's the tallest structure in Japan. The main purpose is for telecommunications. You can actually get there through several ways to get there although I know just one way..which is to get off from Hamamasutcho line which is about 10 mins away. The fees vary from 2 different observatory, for the 150m view, u need to pay about 820yen and extra 600 yen for another 100 meter (250 meter) view. More information can be obtained here.

I just got up to 820 yen view though..no time for the extra 600 yen view..lolwell what are we waiting for let's go for the view.

That's the view on the way to the Tokyo tower from Shiba Park.


Just below the Tokyo tower

Since it was on December 2008, we're having a Christmas Mood..so beautiful lights were every where.

Nice lights

Oh ya.I forgot that time was the 50th anniversary of Tokyo Tower


Ok here's the main dish..the breathtaking Tokyo Skyline view
from the 150m observatory tower.

Busy streets below..it was about 4.30pm at that time..well it's winter..day time is shorter

Beautiful skylines

That's the rainbow bridge..nice eh..

Busy streets and rainbow bridge..really love the view

Views from another part of the observatory station. Well I hope you enjoy this posting.

For hotels nearby the Tokyo Tower, you can actually visit this website, Hotels Combined to look for a good bargain. If you want somewhere around Tokyo, you can take a look at this Hotels Combined(Tokyo) link.

Watchout for the next post..I will be heading to Pretoria South Africa next week..hopefully there will be a posting of Kurger National Park. See ya!

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360 Degrees

360 degrees around Lantau Island..that's the cable car ride of the Ngong Ping 360 sky rail..it's a cable car ride from Lantau Island nearby the Po Lin Monastery and the Tian Tan Buddha to Tung Chung MTR station..it would take about 25 minutes for this 5.7km ride but if you're afraid of height..you can take a bus ride to Tung Chung MTR station in which that one will take about an hour...The price I paid a that time was a little expensive..at about HKD70..nevertheless it's a great experience! Anyway..take a look at the Ngong Ping Village which is nearby the station as well as the view of Lantau Island.

This is the view of Tung Chung Village..really in the mood of ancient China


Shops with Chinese designs..this includes..........


Starbucks Coffee Shop..cool eh

As well as 7 Eleven...modern brands in ancient world..

OK Here's the main gist..the cable car ride...>>>>

Taken a ride along beautiful hills


'Cross cutting' view of the Lantau Island view


For nature lovers....you can actually walk/hike/jungle trek to the Ngong Ping Village..that's the track as you can see here


That's the new Hong Kong International Airport..not so new though..but it looks new from far as if that Island has just been reclaimed not long ago..
Blocks of condominiums..looks congested

Converging view from the cable car


Hazy afternoon


Parks by the seaside

For additional information regarding the Ngong Ping 360 you can check out wikipedia..hehe..that's the usual page more stories than photos at Ngong Ping 360

As for convenience of accomodation..I bet you might be thinking of where is the nearby hotels..as such I would like to recommend you to visit 'Hotels Combined'or at www.hotelscombined.com

There're vast of cataloques which enables you to find any hotels according to your budget and location preferences. Even so to ease yourself in looking for hotels around Hong Kong, I think you might wanna visit a quick link of Hong Kong Hotels catalogue

Njoy..more posts to come soon :D!!

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