um... wanna blog something today before I fly off to London, but my feeling is mixed at the moment.

I'm very glad that my PhD is closer to the end after this trip to London and I could once again meet up with friends to have some fun, but on the other hand, I'm nervous... I know I'm quite well prepared already, but every time when I come to think about the day, my heart beats fast... I'm so nervous!!

Anyway, wish me luck and pray for me. Tuesday is the day.

P.S. Wait for my text or phone call on Tuesday late afternoon and be prepared for a celebration night! ^o^

A few news that caught my eyes today:

Burma aid delays

The consequences of the cyclone attack in Burma has been on the news all the time these days, the hit was so bad that they said it's worst than the Tsunami in South Asia 3 years ago.

Let's not talk about the Burma government holding the information from the rest of the world, saying that the number of deaths was 22,000 instead of more than 100,000 which other people has estimated. However, I really don't understand why they are reluctance to accept foreign aid. Planes that carrying food supplies cannot enter Burma because they don't have permission to land, why would they allow such a delay??

I really think that when it comes to a life and death situation, nothing matters! Nothing is more important than saving lives... Hope this will be sorted asap, God bless His people.

Alcohol drinking ban in public transport

The new mayor of London is planning to ban the drinking of alcohol on London's transport system from 1 June. It will be ban on Tube, buses, trams and DLR.

Honestly I really like this action of his, it's as good as the smoking ban last year. Of course there actually not alot of people drink on public transport, because they already drunk when they got on the tube or bus, but still I think it's a minimal effort that has a potential to tackle anti-social behaviour.

Keep it going mayor!

Hiccup man

A guy has been hiccupping every 2 seconds for 15 months! He has tried a variety of cures, including yoga and 100 different ways of drinking water, but nothing has worked. There is an operation that he could do to try to stop it, his fellow hiccup sufferer (who has been suffering for 4 years!) has done the same operation but did not cure the hiccups. What more interesting is that someone from the US holds the record for the longest ever bout of hiccups, which lasted for 68 years from 1922 until 1990!!!!!

I really feel sorry for them, I can imagine how annoying it would be, you can't eat, can't sleep, can't speak properly. If I have a hiccup for more than 2 days, I will be very frustrated and wanna die! I sincerely hope that they can find a cure real soon~

Been biking to work since Monday, what can I say... nice weather, extremely well developed bike lane and good exercises! However, there is a cost for all that!

The route to work isn't all that easy, up and down the hills for 15-20 minutes, makes me sweat a lot! Also after a few days of biking, my seat bones ache and legs are always tired... I guess it's because I haven't been training my legs very much and doing exercise everyday, so hopefully after some time I will get used to this lifestyle, sweat less, no ache bottoms and stronger legs!

By the way, it reminds me of our holiday in Greece last year, it's so sunny and hot!

Here is our new mayor for the next four years, a relatively young blonde with a bike. He was elected last Thursday and officially takes control of London starting today.

I haven't been following closely to the politics, so I don't know who is good, but now as he has been elected, I need to know what he is going to do to this capital city of England. Below are what he said he would do that I found in the BBC website:

1. Phase out the bendy buses as they are dangerous and unsuitable for London streets, also aims to find a new Routemaster bus (those old ones that you can hop on and hop off at the end of the bus).

2. Reform the congestion charge

3. Tackle street crime, put more police on trains and stations

4. Increase the number of affordable homes in London by 50,000 by 2011, invest money to renovate more than 80,000 empty properties in the capital to get low-income people off housing waiting lists

5. Ensure that the 2012 Olympics legacy lasts for decades not just the three weeks of the actual event by creating improved transport links, world-class sports facilities and many new jobs. Also make sure that no more London taxpayers' money is spent on the Olympics than is currently budgeted for

If he really can do all of the above, I think he is a good mayor.

This is so far the longest holiday I've spent in Sweden on my own!

A four days weekend that I always wanted to spend in London, however it turned out to be a good thing for me to stay here instead! First of all, I can have time to study my viva with a fresh and awaken brain, rather than doing it after work when my brain shut down itself automatically at 4 o'clock everyday. Secondly, the weather was super nice here, which means a good chance for me to really try out the bike and explore the city.

The first day of the holiday was a normal one, stayed indoor for the whole day because it was raining. Studied in the morning, had a telephone meeting with my supervisor, then the rest of the day just relaxed and enjoyed myself ^_^

The next day was more interesting that I went to Kit and Samuel's to play and have BBQ!! It's so amazing that as soon as the weather become warm and sunny, everyone is out and BBQ everyday!! Anyway, it was a good day just abit regret that I didn't bring my camera to capture my first BBQ in Sweden! After the meal, I did my stuff - sort out the PC problems (but at the end I still haven't done everything that I needed to do... o well, next time may be... ) then we watched some TV with some wine and snacks, such a nice evening~ Thanks Kit and Samuel!

Just to mention that the Olympics torch relay was in HK that day, we watched it on the TV. It was a big thing in HK, everyone was on the street, wearing red t-shirt to support the relay and China in general. I personally don't have much feeling about this thing, yes, I'm happy that the torch was in HK and they managed to have everything under control during the relay, no big demonstration or fight. However, it all seems so distance from me...

Anyway, the torch is actually quite good looking, go to the official website here to see the 3D image of the torch. Light the Passion Share the Dream.

Yesterday the weather was continuously sunny, so I decided to ride my bike to explore the area in the afternoon! Got everything ready, found the 'place of interest' on the map, and there I went! After getting lost a little, 20-30 minutes later I reached the lake that I was heading for! Yay!! Look at the picture below, it's lovely! I think I can just sit there, look at the view for the whole day!

Actually the lake was just something located next to the 'place of interest' - Gunnebo House and Garden. So I kept going and reached the place. I couldn't find a place to lock my bike, so I have to take it with me and because of that I couldn't go into the building. However, it was very nice already, I walked around the building, saw some nice views, some sheep, families having picnic, someone taking wedding photos, etc. Everything was just beautiful.

Here is the bike that I have, quite a good mountain bike!

Today was just a normal Sunday for me, I ride the bike to church then shop for food before coming back home. It's so good that it will be sunny all week, I can start biking to work, yeh~~

Today while browsing the HK news, I read about the latest news of Edison Chen.

Apparently, Edison came to know Christ after what had happened three months ago, and a magazine in HK heard about this and has a covering story of this. It mentioned the name of the pastor who brought him to know Christ, and I got curious and look up this pastor on the internet.

His name is Jaeson Ma, a very passionate young pastor in the US, working mainly in the campus for young people. I visited his blog, watched his testimony and preaching, an amazing young man, so passionate in his preaching. You can really feel his love for God and how God speaks to the audience through Jaeson. If you have time, I really encourage you to watch his video and hope you will learn something from it, it's quite long though, about an hour each.

Apart from that, I do appreciate his rap music, I think it's a channel to get to the youngster and it's good music too!

So, if you have time, do visit his blog.

Thanks to Allan at work, he told me about the fishing trip they have at work two weeks ago, and I was able to apply in time when there were only 6 spaces available!

Today we went fishing on a boat!!

This was my first time ever to fish on a boat in the sea, it's so exciting. The weather have been very good lately, sunny and warm, but today it was very windy so in the morning we were so afraid that it will be cancelled! In the afternoon, we have been told that we will take our chance and go as planned, because they have checked that the wind is going to change direction and calm down abit in the evening.

At 4.30pm we left the company with two little boats (§ΦΈ₯) at the back of our cars and heading towards the sea~~

I have no idea where we went, we drove into an area where it looks like to be a parking for boats, big and small boats are all parked on the land, fascinating! We then put the boats into the sea, and started preparing the fishing rods, lifejackets (every one of us has to wear one before we get on the boat), etc. At about 5.30pm, we hit the water ^o^

The weather was still quite windy, but apart from that it's a very lovely weather to be out at the sea. There were 8 of us, we splitted, 3 of them on a smaller boat (the company boat) and 5 of us went with a slightly bigger and better boat that owned by one of the colleague. Then, we just drove the boat to some spot, put the anchor into the sea and started to fish.

We have a fish in mind that we want to fish tonight, it's some kind of trout that usually in shallow water area... so everyone started to throw their fishing rod into the water, I realised that they don't use any bait, just a hook with a little shiny fake fish, and because we were fishing in shallow water (about 3-5 meters only), after we throw the hook into the water, we have to kind of roll it back quickly to avoid it to get stuck in the waterbed and so that the fake fish will looks like it's swimming in the water!

Anyway, I got the hand of it and about the 3rd times I throw the hook in, I got the first fish!!! Although it's a small one (about 20 cm) and not the trout that we were aiming for, I was still very happy!! ^o^ Throughout the night, we stopped at few different spot and fish for a while then go off to another spot and continue to fish, and we all caught fishes just not the trout that we want! One of the guy got a trout at some point, it was quite a big one too, but after measuring it, it's only 43 cm, and by law, it has to be 45 cm in order for us to catch it, so... we have to put it back into the water... what a shame!

We spent four hours in the lovely sea, have some coffee and sandwiches as our dinner on the boat, and I was quite amazed that I didn't feel a little bit of seasick! It was lovely, at around 9.30pm we headed back because it's getting cold.

It was a great night, although I missed most of the football game tonight (Champions League Semi-final, Man Utd vs Barcelona), I was glad to be out in such a lovely evening!

View all photos here.