UK, London

A demonstation during the G20 summit; strong police presence

Some shots taken from around the city: memorial tower, lunch at St Paul's, taking a break from the busy streets and walked through Lincoln Inn/Field












Covent garden, the infamous Trafagar Square and Piccadily Circle.

UK, West Country

Some pictures taken from Newton Abbot: A bigger market town in Devon. Alvin R, you should be able to recognise some of the landmarks of this town. The stone building is now the library.


















Some pictures taken from Torquay. A large city on the coast, full of holiday accommodations. They call it the English Riveira.

Even God's church (Torquay) has to give way to the fun parlour:

Some pictures taken from Paignton: the most memorable thing about this town is the boxes along the beach front - two rows deep. My brother-in-law tells me these "boxes" are very expensive (something like 40kGBP each) and there is a long waiting list. They are lined up as far as the eyes can see. Give me any of the Perth beaches anytime.






All towns in Devon have unique features. Further west from Torquay, Brixham is no exception. A fishing town full of its past and present glories. The fish and chips shop we dined in some 13 years ago is still there, but was closed by the time we got into town. Le had a whole mackeral for dinner.




Some photos from the city of Exeter: A large city, nonetheless, an interesting place to visit. For a tourist, the city is divided into zones, eg catheral, castle, city walls, etc.

Lunch by the old city walls - had one of the best expresso coffees on tour and cheapest but the queue was a mile long; picture of castle garden, catheral grounds, etc.

UK West Country

Stopped by the Stonehenge. It is more spectacular viewing from afar as we were approaching from the A303. It now costs GBP6.50 to walk around the stones -at a distance. I took the picture from over the fence.




B&B place we stayed in Bovey Tracey. A lovely old house full of antiques. Look at the bed. Beautifully arranged to make you want to sleep on the floor to preserve it, besides, with the pillows and cushions, there is no space left to sleep.







Rush hour in Bovey Tracey town centre at 6:30am.











Some faces of Bovey Tracey. .


Tina Robertson runs the antique shop, and a tea house and the B&B guest house, and makes a great full English breakfast. The local friendly butcher who hangs his carcasses for 21 days before he sells them in the shop - the genuine West country sausages are very tasty.









Widecombe-on-the-Moor is a lovely old village in the middle of Dartmoor. Jack Collins, my old Judo master would like his ashes scattered on the slopes of this village.

Me and Jack at the slop on the hill side overlooking Widecombe.




Another close by village, Moretonhampstead: typical of the villages in this area. Beautifully preserved houses, narrow roads, thatched roofs, etc.







Princetown is another village worth visiting. Don't forget to try the real Devonshire cream tea. I had not seen clotted cream so creamy and thick as butter. Princetown is a prison town which was once feared by all prisoners, but today with the egalitatrian society, it is now turning to be very desireable "country resort" for the prisoners, as the locals call it.




Picture taken of the village, TwoBridges. Ever wondered how it got that name?





The Dartmoor region is full of attractions. We noticed there were a lot of cyclists going through their pace up in the hills. Another attraction are the tors. Haytor is one of the popular ones. Le looked a bit lost there. Anyway, we got up to the rock without too much trouble.

Malaysia to UK

Le's sister dropped us across to Singapore Changi Airport early enough to catch the Qantas flight to London. But the plane was delayed in Sydney and we were rescheduled to fly 15.5hr later. We were booked into a very decent hotel with unlimited buffet food for dinner. We evnetually flew on Singapore Airline, SIA at an earlier time. On arrival in London, we were met by yet another of Le's sister and brother-in-law. Le seems to have sisters strategically located to support our travel - more on that later.


The weather in London was not unexpected - very cold and wet, however, there are signs that spring is in the air. Magnolias are flowering, prunus are also flowering beautifully, young shoots are sprouting with leaves, but we don't hear a lot of birds singing, although we have spotted a robin in the garden.



Caught the train to Waterloo and walked to Travcour in Battersea. Travcour is the agency Odyssey uses for obtaining the visas. It was cold and wet, but we were sweating in our cold weather clothes because we both had a backpack each and walked so fast. After dropping the passports off, we thought we deserved a treat, we dropped into The Falcon and enjoyed a glass of liquid delight.

We have heaps of photos to publish, but the uploading is frustratingly slow, so will have to restrict number of photos.