Category: Animals

Phnom Penh LUG and Open Institute in Cambodia

Posted on by Pockey Lam

The trip to Cambodia was amazingly excellent! Not only I went to the Open Institute Organization to know more about how they spread Open Source in Universities, joined the newly re-established Phnom Penh LUG first initial meeting, but also had a lot of great Cambodian food in Phnom Penh, as I never had any Cambodian food ever! As an animal lover, Phnom Penh is a paradise,  full of wide life too!

Open Institute focus on Universities doing localization, generate textbooks and train teachers / volunteers!
Open Institute focus on Universities: doing localization, generating textbooks of OpenSUSE / Firefox Thunderbird / OpenOffice.org and training teachers / volunteers
Phnom Penh LUG meeting: Fred presented Reprap 3D Printer Project
Phnom Penh LUG meeting: Fred presented Reprap 3D Printer Project and of course we discussed about how to grow the Phnom Penh LUG here in Cambodia
Cambodian Traditional Breakfast: Soup Noodle
Cambodian Traditional Breakfast: Soup Noodle
Cambodian lunch, look tropical!
Cambodian lunch, look tropical!
Monkeys inside a temple, we fed them bananas
Monkeys inside a temple, we fed them bananas
My favourite reptile, lizards everywhere~
My favourite reptile, lizards everywhere~
It's a very relaxing city, people are very nice and friendly! Highly recommend you to go!
It's a very relaxing city, people are very nice and friendly! Highly recommend you to go!

3 days in Hangzhou

Posted on by Pockey Lam
放生池
An army of tortoises basking on the island border, some are trying hard to climb up

It’s my first time visiting Hangzhou! Since I was a kid I heard a lot about the West Lake which is a very famous spot for poet writers to make a lot of nice pieces here. The lake is indeed huge and lovely! No matter day time or night time, the view is fabulous. Unfortunately it was National Holiday, a lot of tourists that kind of disturbing due to the crowd and the noise. Night time in the West Lake, I saw a lot of locals singing and dancing together in groups, a bit like the night life in big parks in Beijing. Same hobbies!

My other impression about Hangzhou is that most taxi drivers are very tricky to tourists, luckily we have GPS to avoid a lot of problems. Foodwise it is so-so, we tried a lot but without much luck so far. Otherwise with such a nice lake if I live here I would go there everyday to enjoy the fresh air.

For the 3 days in Hangzhou, what I enjoyed most is the “放生池” (a pond to free captive animals)  next to the LeiFeng Pagoda 雷峰塔. There is a big pond with a nice island in the middle accommodated with thousands of fishes and tortoises there. It’s really a paradise for them ,:) they all look healthy! I even went back to feed the fish and tortoises with a lot of bread.

turtles
My pets, they are at least 6 years old now

To see all these happy tortoises basking and swimming in such a big pond, it makes me think of my own. At home I have 4 red-heared sliders as pets. I got them when I was managing a factory in ZhaoQing City in 2004. Since it is a small city, nothing much to do except work, I decided to buy a few fishes and tortoises to accompany me. When we moved back to Beijing they came along with us by plane! I have them for 5 years already, we changed 3 fish tanks as they are adult size (30cms long) now. When I visited the pond full of happy tortoises, I asked myself if I am willing to free my tortoises there? Knowing a bit of myself, I am not sure… would you?