Brief stay in Nordlingen, Germany

Nordlingen is reputedly one of the only remaining walled medieval town in Germany.

The city is unique in that it is surrounded by a wall, built in the 14th century.

It was really pleasant to have the opportunity to get away from  Munich and enjoy the serenity of a small town like Nordlingen.

As it is not a big town it was possible to tour the whole town on foot.

Shanghai Holiday

It was a package tour and with it happening during super peak period with Christmas and New Year in between, you guess right; it was also priced at a premium.

I am sure we know who this is.

So off we went, hoping for the best.

Arrive in Pudong Airport on a very cold early morning and was straight away taken to try out Shanghai’s technological marvel, the high speed Maglev Train. The tour guides boast that it can achieve in excess of 400 km/hr but we were only able to experience it at around 300 km/hr before the journey ended after 8 minutes. The experience was surprisingly not exciting, it was just like any other train ride until you realized that the train has no wheels but uses magnetic levitation and magnetism for propulsion.

Next was a visit to West Lake, a beautiful man make lake that is so huge it is difficult to imagine it is not a natural lake.

Night cruise in the Bund , Shanghai

The entire tour took 8 days with visits to Hangchow, Soochow, Nanjing, Wuxi and of course Shanghai.

Cute looking bun

The real authentic Chinese food (you cannot get it any more authentic than having it cooked by Chinese chefs using Chinese ingredients and eating it in a Chinese restaurant in China) we had was a bit disappointing as they somehow manage to taste alike after a few days. Don’t get me wrong, it is not that bad but somehow it did not meet our expectations but there is no doubt I can live with it.

The 3 Kingdom film set

As to the tour, I am now an expert in Jade, fine silk, pearls as ornaments or as a medicinal product, appreciation of all types of fine teas and of course Chinese herbal medicine. We were herded like sheep to these establishments where detail explanation was given without being asked with the final objective of off loading some very expensive products for us to take home at a price. To make things worse, this visits have no time limits unlike when we go to museums and so forth, visiting time is limited to usually for not more than an hour.

Places I ranked as must go, the Bund and the Pearl Tower in Shanghai including the little museum inside, the rest of the place I only have vague memories due to the very brief visits.

Sun Yat Sun's Mausoluem

Places to avoid are well established, fine tea house, silk factories, shop selling pearl products and Chinese herbal medicine as they are utterly boring. I find the stalls in flea market much more interesting but in general beware of highly inflated prices and prepare for bargaining. If you prefer not to bargain, you can try using body language, just walk away and you will find the prices drop by half, express interest but continue walking and the price may fall further. I was shown quite a few fake products that are difficult to distinguish from the genuine at less than one tenth of the original price.

Part of West Lake

On assignment - Barr, Switzerland.

On work assignment again and this time it is taking me to Switzerland, one of the many destinations I always wanted to go to.

It was a long tedious flight from KL with a transit in Amsterdam and finally to Zurich, which took 16 hours.

                                 

Preconceived perception can always influence how you feel about a country and my first impression of Switzerland did not disappoint me. It was exactly what I think Switzerland would be.

                                

Clear blue skies with picture perfect lakes and a background of snow top mountains. No, I am not dreaming , it really does exist! I suppose the experience is similar to an Eskimo looking at a lush tropical island with happy sun tanned naked natives running around.

Coming from haze filled KL, the contrast is striking, now I have doubts whether I really have bad eyesight or is it the pollution affecting my vision. I seem to be able to see clearer much further in Switzerland than KL.

The town I stayed in Switzerland is called Barr, quite near to Zurich.

I had the opportunity to use their train to travel between towns a few days and I must say the trains are impressive, you can hardly hear any sound during the journey. Till than I never realized that trains can be so quiet, almost silent.

Things that I like most in Switzerland are the climate, clean environment and chocolates. They have a fantastic range of chocolates available, from very high end to budget level chocolates and they all taste good.

Color Sergeant

A butterfly with a military rank, observe the three stripes spread across the wings and you will understand why.

Apparently the more common ones we often see are the males with white stripes. The females have wings that are marked with broad orange-brown stripes.

Some excellent specimens I came across.

 

Trithemis festiva

A dragonfly species I notice if you see one you will see many, probably from the same hatchings. Observing dragonflies skimming and hovering around on a windy sunny day always cheer me up.


When you next have the chance, feel it, live it and you will understand what I mean. It will give new meaning to the phrase “stopping to smell the grass”. Some folks will say there are better things to do but what are the better things to do?

Huntsman spiders (Family Sparassidae)

It is apparently an eight-eyed spider of which I did not get the opportunity to confirm, I meant the how many eyes.

Quite big in size compared to most of the spiders we commonly see, this specimen measures about 30 mm across. It has been reported that many of this species can grow much larger than this.
As usual such encounters are always by chance, while I was on one of my week end sojourn of jungle hiking, it was dashing across the road when I notice it, surprisingly it stop half way across and took refuge maybe forgetting it is out of its element, it was on wide open tar road, wrong camouflage background, so much for being eight eyed.
After a couple of shots from my camera it took off and made it all the way to the other side of the road. Now, the million dollar question, why would a spider cross the road?

Identifying insects

Coming across insects that I could not identify is rather frustrating while identifying an insect wrongly is worse than not being able to identify it at all. Friends have often console me that there are thousands of insect species yet to be identified even by keen entomologist, so what more being just a week end amateur taking photos now and than?

Unidentified Beetles


But that doesn’t make me feel any better! Sometimes it gets to be an obssession to just find out which species it comes from or family it belongs to. Time and again I sometime hit walls with a picture of an insect that will not yield its identity. What does it matters if I cannot identify a particular insect, you might well ask. I for sure will not die if I cannot find out nor will I starve or feel pain but my burning curiosity will not be quenched, it is like a journey with no ending or a task half complete, itching and prodding incessantly to find an end to it.
Or perhap it’s the sign of ageing but surely I maybe getting old but not that old yet? Senility runs on my side of the family as often reminded by my wife, could it be? No...I choose not to believe any of that!

For all its worth, if any readers here can identify any of the insects in this posting, please write and make my day!

Unidentified butterflies



And for those who wish to inform me the species of the insect in the picture is a butterfly or a beetle, you have been a great help, thank you very much and I would like to meet you in person to see how you look like. Nothing much can surprise me anymore I actually do know a person who tells me such things with a straight face, while looking at me in a funny way wondering why I do not know my insects. It is scary.........

Mountain Horned Dragons (Acanthosaura)

They are insectivorous which means they depend on insect as their primary diet. As it tolerates being handled fairly well it is considered to be charming and popularly kept as exotic pets in some countries. It also has a reputation of becoming docile and calm once acclimatised to its surroundings.

Normally preferring to dwell high on trees, this specimen I encountered seem to have chosen a more adventurous path.

Spiny Spider - Gasteracantha Fornicata

An unusual looking spider with a hard outer shell that is colourful with yellow horizontal stripes on a deep brown almost black background. I believe most people are not aware that a spider can look like that.

It was a challenged to photograph it as it has a tendency to turn the underside up.

Golden Tortoise Beetle (Metiona Bivittata)

From the family of Chrysomelidae, it is a captivating beetle with a shiny metallic gold shell, this beetle can change color from gold to shades of brown within a short period of time if under stress or when it dies.

From what I read, the gold color is caused by a thin layer of moisture between the shell and the body and by squeezing this layers, it is able to have this color variation.

Green Crested Lizard (Bronchocela cristatella)

An interesting bright green lizard capable of changing color, becoming a shade of darker brown when threatened.
Can be found in forests as well as parks and rural areas and only easily spotted once off its camouflage environment.

Gomphidae - Gomphidictinus perakensis

A large dragonfly and by looking at the way it take flight a strong flyer too. There are 15 odonate families in Penisular Malaysia and Gomphidae forms the second largest family with 35 species. I found this beautiful specimen at a foothill near a running stream.

Skippers (Taractrocera Archias Quinta)

Skippers look like moths but are actually butterflies, compare with the normal butterflies we often see, they have bigger eyes with thicker thorax and small short wings.
The example shown is a species found in Malaysia.

Skippers get their name due to their “skipping” flight, darting or skipping from place to place.