MLai - Reflecting my Life

Second day back at work and this problem arose and as I should’ve been doing a whole lot more of this, I thought it was time to get back into it. So the reception computer, which had phone software running on it - meaning external calls may have not been able to come in into reception, would not show the desktop after logging in.

Task manager was able to run using Ctrl-Alt-Del and if you check the services a whole heap were missing - namely explorer. I attempted to run explorer.exe, but it gave me an error saying that Windows cannot find explorer.exe which was a bit strange, because I could actually see it inside the windows directory. I renamed explorer.exe to explorer2.exe and explorer.exe was recreated immediately. It would also not run, but explorer2.exe would open up an explorer window.
After a short google, I found my way to http://pctechnow.blogspot.com/2008/08/cant-find-explorerexe-when-run-from.html which sums up what I have been describing.

It talks about removing the explorer.exe registry key from [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options]. Make sure you back up your registry first before deleting anything. We noticed that inside the folder, there was a key which was a debugger which ran a wuauclt.exe from a non-standard location. The file actually didn’t exist, well it did, as a virus, but was removed by symantec and so actually wasn’t there. So during startup, it would try to load this debugger, but nothing was found, and all error messages were suppressed and so nothing else continued to load. So symantec removed the trojan, but left the machine in a state where nothing would work. Most people end up reformatting or doing a repair install, but I have to say to give this a try first, especially if you notice that there is something strange alongside the explorer key.

Written by Milton Lai

The last leg of my trip was in Japan. Headed into Akihabara, the technology town, and Shibuya, the youth fashion town. Japan was humid as anything when I was there. Akihabara - nice place if I lived there, too many 7 story stores of just technology. Then there were the alley ways where both sides were lined with tiny little shops which sold everything. Prices were average, nothing special, then again, I can’t say I was after anything. They sold a larger variety of gear than they do in Sydney thats for sure. I didn’t end up buying anything. Shibuya was full of kids shopping. Fashion wasn’t really my thing, but I had been told to go there. Nothing that special apart from shopping, but I don’t think Japanese fashion is really my thing. Not really liking guys with handbags and purses.. It was a really tough day, just because it felt like I had been up over a day, so anytime I sat down, I would fall asleep. Not the best thing to do when you are in a country where you don’t know where you are going.

So I haven’t experienced jetlag before, but I have now. Its been a relatively short week, because I’d fall asleep quite early and wake up at a reasonable hour. Left work a bit earlier - just so I wouldn’t need to drive so late in the day. Since I’ve been back, its been pretty hectic trying to get all the images sorted. I’ve cut 5000 or so images down to about 800 reasonable photos. I think I’ve just got too many shots of churches and what not, places which I barely remember, places which look the same everywhere. I’ll have some photos to show soon, give it about a week.

So the week was slow to begin with, since the boss didn’t want to put me under too much pressure too soon. Just a small project to get me going again. I’m off my original project for another month or so, just to reduce more frequent releases and so hopefully everything settles down a bit. Weekend, slept a whole heap, caught up with friends and slept some more, and there was a post-wedding shoot as well on the saturday morning. The day turned out to be lovely and hot..

Written by Milton Lai

Currently sitting at Heathrow airport awaiting for this board to tell me which gate to go to for my flight to helsinki. I’m not too sure what all the fuss is about when people say its a terrible airport. I think things ran quite smoothly. So with the past 3 or 4 days, I’ve travelled from Brusells to London.

Brussels was our last day of the trip together - hostel was quite good, reception / common room / computers locks out from 1 to 4 in the afternoon which is a bit annoying. Brussels was somewhat different to the other towns we were in in Belgium. It just seemed a whole lot busier. The squares here were quite nice, the churches look amazing. Beers, mussels, vietnamese food and waffles was the diet for the last day. In my opinion, Belgium seems like a boring town - maybe because we weren’t at the best hostels who knew where we needed to go to have a good time. It was relaxing and quiet. Then again, sunday, monday and tuesday aren’t really party days.

I left for London on the Eurostar from Brussels. It was a pretty quick journey. I found my way pretty easily to my counsins place. Turned up, tried calling, but he was in a meeting - so was then… homeless for another 5 hours or so. I asked around for lockers or a place to store my bag for a few hours - everyone turned me down in the area - found my way to Victoria station where there are lockers - most major train stations will have a place to leave your bags. Went for a walk to Westminster, the Clock Tower, the Parliament and the London Eye. For dinner - thai food - properly cooked rice for the first time in 6 weeks… Next day - travelled out to London Tower before walking all the way back along the river thames and checking out the Tate Museum and Shakespeare Globe. I saw St Paul’s Cathedral, but it was closed by the time I got there. Dinner - steak - medium-rare came out a bit rare for my liking. Walked around Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square and Convent Garden after dinner.

Yesterday I headed off to the national gallery before Buckingham Palace and did the tour for the 14 or so rooms they have open to the public. The one way system is a bit stupid. You end up about 700 metres or so at the other end of the palace at the end of it - 600 or so metres of checking out the garden, a bit ridiculous, especially since I didn’t take any photos of the front of the palace before I went in.. so I had to walk all the way back. Then had lunch before walking up regents st and then walking up and down oxford st. Dinner - Vietnamese place - with a decent serving of food. The weather wasn’t too good for the first time here in London. I escaped the weather by going into the museums and what not.

This morning - tired as anything - packed everything last night. My gate just appeared so I should head off. Next stop helsinki - stop over for about 2 hours - then flight into tokyo - 12 hour stop over - i calculated id be awake and walking around tokyo during normal hours of the day there, but my body will think its midnight to 6am…

Written by Milton Lai

So 2 nights have passed and I’m currently at Nick’s friends place in Sint Niklaas. Lovely place - apparently the biggest square in Belgium. When we arrived, it was the first day in the whole of summer where it was sunny and nice enough weather to have dinner outside and breakfast outside. Today and yesterday have been the same. We headed to Gent the first night to have a few drinks and check out the area - beautiful area around the canals and quite a few churches. Yesterday we walked around Brugge which was smaller and quite cosy, but kind of similar to Gent. Antwerp was considerably bigger and close to the river that flows into belgium. Massive shopping street there as well. Had many beers, most have been very nice,  one was horribly sweet. It doesn’t help if there are just a list of beers and I’m supposed to try them all. Chocolates - only had a handful, but we still have Brussels tomorrow - so there should be a lot more of them there. Waffles is on the list for tomorrow.

It’s been really good staying in a house - a proper bed and a proper shower. Also there is no worrying about taking all my precious belongings and can leave them in the room and know they will be safe. This last leg of the trip I havn’t taken too many photos - but I hope London will be amazing. Definately Cambridge will be awesome with all the parkour pics. Not long now till I have to go home. Not wanting to go home so soon, but I’m sure that’d always happen. So tomorrow is in Brussels, then the 3rd I’ll head into London, 4th will be for the attractions - I hope one day is enough, 5th in Cambridge, 6th I head home!

Written by Milton Lai

Rotterdam, the hostel was pretty well run - themed rooms. CutCopy were playing the night we turned up, but tickets were all sold out unfortunately. We hit up happy hour at the hostel before a couple of other places before calling it a night. The next day we went on a walking tour run by the hostel, and it was a good introduction to the biggest port in Europe. Oh and when we arrived, we found ourselves an all you can eat ribs place - which is only 11.90 Euros on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

We left in the late afternoon to Amsterdam. We arrived here, and the hostel is… kind of horrible. No wifi here. Well there is, its part of the Sofitel Hotel thats around the corner, so I’m using that. I’ve been told there are a few wardrivers around which spraypaint houses which have unsecured wireless connections. I haven’t spotted any though.

Walking through Amsterdam, you can just smell the coffee shops, and they are everywhere. There is one opposite our hostel. Theres been mixed information from different people, but it seems like, marijuana is not legal here, but the Dutch have a way of turning a blind eye to it. So in a way, its legal to find it and buy it and smoke it, but not legal to supply it to the shops… and its not legal to grow it. They are just everywhere.

We met up with one if Nick’s friends from Copenhagen and he showed us around Amsterdam. He’ll be coming out with us tonight. Last night, just a few quiet drinks and a scary walk through the red light district. Basically walking down one narrow lane way, and 3 people in total stopped us, said “This is my lane, you’ve been looking in my lane, you have to pay me now.” Kinda scary, but we escaped unharmed, so alls well. It didn’t help that I had a bit of money on me. Luckily no backpack, so no camera gear. Today - walking tour to learn a bit more about Amsterdam and how much of a tolerant city it is, and really about the Dutch sense of humour.

Tomorrow we’ll most probably hire bikes to check out the parks in the area and a couple museums. I might end up heading to Hoorn (sp?) in saturday during the day, to check out the local parkour action there.

We are here until friday night, but spending saturday night at Nick’s friends place in Amsterdam, so the internet situation might be a little scarce, so blogging might be a bit of an issue.

Written by Milton Lai

So currently I’m on a train from Brussels to Rotterdam. Thought I’d write a quick entry before I forget. I’m not too sure where I left off last, and which holes I haven’t filled. Since arriving in Paris from Bern, its been OK - great place to finish off the France section. So the day after my last entry - I turned up to the Eiffel Tower at about… 8:30 am. The lines weren’t so bad - maybe 30 people in front of me. There were 3 lines. Of course, I ended up in the line which was walking only. 670 steps to the second floor. Quite hard in the beginning, but it gets easier once you pass 200 steps. Then an elevator all the way to the top. It was great when I got there since not too many people had reached the top yet, so I was able to walk around freely enough. The view is quite nice. There weren’t too many people walking about either since it was sprinkling. Grabbed a few shots up there before heading back down.

Then walked over to the Arc De Triomphe. Who knew there was an underground passage way to get there. I just navigated through the 5 lanes of traffic. It wasn’t that busy when I was there. Walked again, up the few hundred stairs to get to the top. Love the wide angle  - I hope the shots turn out alright - just being able to fit 3 streets in at a time makes the image look sweet. Went back to the hostel to grab Nick, before heading back out to the Arc De Triomphe and walk down the Champs Elysees, then into the Lourve. There were no lines, so it was a quick walk in. It was a great place to escape the rain. The place is huge, and most people say it’d take at least half a day, if not two to see the whole lot. Notre Dame was next, then the Pantheon and then Centre Pompidou - which looks… kinda crap. Maybe I just don’t appreciate it, or the whole thing didn’t fit in one shot.

The next day, headed off to Lisses / Evry Courcouronnes to meet Rhys - basically the greatest parkour practitioner in Australia. He was… late, quite late, but once he arrived, everything started to look like what you’d see in videos. As we were walking to Lisses from Evry, I spoted a few things, one main one being the Dame Du Lac. Its a whole lot smaller than it looks in videos but its still at a crazy height once you stand at the foot of it. Getting to Lisses, you can see the stairs which David Belle descends from one to the other, and a small training quad which many videos and photos have been shot. Unfortunately I didn’t catch Rhys on those stairs, but grabbed some at the quad. Around the corner is a famous set of red/brown stairs, yellow/orange walls. I grabbed shots of this, but no action shots. The school where the roof gaps were just a bit further down. A rock right next to a 6 foot fence which many people jump straight over. Rhys showed me a local training route which the locals often do. Its a square park with rocks and trees around the boundary of the park. The aim it to not touch the floor, and if you do then to start again. The jumps get longer and harder, and climbing the trees is necessary. We hit the Dame Du Lac next, and that thing is amazing. As we got in, Rhys couldn’t help himself, and scaled it as fast as any other person I’ve seen. Its an impressive structure , in my eyes, built for nothing else but parkour - maybe rockclimbing in the early stages but its intention was to be a piece of artwork. I unfortunately didn’t scale it all the way to the top, but I did climb it.

A short walk back to Evry and we found a common playground in most videos shot in Evry. Here there were locals and guys from everywhere else there, practicing. It was great to see kids there, giving it a go, and wanting to. The other people there are all helpful, and its a great thing to see, something thats lacking in Australia. Watching Rhys progress is one of the most inspirational things you could ever see. He just tries and tries, there was a cat precision he has wanted to land for a while which he has seen last time, but wasn’t able to do it, and this time, after a few attempts, nailed it. Once is never.

Then it was to see the man power jump. The jump only 3 people (could be wrong about that) have done - David Belle being one of them. It was… not as big as I thought it was. Its a decent drop at 4 metres, the length would be about… 4 metres also. There was no way to get up there unless I hung off the outside of the stair case, so my shots of it are only from the ground.

It was a brilliant day, and the weather was great, I just hope the photos turn out looking amazing. Chilled out dinner last night. Met one of Nicks friends for lunch today before heading onto our train. I think there’ll be over a weeks worth of processing time for all my photos. I’ve been shooting RAW for the whole of yesterday, and quite a few more times in RAW.
France was pretty cool, Lisses definately topped it off for me. Just passed through Brussels, which we’ll be coming back to. So its Rotterdam for a night, and then Amsterdam for 3 before heading back into Brussels for 3 and then I’ll be off into London. I’ll be visiting the attractions on one day, one other day I’ll head off to Cambridge to check out the Parkour scene there because I’ve been told there will be quite impressive people showing up there. Also a bunch of Aussie guys will be there as well.

Written by Milton Lai

Sitting at the park outside the Eiffel Tower. The sun just set and the tower is lit up. Blue. The queues to get up are a bit nuts at the moment - so I might head back here tomorrow morning to check out the lines before heading up. We took the longest journey to get here. From Bern, train to Basel, then to Mullhouse Ville, before a train to Paris Est. A couple Metro trains took us the rest of the way. 7+ hours later we get here. Hostel - 3 ducks hostel - doesn’t look so great. The shower is in the middle of the room - so there is no bathroom. Oh and wifi is NOT FREE here! It is right next to a metro station which is good, but it seems metro stations are about 5 minutes walk apart. Definately time for some dinner soon.

Tomorrow - I’ll get up early to hopefully climb this Eiffel Tower, and the Arc De Triomphe. The most probably head back to the hostel to grab Nick before heading to Evry. I thought we should go there tomorrow and not the day after since its a Sunday - so on Monday everything will be open and possibly less lines. But also hope that tomorrow - being on the weekend - I might be able to catch some photos of people in Evry practising parkour.
Day after - Monday - will be to check out the rest of the sites. Tuesday we’ll be heading off to Holland.

Written by Milton Lai

Wow, not having written for so long makes me forget things. So I believe I was on my way to Marseille. Our hostel in Marseille was in an area right next to the station. It was amongst the run-down backstreets and so at night - it was a bit scary. The town itself is quiet and people are generally nice. The night we turned up we had Cous Cous which was well worth it. Recommended by the hostel receptionist as a cheap eat in the area. The next day, just a whole lot of walking and exploring and found our way up to Notre-Dame de la garde.

We only stayed in Marseille for one night. We then trained it to Lyon for 2 nights. Lyon was quite different again to the other towns since it was less touristy. We walked through the old town, new town, and climbed up another huge hill to get to a Basillica - Notre-Dame de Fourviere. Gorgeous view from the top - just wish it was sunset rather than in the middle of the day. That night I had snails for the first time. It was quite nice - just tasted of garlic and butter. Also had some kind of sausage which is famous in Lyon… It didn’t taste that great… and I felt kind of sick afterwards. The town is quite lit up at night. We went back to the basillica that night, but without the camera. The town looks amazing during the night with all its lights on.

I spent quite a bit of time holding my laptop out the window of our hostel room… just because there was no connection inside the room - anywhere - but there was some signal strength when I stuck the laptop out the window. I was clearly desperate for an internet connection and didn’t want to go all the way down to the kitchen for wireless. It didn’t help on the last day when the lift broke down. We were on the second top floor…

Next morning, we headed to the French Alps. Trained it to St Gervais and then a train to Chamonix. Chamonix would be quite alive in the winter time since it was packed when we got there. People are a bit rude and unhelpful in the town. The best place to go would be the tourist information point. We were told the main cable car has a 2 hour wait, so we headed to Grands Montets instead which isn’t as high, but there was no line. A bus took us straight there. Cable car to the top - you can see Mount Blanc - which I guess is the main thing you’d want to see. There are quite a few paragliders that travel the same path and jump off the edge. I really wanted a shot of those guys up close, but couldn’t get down to where they were and we were quite short on time.

We made our connecting trains afterwards, and made it to Bern… at just past 12 am. Arrived here, no reception, panicked a bit, called the “emergency” number, which I’m sure was just the hostel owners home number, and found out they left me an envelope at the bar downstairs. It was a good thing, otherwise we would’ve slept on the floor… somewhere… Today, walked around the old town (all these towns have an old town), along the river - which we hope to swim in tomorrow morning before we leave - its quite popular to swim in it during the winter, but it is a bit cold, and it did just start raining, so we’ll see tomorrow, and saw the bear in the hole… its a bit sad seeing people throw apples and things down at the bear, it just doesn’t seem right… Back in the hostel now for a break from all the walking.

Everything here is quite expensive. I guess Maccas is the best way to deduce that. It was just under 12 Swiss-Francs for a medium Big Mac meal… and our aussie dollar is 95 Swiss-Franc cents… so yes, instead of our 6-7 dollar meal, its nearly double… we ate it anyway… On the topic of food, chocolate filled crossants are the best breakfast snacks ever.

Tomorrow - train at about 10 am - 7 hour train journey into Paris. All the TGV trains are booked (it would take about 5 hours to get into Paris via Geneve). Not looking forward to that one at all. Then Paris for 3 nights… so I’ll want to catch the attractions, go to Evry and check out the birthplace of Parkour, and check out the shops. I’ve been told shopping is quite expensive there… I’ll hopefully have internet in the room.

Written by Milton Lai

So I’m actually in Marseille at the moment. Just a quite note for travellers out there. Make sure you bring a laptop with you. Most hostels charge for using THEIR computers for the internet. WIFI is FREE. So just as long as you bring a laptop / borrow one / buy the EeePC, the internet is then free. Internet prices range from 1 Euro for 10 minutes to 1 Euro for 1 hour. At hostels, they are generally 1 Euro for 15 minutes - 30 minutes.

So anyway, Nice was a relaxing town. We had KFC on the corner  of our block - extremely handy. I was however, locked out of my room in the early hours of the morning because the door handle broke. Long night. So on arrival we had a walk to the beach there - gorgeous colour - I’ve got some nice photos of the beach that day. We’ve been having quiet nights, both because Nick is still unwell, and also because the hostels we’ve been at lately don’t have common rooms and cheap drinks. The next day, we had a day trip out to Monaco. Its quite a rich town, nice looking ports and it just has that expensive atmostphere about it. Back to Nice and I went for a walk on my own to the highest point in the Old Town of Nice - as well as through it. Colourful place, small streets, lots of cafes and bars. The view from the top was quite beautiful - although the sun was out and there was a huge haze over the town.

Next morning - which was this morning, I headed out at 7 am to the beach. Only locals about - it felt really good to be amongst the locals, swimming and lying around - having them joke around. Its like a regular thing for them. Headed back at 10 am to pack and get some shopping done - only found a couple things - and then onto a train here to Marseille.

Blisters are killing me at the moment. Hopefully head out on a quick walk to the port this evening and catch some dinner and tomorrow a walk to the castle and some vantage points over the city before hitting a beach for the rest of the day. Tomorrow evening we’ll be heading to Lyon. Hopefully there’ll be free wifi there.

Written by Milton Lai

I can’t quite remember what I wrote last time, but I’m currently in Riomaggiore. Its my second night here. So possibly the last time I left off was in Florence. So the last night in Florence was a quite one since we had an early train out the next day (which didn’t really happen) to Pisa and then to La Spezia and then to Cinque Terre. So we headed to the Duomo and had to queue up for that. It just wasnt that great… We did however, and stupidly, climb the tower next to it. 400+ steps. It had the best view of Florence though. I’ve got a few pictures of that. In climbing this tower, we ended up trying to race back to our accommodation to grab our bags and back to the train station. When we got back to the hostel, we ended up 5 minutes out from catching the train, and we decided it just wasn’t going to happen. So instead, we went for a swim in the pool. As left after about 40 minutes (train comes every hour), we decided to grab a feed since we hadn’t had breakfast. Found ourselves an asian take out place and grabbed ourselves sweet and sour pork… it took about 10 minutes to make! And so we missed out train… for sweet and sour pork… which I guess ended up being worth it, but just not at the time since we ran with our backpacks to the station.

Train to Pisa took about an hour, and the walk to the actual leaning tower was about 20-25 minutes. As you arrive, EVERYONE is holding a stupid pose. It’s quite funny to watch, until you have to do it. I guess its a must do. The square in which its in is quite small. Nice buildings, but nothing else there.

Then we trained it to La Spezia and onto Riomaggiore. Found our accommodation. Its a bit of a shock the space allocation we’ve been given. Basically, its like a really small apartment. Kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, living room and a second bedroom. All livable rooms have at least 3 beds in it. The living room has 5 and no windows. Company is nice here, main aussies who are heading off to live in London and wanted a quick break before work begins.
Last night, we had dinner with a few people in our “dorm”. It was at a restaurant – the portion just wasn’t enough… it was then followed by drinks on the rocks next to the water. It was quite nice and cool. Had an awesome view of the buildings as well as the ocean.

Today, woke up early enough to get a move on with the walking track. Total walking time for all 5 towns was 3 and a half hours. We stopped in Vernazza for a lie down on the rocks. The weather turned out alright for the walk. We ended up getting to Monterosso and it was cold enough that we didnt need to or want to hop into the water at the beach there. The walk was amazing. It is actually quite scenic. The last section took about an hour and a half. Some people recommend doing it from Monterosso to Riomaggiore, so you get the hard bit over and done with first, but theres not much reward to end up in Riomaggiore. The first 3 towns are a breeze to walk. If you start at Monterosso, there are a tonne of uphill steps right at the beginning, which would basically wear you out considerably.

Just had pizza for dinner, shower soon – the weather isn’t the best to be out at the rocks again tonight, but we’ll see about that.We’ll then be off at 10am tomorrow to hop on a train to Genoa and then onto Nice and should arrive at abuot 4pm.

I’ve gone through all the CF cards I’ve got on me, so its time to start recycling, and I’ll have to double check all my cards tonight to make sure I’ve got all the photos saved before I hit the format button.

Nearly 3000 photos right now… and only 2 weeks have gone! I currently cant say I’ve got too many amazing photos, but enough I’m sure to satisfy me.

Written by Milton Lai