Friday, October 19, 2007

Spaceflight Participant

Someone send me a forwarded email stated that our Malaysia so called astronauts was actually a space traveler (someone who doesn't seems to provide any valuable experience for the space mission). I wouldn't believe it until I made a search to the NASA homepage and the email was right. There wasn't any biography, interview and even mission description for our space hero. What is he doing up there right now I wonder?

NASA homepage for Expedition 16 crew

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

North Cyprus trip (late post)

This article has to be delayed as I was not convenient to upload the photos when I was in Cyprus (plus I was busy when I'm back to Malaysia). There are taboo in the office (at South Cyprus) where people are forbidden to go the North Cyprus. This is due to the conflict in the past between North and South (to find out more, click here).

After the trip to the beach, we have one more day on the car and we undecided what to do with it. Some of us heard that the North Cyprus has more interesting and beautiful places. After a much discussion on where to go, eventually, we went across the border to the North and give it a one day trip.

Kerynia
The first destination is to the Kerynia, where I think it the capital for the North and it the nearest city near to Nicosia. The differences between traveling in south and north is that, it gives me a feeling of going back home town because the road heading there is a mountain pass. The ride was like roller coaster when approaching the town as we need to climb over a mountain.




After 2 hours of ride, we finally reach to the town. As according to our colleague said, there is a harbor in the city and it is really beautiful. There is this old castle facing toward the sea at harbor. A written at the sign board said it was used as a defense base against the enemy ships but somehow I saw no canon there (perhaps I should buy the entrance ticket to check it out). We went around the harbor as there are a lot of restaurants and cafes in the area. Of course, there is not to be missed light house which seems rather small for me (or is it really a light house?). When it's about lunch time, we went to one of the restaurant nearby to have some Turkish food.




Bellapais
We took off around 3 in the afternoon and went to one of the historical place called The Bellapais Monastery. After 15 minutes drive, we finally found our way and reached there. The monastery located at the middle part of the mountain and there local folks living nearby. We took couple of pictures outside the building as nobody willing to pay the entrance ticket into the monastery (maybe all 3 of us are not interested in knowing the past). There are some souvenir shops nearby selling scarf, t-shirts and we did some shopping before leaving the place.




Salamis
As the evening is approaching, we make our final tour to the Salamis. Yet, another historical place which required entrance fee. Again, nobody wants to get in (I can confirm now that 3 of us has not interest in knowing the past). Fortunately, there was a small beach nearby and we took couples of picture there. While on our way back to the car before leaving the place, came along a ice cream truck. All 3 of us bought ourselves a 3 scope different flavor ice cream and enjoyed it on a nearby bushes. :P Not a good place for having the ice cream but the taste of the ice cream was so good that none of care about the surrounding.




On our way back to the south, we stopped by a small restaurant to have our Turkish dinner. After couple of check on the map, walk across the road to ask for direction, checking the surrounding on how we came, we finally found the border and back to our home.

It was a good tour on North Cyprus but I bet there are more where we unable to make it within a day.