Last weekend we went for a little hike in the Slieve Mish mountains. The hills were coated with some layer of snow and ice.
The beach at the bay down there is the same as the one on the last two pics of this entry from our summer vacation 07.
http://domi-tech.blogspot.com/2007/09/summer-vacation.html
December last year I went to the EPTC conference in Singapore. As it was my first time there it was a fantastic experience. I got lucky and had a hotel room on the 15th floor. This was the view from my window.
The amazing thing about Singapore is the mixture of everything. There are some british colonial buildings for example. But the weather is much greater than Britain. While I was there it was always about 30 degrees and very humid but still enjoyable.
The best places to get food are these food courts where you can get exquisite chinese, indian, arab and malay cuisine for about 2€ per meal.
A stroll through the arabian quarter...
...and through the indian quarter.
The conference dinner took place at the Singapore turf and racing club. I did not win any money though.
The famous Singapore flyer.
In Octobre I had the chance to pay a short visit to London. Of course I visited the main tourist places such as the tower bridge, seen from the tower of London...
... and the Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.
We also saw a few of the guards with the funny hats. Even though the hat might be supposed to make them bigger they are still quite small.
Some pictures from the beatiful Ballybunnion beach. Unfortunately it was way too cold for swimming.
The rest of Ballybunnion Castle. There is just one wall left which makes it possible to let it look intact on pictures but that would have been boring.
After almost 4 weeks travelling through the rockies our journey was coming to an end. Also the original purpose of the journey, the SMTA conference was approaching. But as we were already in Florida we spent a few days in the Keys and the Everglades.
I do not have many pictures of the Keys. On the first day we went snorkling and on the other days tropical storm Fay was approaching and a few days after we left all tourists had to evacuate the Keys.
There floats your handbag...
Gotcha!
Arches National Park contains a lot of natural arches that like canyons are formed by erosion of sandstone. In a first step the erosion leaves so called fins standing out from the ground and some of these are washed out leaving just an arch.
The intrinsic geomagnetic forces inside the arch pull up all mass to the center of the arch, allowing for some cool stunts. It is only sometimes a problem to get out of that field again...
...but we managed and kept going to the double arch wich was only a few hundred meters apart.
Landscape arch is one of the longest archest in the world with a length of over 90 meters. It looks very fragile.
On the way to Monument Valley we first passed the famous horseshoe bend of the Colorado river near Page, Arizona. This is another one of these spots that make their way through calendars and posters.
Also known from calendars, but really famous due to numerous western movies is Monument Valley. Unfortunately I have to add that it looks more impressive on pictures than in reality. The actual valley is way smaller than you would expect. Still it is an impressive sight and worth visiting if you are around anyway.
The Antelope Canyons are located on Navajo land in Arizona. One has to mention that the entrance to the canyons is quite expensive adding up to about 50$ per person for both. I suggest deciding on just one of the two parts. We started in the morning at the lower Antelope Canyon. Because we were among the first people to get in there was very little traffic inside and we could spend some time on taking pictures. 
The Upper Antelope Canyon can only be entered with a guided tour. Before the tour every group is brought to the entrance by Jeep. This ride could also be offered as a rollercoaster replacement due to the terrain and the drivers driving style. The Canyon itself is a bit darker than the lower counterpart, but way less quiet as there are several groups going through at the same time.
As we were already in southern Utah the Grand Canyon north rim was only a short drive away. The northern side is not as touristic as the southern rim which is in close proximity to Las Vegas.
On that day the weather was hot but there were some showers. On the upper left of the next picture you can see some rain.
The most distinctive feature of the Grand Canyon is as the name suggests its unbelievable size. Looking down the walls is comparable to looking out of a plane window. The problem with it is that there was not much to do there. The hike down to the bottom would have to be split into 2 days and is very demanding, so we procrastinated it to the next vacation (sounds PHD style).
