It's now been 12 years since I started this blog. I am certainly (much) older, but hopefully not any more boring compared to my earlier me! I think it's high time I posted for one more time and claim the last 4 Things completed. As you have probably guessed by now, I don't like leaving business unfinished. Neither though do I want to wait forever before I can "properly" completed it. Life is short and one Thing I have learnt over the years, is that sometimes it is OK for Things to simply be good enough. There are indeed battles that you need to give, striving for perfection, but this should not apply to everyThing (pun intended).

There is also another good reason why I need to get on with Things: I bought 101 Things you wish you'd invented, 101 Things to do to become a superhero, 101 Things you need to know and some you don't and.. 101 Things to do before you die. If, on average I need 10 years to complete each list, then I'd be giving the last book a very different meaning!

So...

Thing 73: Have a sleepover 
Not only did I have a sleepover, but I actually organised one when I was 17!

Thing 59: Camp out in the backyard 
I have gone camping and/or slept outside. Such experiences have never been the most comfortable ones. These reminded me of numerous times when I had to "camp" overnight involuntarily at an airport somewhere, waiting for my next flight. No pain... no gain. So this Thing is officially done.

Thing 74: Become a spy
That would have made sense 15 years ago. Now we have social media. LOL!

Thing 55: Invent a new trend
I have often thought of myself as being an innovative and enterprising individual. I would not though refer to myself as a trend-setter. So it seems I am more on the "invention" side as opposed to the "new trend" side of this Thing. Personally speaking, this is more than enough for me. I've never really cared much about what others thought or did and hence if I was to do something, I would have done it for myself, and not for setting a new trend.

Given that the last Thing written up was one on inventing something... one can only interpret this as a sign that the next book and list of 101 Things to go through should be the one on the Things I wish I'd invented!

Thing #67: Build the Ultimate Sandcastle and Have Fun in the Sun

They did not specify what exactly they meant by "ultimate", so I thought to innovate...

Thing #82: Learn to Skip Stones

I used to do this when I was a kid. I could typically  get 4-5 skips which was not that bad. So I thought to try this again. I travelled to the beach and start throwing stones to the sea. I will not comment on my performance. Instead.. I will just show you a more interesting video.

Think #54: Be a Daredevil

I'd prefer that thing was called Be Daredevil, in which case I'd have prefer to be Hulk or even better Iron Man.

I did try a roller coaster recently, but I think to claim this Thing riding the crystal clear cabin at Ngong Ping 360 was sufficient enough. 

Thing #29: Climb to the Top of a Mountain

If you climb at the top of a mountain then you have reached the Peak. I took a photo to prove it!

Thing #46: go as fast as you can by train

As I was going to travel from Osaka to Tokyo by train I decided to measure its speed using my GPS for Thing #46: go as fast as you can.

My first impression was that of a deja vu! I have been on a train like this before, I thought to myself. Indeed, it turns out Taiwan's High Speed Rail and more specifically the THSR 700T train series is a variant of the 700 Series Shinkansen, built by a consortium of Japanese rolling stock manufacturers. So no surprise that they looked very similar.

GPS recorded about 265 km/h which is not really that fast for high speed rails. What is probably more interesting is the reliability of the the Shinkansen. In 2003, JR Central reported that the Shinkansen's average arrival time was within six seconds of the scheduled time. This includes all natural and human accidents and errors and is calculated over roughly 160,000 Shinkansen trips completed.

Thing #76: Learn to Say Useful Phrases in Other Languages

I take it computer languages don't count for this one, so lets focus on what most people would consider a 'language'.

I can handle more than a few useful phrases in English (in case you did not notice), which is a good start for this thing. I can order ice cream in German apart from some other equally useful stuff. I even had a complete dialogue in French once, which went something like:

Airline staff: Bonjour!
Me: Bonjour!
Airline staff: Asks for my destination (I could recognise that much!)
Me: Oui
Airline staff: hands me the boarding pass etc
Me: Merci beaucoup!

The above should have been more than enough to claim this Thing completed. However, I thought I will try something a bit more special for this one. I've known I was coming to Japan for 10 months now, so I though to wait and claim it done when I arrive by trying my Japanese survival vocabulary.

Thing #76: done! Arigatōgozaimasu!

Thing #46: Go as fast as you can (RE-done!)

I was travelling with a 747-400 the other day and it reported a ground speed of... 1002km/h. So I officially broke the 1000km/h milestone. Then again, perhaps that was not that great after all. A bit of wind can make wonders. Still the 747-400 took me all the way to Taipei where I got a lift by (one of) the fastest lift in the world in Taipei 101! It travelled 101 floors in 45 seconds. Not bad eh!?

Thing #53: Succeed at something you are bad at

Many people can not sleep when they travel, for example on a train or a bus or an airplane. I am not one of them. In fact I can sleep even before the plane takes off. I find it helps kill time more effectively to starring at the clouds for hours and hours and hours (and hours). The only problem is that when you are on a plane everyone feels obliged to talk to you, it's good customer service after all. The cabin crew will offer a mint, before explaining the safety measures. Then they will bring some food (which you don't really want to eat), then they will bring the drinks, then the coffee/tea, then they will come back to pick things up and then... oh then they will try to sell you duty free. Surely, if I wanted to buy duty free I would have done all my shopping when I was at the airport. As if the above are not enough, the captain needs to inform us of the route we are going to follow and the flying level. Does it make any difference? I got on board at point A and I want toget out at point B. That's all it matters to me. Why am I saying all this? It's because it's impossible to sleep with all these disruptions.

Anyway, to complete this Thing I managed to stay awake for about 30-35 minutes in the taxi that brought me to the airport. This was a great achievement if one considers I failed the last three times and this is the exception and not the norm!

No words needed...

Thing #97: Take great photos - Done!

Sometimes you don't need to know how to take great photos. The landscape renders them great photos because it's just so beautiful. This certainly helps a hopeless photographer like myself!

Anyway, all the photos below were taken in Santorini. I resized them so that you can use them for wallpapers (4:3 screens - they may will look a bit funny if stretched for use on a wide screens)! Just click on any of them, then on the new window right click on the photo and 'Set as background', if you are using Internet Explorer.

Thing #30: Make a one-minute movie

The Gateshead Millennium Bridge is a pedestrian and cycle bridge spanning the River Tyne in England between Gateshead on the south bank, and Newcastle upon Tyne on the north bank. Minuscule hydraulic rams, one on each side, tilt the bridge back on special pivots to allow small ships and boats to pass underneath. Its appearance during this manoeuvre has led to it being nicknamed the Blinking Eye Bridge.

This more than one minute video does not show the blinking eye effect (click here to see this) but it does show the boat passing underneath! Enjoy!



Links of interest:

• Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4
• Web cam
• Tilt times
• 360 degrees virtual tour
• Specification

Thing #46: Go as fast as you can (done!)

I think I flew once with a Boeing 747 which has operational speeds of over 1000 km/h. That's fast! However as I can not really recall whether it was a 747, I will consider flying with a MD-11 a few days ago as the closest thing to flying as fast as I can. The MD-11 has a speed of about 945 km/h. Both airplanes are very easy to spot. The 747 is massive, you just can not miss it! The MD-11 is a three-engine medium to long-range wide body airliner, with two engines mounted on underwing pylons and a third engine at the base of the vertical stabilizer. For example, click here for a photo of a FedEx MD-11 or the one below.

Of course, the above speeds are nowhere close to those of the Orbiter Specifications (for Endeavour, OV-105) which has a speed of 27,875 km/h but this will do for now! Speaking of which, did you know that the Boeing 747 is used to transport the Space Shuttle? Check it out!

Thing #32: Visit...

"There are thousands of amazing sites to visit around the world..." and it's good to see that I have already visited those required for this Thing to be completed:

• safari park (the nearest safari park is a few thousand km aways, so a zoo will do for this)
• carnival (got the t-shirt)
• castle (no knights there, but still...)
• theme park (A long, long time ago in a galaxy far away...)
• a farm (mooouOOOOO)
• an aquarium (ohh... there's a fish, and another one, and another one... etc)
• the countryside (I almost live there)
• another country (done)
• your capital city (done)

So I guess I can claim this Thing is now completed!

It would have been soooo much better, if I had to show you a video clip like the one below:

Thing #70: Spend Christmas in another country

Hm... what's the definition of 'another country'? I live in the UK, but I was not born here. So technically, 'another country' could be considered as any country other my native one. Hence, spending Christmas in the UK qualifies me for this Thing.

On the other hand, this is not really exciting as I have been doing this for... well, for ever! As such for this Thing to be completed, I will consider my trip to China a couple of years ago for Christmas and New Year's Eve.



A photo from the New Year's Eve party!

Thing 90: Go from A to B using a map

I was in London the other day and just got out of Kings Cross. It was a relatively cold night, but not that cold so I thought to walk. After careful consideration though, I took the tube and got out to the station that was indicated on the map printed on my hotel's reservation. Thing #90 was just about to be completed! Or so I thought!

You see, maps are usually supposed to help you. Not confuse you. In this case the map was a small square one about 3inches by 3inches that had only the major streets labeled. If you thought that the hotel's street would have been labeled to help you find the hotel easier, well think again. The good news though was that there were maps on every bus stop so I was able to use them to figure out the hotel's street. That made me fell very proud for my problem solving skills!

Anyway, I got out of the metro station and was instantly faced with the big decision. Shall I go right or left? Hmm... left, no right, no left, probably right or... left. OK, right it is. After wondering around the block for some 30 minutes I found myself back to point A. Deja vu! Surely, I have been here before!

I could not believe how difficult something so 'simple' had become. I mean the hotel was supposed to be 5 mins walk from the station, and in fairness it was, provided you knew how to use the map. Standing outside the tube station, for the second time, I decided to go left. This is when I learnt a very important lesson about using maps: you need to be in the right direction.

10 minutes later I was finally there. Yes, I wrote above that the hotel was 5 mins later, but what made you think that I suddenly became an expect on map reading?

Places to visit!