Asia

Leaving bitterly cold Germany I left to Singapore on the 8th January to work for a Dutch client for almost 3 weeks rolling out and training a planning software.

The City itself is magnificent and as every Asian capital an impressing contrast to any German city.











The first weekend I enjoyed the 30° temperature and sun on Sentosa island beach in Singapore.



This weekend my collegue and me went to Bukit Lawang near Medan on Sumatra island (Indonesia) for some Jungle trekking. It was amazing to experience this scenery and see wild monkeys, gibbons and orang-utans in their natural environment.

A Walk in the Woods - my steps on the Appalachian Trail (New York State)

In November I have been to the US for another training. 2 weeks in Parsippany, half an hour east of New York City.

The first weekend I used to go hiking the Appalachian trail. I choose the section in the Bear Mountain and Harriman State Park, the oldest part of the trail.





The Bear Mountain bridge crossing the Hudson River

















The Lemon Squeezer

Odenwald Hike with Christian and Imke

The Odenwald is a small mountain range just 20 km away from Mannheim. We went the Neckar valley upstream passing Heidelberg driving to Neckargerach for a small morning hike with Christian and Imke.

Starting in the small town we followed the river for a while before hiking in the meadows and forest of the Odenwald.



On the way back to the Neckar valley we followed down the Margarethen gorge which offers a lot of cascading waterfalls. It is quite steep and luckily the weather was dry and sunny, otherwise this would have been a slippery path.



The view was astonishing when we finally came out of the gorge and had "our" river back. The village on the photo is Guttenbach.



Unfortunately I missed the photo of all 4 of us on the bench. Mine is far too overexposed. I should finish the photo book before playing around with my Nikon D90.

1978

Between my company's and our riding stable's christmas parties on Friday and today I went to Austria for the 30th birthday of my old mate Steffi. After riding the Alpine Coaster (a kind of roller coaster in the snow) we went up the mountain above Bludenz to party in a very scenic mountain hut of the ski club.



Tony and Steffi filled the guests with delicious local food and drinks,...



...local friends guided a torchlight procession...



...and triggered some fireworks.



Just before crawling in our sleeping bags Tony and me escorted Steffi circling around the hut barefooted in the snow, which seems to be a local tradition when getting 30 without being married, at least somebody told her to do so. :)



In the morning I hiked back to the cableway enjoying the nice mountain panorama.



What a great short vacation in the mountains. Living here does not look like bad idea.

The last warm and sunny sunday this year?

Last Sunday was a big exception in the last weeks with its very warm and sunny weather. So it was a perfect fit for our small trip to Freinsheim in the Palatinate where a wine festival was hold.



We met some actual and former collegues and had nice food, fresh and old wine.
And Lea had a big hangover afterwards. At least it looks like. ;)

Hickory Run State Park

Today I ventured out to see the surroundings of Philly and started in the Hickory Run State Park, a small but nice natural parc with lots of mountains, gorges, rivers, waterfalls...

It also hosts a rare boulder field which looks really incredible. I was lucky to spot a rainbow next to the lonesome tree that made his way through meters of stones to the surface.



I did some short hikes along the Shades of Death trail and the Stone trail and went to the Hawk Falls. It was hot as hell, over 30° with lots of small but heavy rainshowers, which made it even worse because of the high humidity. But nontheless it was a nice day out in nature with lots of lasting images in my mind.