Yuzhno - October .. Autumn in Yuzhno

This is a saturday after some first snowfall after work hours the day before... October 13th 2007.. woke up at around 930am and decide to snap some pictures of.. autumn snow.


View from my room..


Lower left view


Right view


Where else? Gagarin park..


Inside Gagarin park..

Nice bridge with some reflections


Gagarin lake


Me and my photo buddy for the day...


Near the entrance of Gagarin park


The ferries wheel shot again.. with snow

Yuzhno - Sept 2007 - end of Summer, begining of Autumn

I get to 'revisit' some of the limited number of places that I have visited in Yuzhno when a colleague new to Yuzhno arrive end of September. Staying in the same hotel, I brought her around places to get some grocery, the Gagarin Park, the next door zoo and Lenin st. I'm happy I can start up my camera for some early autumn warm-up.


Gagarin park theme park section.


From across the lake, the Mega Palace hotel.


New addition to the zoo, wolves.


Everyone was in Russian, but I think this should be a wolf. Nice tail.


A flower I thought I should snap.


The allegator have grown a little since my last visit.


The iguana put on a little weight.

Yuzhno - September 2007

In September 2007... I got my lower right wisdom tooth removed in a local Russian dental hospital, and I am glad. The pain started as early as three weeks ago, and I have opt to take anti-biotics to avoid extraction for the last two weeks but nothing helped. The night I had it removed was also the night I could sleep through till the next morning without waking up in pain.

Here are some of the pictures of food I had during and after the extraction. I have alot more but considering I have uploaded too many pictures on food, I'll refrain from posting too many this trip.


Nice bread...


Fruits are good.. and all tree types of grapes were offered on the fruit plate.


The pancake and soup are part of the standard toothache meal too.


Yes, the hotel doesn't not have the proper ESPN and Start Sports and even the local tv REN-TV, that broadcast live or even delayed Formula 1... so I found a web site that allow me to stream live-F1 for a small amount of money. I am glad I found it, I never missed a race weekend since then. And I am also glad Kimi won this year's driver's title. Congratulations Kimi!.


This is the clock with alarm that came with the room. One of my three alarm clock that gets me up at 715am in the mornings. My other alarm clocks are my iPaq, and another spare SE mobile phone. Ok, was trying out my new Speedlite Sergey help me get from the US, so took this trial and error shot.

Yuzhno - Sept 2007 - Malaysian BBQ @ Zima

A malaysian friend invited myself and a colleage to another friend's place for BBQ @ Zima... so since I am free on that saturday, we went on to grab a few bottle of beers and waited at Rubin to meet another friend to pick up some stuff for the BBQ before we took a cab to Zima.


Nice green grass, only seen for 4-5 months a year.


This is Comrad's house in Zima.


Everyone help to start up fire, without any fire starter. I am really surprise we manage to start it up with dried grass and some twigs found surrounding the house.


Chicken wings, drumstick, pork ribs, etc.


Everyone try to do something.


Some beers and accessories..


Almost cooked.


Yes, we have scallops on the menu that day..


Here's the people Jeffrey Francis, Taran, myself, Paul(from Sg) and Comrad.. a few others came later.

Yuzhno - September 07 - Yuzhno 125 Anniversary

After Gorniy Vozdukh, we decided to check out Lenin St. as my colleague said there was some celebration when he was there in the morning, so I thought it would be a nice photo taking opportunity, but I guess it was already too dark.


Lenin Square.


Some flowers..


A little girl on pony ride.


Russian girl with Russian flag.


Not sure what actually happened, but we see people start throwing coins and everybody watches while a guy picks them up.

Yuzhno - September 2007 - Gorniy Vozdukh

It was a boring sunday after a long boring saturday, a colleague turned up at my hotel room door as planned earlier.. to visit the Gorniy Vozdukh (mountain air) Ski Resort... no skiing allowed during summer-autumn but anyone can visit to enjoy nice fresh air, free of charge. Called the hotel receptionist to book a taxi, paid 120rubles for the ride.


This is the view from the ski resort, a good view of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.


Cable car and chair lift being serviced.


Nix looking for a perfect shot.


Cable car used during winter to the ski slope.


A little boy, standing at the edge of a higher ground taking a good look at the city.


The Russian flags.