BUSINESS TRIP TO IRELAND

Last week I had to visit a customer in Northern Ireland. I like Ireland, for its landscapes, gentle and dramatic, for the buildings, the people, and the pubs with their atmosphere and beer.
But this time I had no spare time to enjoy the country. 

KONKAN COAST

The coast of the Maharashtra state, facing the Arabian Sea, is known as "Konkan". It extends south of Mumbai, for some hundreds kilometers.
It's not the favourite sea destination in India (Goa and the Kerala coast are much more popular), but it has some interesting spots.
I have been in some of them, in its northern stretch. I left from Pune early in the morning, taking a less trafficked road that crosses the Ghats right west of Pune, along the Mulshi lake, with some interesting views.
I reached the coast initially at Janjira (about 170 km from Pune), where there is an imposing fort built on an island few hundreds of meters off the beach. I watched the fort from the village only, since the waiting time for the boats was too much.
Then I moved north to Murud, a nearby small fishing town with a long beach.
The best and most known beach in the area is Kashid, with white sand, palms in the back, and quite clear waters; the beach was crowded by families and groups of friends. Many were having fun with some water sports, like riding water-bikes. I saw only one family of non-Indians.
Further north there is the beach of Nagaon, whose the sand is more gray-ish.
My trip lasted in Alibag, a city that has become a favourite spot for Mumbai's high class as a resort. But the beach right in the center of the town was not inspiring, to my taste.
All in all it was an interesting trip. However, the coast and the sea, despite agreable, were not as beautiful as the coasts in certain parts of Italy, Sardinia, Puglia, Sicily, or Cilento in Campania. But I can be a little partisan for my country ...


View Larger Map

Some photos, from my Picasa album ..

AFTER CHINA, INDIA

After leaving China, I have gone to India, where my company has another plant, in Pune.
Tomorrow, sunday, I'll make a trip to the sea, the Maharashtra coast facing the Arabian Sea.
Let's see how it is!

NEW CAMERA: OPTED FOR FUJI F300EXR

While in China, Suzhou, I visited some electronics markets ("U-Town") and I took the decision, I have bought the F305EXR (chinese version of the F300EXR). Actually, it is made right in Suzhou, in a plant not so far from my company's one.
The price was not as cheap as in the USA, more or less as in Europe.
However, I'm quite satisfied up to now.

WHERE IN CHINA? SUZHOU

The chinese plant of the company I work with is in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, just 100 km west of Shanghai.

It's a well developed city, much better than the average chinese city. The downtown is well kept, with nice roads and streets, and quite a lot interesting places, mostly architectural gardens. The city has some canals, but surely doesn't match Venice!

Also the industrial area east of Suzhou (named S.I.P., Suzhou Industrial park) is very nice, with large roads, greenery, modern buildings.

However, 20-story apartment buildings compounds are growing like mushrooms. They should slow down this construction frenzy.

This time in Suzhou I visited the taoist temple in downtown (Xuan Miao Temple) and one of the nice gardens, Lion Grove Garden.

During my stay, it also happened to snow, about 10 cm, not so common in Suzhou; the weather has always been quite cold, around and below 0 °C.

 While there, I tried some different restaurants, italian, indian, german; chinese only once, for the company dinner before Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). It's that actually I don't like chinese cuisine that much ...

THREE WEEKS IN CHINA, NO BLOGGING POSSIBLE!

I have been three weeks in China, in the local plant of my company. I discovered that some Google-related applications are banned there, no access is possible. Blogger, Picasa, and others are not accessible.

I have been in China many times before, but I never tried those applications, so I was not aware.

However, that's it.