Sam I Am's Blog

Took Malia to see a dance act in a big tent in the park. Act was called "Sofie's garden" and was what they called "modern dance". Malia loved it in any case, so a successful afternoon

Late spring and the tulips are in full bloom. We're off to the playground whilst the tourists make their way to the famous statues.

This entry is in part to showcase the beach, but in part to also test something that I'm PM'ing a member about

It's a great beach, and would highly recommend this place for anyone looking to get away from it all for a few days. There's a small 48 seater Dash 7 plane onto the island if you want to save time, or alternatively a boat goes from Merang on the mainland. Berjaya is the more luxurious of the resorts on the island, on the other side of the island there's a long beach (called 'Long Beach' ) with lots of different choices in terms of accommodation. The Redang.org site was quite useful for figuring out what was where. And yes, I'll be writing a wiki guide for Redang shortly!!

Winning photos from the competitions run on TP adorn the wall of the Travellerspoint office in Melbourne.

About 1 am here in Oslo now and I've just uploaded some changes to our blog commenting system. I needed a post that was less than 30 days old to test the system, so here it is. Isn't it great when you have a deadline like a trip to the other side of the world to really get things done you've been meaning to do for 4 or 5 months?!

This has got to be one of the whitest winters in a long time in Oslo. Just as everyone thought it was starting to thaw a bit, today sees a whole new pile of fresh snow and it's still snowing outside as I type this. Two quick photos taken on my way to work. The first is the library and the second is just some trees. I love how fresh snow sits on the branches like this.

Deichmans library in Grünerløkka

Trees and some garbage bins

One of the things I like best about winter in Oslo is the opportunities it gives for playing. At the moment there is so much snow in Oslo for example that there's not enough space to dump it, so the snow scooters end up making big heaps of snow in parks or just by the side of the road all over the place. Of course for a 3 year old, and her parents , this amounts to quite the interesting landscape to explore.

Some pics from yesterday's trip into Sofienberg park.

Climbing one of these mountains is tough work.

Balancing precariously at the top.

Getting into position

Ready to go (she wasn't as scared as she looks!)

Weeeee!!!

And another shot, now without dad's finger in front of the lens

All in all, good times. Especially when you can walk home in 5 minutes and treat yourself to hot cocoa for all the 'hard work' done!

Pretty grainy pictures throughout the site right now with only one intent, to really get as much juice flowing as possible on an already hot issue. Serves as a great test article for their new commenting system though, that's for sure.