Have a look at the picture gallery with photos from our five day vacation on Vancouver Island: Nanaimo, Courtenay, and Port Alberni. We were lucky with beautiful weather all long. Click here for a link to the picture gallery.
Climbing Mt Kinabalu – Malaysia
Finally, we managed to climb up to the top of Mt Kinabalu. We had been to the Park Headquarters a few times before but never actually climbed up Southeast Asia’s tallest mountain. It was hard work but definitely worth it. Click here and have a look at the pictures from our trip. Within the three days in the Park, we had beautiful sunshine and fantastic views as well as torrential downpours. The hike really isn’t that long (18km up and down in total), but the slope and the altitude make it pretty hard. It is just amazing how hard even a few steps up a rock are at 4,000m above sea level. Well, we made it in the end!
Happy New Year 2010!
Hard to believe that another year passed already… so quickly.
2009 was the second year of an international financial crisis that Indonesia managed and weathered remarkably well–all things considered. A year during which Indoensia also went through an impressive democratic process that showed maturity and created the prospect of rapid social progress for years to come, as the result of political stability, good economic management, and effective leadership.
The year 2009 ended with the COP15 at Copenhagen. On the one hand, there was utter failure to achieve the binding global agreement on curbing GHG emissions that many had–probably unrealistically–hoped for. On the other hand, the coming together of more than a hundred heads of states and thousands of other leaders to discuss the global commons is an unprecedented success in mobilizing global awareness and hopefully eventually action. I remember, just 20 years ago, few of us discussed climate change and even fewer dared dreaming about global treaties and a global carbon trading system that would deal with the acute threats to the health of our planet. Now these topics are at least on top of the global agenda. In the end, we need to recognize that it takes time to create the kind of global ethics that is needed to deal with global challenges at an unprecedented scale.
I am happily spending the end of the year together with three happy and healthy young daughters who are growing up very quickly. Here they are… together with cousins and other German relatives.
I wish you a very happy, successful, fulfilled, and healthy 2010!
Happy Holidays!
We wish all of our family and friends very Happy Holidays and a wonderful, successful, and healthy New Year! Daddy and Daughters are enjoying wintery holidays in Germany (Berlin, Lueneburg, and the Black Forest) with the German family.
Arriving in Freezing Berlin
Dad and three girls arriving in Berlin in lots of snow but without our suit-cases . The first snow for the girls in seven years! How about that? Can you believe that? Now we are ready to celebrate Christmas with cousins and grandparents… Snow is so much fun! Espencially when you don’t have it every year… Click here if you’d like to see more pictures of our Germany trip.
New Photos Posted
It has taken me a while, but during a weekend in DC, I finally managed to post photos from the last couple of years. Please have a look at Recent Pictures. I will try to keep this picture gallery updates.
Three Girls Hiking in North Sumatra in 2008
