Welcome to the World of Ashemia! I hope you enjoy the site, and join in the fun...
This is the home-page that I use to keep in touch with my friends and family all over the world. Here you can chat, discuss, and see pictures of far away places, and experience different parts of the world with me. You can also bring a special flavour to the site by joining and telling us about things happening to you!
New visitors, please register! This will reveal some additional parts of the website, and allow you to participate and talk to me and my friends.
Well, it;s been a lot of sleepless nights, but having John in our lives is awesome!
It's been a while since I had time/energy to update pictures, but I finally got to it! Check out the gallery for lots of new photos...
I have changed the website so that only registered users may enter some feedback to the website.
Seems spammers are now expanding their horizons to include community websites, and I've been getting loads of spam on the Ashemia Web Feedback form. It's a shame, since it has been useful to some people to let me know they have trouble registering or logging in.
Oh well...
Elrin writes "It is that time of the year again, and the whole family here would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a wonderfully Happy New Year!
2006 has been a blast. Probably one of the busiest I've experienced, and 2007 promises to be even bigger!
Hope to see you all soon and well-rested after the holidays!"
Well, at long last my funds from South Africa have arrived here in Canada! The exchange rate hurts, but at least it's here!
This ends a two and a half year saga of trying to get our house sale registered and the money out. It involved beaurocracies left-right and centre, and underlined the reasons why I moved in the first place. The equivalent transactions here in Canada took only 3 days! Yes, 2.5 years vs. 3 days.
Good bye Nedbank, Goodbye Absa, Good bye Telkom, Good bye Vodacom, Good bye SA Reserve Bank, Good bye Tswane City Council, Good bye Pam Golding Real Estate Agency, Good bye Department of Agriculture, Good bye Receiver of Revenue, Good bye FICA, Good bye Centurion City planner, Good bye Central Bank of Africa! It was a nightmare, and I hope you get what you deserve!
Ahem - Now that that's off my chest: Take out your party-hats and come on over for a celebration!
Well, the Chilako Valley Garden Centre now belongs to me!
Here in Canada it's a summertime operation only, but it is a nice test-bed for me to try out all my funky sensor network and automation robotics... Heehee... And in addition to that, a nice opportunity to expand my bonsai hobby into something profitable.
I'd like to wish everybody out there a brilliantly Merry Christmas and the best New Year ever for 2006!
새해 복 많이 받으세요!
Voorspoedige Nuwe Jaar!
あけましておめでとう！
新年好！
Gutes Neues Jahr!
Things are looking good for the coming year, and I just have this feeling that it's going to be an absolutely awesome year with lots of milestones to look back to in the future.
With friends and family spread out all over the globe, getting together for holiday events like these are somewhat of a challenge. But when we do manage it, we make up for it in leaps and bounds! Here's to seeing you all soon!
Well, I'm back in Canada again. It was really, really hard to leave, but here I am, so it's time to look ahead and work hard.
I'll post more pictures in the Gallery's Travel section, so go take a look! Better even, go visit Japan and China yourself and see for yourself!
Some of you will also notice a new block on the bottom-right - If you are one of those with an @ashemia.net E-mail address, you can just click on that link rather than remembering the full link each time. Enjoy!
Being one of maybe 10 foreigners in a large city is a unique experience, and probably the closest you can get to knowing how a real alien is received...
People stare - some even lose control of their cars/motorcycles/etc. as they turn their necks to get a better glance. Even Cui is not excempt as she is scrutinized to see what's different to her that makes her walk around with a westerner...
Anyways, I'm still alive and doing well (the food is awesome!), and the gallery now has a big update of pictures. Now that I'm online again, I'll update the gallery a it more regularly (I hope).
Well, I'm writing from the airport on my way to Japan. It will be a trip of 5 days in Japan, one month in China, and then back to Japan for another 10 days.
I'll be in Osaka while in Japan, and in Yanji while in China. Keep an eye on the gallery, as I'll be posting lots of new photographs as I travel!
Well, I've been on an unecpected trip to Edmonton, and somewhat out of contact - living in an RV is not exactly internet-accelerated...
Anyways - the advantage is that I now have loads of new pictures for the gallery, (I'll get to them in the next few days) and can now pick up the shards on this site - dropped several times already and try to glue them together again.
Don't expect a lot of normal settled-in behaviour though - my visit to Japan and China is ahead, and I might not be online much - if at all for extended periods of time. Just bear with me - I'll be back with even more pictures and stories!
By the way - if you are a member, you will also notice a new entry in the left Menu: Blog. It's experimental, and I don't know if it will pan out, but I decided to give it a try. Feel free to partake!
OK - Some of you might wonder why things have been so quiet around here...
Well, my life's been chaos in the last few weeks. I was away from home a lot, got tonsilitis, had to move out of my apartment in Prince George, and generally deal with deteriorating finances - all at the same time.
I'm (sorta) back up again. My health is up again, and I have a little nook carved out in a new hidey-hole. Wether normality will return soon is unknown. Check out this space for updates!
Well, another semester is over, and it is time to relax and get rid of all the exam-stress. Things are warming up nicely here, and spring is in full swing already (with the allergy-bearing pollen included).
We're headed for Vancouver on the 26'th for a week - visiting family and touring around Vancouver.
I have also now finished the course-load for my degree, and will from now be able to concentrate on my research and setting up things here in Canada for the future.
It's been a busy month! There's been very few pictures to upload into the gallery, but I've finally gone and put them up in the travel section of the Gallery.
I have also re-arranged some groups and permissions in the forum, so go check it out!
I'm also working on a chat-module, so keep an eye on the lower-right of the website main page...
Well, sadly the holidays are over, and we have to give up the warm, lazy and cozy days spent doing nothing but having fun.
Now it's back to class and a fixed routine! This semester I'm basically finishing off my course requirements, so if I do well now, I can have a good base for my research building up to my thesis.
Good luck to all of you who are also returning to work and/or studies! This is going to be a great year!
I have created a new website in a subdomain of Ashemia to be the home of my research-related presense on the web. It's still very much under construction, but it's a start.
As you can see, the site looks completely different!
I am in the process of transferring The World of Ashemia to a new web-host in Canada. This will take me a little time, since I'm also upgrading and fixing the scripting that I use on the site.
Hopefully, I will soon have all the graphics and content back up and accessable! I'll post a new news-flash here when I have everything up. Until then, feel free to browse around - I've got a lot fo the content like the forums already working.
Also, if your login does not work anymore, please let me know so I can fix it!
Well, I got the site up (sort-of) again after it was hacked. You will notice that some of the news events that were up on the main page was lost, and some of the stories are not back up yet either.
I don't really have much time to fix everything, so just bear with me until I have time to get everything back to normal again...
I'll also invest in some extra security (You'll notice some of it already) on the site to make it harder to happen in the future.
Well, my life is getting more organised, and I've done a bit of re-shuffling in the gallery to make reflect my new location, as well as pictures taken here in Canada.
I've added a new UNBC event gallery, put some travel pictures from Canada up, and renamed the old Raslouw gallery to contain photos taken of my surroundings.
Feel free to comment on the pictures - especially the ones in the event gallery, as I don't have everyone's names there!
I finally have an apartment, some sparse furniture, semi-working computers and an internet connection! Classes have also begun at UNBC (University of Northern British Columbia for those who don't know), so things are getting going well here.
I also finally made another update in the gallery! I added some snaps I took at some events (Go look under Events & Stuff), as well as a visit to Barkerville (In the Travels section)
Also welcome to all the people from UNBC who are visiting the website! Please register and get yourself a login name here at my site! That way, you will be able to log in to the forums, chatroom, comment in the gallery, aven add your own pictures so you can enjoy the site more!
As some of you might have noticed, things have been a bit quiet around here.
I have been travelling and running around sorting out all my things for the past few weeks, but have finally been able to sort-of settle in. I am currently still without an internet connection at home, but now have an university account through which I can access the net, so I'll try to stay in touch until then!
Well, I'm back in South Africa, and am busy experiencing some reverse culture-shock. Suddenly, I am noticing things that I did not notice before because it changed too gradually. But the meat is nice!
For all of you who would like to contact me, my old cellphone number is still active. My internet connectivity might be a bit spotty and irregular, but I do check my E-mail regularly via my P800 phone.
I also just got news from the Canadian High Commission that they are ready for my passport, and I can get my visa in a few days! This means I will be leaving again as soon as I can get a decently priced plane ticket to Canada.
I will also try to upload the last photographs that I took in Japan to the gallery. As soon as I do, you'll see the album highlight picture change.
Gion Matsuri is one of the oldest festivals in the world and except for incidences of war and one case of interference from the shogunate, it has been held annually since 970, when it officially became a festival. The Yamaboko Junko main parade of 32 floats (9 large hoko and 23 smaller yama) manages to avoid present-day obstacles like power lines, a reminder that the centuries’ old route has had to be changed in the post-war era. Last year almost 200,000 people came to see the floats on July 17, as they made their way from Shinmachi, along Shijo, Kawaramachi, Oike and back again. This year, the main parade was on a Saturday, and apparently an even greater number of visitors lined the streets.
I have already put up pictures from the first day of Gion Bayashi, the part of the festival from the 14'th to the 16'th, and will put up pictures of the other days soon. Festival music, of flutes, drums & bells was played each evening. The 32 floats were re-assembled, given trial runs and illuminated at night by lanterns. Treasures & heirlooms were also displayed nearby, and a rare sight indeed!
The festival is also one of the longest in duration in Japan, if not the world, stretching from the 1st till the 29th of July! With so many daily ceremonies and processions, it’s really like a collection of mini-festivals. The festival also has its own distinct soundtrack, the “kon-chiki-chin” Gion ohayashi (music). Throughout July in Kyoto I either hear it being practiced or a recording of it being played as I move around the city. Many Kyotoites feel that the mesmerizing repetition somehow functions as a kind of antidote to the humidity that keeps rising all month long, but I'm still not convinced...
Go take a look at the gallery for a day-by-day view of the Gion Matsuri!
July is Hanabi (花火) season in Japan! I went down to the river to take pictures of the daily fireworks that goes on for more than a month. People in Japan love going outside to cool down from the summer heat and shoot off some fireworks.
I was invited by a group of Kyodai (Kyoto University) students to join them in the fun. 有り難う 皆さん! 楽しかったです!
The pictures I took is up in the gallery under "Kyoto in July"... Enjoy!
Well, with a typhoon hitting Japan, and me carelessly breaking my camera, I haven't taken a lot of pictures for a while...
My camera's now fixed (superglue is awesome stuff), and the weather is back to hot and humid, so I made a big update in the Gallery. I went to Tokyo, and took a lot of snaps there, as well as some more sightseeing in Kyoto. Enjoy the pictures!
I've added a little movie (4Megs) taken while I was on the Shinkansen (bullet train).
It's real hard to convey the amazing speed tha train travels at, and the movie sort-of is the closest way to show it.
I've also added a new sub-section in the gallery for pictures taken during June. How time flies when you are having fun!
Well, I've been uploading so many pictures that the gallery is taking up more than my entire website's quota already - even after I upgraded my account to 100MB!
I am going to resize the pictures in the gallery to make them smaller. It will mean the quality is going to go down unfortunately, but at least I will be able to upload some more.
It's a crying shame that 100MB is so small! Adding more disk space is going to be expensive, so I'll have to wait until I can use my own server with a few GB of space...
Warning: mkdir(/home/elrin/public_html/albums/.users) [function.mkdir]: No such file or directory in /home/elrin/public_html/phpnuke/modules/Gallery/classes/gallery/UserDB.php on line 43 Error: Unable to create dir: /home/elrin/public_html/albums/.usersUpgrading Users
Upgrading Users
The user database in your gallery was created with an older version of the software and is out of date.
This is not a problem!
We will upgrade it. This may take some time.
Your data will not be harmed in any way by this process.
Rest assured, that if this process takes a long time now, it's going to make your gallery run more efficiently in the future.
If you get an error, and only some users are upgraded, try refreshing the page to upgrade remaining users.
Please Wait...
Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /home/elrin/public_html/phpnuke/modules/Gallery/classes/gallery/UserDB.php on line 328
