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July 31, 2005

Be prepared to do a little more.. For Leijonakaupunki

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Yeah, the title doesn't rime, but if you replace the last word with the real name of the place, you'll see that it makes more sense, doesn't it?.. This is the song that I heard yesterday and the whole stadium of people was singing along.

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Yesterday I was among the lucky few, who got a chance to see the last preview of the National Day Parade - in one week there will be the real thing. Finally. They have been rehearsing every Saturday since the end of June. My school is very heavily involved in organizing the parade (most of the graphic design work is done by my colleagues and students), so our director got me 2 tickets.

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Se oli niin ylpea tasta etta mun taytyi nayttaa olevani tosi kiitolinen. Ja niin mina olin, koska tiesin etta saan hyvia kuvia.. :) Se pomo suositteli etta Kaj ehdottomasti tulisi minun kanssani, he he.. Arvatkaa tuliko han tai ei.. :) Kaitsun selitys oli kova flunsa (ja silla oikeasti on! tanaan viela pahempi kuin eilen!). Monilla muilla ihmiseilla, jotka mina yritin kutsua, ei ollut edes tekosyita - "en oo kiinostunut.. he he.. onnea etsimassa kumpaneita.. " Tosi epa-isanmaaliset ystavat meilla on... Tai useampi vaarasta maasta.. :) Yksi kysyi etta saako se heiluttaa Malesian lippun.. :) Taan tekeminen olis paha paha paha taalla. Malesialaiset on pahin vihollinen!

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Musu direktorius buvo labai isdidus, kad jis gavo tuos bilietus, tad man teko buti labai "dekingai". As ir esu dekinga, nes turejau galimybe pagauti graziu nuotrauku. Mano bosas labai rekomendavo, kad Kaj irgi eitu kartu, bet spekit, ar jis dalyvavo.. :)) Visi draugai bei pazistami, kuriu klausiau ir kvieciau net nesistenge sugalvoti priezasciu, kodel, tiesiog "nedomina.. Sekmes iskant kompanijos.." Labai nepatriotiski musu draugai.. O gal greiciau, ne is tos salies, vienas veikejas klause, ar jis galetu mosuoti Malaizijos veliava.. Tai butu labai labai blogai cia, nes Malaizija yra pagrindinis priesas...

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The preview is a full-dress rehearsal, so it was pretty much the same as it will be on the August 9. I was very worried that I didn't have any red clothes (as the audience was strongly adviced to wear red), I thought I'd be turned away at the entrance. However, nobody made any comments about my black t-shirt and I was relieved to see more people not obliging to that request.. :) Its still a rehearsal, not the real thing, you know..

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There were several things happening in the sky and the sky divers was one of them. Few weeks ago there were reports that almost all the sky divers had hard landing and one of them actually was seriously injured. Fortunetely nothing like that happened this time.

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cheerleeders.jpg Kaikkialla oli hirveasti sotilaita ja vartijamiehia. Taa kuva vasemalla mun mielesta on hieno, koska the cheerleaderilla on blondi tukka. Siis se symboloi avoimen yhteiskuntan. Esimerkiksi mun koulussa, kun valmistuvat opiskelijat saa kayda lavalla hakemaan todistuksen, lehtoreille taytyy tarkista etta kaikkilla on kunnon vaatet (ei liian lyhyita hameita, ei sandaleija) ja etta sen hykset ei oo varjatyt epa-luonolisella varilla (tarkoitus on etta ei olis vihreita, pinkia tai violetti tukkaa). Ma kuulin etta jossa vaihessa kavi vilkas keskustellu etta onko blondi tukka luonolinnen, tai ei (aasialaiseilla on ylensa musta tukka). Paatos oli etta jos sellainen vari loytyy luonnolisesti ihmisen paassa jossain maailmaalla, sitten voi varjata silla varilla.

Aplink buvo daug kareiviu ir apsaugos. Man patiko si nuotrauka, nes cheerleeding vaikino plaukai dazyti. Tai turetu simbolizuoti atvira visuomene, mano nuomone. Pvz musu mokykloj, kai studentai atsiimineja baigimo diplomus, destytojai turi stebeti, kad visi padoriai apsirenge (ne per trumpi sijonai, su normaliais batais, ne sandalais) ir kad ju plauku spalva yra naturali (norima isvengti zaliu, melynu, ruzavu ir panasiai). Girdejau, kad kazkuriuo metu vyko didziuliai debatai, ar nusviesinti plaukai naturalus ar ne (Azijoj daugumos zmoniu plaukai juodi). Galu gale buvo nuspresta, kad jei tokios spalvos plaukus galima rasti zmogaus galvoj kazkur kitur pasaulyje, tai galima ta spalva dazyt.. :)

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There was a lot of army marching around. The chief, who was giving commands was screaming into the mic and I couldn't make out what language it was. I have a hunch that it is Malay. Not English, definitely.

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And some more marching.. My butt started hurting after sitting so many hours, but I was grunting and bearing, because I knew that the main things are yet to come..

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And there it was - the long awaited tanks and heavy machinery.

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scary.jpg Yksi asia missa taalla ei tinkitaan on armeija, Jumala auta millaiset konet! Oikeasti. Kuka tarvitse sellaisia tassa pienessa saaressa, ma en ymmara yhtaan. Tuli tosi paha olo kun ma katsoin niita koneita ja sotilaita. Kaikki niiden aset oli suunnatut ihmistein pain. Mika tarkoitus on sellaisille?!? Sotilat jotka istuivat koneissa oli tosi pellotavia myos - niiden kasvot oli varjatut vihreaksi ja ne istuivat tosi suoraan, kuin zombit.

Vienas dalykas, kam cia netaupoma - armija, sitokios masinos! Kam reikia tokiu masinu sitoj mazoj saloj, nesuprantu!! Labai bloga buvo ziureti i tas masinas ir kareivius - visu ju ginklai buvo atkreipti i zmones! Kareiviai, kurie sedejo masinose irgi buvo labai baisus - veidai zaliai nudazyti, tikri zombiai!

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What I liked was that at the end they showed also police cars and fire brigades. I think they should show more of nurses, workers, ambulances and other good stuff in this kind of parades. Oh yeah, in one car there was a dog. You should have seen how the kids got crazy about it!

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All the spectators received this kind of little backpacks stuffed with things. Interesting to see what it takes to take a Leijonakaupungilainen thorugh 3 hour parade - the amount of food was amazing! I could feed for a week on it! Also the amount of brand names on various items in the bag was amazing!

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Kun ma katsoin kaikki muut esitelmat paraatissa, ma mietin etta miksi kaikki on vahan halvaksi tehty. Ma tiedan etta mun tyokaverit tekivat kaikki julistet ja verkkosivut oisiin ilman mitaan budjettia.. Sitten ma mietin etta ehka se on vapaaehtotyon hengessa tehtyy, siis se on tosi "grassroots", "be prepared to do a little more..", etc. Toisaalta se on tosi Leijoanakaupungilaista - jos loydat kaikkien halvin mestan, jos pystyyt hujota ihmisia, olet tosi viisas...

Mane nustebino, kad viskas tam parade atrode pigiai padaryta.. Nesistebiu, kad mano kolegu darbas atrode pigiai, nes zinau, kad jiee dirbo naktimis, be jokio atlyginimo ir netgi biudzeto. Nezinau, gal ideja ir buvo viska padaryt savanoriu dvasioje, bet kuo toliau, tuo labiau galvoju, kad tai labai Liutamiestiska - ieskoti pigiausios vietos, jei randi, kaip ka nors apgauti, tai eisi labai apsukrus, etc.

Posted by gkligyte at 03:48 PM | Comments (6)

July 24, 2005

Good morning, Vietnam

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It has been ages since I updated my blog. It seems that everybody in Europe are having holidays and good time, sunny pictures don't seem to raise envy anymore.. :) But this time we have really good ones from Vietnam!

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Its a week since we came back, so the impressions and stories are slowly fading away. However, once again, it seemed to be a place where I'd like to spend at least few weeks, not just 5 days. The country is huge and there's plenty of things to see. We just managed to have a quick look at Saigon (Saigon is the the old name of the Ho Chi Mingh city. Nowadays the city is named after revolutionary uncle Ho, who is considered to be the father of the nation.) and spent few days at Mui Ne beach, some 300km away from the city.

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Saigon is a really interesting, alive and in many ways a horrible place - traffic is unbearable, its very noisy, poluted and completely covered in asphalt. The picture above is the view from our hotel balcony. Besides all the traffic, Vietnam is an incredibly noisy place. It doesn't matter, what mode of transportation they're riding, everybody is constantly honking. Honking to signal that they're overtaking, honking to give you way, honking to tell you that they see you, honking just for the hell of it.. Piip pip piip piip all the time... After few days you get so used to it, that it doesn't disturb too much anymore.

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There's nothing left of the romantic old days - the image that I had in my mind of thousands of cyclists, heavy rain, Vietnamese style hats and umbrellas. It is all gone. Everybody owns a motorbike, every street and crossroad is jammed with cars. The traffic flow seems unstoppable, but the drivers are quite considerate for pedestrians. All you need to do is to step off the pavement and start walking (slowly!) accross the street. The motorcycles will flow around you and you can reach the other side of the street relatively safely. One of the taxi drivers told us that 10 years ago very few people could afford to buy a motorbike, but these days Chinese bikes don't cost anything..

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The communist government after the revolution and war tried to control the population by sending some people away to rural areas (yeah, familiar soviet style..), but people came back illegally and try to make a living in the city. Their kids, however, can't go to school, because they're not registered in the city and apparently they can't own anything or run a legal business.

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Considering the hardship these people went through just few decades ago, its really amazing to see how resilient the Vietnamese people are. The country is triving, one way or another, and however devastated it was 30 years ago, people managed to stand against the "superpower" and stand back on their feet. The Americans really did horrible things in Vietnam (and they also don't seem to learn from their mistakes..). I'm sure, everybody has heard that besides traditional war (where you kill people) they also launched "ecocide" - "...the war saw the most intensive attempt to destroy a country's natural environment the world has ever seen. American forces sprayed 72 million litres of herbicides (named Agent Orange, White and Blue..) over 16% of South Vietnam to destroy the Viet Cong's natural cover." (this is from the LP, our "Bible") They also used huge bulldozers to rip the jungle floor or burned forest with napalm, bombed limestone to create landslides, etc. You still see people without limbs begging in the streets and there are reports that the numbers of children with birth defects are anomalously high.

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These pioners we saw marching in the park on Sunday morning (bah, I could imagine better things to do on Sunday :) Its very interesting to see how the communist style ideology and regulations harmoniously co-exist with capitalist trends. There are posters and banners displaying some form of social advertising - against HIV, malaria, or just boosting communist morale and ideology, painted in very old fashioned soviet style - plain colors, very stylized characters, fists, peace doves, etc. And these things come along with all the western brands, pampers, shampoos, in full colors and beautiful gradients. Interesting. Initially soviet poster style developed together with technological limitations of those days print machines, but now it seems that the style acquired life of its own - it is technically possible to make full color photographic quality posters, but the stylized plain posters are still considered more impactful. Somehow the style became canonized (like Bizantian icons?)

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Kaj spent much more time in Vietnam - he went there for the Vietnam office opening party and stayed on the Mui Ne beach for several days before I joined him. The initial idea was that he would learn kite surfing while waiting for me. But unfortunately the wind was still the whole week, except the first day when Kaj arrived there with his colleagues. Although he never tried it before, Kaj promised that his next big hobby is going to be kite surfing. Lets see, how and when he picks it up! One thing for sure - there should be steady wind in the place where he's going to learn it.. :)

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Mui Ne is a beautiful sandy peninsula with a fishing village on the shore.

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boats_picturesque.jpg Once again, another country, completely different fishing boats. These were very funny plated basket-like boats, where people would row using spade-like ores. For me it looked like some bad taste Russian witch wannabes (a Russian witch from my childhood cartoons flies in the sky in a bread-making bowl and ores with a broom). The motor boat would drag them in this kind of chain along the beach and they'd put nets into the water. However, I'm still puzzled that they don't leak. Imagine yourself going to the sea in a basket, ha?!?

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There's tens of kilometers of sandy landscapes around Mui Ne. This cemetary looked like a place where I wouldn't mind resting either...

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There's 2 kinds of dunes around the area. RED...

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...and WHITE.

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In the white dunes we were noticed by the sharp eye of local children that are patrolling at the parking lot.

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dunes_lake.jpg This kid dragged along with us wherever we went in the dunes and tried to convince us to take a slide down on these plastic mats. When we didn't support his little business, the boy started complaining in Vietnamese and mock-crying, so we had to talk to him in Finnish and tell him to go to school.. Eventually we ended up paying him some 20cents worth of local currency - dongs, but I really felt bad - if the kid earns money by hanging out in the dunes, he'll never go to school... In general, tourism seems to be quite a new lucrative business. For example, people still don't speak much of English, but as I understand, the laws are quite foreign investment friendly. In a few years all the empty strips of beach will be sold to somebody, I'm sure.

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Another interesting thing was that chairs and tables in most of street cafes and cofee shops are these kind of tiny plastic things, seemingly scaled down some 25% from what we're used to. Although, your butt fits all right in the chair, you still feel like a giant in most of the places. Local people are not that small, so I don't have a theory why chairs and tables are only up to your knees...

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Oh yes, the long waited feeding pictures.. :) Kaj seems to be so strange precisely because he's sitting in this small chair and eating from a tiny table. We met a cool German guy Jorg and hanged out with him quite a lot - we went to the local night market and had super-delicious spring rolls and pho bo - beef noodles (the guys had, I'm "vegetarian".. he he...) And also visited a bia hoi place - a shop that brews fresh beer daily. Bia hoi has very little alcohol, but otherwise tastes quite like beer (kaj would add that "it tastes very good!")

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Another great thing in Vietnam is nuoc mam (fish sauce) that is brewed for several months in this kind of pots. Yes, yes, outside, in the sun, in the pots. Basically it is just juice of rotten (or should I say fermented :) fish, but it tastes so good! Depending on wind directions we sometimes used to get interesting smells on the beach.. :) Another good thing about Vietnam is Vietnamese coffee. Kaj went really crazy about it, but I couldn't take it, - they mix coffee with sweet milk and then it tastes like drinking candy. If you don't mix milk, the taste may kill you - coffee is thick as tar. Kaj bought some special "weasel coffee". I'm sure you'll be excited to hear how it is made - first weasels eat raw coffee beans, then they come out fermented through the other end.. yes, yes, no kidding. Then it is collected (washed, hopefully :) and roasted. The story behind all this is that weasels eat only top quality best beans, so you can be quite sure that the coffee is very good.

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And I have to confess that I became a meat eater for one day..

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I couldn't resist the temptation to try to real pho bo - beef noodles soup, and my oh my it was tasty!!!! Kaj is already working on the business plan, but we're not telling you what yet.. :) For now I think that Vietnamese food is the tastiest on Earth (except maybe Thai, or Indian, or Italian.. hmm...:)

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Posted by gkligyte at 12:36 PM | Comments (4)

July 10, 2005

How to make a lot of babies

Once again I'm scraping the left over photos for this story - well, I just didn't take any pictures this week.. I don't have our small camera now, because Kaj took it to Vietnam and there wasn't much happening anyway. I will be joining Kaj in Vietnam in a few days - leaving next Wednesday. So far I have been hearing mixed reports from Kaj - Ho Chi Mingh seems to be an interesting city, but the Mui Ne beach that was supposed to be our final destination seems to be not so exciting as we imagined. Well, I will soon find out about it myself..

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For a long time I wanted to write about the attempts to increase population in here. It is quite an amazing issue, I think. As most of the developed countries, Leijonakaupunki is facing not so rosy future - the population is dropping. Family planning first, nation going extinct after - this happened to many countries. The good thing for the Leijonakaupunki government is that they don't need to worry about the pension system collapsing - in here the social guarantee is your children (based on the famous "filial piety" concept deriving from confucianism). However, to sustain "growth" and assure that the economy wheels are turning, Leijonakaupunki needs to increase population. Fair enough. So how do you make babies in Leijonakaupunki?

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First of all - Baby Bonus, the financial incentive for the families that decide to have children (I think I wrote about it sometime in September). Well done! But the money that families receive is really not all that substantial to convince people to change their lifestyle, put their careers in danger.. Increase maternity leave to 3 months! Wow, I'm impressed! Paternity leave - 3 days.. Well, at least something,right? The leave couldn't be much longer, because young mothers would have worse employment prospects, you see..

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Ok lah, but still, who wants this little creature that poops and burps all over the place, demands attention and sucks up all your savings - think about how much the education will cost!! How about shopping and enjoying yourself, lah.. (btw, shopping was announced to be a national Leijonakaupunki sport during the Olympics meeting in here..) Right? We need some stronger incentive, a complete change of mindset. How do we do that? Ok, we need some role models, some good examples of happy family lives.. So here it starts.. Since the time I came here, there were some 15 local media stars getting pregnant, the newspapers following their journey all the way through and now follow ups how their babies are growing, how much happiness they bring, etc. One celebrity even told that she washes her face with her own milk, because she has so much of it! Yiewks... Besides that (come on, I don't mean to suggest that they were "in-pregnated" by the government to be the baby-policy front runners, of course not.. he he.. That would be quite something.. ;) there are lots of new local TV series popping up, telling about family lives, main characters getting pregnant, etc. Then some fashion magazines showing those celebrities with their kids in some fashion shoots.. Interesting, right?

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Another interesting discovery - a survey showed that Leijonakaupunki people have least sex in the world! Now how is that? Why? Well, some of high-fliers and just ordinary working Leijonakaupunki people get to sleep only 4 hours a day! it is common for the people to go to sleep at 2am, I think the majority falls asleep after midnight.. Do you think they spend few hours before sleep doing something funny? Ha, the funniest thing to do is, of course, to shop and to eat! This definitely has some implications for the population..

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So how do you tackle that? Taku can be a witness - one weekend there was a huge article in the paper telling about the community clubs (usually located in the housing estates like this one above & meant to be community cultural centers) besides caligraphy, martial arts and cooking classes, also offering a "sexy dancing" course, where you can learn moves called "hooker walk", "pussy-cat roll", etc. Next weekend there was another article telling that the interest and response from the audience was huge - all the classes were filled in no time. Now, anybody able to add 1+1 in this story? He he.. Can't stop looking around and wondering.. Exciting, isn't it?

Posted by gkligyte at 03:42 PM | Comments (2)

July 03, 2005

Last night a herring saved my life

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Today we don't feel very healthy - yesterday we cooked with an attempt to give Kaj's colleagues a sense of "a true Finnish party". I have a hunch that Kaj's colleagues don't do too good today as well... For the Finnish friends, I guess, I don't need to explain why.. :)

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Of course, of course, you have to start with a shot of Finlandia on an empty stomach "to warm up". We're actually very proud of our friends here, because we found an empty bottle of Finlandia after the party and today we got to know that everyone survived. It must be the herring, pickled cucumbers and nakkileipa (dziovinta rugine duona) that helped, thanks to Ikea.. As I didn't try the raindeer stew and am still alive, no credit goes for the raindeer..

It was great fun, the sad thing is that Gary will be sent to Vietnam for half a year... They will have a company's opening party in Ho Chi Mingh next weekend. Kaj and everybody are going to Vietnam on Thursday and I will be joining him there on yet another weekend (we have a term break, but I can't take much of leave... :() We'll go to the beach where I can finally try out my body board!!! Can't wait for this holiday!!! I have been quite busy at work lately...

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Otherwise things are pretty normal, the sales haven't ended yet, so Orchard road is a "no go" zone for us on the weekends (except yesterday, when we went to the Batman Begins movie.. I'm so easily impressed these days, that I really liked it.. :) People are funny here, they, for example, bring todlers to the movies and they start screaming "mommy, mommy" some 15min into the movie.. Besides the fact that kids don't like to sit in the darkness for 2 hours, this Batman is quite a gloomy, scary and loud movie, it can't be good for small kids. What are these parents thinking, I don't know... )

We have to be very creative to stay away from our home on Saturdays, yes yes.. because of the construction noise.. Sundays are a bliss... So peaceful...

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There's more of army show off going on here. We had an "army day" in our school, so there were a few tanks, a few hunks and a bunch of comandos jumping from the 6th floor into the pool on their ropes.. Pretty entertaining. Some kids came from the kindergarden to play in the tanks, "so cute" my colleagues say.. :) The people in the photo on the right are not demonstrating (no no, no!), they're competing for some Samsung prize. At the time when I took this picture, they were 23min into this competition standing in the scorching sunlight... In Leijonakapunki you need a police permit if there's more than 5 people gathering outdoors (actually, I wonder if the same applies to tai ji classes, or if you have some kind of sales event or competition...hmmm...). In any case, you are not allowed to have banners and use megaphones. In relation to the IOC meeting here (about the Olympics), some London businessmen that are being forced to close their shops, because of the plans to build a stadium, wanted to come here to express their discontent and dissuade people to vote for London. However, they were warned that police will not hesitate to take them away if they try to demonstrate without a permit (ha ha.. ever wondered if they got a permit to demonstrate? :)

And this time everybody managed to fit in the picture... :)

Posted by gkligyte at 04:20 PM | Comments (2)