Earthquake in Reykjavik

I was at work (29th of May) discussing with colleague how wonderful weather been this week. Suddenly tremor started. Chairs, desk, computers and whole house shaking crazily. That lasted for very short time about 5-10 seconds. Everyone went outside for safe. Later I gathered it was 6.7 Richter scale earthquake started from near by city Selfoss. Although this was very short and did not damage heavily but did destroy in small scale. Thank god no casualty. If this was for more than 5-10 seconds it would have certainly destroy a lot - God bless. Recently China had slightly bigger than this but for longer time - that has killed million people and damage very roughly.

Walking in ESJA (Asia) Mountain

Weather was beautiful last Saturday. I decided to go to walk Esja Mountain, pronounced as Asia, which is located outskirt of Reykjavik. ESJA Mountain is just 914 meters high. While walking up to the mountain it remind me going to my village back home where there are no roads but walking for 3 hours to get our cousin’s house. I estimated hour and half for up and down. I started at 13:22 and reached at the top at 14:20, took me an hour. I was in my Jeans trouser otherwise would have reached on the top earlier than hour ;). It was not for set the record however. It took me while to come down due to Elías - I had to help him all the way down. He was really tried and pain in his legs. There were two path which is also called easy path (longer way) and difficult path (shorter way). I took the shorter way. I had to leave Elías way down as he was struggling to walk - understandable he is just 10 years old. But at least he tried.

I enjoyed this walking all the way up. The view from the mountain was magnificent and even from the top Reykjavik was simply fantastic. This was my first mountain walk in Iceland. I wanted to stay bit more on the top but crazy cold wind forced not me to stay longer but two minutes.

Phulchoki - the mountain 2829m/ 9050ft. high which surrounds the valley of Kathmandu - The place I come from and the capital of Nepal. People stands a good chance of scaling the peak in less than three hours.

It was a tremendous enjoyment and experience walking up to ESJA Mountain. There are twenty nine mountains in Iceland and the highest one is 2111 Meters, called "Hvannadalshnjukur", 2nd highest is 2,000 Meters. Twenty three (23) of them in between 1,999 to 1,000 Meters and four are between 767 to 998 Meters. I will try to conquer some of the mountain this summer if weather favours.

Pictures

Eurovison

Eurovision song contest is very famous once a year in Europe, especially Eastern Europe and Nordic countries. Although England competes every year but this show has never been popular in UK. While I lived in London for seven years I did not hear about the programme until I moved to Iceland. Perhaps English premiership has dominated and sidelined this programme. This year Russia managed to grab the first place with comfortable vote from across the Europe. I am not a great music fan but there were other songs deserve to win - I guess.

Eurovision is something special event in Iceland too. People prepare to watch this program ahead and organize parties with friends & family. Roads are empty – off course whole nation eager to see their country performing and desperate to vote others. You can see hardly any transport on the road - "clean environment". Some cyclist quoted “Best day for cycling”. Sadly Iceland did not manage to come in top ten -perhaps next year and good luck to them.