robertliu.com

So you want to know who I am do you? Well, you can find out yourself by reading my blog for a start but here’s the lowdown. I’m just another 25 year old guy that loves to travel and blog about it. I’m British by birth, Chinese by blood but only God knows how I think. Yes, I do indeed have a British accent which I never found to be that nice but most people appear surprised when they hear me speak for the first time. My recent lifestyle has kept me going around the world, so learning languages has become an interest in the last few years.

I’m proud to say that I have a physics degree from Imperial College London. I chose to study it for a challenge and let’s say it wasn’t easy but I perservered and got through.  Despite all the science, I’ve embarked on a career with computers and software. I was never really trained in using computers but I was always one of those nerds who liked gadgets and fiddling with electronics. I still remember when I used to mess with QBASIC on my brother’s computer and the amount of time and money I spent trying to overclock my range of AMD K6-2’s. Those were the days.

Aside from my geeky lifestlye, I love to travel and dream to see every corner of this beautiful planet. I enjoy photography as a hobby as well as hiking fairly serious mountains, the outdoors in general, cycling and just hanging out with friends with a few bottles of sake! Recently acquired interests include scuba diving and skiing though I don’t claim to be skilled in either.

Q & A

Got some whacky question? Then send me an e-mail!

I hear you did an IAESTE internship in Switzerland. Tell me about it.
That’s correct. In summer 2004, I went on a placement with a company called “EMPA” – Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research. It is located in a nice little town called Dübendorf, about 15 minutes by train from Zürich, in the German speaking part of Switzerland. Dübendorf and the kebab stand down the road from where I lived was my home for the 3+ months I was there but my memories are of the people I met and the places I visited in the short time I had.

It was the first time I went abroad on my own and I had one of the best times of my life. It has opened up a lot of doors and I realised that I love to travel! I think the work was at a suitable level but the real challenge was living with a different culture, exploring a strange country and meeting new people.

The internship was arranged through an international organisation known as IAESTE (International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience). If you’re thinking about IAESTE – go for it! Search my blog to see what I wrote about or check out my thousands of photos on Flickr. If you’ve got any questions then feel free to ask me or even your local IAESTE committee.

You must speak a lot of languages.
Yeeeah, I guess you could say I can count from 1-10 and say basic phrases in about nine different languages if my brain was in gear… I’ve actively learnt Chinese, French, German and Japanese in the past but I rarely get the chance to use them so in all honestly, I only really know English. And even then, my English has gotten a lot worse since I’ve been out of the country and away from native English speakers for about 40% of the last 5 years! I do however have a certficate to Teach English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) which I took because I wanted to be able to explain the correct English to my friends and also to learn English grammer which I always knew how to use but could never explain! Just learning the grammer was satisfying enough but I did do some one-on-one teaching in Japan when I had the time – also a good way to get to know people. These days, the only language I’m still seriously learning is Japanese. I’m waiting for my results to JLPT level 3.

Say you have some nice pictures there.
Why thank you. For those who know me well, you will notice that I’ve purchased a top of the range Canon IXUS camera almost every year since I started university (the list includes the IXY 910IS,  IXY 800IS, IXUS 50, IXUS 400 and PowerShot 40). I particular like their easy to use menus and sharp photos. In fact, I can’t fault Canon’s picture qaulity. However, recently I got a Sony DSC-T90. It’s the sexiest and most feature rich camera I’ve ever owned. I’ve also had several occasions where I had the chance to use someone elses digital SLR opening up an endless world of creativity. However, I’ve never felt pro enough to carry a whole extra bag of kit with me and shell out a whole month’s salary on a gadget. Slipping the camera in my shirt pocket is more my style.

Given the amount of photos I have, I gave up a long time ago on trying to store them on my own webspace. Instead they’re all hosted on Flickr.  Why not add me to your contacts?

Why do you blog?
I started robertliu.com back in 2004 just before I went on my internship to Switzerland. I just wanted to keep a diary of my travels, mainly for my personal fulfilment but also to share what I see with my family and friends. Now, I blog quite randomly and I try to include lots of photos because I like to share the nice things I see.

robertliu.com started off originally in plain html, then I moved onto my own php/mySql customised pages. I found it was pointless to write my own and migrated to Mambo CMS fairly quickly. However, Mambo was too much effort to maintain and full of bugs so I  switched to the much cleaner Wordpress which I am still using to date. I would say I’ve fallen behind on web technology in the last few years but it’s something that I could probably pick up again, if I had the time and need. Posterous seems to be very interesting…