(no subject)

[fivemack]

[Poll #518184]

I may have missed out some really obvious destination 'near' Australia; never sure as to the value of 'near' to use in that part of the world.

I never cease to be amazed at the number of huge cities in Indonesia whose names are not household words; Bandung's bigger than Liverpool, Ujung Pandang the size of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. And just how big places that you know as 'what's the capital of Sudan?' pub-quiz answers are: more than seven million in Bogota or Lima or Kinshasa; nearly six million in Khartoum, which I know only as a small desert settlement in a Flashman novel.

Comments

[davidcook.livejournal.com]

Oooh, just for me ?

Sadly, I'm just as untravelled in my former-local-area as over here. I never even made it to Perth ! And I'm only counting Bangkok because I've been to the airport a few times for up to 8 hours :-)

("Near" is a tricky concept when Sydney to Perth is around 4000km - ie roughly the same as Glasgow to Baghdad, or to somewhere well beyond Moscow.)

[nassus.livejournal.com]

I agree with this. Yes and aside from the definition of near there's also the expense. Just flying internally in Aus is still relatively expensive. We dont have the luxury of cheap easyjet flights all over the place. (which I guess is a good excuse for 5m not visiting Adelaide when visiting Oz) <-:

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

It doesn't really surprise me actually, but that might be the result of having travelled round China where I suspect most of the cities are at least the size of Liverpool.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

It may just reflect that I've read different things, but of

Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Chongqing, Tianjin, Shenyang, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Harbin

(the list of cities in China that this database thinks are bigger than Liverpool)

everyone's heard of the first three, and Guangzhou and Chongqing raise vague memories. I couldn't name a city in Indonesia other than Jakarta (OK, Bandar Aceh, but that's a city noted for having ceased to exist at the end of last year), whilst Bandung's Liverpool-sized and Surabaya's close.

[ckd]

Guangzhou was formerly known as, and is probably better known as, Canton IIRC.

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

And Chongqing was Chungking or something like that pre-pinyin.

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised there are only nine compared with the six(?) in Indonesia.

Maybe it's more that it just doesn't occur to that so many people live in Indonesia. The population's apparently 240 million. I knew it had the largest number of muslims of any country, but I've never thought of it as country with a population that large. China's population is 1.3 billion but the distribution among cities will be wildly different I guess.

[jojomojo.livejournal.com]

Hmm, Brisbane should be 2 - I worked there for three weeks at Trolltech's Australian office. I didn't see the option when I filled out the poll ;)

[meirion.livejournal.com]

from the mention of trolltech, i rather suspect i know who you are ....

[fx: adds to f'list]

-m-

[jojomojo.livejournal.com]

Could be; but I'm drawing a blank on who you are? ;)

[meirion.livejournal.com]

if the word "wxwindows" means anything to you, then you're who i think you are; and i've have thought that might be enough to identify me, too ;-)

-m-

[jojomojo.livejournal.com]

I've certainly heard of it, and it was a competitor to the product I worked on (Qt/Embedded) :) Still drawing a blank though; poke my ailing memory with a stick?

[meirion.livejournal.com]

i believe we corresponded for a while over the legality of a wxQt port.

sorry for being so cryptic; i try not to let my LJ get connected with my offline persona.

-m-

[jojomojo.livejournal.com]

Oh! I remember now :)
Let me add you back, always good to have more techies on the friends list *grins* though most of the time it's more about non-tech stuff.

Have we talked elsewhere, maybe on IRC/#afp? I don't think the person I'm thinking of from there is you, but I thought I'd ask.

[jojomojo.livejournal.com]

Oh, I note with interest you're poly and that we have some mutual Oxford-circle friends, too ;) I lived with ~beingjdc for something like a year and a half before moving to the US.

[meirion.livejournal.com]

yes, i think our paths have crossed on uk.people.poly, and i believe we're both on OxLUG ....

i'm not an afp-er (although alarming numbers of my friends are) so i'm not the person from IRC.

-m-

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I was reading someone's "Rough Guide to Montreal" over their shoulder on the bus a little while ago, and it started "Montreal is the third largest Francophone city in the world, after Paris and Kinshasa." I googled Kinshasa when I got home, because I had only vaguely heard of it, and wow, it's the second largest Francophone city in the world, 7 million people.

Big planet. So many interesting bits it's possible to entirely miss lots of them.