From Twitter Pic
I walked past London Liverpool Street after work this evening and saw about thousand of people, mostly teenagers, crowded together singing and shouting. It was definitely not a normal Friday night commute busyness. As first I thought something bad happened, but then from the happy faces of the teens and calm-yet-in-guard policemen there, I released a bit. I asked one of the guy there what’s going on, he told me something like “flash mob” or whatever similar. Then I asked another one from a sandwich shop, he told me it was “some sort of facebook party”. Then it made more sense to me, but I still didn’t know what’s going. But I twittered it from my phone.
I’m home now. The fact that nothing mentioned in BBC homepage about what happened already confirmed that it’s not major enough to go on news. But then there is also nothing from Google News when I search for “liverpool street” as keyword. That’s weird. Lastly I went on Twitter Search and gradually getting the full picture, including the photo posted above, and another one.
It’s nothing new to break news from Twitter (Earthquake, Plane Crash in NYC). But I’m still amazed by the power of public as media.
By the way, I really wish I had grabbed my lunch on that day at that time .
I went last weekend with Greg. Although I’m not a car person, but the exhibition was definitely worthy going, especially in the Ferrari area, took up quite a bit memory of my camera :)
Anyway, there is no much to describe here, I will let the photos speak. (Flickr | Flash)
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I went to the Fund raising event today, organised by GetActive and several other organisations (see post in Dimsum).
Me and a few other members from Dimsum joined the volunteering team and took actions to help raising funds for the Sichuan Earthquake. Only in about an hour and half, five of us raised about £150. People were very active and most of them were Chinatown residents and Chinese students. One old man brought his cheque book and wanted to donate £70 on behalf of his family. I was moved but felt very happy to see people’s active responds.
A concert-like event was held in the middle of China. Singers and committees from Chinatown were gathering together to encourage people to donate for the earthquake. They were singing in Cantonese and give speeches to audiences and people passing by. But to those who don’t know what’s going on and can’t understand Cantonese, eg. tourists, it might be a bit like a party.
While we were walking toward Leicester Square with our donation box, we saw a Buddhist group were holding a celebration for Buddha’s Birthday, which was the same day when the earthquake happened. I talked to one of the staffs there, she told me they also encouraged their community and audiences to give donation. In China, they even sent their own team to Sichuan with donated funds and human resources to help.
I think there will be candle memorial gathering today at 8PM in Chinatown. I couldn’t make it there but if there are anything worth to share, I will put them here.
Some of the photos I took today are uploaded to my Flickr, you can have a look there.
About two month ago I met two of Dimsum’s team members, Luke and Hui, in a friend’s networking dinner. After having a little bit chat with them about what they do, I decided to sign up for their newsletter.
One month later, I attended one of their events at Asian House in Cavendish Street. With a collection of Modern Chinese Art “Beginnings”, great performance from the Eclipse String Quartet and also meeting with a bunch of interesting people, I guess all the guests had an enjoyable night as I did. I had a chat with Luke at the end of the event. I told him that they did a great job organising the event and I wondered how many people were working on it. ‘Just a couple of us’, he said. ‘If you are interested, come and joined’.
Two days later, I was in the meeting with the Dimsum team and introducing myself as a new member.
If you want to know what Dimsum is all about, read this page. To be honest, I’m still exploring the site and forum to try to know more the site and it’s ‘culture’. If you are in London, signing up for the newsletter is a good way to get yourself involved with some decent events and networking opportunities. It’s gradually taking up more of my free time, but it’s always interesting to work with interesting people on interesting things.
