This website crosses half-a-million pageviews!

Yay! MithunOnThe.Net, a website started by the guy writing this, has crossed a milestone. It took nearly two-and-half years, but my blog has so far received more than 500,000 pageviews! Which means it’s time for “Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy”!

First of all, I want to thank everyone who visits my website on a regular basis. To the newbie visitors, hope you like what you see and decide to bookmark it or ‘Like’ it on Facebook. Special thanks to the folks who leave me comments and tell me they love my work. Yes, despite the fact this blog being a pass time, my travelogues are a lot of ‘work’ to put together. But working on them and getting feedback (mostly positive) is what keeps me going!

K-pop has become a big part of my life and it’s bizarre my blog has gotten a lot of love for it. My k-pop posts now receive more traffic than my travel series these days.

As for stats…

Day website went live: 25th December 2009

Pageviews for January 2010: Less than 200

Highest pageviews recorded: March 2012 – 36,474 pageviews

Mithunonthe.net pageviews

Most popular post: Super Junior – “Mr. Simple” Album Review: Sorry, Sorry Ver. 3.0… and it still works! – 14,639 pageviews (and counting)

Most commented post:  Gokarna 2010: Day 3 – Where to stay on Kudle and Om Beach – 69 comments so far

Most shared post: Philippines 2011: Back to Manila, shopping, and my final thoughts about the country – The number of shares on Facebook would have shown 300 had I not made the mistake of editing the URL. Lesson learned.

Most Tweeted post: Jay Park live in Bangkok: First Step in Thailand fan meet (Fancam) – 62 RTs. Thanks Jaywalkerz!

Number of photos uploaded: 9,940. Even I’m startled to know how many photos I’ve worked on for this website.

The day my website crashed: A popular Manila personality named Carlos Celdran tweeted my thoughts on Philippines to his thousands of followers. And this happened a day after renewing with my web host. I was pissed, but later happy when I found out my post had now gone viral! 🙂

Unique visitors
Those two days also saw the highest unique visitors I ever got

Most popular countries that drive traffic:

Countries traffic
Singapore used to be higher, but got overtaken by Malaysia. And then Philippines shot past everyone to reach no. 3.

Most popular browsers my readers use: Chrome > Firefox > IE

Most popular traffic sources: 61.7% search traffic, 28.2% referral traffic, 10% direct traffic

Most popular keywords driving traffic: 1. “super junior mr simple” 2. “u-kiss neverland” 3. “miss a touch” (all K-pop)

Most popular social referrers: 1. Reddit.com (45%) 2. Facebook (41%) 3. Twitter (5%)

Amount of money made from Google ads so far: ….

All data compiled from WordPress Stats, Google Analytics and Tynt

If I may say so, I’m proud of myself. Many people talk about starting their own blog, some do, but only a few ever keep at or take it to new heights. My dream was (and still is) that this website would make me enough money to focus on it full time. While that still remains a distant dream, who knows, the rate at which the daily traffic grows, I surely won’t need to wait two-and-half years to achieve the ‘1 million pageviews’ milestone.

Until then, keep reading, keep commenting – and keep me going! 🙂

Hong Kong city skyline view from peak

Hong Kong: Views from Victoria Peak, day to night

Date: June 28th, 2012

Day 2 in Hong Kong began feeling fresh. I slept for more than 10 hours and the jet lag had nearly worn off. I repacked my bag and left the hostel to begin my photography for today.

Causeway Bay Paterson Building Hong Kong
A whole lot of luxury brands in the mall to the right
IKEA store Causeway Bay Hong Kong
The IKEA store was only a minute walk away from where I was staying
Windsor house mall Hong Kong
Plenty of malls and shopping centers all around. This was Windsor House
Maxmara store Causeway Bay Hong Kong
I walked towards the MTR station
Sogo Causeway Bay panorama Hong Kong
SOGO is a popular Japanese department store chain
Causeway Bay station Exit E Hong Kong
This is the entrance/Exit E of Causeway Bay station
Central station Hong Kong
I got off at Central
Central station exit J MTR Hong Kong
Took the long walk to Exit J2 (Yup, Central is so big that the Exits are from A to J)

Continue reading “Hong Kong: Views from Victoria Peak, day to night” »

Hong Kong 2012: Getting there

After a span of 9 months, and after writing about all my past travels, I had the itch to see the world again. I had to. I had nothing else to write about for this website besides the usual K-pop reviews! The past few months I contemplated where to go next. I really wanted to be in Europe for the Euro Cup and the Olympics, but with the Indian Rupee getting clobbered in value against the British Pound and the Euro, I soon let go of that dream.

I then thought about Vietnam. I would fly to Singapore as my visa is yet to expire, then take Tiger Airways to Ho Chi Minh, ride all the way up to Hanoi and fly back to Singapore. But upon researching, I realized whatever I would see in Vietnam would not have been that much more ‘new’ having already been to Thailand and Philippines. Also, the truth about Halong Bay is that it looks amazing when you get an aerial view — which is not how most tourists see it when they get there.

So then I thought about China, a country I have wanted to explore for years. Just like India, China has an ancient and much revered history. It’s also a large country, with lots to see and amazing geography. But China also has a government hell bent on restricting your freedom within its boundaries. So when I read foreigners wouldn’t be allowed to visit Tibet unless they went with a guide, I changed my mind. Taking the Lhasa express ranked highly in my list of “to-do” things in China. And the way I travel, I don’t want someone telling me I can’t go there or don’t take photographs the government doesn’t want you taking.

I initially thought of using Hong Kong as an entry point to China, but in the end I decided to just visit Hong Kong and Macau for now. After all, I got a pretty sweet deal on the flight ticket from Cleartrip. For around Rs. 27k ($505/€407), I would be flying Thai Airways via Bangkok to Hong Kong. My return journey had a 22-hour layover in Bangkok too, meaning I had a day to spend in Bangkok as well.

I left Bangalore on June 27th and arrived at Suvarnabhumi around 6am.

Suvarnabhumi airport travelator Bangkok
Hello Suvarnabhumi! Haven’t seen you since 2010 🙂
Suvarnabhumi airport terminal
It was a bit of a ‘trek’ (as always with Suvarnabhumi) but I eventually found my transfer gate
Thai Airways plane to Hong Kong
My connecting flight to Hong Kong was scheduled to leave at 8:35am

Continue reading “Hong Kong 2012: Getting there” »

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