travel
aardvarchaeology | January 20, 2008
A good thing about jet lag is that it gets you up in the morning. I awoke at five, played around with the computer, showered, breakfasted and was outside at half past seven.
It's a brisk, cold sunny morning with snowy lawns and smoking breath. I took a short walk over to the nearest geocache (by Research Triangle Park's little memorial plaza) and took a few pix on my way back.
[More blog entries about photography, northcarolina, snow; fotografi, northcarolina, snö.]
aardvarchaeology | January 18, 2008I'm back in the US for the first time since 2002. Before that, the last time was in 1978, when I had lived in Greenwich, Connecticut and gone to Kindergarten for two years. Everybody's way fatter than I remember them. But very cheerful and friendly.
My first time in North Carolina: I'm at the Radisson Hotel (in Swedish I always call these things Hotell Rädisan, "Radish Hotel") in Research Triangle Park after having travelled for about 20 hours. Lost my itinerary printout, ran around Newark airport like a headless chicken, was then put on a standby list despite checking in an hour an a half…
sheril | January 14, 2008
Snow: A type of precipitation consisting of agglomerates of snow crystals. Most snowflakes are less than one-half inch across with an open, soft structure although certain conditions can result in unusual formations. It reflects sunlight and even changes the way sound travels. It's fun to eat, pack, throw, shovel, and watch. We humans are so fascinated with snow, we've even come up with little paper weights that imitate the falling phenomenon so we can take it with us. We tend to do funny things like that. After the Correlations meet up in LA, my sentiments on the white stuff were to change…
retrospectacle | October 25, 2007I got back into Detroit last night after a long flight from Charles de Gaulle, after spending a week and a half traveling from Amsterdam to Antwerp to Paris. Hopefully you all enjoyed the chemistry-related blogging of Wired blogger Aaron Rowe in my absence, looks like he's kept things busy here (thanks Aaron!).
There were a few things going on in Paris while I was there: one-- the French President, Nicholas Sarkozy and his wife Cecilia have just divorced. In fact, his wife was on the cover of Elle magazine this month with the headline "Divorcee!" across it. An interesting fact that in…
retrospectacle | September 14, 2007So, looks like I'll be giving a talk in Antwerp, Belgium during a conference on hearing research October 19-20th. I'll be flying into Amsterdam on the 15th, taking the train to Antwerp for the conference, and then spending the 21-24th in Paris, flying out of Charles DeGaulle. I'm so psyched! Please give me some ideas of what to do while I'm in any of those cities.
Also, I was thinking of trying out Couch Surfing for my stay in Amsterdam and Paris (Antwerp's covered). Has anyone tried this before, and what were the results? Staying in Europe is expensive, which is why I'm considering cheap…
retrospectacle | July 6, 2007 The Shanghai Museum houses 5 floors of ancient Chinese artifacts ranging from carved jade to Buddhas to painted scrolls, and was built in the early 90s. As a neat coincidence, there was also an exhibit of American Art rotating through the museum which featured famous works by artists including Warhol and O'Keeffe. Below are some pictures of artifacts I saw (yeah, they let us take pictures!), which I wish I could tell you more about but the captions were in Chinese. The oldest things in the museum were from the 30th century, BCE.
The jade carving exhibit was unbelievable. This picture…
retrospectacle | July 3, 2007After an uneventful and Ambien-laden flight to Shanghai, I arrived at Pudong Airport more than a bit physically tired and quite a bit psychologically wired. "Three weeks off--Hooray!" kept scrolling across my mind like a stock ticker. As Darren was already there, we headed over to a sketchy (and none too cheap) bar called 'Red Lips' across from the Pudong Sofitel where I was staying. We drank quite a bit of Bacardi Raspberri (or something like that), and then stumbled back to the Sofitel for some much-needed booze-snooze.
The next day we walked over to the largest park in Shanghai, Century…
retrospectacle | June 29, 2007Well, just got back into the States last night and just wanted to say, I'm still alive and pictures/stories/tall-tales will be on the way. My traveling parter is getting back tomorrow and is the Keeper of the Camera. So, probably the next few days I'll get back to blogging (oh sweet vacation!) with travel stuff interspersed with sciencey goodness. Oh, and I got a doozy of a Science Vault blog in the works. Check back soon!
Ok, now back to getting that internal clock re-set......
But, here's one picture of me, Darren, and a Irish kid named Brian (we met him on the ferry to Phi Phi island).…
sheril | June 28, 2007The Baobab in Messina ProefPlaas: I sat under a great baobab at dawn and shared with him stories of humanity since agriculture began. I spoke of our music, art, literature and the great discoveries and conflicts of modern times. He stood unmoved for a long while. Then laughed at me whispering, 'I've been watching your species for 2,500 years from this very spot. Tell me young one, with all your people rush to achieve, which of us will see the next millenium?' Unsure of the answer, I could only laugh as well.
[More pictures from South Africa after the jump]
The Giraffe at Nylsvlei wandered…
retrospectacle | June 6, 2007The entire month of June I'll be in Asia, still blogging though (when possible!). Me and a friend are spending 4 days in Shanghai, then a few days in Suzhou, then flying to Kota Kinabalu, Borneo (maybe Sipadan, who knows?) and ending in Koh Phanang/Phi Phi Island, Thailand. (Phi Phi pictured below.)
My parents live in Suzhou, China and I go out there to visit them once a year, and bum around Asia a bit (as its so cheap to travel.) Although I've been to China and Malaysia before, my trip is not set in stone by any means. So if you know of great places to go or things to see in that area (…
scientificactivist | March 23, 2007There won't be too much going on here at the blog for the next few weeks, as I'll be in South Africa through mid April. It'll be part travel and part community outreach (an educational project in conjunction with the South African Education and Environment Project (SAEP)). Hopefully I'll be able to check in along the way.
retrospectacle | February 28, 2007Ohhh this picture makes me crack up. I took it outside "The Sink," a bar in Boulder, Colorado when I was there a bit ago for a science conference. Yes, it says "STD Happy Hour." I forget what it was suppost to stand for, but it did have some other meaning.
retrospectacle | February 12, 2007As mentioned, I'm currently at the ARO MidWinter Meeting in Denver, and have taken a few pictures of this beautiful city. I also managed to meet up with Karmen of Chaotic Utopia (I found out why she named it that!) for dinner and hang out with her fascinating cornucopia of friends. (Thanks Karmen!) Through her I got to meet a couple local poltical mavens: Ben Gelt from PAX Students, and Mason Tvert who was the impetus behind the notorious Amendment 44 in Colorado. And a generous reader, Charlie, took me out for a delicious meal of raw fish and sake last night (Thanks Charlie!). Unfortunately…
retrospectacle | January 2, 2007So, I've been in the North Country for the weekend, and have mixed feelings about Toronto. On the one hand, its the metropolitan city that Detroit could only dream of being (I live in Ann Arbor, MI). Cool underground mall, pretty decent public transport, fun and safe nightlife. On the other, getting a cab or decent service in any bar or restaurant is quite a challenge. Me and a few friends went to a nightclub called Fluid for the countdown to party, and while it was a pretty ok club, I almost lost it at the plethora of Canadian thug wannabes. Hello, I'm more likely to be packing a piece than…
retrospectacle | December 28, 2006Well, sorry for the long hiatus in blogging, but it was nice to just have a little break and relax for the holidays. Hope everyone also had a restful and safe holidays (of whatever you celebrate--or not!). I just arrived back in the US yesterday, and after another 14 hour flight I gotta admit I'm pretty jet-lagged today.
My Christmas was pretty interesting. In China, the native people swarm to American or western restaurants like Starbucks or KFC, so our initial plan to have a quick dinner at Papa John's pizza was de-railed when we saw the line out the door. I was secretly happy because i…
retrospectacle | December 14, 2006The New York Times was reporting this story like it was surprising in the slightest:
A rare, nearly blind white dolphin that survived for millions of years is effectively extinct, an international expedition declared Wednesday after ending a fruitless six-week search of its Yangtze River habitat.
The baiji would be the first large aquatic mammal driven to extinction since hunting and overfishing killed off the Caribbean monk seal in the 1950s.
For the baiji, the culprit was a degraded habitat -- busy ship traffic, which confounds the sonar the dolphin uses to find food, and overfishing and…
retrospectacle | December 12, 2006Arrived in China last night (although night is subjective when you have a 12 hour time differential), and after a bit of a drive to Suzhou we had dinner at a fantastic little Malaysian place which served something called 'Roti'. Roti is apparently phyllo dough with stuff inside and then fried. The "stuff" usually consists of bananas or chicken and is damn delcious! I'm a bit exhausted and about to go out shopping but just wanted to post a funny anecdote and some pictures of my parent's house (which has been converted into a museum in my absence!)
The story is a run-in with police that my dad…
retrospectacle | October 20, 2006These photos from Brussels and Amsterdam are long overdue. I didn't take too many of Amsterdam as I *thought* I lost my camera for a little while. Although, I did find it when i got home.
After finally arriving in Brussels (and after an unplanned night in Paris, and a week in Montpellier), I made my way to La Dixseptieme on Rue de Madelaine. It was a good thing that the cabbie at the train station had a GPS navigation system, as he had no idea how to get anywhere. A far cry from London cabbies, thats for sure.
Rue de Madelaine:
La Dixseptieme was a house built in the 17th century which has…
retrospectacle | October 19, 2006
These are a few of my friends in the UM Neuroscience Program. We went out to dinner at Dante's Down the Hatch, which was a fondue place in a PIRATE SHIP!
Left to right: Ben Johnson, Edny Gula, Me, Lisa Briand, Darren Opland. And the beautiful Jen Chikar was taking the picture!
Another dinner: Me, Edny, and Jen
And, our well-stocked fridge, with all the necessities:
Nick at the Neurocontratian has posted some other (more relevent) pictures here.
retrospectacle | October 3, 2006First of all, i apologize for leaving everyone high and dry with no word. I received a few emails from worry worts (which I appreciated!), but seriously all is well. I just needed a few days post-Europe to collect my thoughts and re-adjust to life in the good US of A. Anyway, here's a recap of how things went down after my last post (about the beach).
For the whole trip, I secured a Eurail pass which was a FANTASTIC deal. What this pass gives you is free travel in the countries that you choose for one (lower) price. I bought one for France, Belgium, and the Netherlands---this is really what…