jawzsh's Journal

8:22pm: Krakow & Auschwitz, Poland
We flew to Poland out of Moscow through Minsk, Belarus. For those of you who might think about flying to Russia or around the region, I would suggest to avoid Belarus if at all possible. We simply bought the cheapest tickets from Moscow to Poland, and those happened to be through Belarus. But, it’s a scam. When you land in Minsk, they make you pay $180 as a “transit fee” (Americans pay the 180, but Europeans get to pay a bit less). Also, the security is stupid. You go through the normal security procedures—taking off your shoes, belt, etc. It’s all good, and you get yourself together again. You walk out of the door, around the corner, and then suddenly you have to do the security all over again. Anyway, we eventually got out of there and into Warsaw, where we figured out how to get a bus to the train to go to Krakow.

In one day we finished Krakow. We actually didn’t expect to do it so quickly, and had allocated 2 full days to it. First, we zigzagged our way through the touristy area of Old Town. Old Town was very pleasant, peaceful and felt safe. It was a relaxing change to the high action of Moscow. [photos[ At the end of Old Town was the 10th century Wawel Castle, which is the pride of Poland because it survived while the rest of the country was being flattened by non-stop wars throughout its history. [photos] On our way out, we checked out the Dragon’s Den, where it is said that some guy killed a dragon. [photos] Next, we walked a few minutes to Kazimierz, which is the former Jewish quarter. It was nice to see too many synagogues packed together as a refreshing contrast to the typical too many churches packed together. We stopped for lunch at a Frommer’s recommended restaurant for pierogi, which are essentially dumplings, but you can pick any range of fillings. For instance, Carmel got spinach in hers, while I got strawberries in mine. We wandered for another hour more, then ran into another Frommer’s recommended restaurant called Bagelmama. We poked our heads in out of curiosity, and saw that they even sold burritos and had some good looking guacamole. As Americanly as possible, we stuffed in yet another meal though we were not hungry.

Next, we walked off the beaten path a bit to Podgórze, which was where all the Jews of Kazimierz had to move to during WWII. We walked up the hill and into a pleasant park, where we found a bench under some shade and rested/napped there for about an hour. We then headed to a mound [find the story] with a decent view of Krakow. [photos] Next, we headed back into the center of Podgórze and found the square where all the Jews of Podgórze were killed by the Nazis. [photos] A brief 10 minute walk from there led us to Schindler’s factory (i.e., Schindler’s List). We left Podgórze and returned to Old Town for a quick rest at a café before catching a classical concert (including Poland’s Chopin) in one of the churches. For dinner, we wandered the square a bit looking for another Frommer’s recommended restaurant, but were distracted by a breakdance show. [photos] We finally found the restaurant, got a quick bite to eat, and retired back to our hostel for the night.

Given that we had basically “finished” Krakow, we decided to head out to Auschwitz for a depressing day at the most well-known Nazi concentration death camp. We spent four hours there and at the Birkenau camp down the road walking along the roads and in the buildings where over a million people had walked to their deaths. How is one supposed to emotionally understand these deaths? One feels sad at the death of a person, and at the death of two people, but are you supposed to feel a million times sadder at the death of a million people? What are you supposed to think when you see a room full of thousands of shoes removed before the owners were gassed? Or the room where the children were sent to before they were all killed? Really, all you can try to understand were the logistics, dates, treaties, timings, geography, and politics of the situation. That is something one can wrap one’s head around, and leave the emotions for the cheesy Spielberg soundtracks at the end of a long film.

10:38pm: Moscow, Russia
Carmel and I arrived in Moscow at 6am after a brief sleep on the overnight train from St. Petersburg. We caught a cab to the flat of our friend Anya, who was in Carmel’s lab at Oxford. We woke up her up at this early hour, chatted for a bit, started some laundry, then we all fell back asleep. We went out for a yummy lunch of traditional Russian food, then wandered through the Red Square and to St. Basil’s Cathedral. [photos; St. Basil’s was almost torn down by Stalin; Ivan the Terrible blinded the architect who built it so he could never build anything as beautiful ever again] The Red Square is so named not because of the red link to communism, but because red meant beautiful long before communism came around. Even the girls love to dye their hair bright red, and wear bright red lipstick and shoes. Anya led us around the streets of Moscow for a while, and we eventually reached the hotel where we were staying where the conference was at. The conference hooked up its participants and their guests. We received free registration and accommodation at the 5-star hotel (Carmel and I got an extra giant suite because we were not students). The President of Azerbaijan rolled on through while we were in the lobby. Even the Backstreet Boys had stayed there. The conference gave us nice conference bags that contained 2GB memory sticks. Normally, these kinds of science meetings in Russia receive very little funding, but apparently Vladimir Putin’s wife is on the organizational committee. In the evening we went to the plenary talk, followed up by a great cocktail party. We went back to Anya’s flat for some vodka and to gather up our laundry and eventually made it back to the hotel for some well-deserved sleep.

The next morning we went to the fantastic buffet breakfast and headed to the nearby Tretyakov Gallery, which is the treasure trove of Russian art. We popped back for a bit of lunch, then took a bit of a siesta nap. Carmel and I went to a conference talk in the afternoon, then met up with Anya and headed out on the town for the evening. On every street were parked loads of shiny black BMW’s, Mercedes, and Range Rovers. We went to a Georgian restaurant (Genatsvale) for dinner that was phenomenal. Afterwards, we walked around some cool streets and neighborhoods for a couple of hours, then returned to the hotel for the night.

Our third day in Moscow started off with a trip to the Kremlin, which actually proved a bit more difficult to enter than would be expected from its well-protected red brick walls. There was some sort of massive security event going on there and all the entrances were closed off. We walked around it a bit, but eventually gave up and took shelter from the light rain in the nearby metro station. We walked inside the metro station for a bit, but eventually made a wrong turn. We emerged from the station behind the security lines and inside the Kremlin entrance area. There were only a few tourists gathered about—not the usual hours of lines that are generally there on a Sunday afternoon. Cautiously, we decided to see how far we could actually get with going in the Kremlin, and sure enough we were able to purchase tickets and wander around the grounds inside on an unusually quiet and peaceful day. There actually wasn’t a whole lot to see inside the Kremlin, save from some government buildings and a cluster of cathedrals. [photos] Next, we went to the Pushkin Museum, which was one of the best museums we visited and contained a high density of works by famous artists. We returned to the hotel for Carmel’s poster session. Afterwards, we walked into the city center with Anya for dinner at an Uzbekhi restaurant, which, like the Georgian restaurant, was fantastic. [photos] We spent the rest of the evening exploring the metro, which is a tourist destination in its own right (there were tour groups at a lot of the metro stops) due to their intricate designs. Supposedly, there is a whole second secret metro paralleling the one that normal people use. Anya’s parents called and offered to pick us up and drive us around the city, so we took them up on that offer. We zoomed around quickly to all the places that had taken us all day to walk around, until finally they took us back to our hotel where we fell asleep, exhausted.

For our last day in Moscow, we realized that we pretty much did everything that we had on our list for Moscow. It was a nice day so we decided to head back to St. Basil’s and the Red Square in search of a mini-St. Basil to add to my collection of cheesy mini-monuments. We found success, returned to the hotel for lunch, found Anya, and headed out to a convent for the afternoon. [photos] In the evening, Carmel and I went to the ballet, Giselle (ballet originated in Russia), at the Stanislovsky Theater. After 1 hour, the main girl died, the curtain closed, and everyone applauded as the dancers came out to bow. Carmel and I looked at each other and said, “That’s it?” We soon realized it was just intermission, but we had no idea what they would do for a whole other half. After intermission, the second half started, and we saw a trippy dream world thing where she came back as an angel and danced around with a couple dudes who were into her. We caught a late dinner at Uncle Vanya’s, which served authentic Russian food. Anya met up with us afterwards and went out for drinks and dessert. I got a cherry vodka to start, which was kind of gross and tasted like cough syrup. Anya picked the second one, which is perhaps the worst thing I’ve ever had in my entire life. It was horse-radish vodka. It was a struggle to get down, but I eventually did and Carmel and I went back to the hotel for the night.

7:48am: St. Petersburg, Russia
I got to my hostel, which was actually just a nice spare bedroom of an early-30’s-something couple centrally located in a dilapidated building of St. Petersburg, around 11:30pm. I headed out in search of food, and wandered the sunny midnight streets of the city for an hour. I returned to the flat unsure of when Carmel would show up: her flight had been canceled, but I had been told in Helsinki that she was trying to get on a 1:40 flight (I did not know if that was afternoon or morning); the contacts at the hostel said that she may get in around 5am or 2am the next day.

The next morning I awoke around 11am, alone in a silent flat. With no wireless and a non-functioning cell phone, I sat around the flat for a couple hours reading up on the history and culture of St. Petersburg. Finally, I got hungry and decided that I would go out in search of 3 things: food, money and internet. I headed into the tourist center, thinking that there would surely be internet and English-speaking restaurants nearby. Surprisingly, the English speaking capability of Russians is remarkably poor relative to other European countries. I ended up reduced to purchasing a Nestea and ice-cream sandwich for breakfast from an ice-cream cart next to St. Isaac’s Cathedral, which I had been told had the best view of the city. I made a decision to make an attempt to maximize my day in St. Petersburg while minimizing the overlap when/if Carmel ever showed up. I decided to try to do things that A) may be skippable for her; and B) take a lot of time per unit effort. First, I ascended the 200+ steps to the top of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, gathered a mental remote sensing picture of the city cross-referenced/GIS with my paper map in hand, snapped a few photos, and headed to the Hermitage, which is where I had been told was the nearest internet café. [photos]

As I approached near the Palace Square, home of the Hermitage, my stomach let me know that the weak attempt at breakfast was unsatisfactory and completely gone after the ascent/descent at St. Isaac’s Cathedral. I popped into a kabob place and ordered up a satisfactory-looking pseudo-fast food meal. I took the last table by myself, though the table was big enough for 4 people. As I finished my meal, a couple of ladies asked if they could share my table. I replied that they were welcome to, and that I was near the end of my meal anyway. They exclaimed, “Wow, he speaks English!” I asked where they were from, and they replied, “Houston, Texas. Do you know where that is?” I replied, “Yes.” With my accent slowly revealing itself, the now curious women asked where I was from. I replied, “California.” They were amused and said, “Ah, so you definitely know where Houston is!” We discussed touristy stuff for a bit and I told them my plan for the day. They warned that it was nearly impossible to get in to the Hermitage right then, unless I wanted to wait in line for an hour. Somewhat disappointed, I walked over to the Palace Square, visually took it in, then headed into the courtyard of the Winter Palace, which was adjacent to the entrance to the Hermitage. Sure enough, the line resembled Los Angeles traffic during rush hour, so I left, dejected. [photos]

I decided to head to the Russian Museum, where I could use up some of the day and hopefully find an internet café along the way. Accidentally, I passed by the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood, which is arguably the jewel of St. Petersburg. I realized that I would have to bring Carmel there the next day, but I still walked around it and took some photos. [photos] I finally made my way to the Russian Museum, but apparently I had walked into the museum next to it, called the Russian Ethnographic Museum, which was pretty weak. It was just a few rooms of dummies and dioramas depicting the different cultures that comprise Russia. I left a little while later, annoyed, and walked down the street for a minute. I stopped in front of the large, majestic building next to the Russian Ethnographic Museum, which was under renovation and obstructed from view. I peered closely through the gates, then saw a small sign that this was indeed the Russian Museum, and sorry for the inconvenience of the construction. On another small sign was indication that the museum closes at 5pm. I checked my watch, which read 4:30pm. I looked at the sign again, and saw further down that the ticket office closes 1 hour before closing. Annoyed that I just missed it, but relieved that I figured out where the museum was, I walked through the park towards the bustling streets again in search of internet. I passed a bellhop at a 5-star hotel, and asked him if he knew where I could find an internet café. He did, and he pointed me in the direction of it. After a bit of wandering, I found (or at least I think I did) the café he told me of. It was actually a coffee shop with wireless for those who had laptops (mine was not with me). With a silent exclamation of “Ugh,” I continued on my way.

I was tired and decided to head back to the hostel in hopes that someone was around to get me sorted on the internet situation. A few minutes into my walk I did a double-take at a store along the street—sure enough it was an actual internet café, with computers! I purchased some time, quickly browsed my increasingly mounting emails, which did not include any indication on Carmel’s whereabouts, and sent and email to one of Carmel’s lab mates in search of Carmel. Carmel logged on a few minutes later to inform me that she was still at Gatwick, had spent ridiculous amounts of money and energy trying to deal with her cancelled flight, and that she would be arriving that night at 2am. Both our internet times expired 10 minutes later, but at least we knew when we would be seeing each other. I continued along my way back to the hostel, but was distracted by a couple cool looking buildings along the way. [photos, St. Nicolas Cathedral]

The second building actually wasn’t on my map, so I became a little confused with my directions as I had been bouncing from icon to icon on my map throughout the day. I walked for a long time along the side of a canal, but there are tons of canals in St. Petersburg. I decided I was going nowhere fast, and I made a right off the canal, walked for a while more, then hit another canal. I walked along that canal for a bit, still unsure as to my exact whereabouts. I looked at my position relative to the sun, mentally imposed an approximate radius based on my previous known-whereabouts and likely walking time, and made a guess on the map as to where I was. I walked a bit more, then asked, with my best non-speaking charades, a passing old man to point out where we were on the map. He said a bunch of stuff in Russian and kind of pointed in a circle around a large section of the map, which basically confirmed my exact idea of where I was, which was basically somewhere within this large section on the map. I continued walking, made a left, and hit another canal. But, with more confidence, I studied the map closer and figured out where I was. I eventually made my way back to the hostel, where I figured out the internet situation there (no wireless, but a wired computer in someone’s room), and made a plan for the rest of the time in St. Petersburg. For dinner I headed to a Frommer’s recommended 24hr cheap sandwich shop. The restaurant apparently changed direction/management and was now an upscale trendy expensive place. It was still good, though not what was I expecting to pay! I took a leisurely stroll back along a canal to the hostel, now with an extensive and in-depth understanding of the St. Petersburg streets, which were full of people drinking (and subsequently throwing their bottles all over the street). I stayed up as late as I could, expecting Carmel to get in from her 2am arrival around 3am. I was getting a headache staying up late so finally decided to try to sleep around 4am. It was restless sleep as I was worried about Carmel, but around 4:30am, Carmel arrived. We were excited to finally be together at last, and had some trouble getting to sleep immediately.

The next morning, we headed to the Hermitage to beat the queue, but were too late as it was 10 times as long as I had seen it the previous day. We decided to test our luck at the Russian Museum, and we made a quick stop at Kazan Cathedral and the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood. [photos] The Russian Museum was cool, with a few pieces from one of my favorite artists—Kandinsky. [photos] We popped by the Catherine the Great monument, then headed back to the Hermitage with 2 hours to closing time. [photos] Perfect! The queue was tiny, we pushed our way through to get tickets (which were free with our ISIC’s) and wandered the second largest museum behind the Louvre. The Hermitage was basically the Louvre Part Deux, full of the world’s best collections and amazing rooms to house them. For dinner we agreed to give Frommer’s recommendations another chance and hit up their favorite, a Georgian restaurant. The food was excellent (a bit heavy on the garlic though), and we left the restaurant satisfied and tired. One interesting note is that, according to my guide book, Russians are racist against Caucasians, which, of course doesn’t make sense to us because Russians are what we would label Caucasian (white/European). But, when Russians refer to Caucasian, they are talking about people from the Caucus region, which are all those newish countries just south of Russia (e.g., Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, etc.). [photos] We headed back to our room to rest for a bit before planning on going out to partake in White Nights—the daily midnight to 2am party of hanging out by the main river through St. Petersburg where the bridges all open for water traffic at 1:20am. Unfortunately, a huge storm hit around 11pm so we had to call off that plan, which was okay because we were pretty tired.

Our last day was spent primarily at Peterhof, which, as the Hermitage compares to the Louvre, is a palace located 30 minutes down river from St. Petersburg that was inspired by Versailles. We wandered the grounds for a few hours and checked out the elaborate interior. [photos] After a while we returned to St. Petersburg, and headed to the Peter & Paul Fortress on Rabbit Island. Yes, Carmel was quite excited when I told her the next stop would be Bunny Island. Unfortunately, the name was more representative before the fortress was built, but now the island is mainly stony grounds and tall fortress walls. Next, we wandered through the Summer Gardens to the Engineers Castle. For dinner, we tried for the third time to go to Caterpillar, which is a restaurant near our flat (first time it was too late, second time it was too full), but we struck out yet again—oddly it was closed at 7:30pm. Hungry and with little time to spare before our train to Moscow, we stopped in at the next closest restaurant, which was a cool Japanese place that was well-priced and served good food. It turns out that Russians are really into sushi. We were told that especially in Moscow they eat sushi every day and that there is a sushi restaurant on every corner. We finished up dinner, returned to the flat to gather up our stuff, and headed to the train station to catch our overnighter to Moscow.

1:13pm: Seoul, S. Korea 2008
I haven't posted in a while, but will use this as an opportunity to post some of my journal from recent travels as a place-holder until I get my photos sorted and everything organized on my usual travel website. First, Seoul.

Tuesday I awoke at 5am to catch a 6am bus to get to Heathrow at 8am for a 10am flight to Korea. I arrived at 8am on Wednesday in Seoul, where Jun-Hak--my officemate at Berkeley for the last 4 years of my grad school--met me. We took the bus into the city to his home, where I met his parents (actually re-met, I stayed with them in 2005) and unpacked my stuff in their guest room. Jun's mom made me one of those amazing Korean meals where the entire table is covered with small dishes of great food. [photo] Jun and I set off to meet his fiancé, Yae-Gang, and then head out to some islands outside of Seoul for the day. This was a good plan for having just arrived because there was a lot of bus travel that I slept through. We checked out the islands, ended up at an elaborate Buddhist temple tucked away in the mountains, and finished up with dinner at a random hole-in-the-wall restaurant where we had fantastic cold noodle soup. [photos]

The next day we hung around Jun's place for the morning--me finishing up a presentation on climate change modeling, and Jun finishing up a slide show of pictures for his wedding. He spent a huge amount of money getting professional photographs made pre-wedding, and every pictured turned out amazing--in each one he and Yae-Gang look like professional models. [photos] We headed out after a couple more amazing Jun's-mom-home-cooked meals to Korea University. We popped in to the brand new Samsung building that contained a nice museum of historic and contemporary Korean art. Afterwards, we stopped by a lounge nearby the building that Jun did his Masters at where they had free wireless and a grand piano with a queue of students at the ready to show off some excellent piano skills while I polished off one last slide for my presentation. We headed over to the old Jun building, talked to his old lab, and went to the room where I was about to give a lecture. There were about 40 people in the room, and I delivered my lecture, which took about an hour. [photo] Jun and I did not expect any questions, being that the audience was a group of shy Koreans who probably didn't understand my English, but actually, at about 30 minutes after my talk ended, I had to stop questions because Jun and I were late for another engagement. We left as quickly as Koreanly possible to a chorus of thank you's and more questions, and ran out into an absolutely pounding thunderstorm to meet Jun's parents, pick up an incredibly important package, and catch a cab to the other side of Seoul where Yae-Gang's family was eagerly awaiting our arrival.

We arrived not too late, and suddenly I became an integral part of a traditional ceremony. For this ceremony, the groom requires a close friend to carry the elaborately decorated and incredibly important package to the bride's family's home. I took the package and Jun took my backpack. I joked that my backpack was probably worth more than his package because my backpack contained my laptop. Jun informed me that I was wrong. I carried the package on my back while holding some traditional pseudo-torches into Yae-Gang's home, turned around and Jun presented the box to them. [photo] We ate another marvelous dinner then the package's contents were revealed. In the box were treasures and jewels presented from Jun and his family to Yae-Gang and her family. Among the necklace and earrings of pearls was the final treasure: the wedding ring. After a bit more in Korean, the ceremony was over, I was presented with a not-so-small token of gratitude, and we were off.

Friday was pretty mellow. Jun, Yae-Gang and I met up with my buddy, Wes, from Berkeley who was in Seoul for a month. We went to go see a Korean Drumming performance called Nantak, but it was nothing like traditional Korean drumming. It was actually really similar to Stomp, but was set entirely in a kitchen. [photo] All their beats, which were still in the same rhythm of the traditional drumming patterns, were done with kitchen instruments while they attempted to cook a meal along a comedic storyline. It was a good performance and hilariously funny. Afterwards, Jun and Yae-Gang had to get to their wedding rehearsal so Wes and I grabbed some drinks at a coffee house and chilled for a bit before walking around some fun neighborhoods and grabbing dinner at a famous fish restaurant. We finished off the evening with some drinks at a biergarten [photo].

Saturday was the wedding day. I caught a cab over to the venue at Korea University. The place was absolutely packed and chaotic in a natural way. Jun said he expected 900 people, which is normal for Korean weddings. The wedding hall itself had only about 100 seats so people were lining the walls every which way. The wedding was not long, with the highlight being a song performed by Jun. I zoned out during a lot of it as it was mainly in Korean, but a lot of people I had met from my 2005 Seoul trip found me to say hi. Afterwards was a massive lunch in a room that held about 400 people, so still there was not enough room for everyone; people had to stand around and wait until someone finished and left so they could get a seat. Next, Jun and Yae-Gang were whisked away to a private traditional ceremony whereby each close family member is greeted individually with elaborate ritual. I got the rare chance to observe the ceremony. At one point in the ceremony, Jun had to carry Yae-Gang on his back for a lap around the room, set her down, then do the same for his mom. And that was it for the wedding--they had their bags packed for their honeymoon in Singapore and Bali, and they headed off to the airport.

The rest of the day I hung out with Doo-Ahn, who visited my lab in Berkeley for a year, and another one of the grad students, SoRa, from Jun's old lab. We went to check out the tallest building in Seoul, called the 63 Building for its 63 floors. You actually only get to go up to the 60th floor, but the views were still nice. [photo] With admission to the building came included entrance to Sea World, which was located on the bottom floor of the building. It was actually a lot bigger and nicer than I would have expected. [photos] Finally, we were given free admission to the Imax show on Egyptian Mysteries. It was all in Korean and I fell asleep for some of it. Turns out that Doo-Ahn and SoRa fell asleep for most of it. We left the 63 Building and headed to Insadong, which is a fun neighborhood of Seoul that Doo-Ahn knows well. We walked around for a bit, then went to a famous noodlehouse for homemade noodle soup, dumplings and soju [photo]. We decided to go drinking at an old nook that I had visited in 2005. The specialty was a witch’s brew cauldron of rice wine potion, which we paired with an excellent Korean pancake/pizza (mainly spring onions, onions, and seafood). We had a great evening and got back to my hotel around midnight.

I awoke to my last day in Seoul with a phone call at 11am from SoRa saying that she and two other grad students were waiting for me downstairs. I madly got myself together and packed up all my stuff to check out of the hotel (I was staying at a different hotel Sunday night). Still not completely awake nor exactly sure what was going on, I was informed that we were going to a pseudo-traditional fusionesque Korean village near the North Korean border. After an hour of driving, we reached the village. The buildings were all artistically designed by the top architects of Seoul, and inside each building was some sort of art exhibition or some completely random activity or event. We spent a bit too much time painting pottery (the 3 girls were really into it, but I was the slowest), and we had to rush back into Seoul as quickly as we had rushed away from it. We met Doo-Ahn and Professor Lee (Jun’s old professor and head of the GIS/Remote Sensing group at Korea University) and went to dinner at an outdoor summery bbq place. I wasn’t entirely sure what we were eating—they kept saying “duck” but I was hearing “dog” and then I think they thought that maybe I wanted to eat dog. It was nonetheless good, and we drank a bunch of soju while discussing future collaborations. Afterwards, we headed to a neighborhood “pub” where we were supposed to drink 5 kettles of rice wine. With our drinks came a whole other massive meal that we struggled to get in. After drinking and eating way too much, we headed to—where else—karaoke! I made the 3 girls sing SES, which was a 3-girl Korean pop band that I was introduced to as a Freshman undergrad by my Korean roommate. The girls made me sing Justin Timberlake. The Karaoke machine also gave a score out of 100 at the end of each song, though I’m not exactly sure how it produced the score. That night we only got 2 scores of 100—both from duets by me and Doo-Ahn on Surfin’ USA and Twist & Shout. We all kind of fizzled out at the end, dispersed, and SoRa and Doo-Ahn took me to my hotel. Without going into graphic detail, I had a rough night of sleep, finally nodding off around 4am for 2.5 hours of sleep before my 6:30am wake-up call to get to the airport.

6:41am: Australia trip
We went to Adelaide for a wedding and took some holiday for a week around a bit of Australia afterwards. Here are a couple of pics from each of the places we visited: Singapore, Adelaide, Kangaroo Island, Melbourne, Sydney and the Blue Mountains.

Singapore

Raffles Bar, where everything costs a hell of a lot more than peanuts, which is what you find in piles beneath the bar.


A walk just outside downtown.

Adelaide

The flower girl desperately tries to save her dress from the water.


We checked out the Aboriginal stuff at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Kangaroo Island

I will teach him to play basketball.


The domesticated ones won’t bite your ear off.


The water was still in the evening.


It’s tough being the little guy on the block.

Melbourne

Historic church across from Super Mario Bros exhibit.


The wild architecture of the Atrium.

Sydney

First things first, the Sydney Opera House.


Lazy croc.

Blue Mountains

The 3 Sisters rock formation on the left.


Tranquil falls.

6:40am: Chamonix, France
Muriel, a friend from work, has a flat in Chamonix, France. We headed out to the French Alps, along with Maria and Mike for a ski/snowboard trip. They were there a full week, but I stayed only 5 days. Joining us throughout the trip were Jonathan, Jo, Sarang, Kes and Nic. We had a riotously great time—hitting the slopes all day and feasting on French food and wine all night. Thanks for the awesome trip Muriel! Don’t worry Mu, I won’t tell anyone the story about when you ran up to your parents on the street to hug them only to discover that they weren’t really your parents. Or about which swear words make you feel relaxed… Or…


The gorgeous Alps.


Mont Blanc is more than just a white mountain.

6:35am: Germany road trip
My best friend, Aaron, and our old college dorm/housemate, Matt, flew out to Munich and I met them there. Aaron was there to purchase a new BMW at the BMW factory. We took it on a whirlwind road trip tour through Prague, Dresden, Berlin, Brussels, Bruges, Calais, and on into England, where he dropped it off to get shipped to California (the expense of the entire trip for Aaron was less than the mark-up if he had bought the car directly in the US). Aaron’s roommate, also named Josh, and Josh’s girlfriend, Mia, met up with us in Munich and Aaron’s cousin, Melanie, met us in Prague. We took on “German” names for the trip: Aaron was Otto (he bought the auto), Melanie was Melga-nie, Mia was Mila, Matt was The Kaiser, and Josh and myself were Hanz and Franz (extremely useful for distinguishing us). The entire trip was non-stop laughter and good times with lots of drinking and rapid-fire site seeing. Lifetime memories? Check.

Munich, Germany

The Kaiser, Otto and Franz in front of a small castle.


The Crazy King Castle (Neuschwanstein Schloss)!

Berlin, Germany

Another cool icon.


The Berlinboys.

Bruges, Belgium

This fella wades right on down the river to spite us.


Goodbye Bruges, on our way to Calais!

6:26am: Middle East
I guess I haven't really been keeping up with my LJ, instead keeping my travel page up-to-date. So I'll try to do a quick update with just a couple pics from each of the places I went to since I last updated. First up, Middle East.

Petra, Jordan

The walls lean in to hide something in the distance.


The great palaces emerge around a bend.

Cairo, Egypt

Okay I actually like this shot. Makes me feel all artistic and stuff.


Don’t forget the Sphinx, protector of the pyramids. The Sphinx is considered a failure since all the pyramids got looted.

Luxor, Egypt

The walls were a giant book.


Good place to play hide-and-seek.

Istanbul, Turkey

Jewel of the city, Hagia Sofia as seen from our hotel.


Asia-Europe express.

10:04pm: Andes 2, Amazon
a few pics from my 2nd trip to Peru


On the way to the cloud-forest.


Cloud flowers.


The slanted cloud-forest.


Here is our fearless tree climber who climbs up enormously tall and unstable trees to collect the leaves for us. He uses only a rope (no cleats, no special belt, nothing else).


A group of 7 very territorial monkeys attacked us at the mid-elevation site.


Rained out of field work for the day.


Camp site at the Andes lowlands/Amazon foothills plot.


Cruisin' through the Amazon on the Tambopata River.


Me and my Peruvian amigos.


Beautiful birds with black beaks and bodies bathe by the beach.


Friendly macaw.


Cool leaf cutter ants look like wind surfers.


I think I’ll grow this direction, no wait I think I’ll grow in that direction, no wait I think I’ll grow in this other direction…


This fella guards our trees.

3:48pm: Costa do Sauipe, Brazil
The second week of conference was in a Club Med type resort 75 km outside of Salvador. It was absolute paradise.


This is one of 6 interconnected pools with a bar in it. We used the facilities liberally.


The entrance to the hotel attached to our convention center where I spent a lot of time on the wireless.


A wonderful African/Brazilian dance show just outside my room.


Dancing the foho in the public square. This is the 3rd night I've danced the foho this trip. Supposedly I am now a legend in Salvador because of my foho dancing (I couldn't help but intertwine swing moves into it).


The most amazing capoiera show I've ever seen.

12:42pm: Last day in Salvador

A huge heap of giant clams for lunch.


Some sort of fancy Salvador drink.


This is where we had lunch and hung out all afternoon on the last day.


Kind of reminds me of LA.

7:58pm: Salvador, Brazil
The first week in Salvador was amazing. Incredible food, weather, people and everything. The conference was really good too and I linked up with a lot of people. Yadvinder (my boss) said that he got a lot of praise about my presentation and top people in my field want to use my model. Luiz and Liana also did great presentations so Yadvinder's group represented strongly.

In the afternoon on Tuesday, Luiz and I got our respective pre-conference workshop groups (he's in a different one) to join together on a boat ride out to a beautiful island for the afternoon. It was beautiful and we all had a great time.


Just an incredible bountiful feast at every meal. You can see the pool that I swam in every day after a workout at the hotel/convention gym.


This dude was checking out our lunch.


A view of Salvador as we left on the boat.


This island beach is where we had our final meetings. I like my work.

12:14pm: Hvar, Croatia
To get to Hvar from Dubrovnik was quite an ordeal. We woke up very early in Dubrovnik, ran around the city walls, then rushed over to the bus station by 10:45am to catch the 11am bus to Split, which would arrive just in time to catch the 3pm (last of the day) catamaran to Hvar Island. Unfortunately, like the hotel situation in Dubrovnik, the 11am bus was completely full. We decided to walk down the road to the nearest car rental place and wing it from there. We zoomed up the gorgeous Croatian coast, which was a lot like the Pacific Coast Highway in California. It was already faster than a bus would have been because we didn’t have to wait at the border crossings for security to pull off suspicious characters (possibly part of the Russian mafia). We arrived in Split with not a moment to spare, parked the car, rushed to the harbor and boarded the 3pm catamaran, which left 5 minutes later.

We fended off old ladies trying to get us to rent their apartments, but returned to the same area 30 minutes later and accepted an offer from an old woman who was unsuccessful in getting someone to rent her place. We rushed her up a steep hillside, threw our stuff down and rushed back out to try to catch the last bus to Starigrad, which was the nicer part of Hvar Island. We got to the bus right as it was departing and managed to climb aboard.

As a related side note- We just barely caught our flight to Croatia from London by 5 minutes before takeoff. One of the stewardesses yelled at us. I yelled back, “Croatian Airlines has such friendly service!”


We had a beautiful view of Hvar from our room.


Sunset over Starigrad.

8:16pm: Dubrovnik, Croatia
We got to Dubrovnik in the evening, but every single hotel, B&B, apartment and room was fully booked for a 50 mile radius. After spending hours trying to find something, we sat dejected in an internet café considering the idea of buying a large comforter and sleeping on the beach. An American/Croatian guy in the internet café knew of a cluster of hotels just outside the city that were very new and probably not on the search engines. We called them up and sure enough they had 1 room available.


Wall of Dubrovnik.


Rooftop view.


Church as seen from the wall.

6:07pm: Kotor, Montenegro
The next Montenegro stop was Kotor, a UNESCO site that had a lovely old town within sturdy city walls and a steep hillside fortress behind it. Montenegro is the world’s newest country (for now).


Casino Royale was set in Montenegro so we kept an eye out for James Bond. Unfortunately, Casino Royale was filmed in the Czech Republic.


Cobbled streets of Kotor.


I found this cute blue & green eyed cat chillin’ underneath a chair.


View from the hill.


Another lovely view.


Fortress.


Fortress at night.

8:36am: Budva, Montenegro
When we asked the bus station woman for a ticket to Montenegro, she looked at us like we were stupid tourists and asked, “Where in Montenegro?” We stared blankly back at her and finally replied, “I don’t know. Where should we go?” We decided to go to the furthest point that the bus would take us, which was a beach town called Budva. After and only after we left did we find out that there was a Russian mafia double murder hit a couple days prior to our arrival.


A bit of Montenegrin hillside.


I smuggled in Tequila on my donkey. Seriously, I HAD to take a photo of this.


Yum, we got a great seafood platter.

5:02pm: Neum, Bosnia
We unexpectedly ended up in Bosnia because, on the way down the coast of Croatia, Bosnia somehow claimed a little bit of coastal land that cut Croatia into more pieces.


We had a dinner of bread, cheese and beer while watching the sunset.

11:31pm: Split, Croatia
got back yesterday from a trip to Croatia and Montenegro (and an accidental stop in Bosnia)...here are a few pics from Split, Croatia


In the tower.


View from tower.


Tower from below.


Cat.

10:51am: Cinqueterre
Cinqueterre is a stretch of coast that includes 5 (cinque) towns. Much like Capri with its winding paths and beautiful scenery, but much more extensive and interesting. You could really spend a good chunk of time in Cinqueterre.


Riomaggiore.


They really built right in to the topography.


Out on the blue-tiful walks.


The next town, Corniglia, was built a bit higher up from the sea.


Looking out over the sea near Corniglia.


Looking down from Corniglia.

11:17pm: Napoli
Napoli (or Naples as we know it) was a bustling, busy city that paled in charm next to Capri and the Amalfi Coast. Still, there was a good museum there. Oh and this is out of order because we did Napoli in between Capri and Arezzo.


Hercules doesn’t take crap from anybody. Especially when his bicep is as big as me.


Heh. I amuse myself.


A Jesuit monument.

10:43pm: Arezzo
We spent a week in Arezzo for Carmel’s conference, where we hung out with her old labmates from Berkeley. Arezzo itself is nothing super special, and is interesting in that it’s just a sleepy suburban town that contrasts itself to the busy cities, poor towns or tourist destinations that we’re used to in Italy. But, it has its charms. The city itself has old city walls that enclose some classic architecture and nice piazzas. Just outside of the city are the rolling hills and vineyards of Tuscany.


The city walls.


Jousting!


Carmel is pleased. We also ate gelato 3 times per day.


Our last night ended with an elaborate stilt-walking fire-sword battle.

11:35pm: Capri
Capri was a wonderful island full of beauty and winding pathways that you could spend quite some time exploring. It was also a huge tourist trap and expensive.


Lighthouse marking the jagged edge.


Taking it easy.


The green grotto.


Kids in a grape festival are amazed by the fire spinner up ahead.


Ah the iridescent waters.

9:18am: Messina
After we went to Palermo, we took a train along the northern edge of Sicily until we reached the point closest to mainland Italy (the toe point of the boot). Messina was founded in 724BC and was the point (Straits of Messina) in the Odyssey where Odysseus had trouble crossing (between a rock and a hard place).


The water point.


This clock tower was actually kind of cool because those little figures moved to ring the bells at the hour.


That bus is headed to Sparta. Cool.


The treacherous Straits of Messina. Actually they were quite calm. I think Odysseus was a wuss. After looking up the story on the internet we found out that Odysseus was afraid of a whirlpool named Charybdis (along with Scylla the monster). Scylla may have been a reference to giant squid in the sea around then. In 1783 there was an earthquake that changed the sea floor and made the whirlpool much weaker. I don’t understand why Odysseus didn’t just look up a better route on the internet.


Looking back on Messina.

11:43pm: Palermo
Just back from a trip to Italy. We flew in to Palermo, Sicily (the ball that the boot is kicking). Then we took a train across the northern edge to Messina, where we crossed over to the boot and worked our way up the coast to Salerno. We took a boat along the Amalfi coast and visited Capri. After Capri, we hit up Napoli (Naples) then spent the week in Arezzo in Tuscany for Carmel's conference. After her conference we went to Cinque Terre along the Mediterranean coast closest to France.


Sicily!


Arch over street.


Theater.


Cathedral from distance.

11:16am: London & Stonehenge
A couple snaps from the London Eye and Stonehenge while my mom and sis were visiting.


Looking up at the London Eye.


Pod floats near Big Ben.


Biggie.


Stonehenge. Nice sky eh? Too bad it's not in England...