There are no prizes…
Posts Tagged ‘tourism’
Guess where I am
Friday, July 30th, 2010Budapest Pictures 2
Sunday, July 18th, 2010
Taroko Gorge
Saturday, June 26th, 2010Today I went to Taroko Gorge, which was awesome. The weather was cooler and less humid than Taipei, although hiking was still tiring. We met up with a park ranger who has been conscientiously collecting samples for Niels for years, who took us to a fresh landslide which we spent several hours clambering over and sampling. Then I went for a walk up the gorge, and found this:
At the bottom are hot spring pools, the photo is taken from a rickety suspension bridge over the river.
Budapest Pictures 1
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
Budapest 3
Sunday, June 13th, 2010Just a quick picture this time, before breakfast. Here’s something from the Museum of Fine Arts.
Budapest 2
Friday, June 11th, 2010Today’s photo: Hungarian Parliament. Modelled on Westminster it’s the world’s third largest parliament building. I woke up at 7 to queue for tickets for a free guided tour, and it was well worth it.
RIP Predator Cam
Thursday, June 10th, 2010My trusty Sony V1 camera is about 6 years old now, and the batteries have had it. So I bought a new camera, and have been running around Budapest trying it out. As you do. It’s a Sony a-500 DSLR which seems to be fun, if complicated.
I’ve shunned the traditional tourist highlights for the time being, although there are still a few days to go the the relevant museums etc. I’ve found that museums have fairly awkward photography rules, mostly that they advertise a photography price at the entrance but refuse to let you take pictures anyway… Zoos and botanical gardens have none of that nonsense, so I could play with the camera to my heart’s content.
Many photos will follow I’m sure, but here is a taster 
Unfortunately we’ve been stung by the exchange rate – I took out my travel money last Thursday and since then Hungary has had debt problems and the exchange rate has got 15% better. Luckily most things are still pretty cheap here – £1 a pint in most bars and £2 for bottle of wine from a supermarket
With apologies to Pierre de Fermat
Saturday, December 12th, 2009I have some beautiful photographs of the Eiffel Tower, but the internet here is too slow to share them with you.
Christmas lights here in Paris are somewhat more tasteful than their UK counterparts. Each major road has personalised displays hanging across the road, whilst the pedestrian areas are ablaze with lights strung here and there. The highlight is the Tower though, which is a lighting engineer’s dream. Each strut has been wired individually with at least seven colours, each can be switched on and off independently to create pulsing rainbow effects, with colours running up and down the height of the tower. There are also searchlights on top and spotlights which can be set to flicker and sparkle. Each hour the lights change from a simple white illumination to a full-on spectacular for 10-15 minutes, visible from all over Paris.
I guess the question would be, who has to climb up and down the inside of the struts when they need to replace a bulb?
Rob 2 Merde 1
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009Three days down, two days in the lab, and still just the one merde incident. I feel like keeping a track of the number of times I successfully dance across the pavement, avoiding another well-laid trap. However, keeping score like this is fruitless; if I score a point each time I avoid some, I effectively lose a million points each time I fail.
On a lighter note, the food today has been great. For lunch we had the plat-du-jour at a local Spanish restaurant, a fantastic paella stuffed with chicken, prawns and saffron. Back in the lab the lasers are switching between playing ball and playing up, but data is appearing quickly at least and I will have plenty to keep me busy over the winter. This evening I wandered around the Christmas-lit city centre with Lauren (who is being paid to do a masters here!) but unfortunately it was raining and I’d left my camera at the hotel, so pictures will have to wait until another night.
J’arrive a Paris
Sunday, December 6th, 2009Having been back in the UK for three weeks it’s time to rack up some more expenses. This time I am in Paris visiting Olivier Beyssac, who has a shiny lab here with lots of expensive machinery for me to use. Eurostar was great, the check-in and passport-control system managed to get everyone in the right place at the right time, even though the train was really busy. It made me think of early aviation, where you could walk onto your plane with ease rather than the current system of frisking, security announcements, airports miles outside the city requiring a transfer as expensive as the ticket, water-bottle nazis and several miles hiking to get to your gate.
Right then, time to try some french cuisine wine