On your marks...

Go!

It makes sense

The day I decided I quite liked Canada was when I walked around the Ontario Science Center in Toronto and saw this:

The caption on the side reads "This lifesize silhouette of a sparrow hawk will discourage small birds from flying into the glass."

This makes loads of sense. Why wasn't this compulsory when people decided they would like to build a whole load of buildings where birds used to live (i.e. trees) and put up glass (i.e. transparent) windows so people can enjoy the "natural light"?

Not that I was scarred by the fact that when I was in the art room in Year 12 and studying at a school that also happened to be in the middle of land that was being "developed" (i.e. massive chunks of rainforest were being cut down to be replaced by shopping centers and houses) I heard a "thunk" that turned out to be a mini sparrow being hunted by a small hawk that had both flew head first into the art room windows to have their heads neatly snapped off.

The Ghetto

On one of our few nights in New York, our lovely guide Nina took us on a whirlwind drive through where she used to live -- Chinatown. As far as I could tell, it had a fairly stereotypical movie feel. You could well imagine the triads having a shady deal on one street, whilst the mafia puff on some cigars in a basement round the corner.

A remembered dream

A room half filled with a wall of water, the other half filled with air and no divide in between. Fishes swimming in the water, around head height. I can seemingly move between the two without difficulty or affecting the division. I can hear the fishes wondering what happens if they swim through the water out into the air. One does. I quickly move it back into the water. It swims away, then another three fling themselves out into the air...

A nice meal

After a surprisingly hot walk from Ottawa to Gatineau across the Alexandra Bridge, it was a pleasant to find that the beeline for the nearest bit of shade was the Café du Musée, part of the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Lunch consisted of cold white wine, vichyssoise, baked salmon (with a kind of tasty foamy sauce, dauphinoise potatoes, summer veg) and a pretty good view of the Ottawa River and Parliament Hill.

Best Pizza in New York

On a food tour of Greenwich Village, one of our first stops was the "best pizza" in New York. It's all to do with the water, apparently. Oh, and that they cook pizza fresh. Two pizzas max on the counter top. Oh, and it's also where Spiderman is fired from in the second film.

Robin's Egg

Blue Robin's Egg broken,
What happened?
Nature is cruel but beautiful.

The Modern Era

A typical lazy hazy day in Fujian province in the south of China. Jump on the tourist boat!

Sunset at Robin Hood's Bay

A kind of layered HDR shot. Not quite as dramatic as the previous post, trouble with aligning images, probably not a good idea to try and take hand-held shots after a few drinks.

High Dynamic Range - St Mary's Church

Did I blog this before? Or did I just think of blogging it, then decide not to? Anyway, I distinctly remember wanting to say - corpuscular rays.

On a slightly cloudy day, we climbed 199 steps to St. Mary's Church and graveyard to completely miss the last entry for Whitby Abbey. At least the HDR experiment worked out in the end!

Staircase of Wonders - Bugs

This is not that creepy. Not as creepy as say, a drawer full of stuffed birds.

Staircase of Wonders - Skeletal

Strangely eerie but childishly colorful ... jars upon jars of animals without skin. Bones are dyed red, cartilage blue.


What is this? I'm not sure myself.