At the end of March I visited the Netherlands to participate in the RFI2010 conference. I took a couple of days to visit Amsterdam before the conference itself which was definitely a good idea: it's a lovely place.

Unfortunately, the weather was somewhat bleak, so things weren't too photogenic in general. We've got the area near Amsterdam city center and the IJ:

This is the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope:

And this is the Low Frequency Array, possibly the most boring-looking telescope ever built. (But it will do a lot of very exciting science!)

Obscenely late, it's Halloween '09!

The pumpkins: vampire, Slimer, crying eagle, Jack Skellington, malevolent tree

Even patriotism can become scary with the addition of red cellophane

As it turns out, way fewer people knew who Spaceman Spiff from Calvin and Hobbes was than I expected

I doubt many people knew who Officer Big Mac was either, but who cares?

Punky Brewster assaulted a cop!

He feared for his life!

Mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent

Dan easily wins the Biggest Sword Award

Punky gets along with mummies better than with cops

George Bluth, Sr. and the Dino Comics T-Rex

Dutchosaurus Rex and the Zombie Greaser ... they fight crime?

His Holiness the Pope

In the process of getting my pictures all straightened out and updated, I found a few more from last August.

Woody, a giant golden salmon

From the gardens of a mansion in the South Bay called Filoli:

Hong Kong is simply a ridiculous place.

Hong Kong Island from the Star Ferry

After Yangshuo we spent the last leg of our trip in Hong Kong. Hong Kong was also pretty spectacular although in a different way than Yangshuo. It was interesting to transition to a much more Westernized Asian city, though it was too bad that part of that transition involved everything suddenly getting more expensive.

HK Island from the Star Ferry

Riding the cablecar up to Victoria Peak, Hong Kong

Kowloon from Victoria Peak, Hong Kong

Yvonne at Victoria Peak, Hong Kong

Pathway at Victoria Peak

Apartments that I imagine are quite expensive

Hong Kong in general seems to have a lot of very effective and impressive public services. One thing that I liked was that the municipal construction projects seemed to always come with an explanation of what was being done, why, and when it was expected to finish, as well as a healthy dose of positivity about engineering. I give you:

Construction signs of Hong Kong, part 1

Part 2! Note the presence of actual information!

Part 3: something to warm the heart of an MIT'er

Part 4: they are generally very big on safe slopes in Hong Kong

Artificial intra-escalator turf and art spheres, Victoria Peak

The view south, Victoria Peak

Giant mantis, Victoria Peak

Neat traffic architecture, Mid-Levels, Hong Kong

Neat tree, Mid-Levels

Cloudbank, construction, and moon, at the ferry piers on Hong Kong Island

I'm pretty happy with this particular group of photos.

Skyscrapers, Kowloon

Hilarious juice-in-a-frozen-test-tube drink, Hong Kong

A great part of visiting Hong Kong was being able to see my friend Clayon, whom I haven't seen much of lately, since he's been living in Hong Kong and all.

Clayton with the hilarious drink

Terrifying Mickey Mouse sculpture, Times Square, Hong Kong

This soda machine is named THIRSTBUSTERS

On Saturday we took a junk trip around the Hong Kong area with a group of Clayton's friends who were having a going-away party. The trip involved sailing out to a beachy area, dropping anchor, and swimming and eating a lot. The boat was not at all like an old-fashioned junk, which was a little disappointing, but the food was delicious and the trip was great overall.

Junk trip, Sai kung, New Territories

Our own private beach! Until a bunch more people arrived.

Our junk did not have a banana raft

Indoor ice rink in tropical weather, Hong Kong

Inscrutable shirt, Hong Kong

Water fountain, Hong Kong Park, Hong Kong

Yvonne from within the fountain, Hong Kong Park

Hong Kong Park

The Lippo buildings, Admiralty, Hong Kong

Another angle

Giant walled lily pad, Hong Kong Park

The buildings mostly come out at night ... mostly ...

The future is now

An always-amusing sight in the MTR

On the last night of our trip we had to move to a somewhat sketchy hostel in the moderately infamous Chungking Mansions. "Sketchy" in Hong Kong is pretty reputable in most American cities, so it was fine.

Bizarre lettuce sculpture in our room

We encountered one last Hong Kong technological marvel as we left. The Airport Express subway takes you straight to the airport, of course, but you can also checkin and leave your bag at the departure station, and they'll give you a boarding pass and get your bag onto the plane for you. Impressive!

Airport Express, Hong Kong

And that's the trip in pictures. It was a lot of fun and I'd love to go back.

After Shanghai we made an impromptu trip to the city of Yangshuo, which is in south central China in the karst region, near Guilin. The scenery was absolutely stunning and it was nice to get out of the big cities a little bit. Even though the city had tons of tourists and all that that entails, it was still a very pleasant place to stay.

Yangshuo, near Guilin

Near our hostel, Yangshuo

Bus station, Yangshuo

Mysterious yellow grains spread out on the pavement, near Yangshuo

We took a two-hour boat ride up the Li River with some spectacular views. I finally feel like a person who deserves the title Traveler, because I have now ridden a beat-up old vehicle down a dirt road in the middle of a remote, lush region:

Near the Li River

Yvonne, at the scene on the 20RMB note

Our kind pilot, Li River, near Yangshuo

Li River karsts, near Yangshuo

Sudden downpour during lunch, Li River, near Yangshuo

And if that wasn't scenic enough, let's add ... fog!

Li River, near Yangshuo

The internet must know about this "European LOL massage"

Yvonne at the Yangshuo Cooking School

We were in such a rush to get to Shanghai so that we could catch the total solar eclipse on the morning of July 22. Unfortunately, we failed to factor in the fact that the Shanghai area is often completely clouded in at that time of the year. It was, in fact, raining, but regardless it was still very impressive. We couldn't make out the sun, but it did suddenly get completely dark at around 9:30 AM. You could tell that people around the city were pretty excited. Here's the documentation:

We then spent a few days exploring Shanghai and the surrounding region.

Old Town, Shanghai

Tea house in a pond in the Old Town

One thing to note is the zig-zag bridge leading to the tea house in the picture above. Apparently Chinese ghosts can't travel over water and have poor cornering ability, so to protect yourself from them, you need to be on an island connected to land with a zig-zag bridge. We saw a few instances of this around the Shanghai area.

We stopped to have tea

Koi feeding frenzy! Yuyuan Gardens, Shanghai

Yvonne in the rain, Yuyuan Gardens

Guardian lion, Yuyuan Gardens

More ghost-confounding zig-zag bridges, Yuyuan Gardens

Bizarre public exercise machines, Shanghai

Strolling though a "stone-gate house" neighborhood, French Concession

Stone carving, Baiyun Temple, Shanghai

Fancy modern woodwork, Baiyun Temple

I like the shirt on the right. Baiyun Temple

Note the crazy top to the skyscraper to the right. Baiyun Temple

Lotus pond, Renmin Park, Shanghai

Parrots, no doubt super-old, Shanghai Art Museum

Thousand-buddha obelisk, Shanghai Art Museum

We made a day trip to a "water village" near Shanghai. These are towns built on canal networks in the same fashion as Venice, though they're generally much smaller. Most of these places are now big and not-especially-authentic tourist stops, but it was still a fun trip to make.

Zhujiajiao water village, near Shanghai

A nice go board, Ke zhi yuan Garden, Zhujiajiao

Courtyard, Ke zhi yuan Garden, Zhujiajiao

Scary straw dummies, Ke zhi yuan Garden

Stone structure with tunnels, Ke zhi yuan Garden

A tubby buddha, Ke zhi yuan Garden

Veggies, Ke zhi yuan Garden

Another zig-zag bridge, Ke zhi yuan Garden

Bat woodwork, Ke zhi yuan Garden

Neat natural/built bridge, Ke zhi yuan Garden

Another angle

Riding a boat around the canals, Zhujiajiao

Shanghai has numerous crazy skyscrapers but I wasn't able to get pictures of many since I was short on space in my memory card and the best spot for taking pictures of them, the Bund area by the Huangpu River, was all off-limits due to construction for the World Expo 2010. I did get a picture of one skyscraper though, and it's a doozy. This is a functioning building in which people actually work:

The Oriental Pearl TV Tower, Shanghai

Yvonne, her undergraduate friends Neil and Aga, and I traveled through China for two weeks this summer. It was a lot of fun and really fascinating. This is the first of several batches of pictures that I'll upload.

I spent most of the trip working with an undersized memory card so I ended up taking a lot fewer pictures at the beginning than I might have. So our first stop, in Beijing, isn't very well documented. We also had to blow through Beijing in just a day and a half so we only scratched the surface of what the city was like.

We stayed at a small, excellent hostel called the Chinese Box Hostel. The owners were extremely friendly and helpful and did a lot to make our stay in Beijing more enjoyable.

The Chinese Box Hostel, Beijing. Highly recommended.

On our full day in Beijing, we hit two of the major sights: Tianan'men Square and the Forbidden City. Both were big, flat, and somewhat barren.

Yvonne at Tianan'men Square, on a relatively clear day

Inside the Forbidden City

More Forbidden City.

Placard in an exhibit of imperial weaponry

We saw a few of these turtle-dragons around but I never learned what they were called

Weathered, man-made rock sculpture, Forbidden City

One of the hostel cats.

(Backdated; posted 2009 August 17)

We had a pretty nice sunset tonight:

(Backdated; posted on 2009 August 17)

A few random pictures from the past few months:

December 2008: Up too late ... working? Looking at my calendar I did run some observations that night.

Ilya and Melanie, New Year's Eve, Cambridge

January 2009: Enculturating myself, Berkeley

(Backdated; posted on 2009 August 17)

Yvonne and I made a quick hike up Grizzly Peak in Tilden Park on a lovely September day.

Destination: up there ...

For whatever reason we ended up taking a lot of couple-y pictures and not many vista pictures. Here we have the ones that turned out pretty well, I think:

February fifth was not only Mardi Gras and Super Tuesday, it was also the day that I took my prelim. I passed, so we went to a bar. (Well, if I had failed, we'd probably have gone to a bar too...)

The rockin' Skull Jar

The Skull Jar full of sangria is actually from Jeff's housewarming party from a few weeks back, but I like it so here it is.

Me and Yvonne at Jupiter

Team Grouchy

Some of my comrades-in-celebration

The traditional traffic cone hat of victory

Kind of a busy break at home, but had time for fun stuff. For one, I visited Clayton at his parent's place in Connecticut.

it was a pretty wild time down there

Angela, Clayton, Claire, Tyler, me

For New Year's, went down to a party thrown by friends of friends on the Cape. Didn't spend much time taking pictures, but it was good times.

some of mah boys

not nearly enough Graham in my life these days

Home for Thanksgiving. Didn't take too many pictures, but there was the inevitable journey to Charlie's Kitchen...

Charlie's, as ever

How it ends, as ever

Visited Thea in Portland again, with a long side trip to Seattle to see Interpol play and hang out in another awesome city.

Thea ran a marathon and no amount of modesty will make that not impress me

One fun part was that we had bought train tickets to get up to Seattle. We arrive at the train station early in the morning to discover that strong winds have derailed a train and that there's no northbound service at all. Being enterprising folks we decided to rent a car and make the three-hour drive instead. About ten minutes out of town, a bigass piece of thin aluminum gets blown off a truck and hits the right front of the car. We were both fine, but the car wasn't, and I couldn't get the truck to pull over or get its plates. And I had declined the vehicle damage waiver. Hertz has yet to get back to me about all that but I bet the aftermath will be a blast.

good times

We did get to Seattle in one piece though.

Thea and Alyssa: may have had a few drinks at the bar

takin' Anthropologie down a notch

rain in Seattle? no way!

Thea's moving back to Berkeley for the spring semester so that's a bit less of a reason to stop by Portland. But it's still an awesome city and I'm definitely coming back, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Leaving Portland: middle of the Hawthorne Bridge, 10/19/07, 10:04 PM

First, karaoke for Mo's birthday. Sadly I had to arrive late and missed a lot of the fun.

Justin and Mo

Then, party at Palo Alto with Mike and his Google buddies.

this kind of classiness ...

... leads to this kind

Mike, me, Bobby, the departing Swede Maria

I have so many more pictures along these lines

and these

three best expressions ever