pogoism

Mushrooms

Chickens

Sagrada Familia

Parc Gaudi

Sangria

Elephant, Montjuïc

Segundo

More.

Last weekend the other IAESTEs and I went to an island off the south coast of the Korean peninsula, Jeju-do. It’s a very popular honeymoon destination for Koreans and it’s becoming more popular with foreign tourists too. It’s pretty much the Korean version of Hawaii.

We decided that rather that just fly there and back, we would try to get the ship from the mainland to the island. So, we got the train bright and early and travelled to Mokpo, a smallish city in the south-west corner of Korea. From there we got the 6 hour ferry to Jeju. We travelled third class, which meant we all got put in a big room where we had to sit on the floor. A few months ago, before I came here, the idea of sitting on the floor would have been out of the question. It’s just not something we do here. But since I’ve been here, I’ve grown quite fond of the idea. Many restaurants require you to sit on the floor and most of the motels and hostels I’ve stayed in only give you a thin mattress to roll out on the ground to sleep on.

Mokpo

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This weekend I went on an IAESTE arranged trip to Gyeonju. Gyeongju is situated on the south-east coast of the Korean peninsula. It’s known as the museum without walls due to the sheer amount of old stuff there is within the city. Korea’s history, like many Asian countries, consists of different dynasties and rulers. In the first millennium, the Korea (and parts of what is now China) were ruled by the three consecutive Kingdoms: Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla. Of these, the Silla kingdom is probably the most important, as it was the first to unify all areas of  the peninsula. Gyeongju was the capital city of Silla.

We arrived on Friday evening and checked into our motel, went for a few drinks, had a little wander around the dong and got an earlyish night.

On Saturday morning we began our sight seeing. First stop, the beach. But not any beach, oh no. This beach has some rocks about 200m away from the coast which is a tomb, the tomb of King Munmu.

The Tomb of King Munmu

Then we headed back into the city to do a tour of the Gyeonju National Museum. There was so much stuff to see here. The tour guide who showed us around only took us to a small selection. We did get to sample some tea though, and saw some fascinating Buddhist art, as well as some ancient Korean bling. However, the highlight of the museum was the Emille Bell. This is essentially a giant bell, from a temple, which when struck lightly can be heard 3km away. I’m not sure how true this is though, as we weren’t allowed try.

Emille Bell

After the museum, we went across the road to the site of a royal palace and a beautiful lotus pond, Anapji. The pond was reconstructed in 1974-5, and many relics were found, most of which are now in the museum. At this time of year though, the pond is stunning, with lotus flowers in bloom as far as the eye can see.

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This post is a little late coming, but, hey, better late than never!

At the beginning of September, when I came back from the US, my mum, my brother and I went to Rome  for a few days. Here’s some photos! (More over at on my Flickr if you’re interested.)

Vatican City

Trevvi Fountain

The Pantheon

The Colosseum

Italian Noms

The Colosseum

Let’s try this. Anyone who knows me should try and think of someone who is the complete opposite of me. Then ask that person where he’d like to go on vacation.

He’d probably say Las Vegas.

Oh look! Photos!

Last weekend was Independence weekend, and our last three-day weekend of our time here.

Emily, Peter and I headed to Pyramid Lake for some camping on Friday afternoon. After a mad scramble trying to find exactly what beach everyone else was on, we luckily bumped into Katie on the road, who directed us to the right one. We lugged all our stuff (which, as usual, was far too much) down the steep, sandy hill, and added it to the pile of food. The tent we needed to erect was the same one as last time – the tent which has a pole which has split. Not too much of a problem you might think, but if your hand goes anywhere near this pole, immediately 30 teeny-tiny bits of bamboo implant themselves in your skin. Most unpleasant. especially when you have to camp for 2 days.

So, wonky tent erected, and hoping to God that the thing wouldn’t collapse on top of us in the middle of the night, we set about putting up the volleyball net. Someone had the genius idea of doing this in the lake, so we spent a good chunk of the afternoon attempting that. Eventually, we gave up, and did it on the dry sand instead, by which point no-one had the energy to play anyway.

Then came car-getting-stuck-in-the-sand no. 1. It wasn’t so much stuck in the sand, as raised off the ground from the middle. It took a while to get it out, but we did it in the end. After that, we all had some well deserved drinks, and sat around chatting for the evening and watched some of the (illegal) fireworks over the lake.

Next day we got up, packed up, and left before it got too hit. We were all dirty and tired anyway. After a quick shower and food-buying, we set off to Zephyr Cove at Lake Tahoe. It was fun, we hung out on the (private) beach where we could see the two sets of fireworks. The ones from South Lake Tahoe were probably the best I’ve ever seen. Oh, and btw, Lake Tahoe is seriously one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, even with it covered with white, jock, rich kids.

I promised y’all a post about San Francisco Pride, and here it is! Albeit a week late…

I went with Emily, Alonso, Jaime and Camron on Friday night and we arrived at the hostel. Whenever I go to SF I normally stay downtown or city center, but this time I wanted to stay somewhere different, so we stayed in the Mission District. That’s somewhere I’ve never been before, and there’s not much of SF I haven’t been to on one trip or another. It’s like the multicultural area of the city, like the East End of London, I guess. Anyway, it’s really nice, loads of great places to eat, a buzzing atmosphere and it seems very distinct from the rest of the city.

Saturday consisted of going to Civic Center for the party there (dance music for the first time in 10 months!), doing some shopping and then in the evening we headed to the Castro for the Pink Party. It was phenomenal – they blocked off the Castro at both ends, and the place was filled with gays. It ended at midnight though, so we ended up wandering around finding somewhere to eat and battling through the crowds…

After an unwelcome early start on Sunday, we headed to somewhere near Fisherman’s Wharf to see the parade. It started with some people I mentioned in a previous post, people who have been together for 30-ish years. I always get a little emotional at these things, particularly when I see so many straight people standing around in support, who have made the effort to come down. SF Pride isn’t quite the freak show I had expected, and I get the impression they’ve been told to tone it down. In Belfast and London, and I’m sure most other cities, Pride parades are dominated by drag queens and almost naked men. Which is fine, I don’t mind. But that’s what the media latches onto, and it gives the hideous right-wing idiots something to put in their pathetic email propaganda. Even some of the gays I’ve spoken to who are against the idea of Pride cite this as the main reason. So it was refreshing to see a genuine diversity of people represented in SF.

Here’s some photos! (And there’s loads more over at my Flickr page)

Firstly, sorry for not posting all week. It’s been an odd week, where I’ve had to do some teenager-style thinking and stuff. But I’m back! So yay :)

This weekend in the US is Memorial Weekend, probably one of the biggest public holidays, and a three-day weekend.

Last night, we spent the night camping by the beautiful Pyramid Lake, about 35 miles northeast of Reno. The lake is situated in the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe’s reservation. The lake itself, with a max length of 48km, and a max depth of 109m is big (at least by my measly UK comparisons).

We arrived at Sand Hole beach at about 6, and began to put up our tents. As soon as we began, the skies clouded over and the sun disappeared, something I’m not all that used to any more. Anyway, we erected our tents (quite a tricky task in sand) and then the wind started blowing. We had to move all our tents to the far side of the beach, to avoid them flying into the lake. Then came the next challenge – trying to get the bar-be-ques lit. You would think this kind of problem-solving stuff would be no trouble for a group of scientists, but alas, it was. After a few attempts, and half a bottle of lighter fluid, we got them lit, and started cooking our food. And we made a campfire. Well, we didn’t, we left it to the new Spanish guy who assured us that he did it all the time back home.

Now that all that was done, it was time to settle down to some drinking and chilling. It was nice to hang out with mates from work (and not the annoying mopey ones, either), and make some new ones. It made me realize another big reason why I love working in science (other than actual science, of course). Because of the nature of science, where its international, and transcends nations and language, I work within an incredibly varied department, probably at least one person from each continent. Its fascinating talking to people about where they’re from. For instance, Fran, from Spain came with us to the lake, and I was chatting to him quite a lot. It’s so surreal talking to someone who, comparatively, isn’t from that far from where I hail from, but how different their culture is. There’s also a lot of young (ie, <35) people who do science, which makes for a dynamic working environment, with new people coming in all the time.

A few awkward moments through the night, however. Some random guy came up to our camp, naked, with his wife, and started blabbing on about the war. I’ve learnt never to bring this up, as a lot of people here are in the military, but one girl we were with insisted on carrying on the conversation…

Didn’t end up getting to sleep until about 5am, stayed up to watch the sunrise over the mountains at the other side of the lake, and then I slept by the fire. I have no idea how much smoke I inhaled over the night, but the next day I lost my voice.

Right, that’s all I want to write right now, I’m off out to enjoy the Memorial weekend sunshine.

Last Sunday, Lauren and I went to Animal Ark, near Reno. Animal Ark takes in animals that cannot be released back into the wild for whatever reason, and gives them as realistic an environment as possible. It’s located in the middle of the desert, about 12 miles from Reno.

They house a variety of animals – mountain lions, coyotes, cheetahs, foxes, owls, falcons and badgers, and all the electricity the site uses comes from green sources such as solar and wind.

So, without any further ado… some pictures.

My boyfriend is going to be working in Sacramento a lot more now, and as a result I’m probably going to be spending a lot of time there too. I’d previously only been through Sacramento, as it’s the main stop on the way to San Francisco on the Greyhound. I’ve always thought it looked like a nice city, perhaps like a mini San Francisco.

Alonso had to work on Saturday morning, so we arrived at Rancho Cordova on Friday night, got a burrito (probably the yummiest burrito I’ve had since I’ve been here – which is quite an accolade, ‘cos I’ve had quite a few…), and chilled out in the hotel room.

Next day I got the light rail into downtown Sac. I love public transport in the US because generally it’s a fixed price. One ride, which took about 25 minutes from Rancho Cordova to the Capitol, downtown Sac cost me $2.25. Compare this to a single ride within zone 1 on the London Underground, which is £4.00. That’s almost $6, even with today’s crappy exchange rate.

Armed with the two most essential tools to discovering a new city – my iPhone and a Lonely Planet guide – I got off the train in search of the Capitol building. I couldn’t see it, or find it, despite me being on Capitol Mall, but I ended up near Old Sac at the very impressive looking bridge.

Then I wandered around Old Sac. It felt deserted, and stank of taffy. There wasn’t much to do, and it wasn’t pretty to look at. Cheap, tacky and touristy – almost like Virginia City.

Then it was onwards to downtown Sacramento, which luckily was very close to Old Sac. I found a Starbucks, plonked myself down with a ginger green tea, and studied Lonely Planet in search of something else to do. Tired, and someone disappointed with the place, I waited until Alonso had finished work, then went to meet him.

We had a nice lunch/dinner at Scott’s by the river, which almost didn’t happen, thanks to TomTom taking us totally the wrong way.

Having got a bit bored of downtown, we went in search of the gay district, midtown. This is apparently where stuff happens in Sacramento, where the locals come to hang out. With it being the Saturday before St. Paddy’s Day, there were many, many Americans celebrating their tenuous link to the Emerald Isle. After looking in some expensive lighting stores, we got a drink and panacotta at Lounge ON20.

We wanted some mochi for dessert, so we headed to Osaka Ya (again, after getting totally lost at the hands of TomTom, though, to be fair not actually TomTom’s fault). In case you’re wondering what the heck mochi is, here’s what Wikipedia has to say:

Mochi (Japanese: 餅) is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into shape. In Japan it is traditionally made in a ceremony called mochitsuki. While also eaten year-round, mochi is a traditional food for the Japanese New Year and is commonly sold and eaten during that time. Mochi is also a prominent snack in Hawaii.

Despite not seeming like I liked Sacramento, I’m actually looking forward to going back. I’m sure there are loads of great places yet to be discovered.

You can see more photos over on my Flickr.