Unspeak

We're in Beijing!

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:36:34 +0000

My parents and I arrived in Beijing two days ago. The flight didn't seem so long to us because we slept. We spent the first afternoon and evening relaxing and enjoying our fiv star hotel, Shangri La. Nneka exclaimed during our delicious dinner in the hotel restaurant, "I'm in heaven!"
The second day, we visited the Palace Museum and Tiananmen Square. It was incredible to be there! After lunch we took a rickshaw ride through the Hu Tong, or "narrow streets", and visited a house there. Next, we had a wonderful dinner of various dishes including Peking roast duck. Finally we saw a Peking opera show.

Today, we visited the Great Wall. We walked just a small section, but it took 90 minutes. What an amazing view! We will have many photos up when we return home.

Peru Photos

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:17:15 +0000

Machu Picchu

It's been more than a month since we got back from Peru, but I finally have the photos here. We really had a great time, and learned a lot about Peruvian history and culture. The landscape and ruined architecture was incredible.

Unfortunately, it's still a pretty poor country, especially outside of major cities. Evidence of the Spanish conquests, forced conversion to Christianity and centuries of forced labor is still clearly visible, and the bitterness, although tamed, remains ever-present.

Please enjoy the photos, but be aware of the history...

Brief visit

Sun, 20 May 2007 03:11:14 +0000

swan in afternoon sun

My parents spent their vacation this year on Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard. Nneka and I visited them briefly on for the weekend of May 5th. It was nice time walking on the beach, eating seafood, and spending time together. I also got a few photos, including this one:

San Francisco visit

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 11:57:58 +0000

Golden Gate Bridge

Wow! Nneka's been travelling quite a lot the past several months. She had to be in San Francisco this week, so I took the opportunity to visit her for the weekend. As it happens, the brand new son of my friends, Grant and Melissa, had just come home from the hospital that week, too. So we got to meet the little guy. Here are some photos from the trip.

little Mark Jerome

Nneka and I had a lovely time, even with the rain during most of Saturday. It was sunny but brisk on Sunday. We did lots of walking in this very walkable city.

Weekend in Paris

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 17:44:22 +0000

La Tour Eiffel

Nneka is on a business trip to Paris this month for two weeks in Paris, so I met here this weekend, departed Thursday evening and returned Monday afternoon. We had a lovely time, strolling around all the landmarks and eating lots of good French food, including what I consider the best appetizer I've ever had in my life: toasted spiced bread, with sliced pear and melted goat's cheese, drizzled with a caramel syrup of some kind. Absolutely heavenly.

We visited Notre Dame, Saint Sulpice, and several other famous old churches, the Effeil Tower (Tour Effeil), the Moulin Rouge (which we decided is too expensive to get the full experience of the dinner and show). We did a bit of window shopping in Ile Saint-Louis. I wanted to see the Catacombs, but I didn't have time. Perhaps next time.

Here are some more photos.

Happy Turkey Day!

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 21:53:14 +0000

What better excuse to clean the house than for Thanksgiving guests? This year, Nneka and I stayed home. She cooked much of the meal, while I baked a mincemeat pie and cleaned the house. Two of the foreign interns working at Nneka's office (from Algeria and Switzerland) were invited to experience a traditional American holiday dinner -- turkey roasted with bacon, cranberries, sweet potatoes, garlic-nutmeg mashed potatoes, collard greens, apple and mince pie for dessert. What a fun evening we enjoyed together. We subjected them to a slide show of Southeast Asian photos, and talked politics, etc.

And the leftovers the next day -- mmmm!

PMC 2006: Final fundraising push -- thank you

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 11:27:54 +0000

The fundraising for the PMC is finally done. I raised $500 in the last nine days, for a total of $2805! I didn't quite meet my minimum of $3300, but came close. I am responsible for making up the difference myself ($495), but it's not as much as I was worried it would be a couple of weeks ago. Thanks again to everyone who donated...

Micro publishing

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 09:04:59 +0000

Thanks to T9, Opera Mini, and mobile phone based Internet, I can blog on the go. This inaugural message was written on my walk to work. "Gimmick," you might say. Perhaps, but it may also change the way I keep in touch with family, friends, and anyone else who might read this blog. :-) Time will tell...

Where have all the parents gone?

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 10:32:15 +0000

I turned on CNN this evening to a program on the AIDS crisis in Africa. In it, Christiane Amanpour documents the all too many stories of devastated and orphaned children, who've lost one or both parents to the epidimic. The statistics are grim (from Amanpour's written article on the same subject):

...[T]here are 12 million AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa alone, and in four short years that number will skyrocket to 18.4 million. That means AIDS orphans will make up 15 to 20 percent of the population in some African countries.
-- July 19, 2006, Christiane Amanpour, © CNN

New look and new digs for Unspeak.org

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 06:00:23 +0000

Big changes on Unspeak:

Finally, after 6 months, I moved my Unspeak blog to my new hoster (dreamhost) with a new domain name unspeak.org.
As you can see, I decided I was bored with the old green color scheme, hence what you now see. The photo at the top of the page, is from the inside of a huge cave in Halong Bay, Vietnam.
I made the switch to my Gallery-powered photo album site, by changing the menu link to point there. You can still view my old albums by clicking here, but I plan to gradually migrate everything to the new site.

Honeymoon Photos

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 15:07:25 +0000

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

I realize it's been nearly two months since we've returned from our honeymoon, and I still haven't posted anything about photos yet. I've just been too busy. I've put up a few of them here with captions. I'll gradually add more as I have time to write captions, so you know what you're looking at.

The photo of the day is of Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia, to whet your appetite.

So much to say, so little time...

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 14:56:37 +0000

Wow, I haven't posted anything new here since March! So much has happened, but I haven't had time to write. I'll try to catch up, but here's a quick synopsis:

June 17, 2006, Nneka and I were married. The planning was nuts, but the wedding went off spectacularly (if we do say so ourselves). We enjoyed ourselves and so, it seemed, did everyone there.
Month-long Honeymoon in Southeast Asia. We had a lovely time, visting 7 countries: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, plus a quick boat stop in Loas. (More details to follow, and photos still being processed.)
Pan-Mass Challenge Aug 5 & 6. I didn't train as much as I'd have liked, but I made it through. Thanks to everyone who supported me. You still have time to donate if you haven't -- I'm still trying to reach my goal of $4000. Thanks!

Day 5: Monkey forest and Kuta beach

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 17:00:00 +0000

baby monkey

Although we were reluctant to leave Kupu Kupu Barong's luxury, we were excited to continue on to our next destination. We enjoyed one last breakfast on our balcony and a quick dip in the pool. We checked out around noon, and then hired a chauffeured tour of the remaining of Ubud sites. We visited one of Ubud's many royal palaces, where Balinese royalty still live today. It was an impressive celebration of Balinese architecture. Much of it is on display to the public.

Kuta beach

The monkey forest nearby is a small nature preserve and was one of the more entertaining parts of our Bali visit. The monkeys are used to people and are not easily frightened. In fact, many of them walk right up to you and some tried to grab our water bottles dangling from our backpacks. I got some really fun shots here, in spite of the low-light conditions. A few of the monkeys also got a bit agressive with other tourists. One woman freaked out and left.

statue in Royal Palace

After the monkey forest, we ate lunch at Dirty Duck. The food tasted good, but unfortunately, it was probably a bit "dirty", as Nneka got sick later that night.

After lunch we drove out to Kuta beach, where all the resort hotels are, and saw the sunset before heading to the airport, and flying to Malaysia...

More photos...

Day 4: Shopping Ubud

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:00:00 +0000

Barong dance

We awoke to much better weather today. We ordered breakfast on the balcony, overlooking the jungle gorge. Nasi goreng (fried rice), mie goreng (fried noodles), pancakes, and coffee. Our tour guide picked us up at 8:30. Again, there were no seat belts. Nneka was nervous all day about this, but we didn't seem to have any choice. We saw quite a lot that day:

Batik painting, a traditional Balinese art, using colored wax on cloth
A Barong dance performance, one of the most well-known Balinese cultural features.
A jewelry maker, where Nneka bought a lovely bracelet

Kintamani volcano and
rice paddies at dusk
Hindu temple
wood carving producers and shop
Kintamani volcano
traditional spice and coffee roasters
rice terraces
painting school and shop where the artists painted traditional Balinese scenes as well as immitated abstract, impressionist, and Renaissance styles.

Much of the draw for Ubud tourism is the art and craft shops. But we also saw some quite beautiful jungle scenery.

More photos...

Day 3: Lap of Luxury

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 12:00:00 +0000

rose petal bath

Our next two nights were the most expensive accommodations of our entire trip. As we would soon discover, they were also the most luxurious. After we checked out of Villa Wanakerta, a driver picked us up to take us to Kupu Kupu Barong, a five-star resort in the heart of Ubud town.

When we got into the car, we found that the seat belts had been intentionally cut out of the car! Nneka complained, but it appeared we had no choice. What Americans consider safety was considered an inconvenience in Bali (and throughout Southeast Asia, except Singapore).

When we arrived, the manager met us in the beautiful open air lobby, offered us a welcome drink, and generally made us feel at home as we checked in. We were shown to our private villa, where we were greeted by a flower petal bath and a special cake, decorated with "Contratulation, Honey Moon" [sic]. The villa was a two-stories, split-level, with a balcony, a private pool, and a view of a beautifully forested gorge.

private pool

We had booked a tour for that day, but it was rescheduled due to a mixup with the date. It was nice to just spend the afternoon lounging. We ordered room service, took a nap, ate some of the cake, and then went for three hours of spa treatments. Extraordinary.

Dinner at the resort restaurant was delicious. Nneka had the steak and I ordered a spicy seafood hot pot, with huge mussels, squid and fish. The restaurant was open-air under a tent. The supporting columns were dotted with little lizards, prehaps sleeping, as they didn't often move.