The Bahai gardens in Haifa are considered the must-see in the city. Off-limits to the general public, except on guided tours, one has only one opportunity per day to get in and see them up close. The English language tour starts at noon and I had a lazy morning with coffee, breakfast and a little […]
Sailing
Every Wednesday afternoon the Cairns Yacht Club invites non-members to come around for a couple of hours sailing on Trinity Inlet. Hiro and I took the opportunity and joined the crew of a 24 foot J/24 boat. Instructor Adrian and trainees Graham and Graham welcomed us aboard and gave us a short introduction. As we […]
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
Thursday, November 25th. Usually I’m not a big fan of zoos but today we went to visit the Koala sanctuary nearby Brisbane. It is more than 120 years old and currently home for 130 koalas. Besides the koalas they show other animals, most of them Australian. We started with the lorikeets. They are not held […]
Climbing
The Blue Mountains are one of the best places in Australia for climbing. There are always some people at the hostel who have some gear and today Jenn and Elliam invited us to come along to a nearby climbing site. It’s been almost a year since the last time I was on the wall and […]
Taking the Red Pill
In the movie Matrix, the protagonist is offered a choice of two pills. Blue will make him forget all he uncovered, while red will show him the world as it really is. That analogy was given by the hostel owner when I told him how my pre-defined image of Palestine was shaken up by reality. […]
Rolling blackout
“A rolling blackout, also referred to as rotational load shedding or feeder rotation, is an intentionally engineered electrical power shutdown where electricity delivery is stopped for non-overlapping periods of time over different parts of the distribution region.” That’s what wikipedia says and what it effectively means is that all of Kathmandu has power for less […]