I actually wrote this within a week of my trip last November but didn't get around to posting it for mood... reasons. And now I'm in the mood again. Anyways.
People were asking me what my favorite experience in London was... and unlike usual, I actually can’t think of a favorite this time because there were too many things I liked. So I’ll settle for a list (like usual) of highlights, in random order:
Oxford:
Is it bad that I want to make the 1.5-2 trek to Oxford again just for the bookstore? (Well okay, that and the Ashmolean and Natural History museums, but still).
Seriously, the moment I walked into Blackwell’s, I realized that it was one of those bookstores that I could spend an entire day in just book browsing, and I felt sad that I had only an hour (which was already pushing it) to wander at the expense of seeing the rest of Oxford. But ugh, such good shelf arrangement. And that basement, full of book-snob quotes and maze-like walkways through books I would probably never buy but still, I was in awe the moment I saw it all. I want to go back already.
I also did a literary tour of Christ Church and the surroundings, but I have to say the real meat of what I saw related to Alice in Wonderland (which was fine since out of the authors connected to Oxford, Carroll’s works are probably my favorite of the bunch anyway). Got to see the church that C.S. Lewis preached The Weight of Glory at, which felt quite inspiring since I’d read it a while back.
The Bodleian Libraries Tour was great as well, in part due to the British humor of the guide we had that day.
(“The men lost. The women lost. Even the goat lost.”)
(“I told my son I had a smoke with Sir Ian McKellen. He handed the phone over to his wife and said ‘Mom’s been smoking again.’”)
(“They filmed X-men here [at the library]. X-men. Can you believe it? And not only that, but Transformers, too. [to two boys:] Do you like Transformers?”)
And lastly, fish and chips done right, from the pub that Bill Clinton famously “didn’t inhale” at. Possibly among the best chips I’ve ever had in my life. Apparently the secret is to triple fry them. Who knew.
Company:
Never would I have imagined that a gender-bent version of a musical would turn out to be my favorite rendition of it. And I may be gender-biased here, but particularly for the male renditions of “You Could Drive A Person Crazy” (I feel bad saying this but I finally get this song now) and “Not Getting Married Today.” What made the latter stand out for me was its examination of pre-marriage anxiety from a gay person’s perspective, which was completely new to me, and really funny to watch to boot; Jonathan Bailey practically stole the show for me with his frenetic spazzing... and his character’s deep vulnerability.
Greenwich:
Lived up to my personal hype-o-meter, even though it’s quite a bit far out from central London.
For a subject that seems kind of niche to probably anyone else, the Maritime Museum does a great job at making Britain’s maritime past interesting, accessible, and not overwhelming, with a great combination of British paintings (for the art enthusiasts), authentic relics (for the history enthusiasts), natural history exhibits (for the science enthusiasts), and technologically up-to-date and interactive experiences (for the educational technology enthusiasts— shut up I own this fully).
Pacific Encounters was probably the highlight of the main galleries, but I also really liked the animations of the explorer journeys in Tudor & Stuart Seafarers, and the art of Polar Worlds eerily reminded me of the horror works inspired by them— the likes of Shelley’s Frankenstein, Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness, and The Thing.
The Royal Observatory was also awesome, although the path to it is practically pitch black at night, with a treacherous uphill climb that made me wonder why I thought coming here was worth it (but it turned out I could’ve taken a shuttle from the park entrance instead >_>).
But once inside, I was wowed by the astronomy galleries and their technical, not to mention really accessible presentation—it never occurred to me how mind-blowing astronomy words appear when conveyed in sign language. That female interpreter has an awesome job. So many hand explosions.
The planetarium show made up for the sky being obscured by London clouds and light pollution; it actually was the first time I feel like I’ve seen an accessible and animated layman’s explanation of how to look for objects in the night sky: from the distinction between planets, stars, and galaxies in the sky, to the identification and placement of the Zodiac constellations, to the movement of objects in the sky throughout the night, to the zoomed-in shots of Saturn’s rings, the Moon, the rest of the solar system, and I forget what else because (I’m ashamed to admit) I was so tired from being out from 7 AM - 11 PM everyday this week that I actually fell asleep during parts of the presentation -_-“. And I had to leave early to get to my cousin’s dinner party anyway. But I definitely want to come back again when I have more time to appreciate it.
Cream tea:
I don’t care who invented it first (although I have to say I prefer the Devon over the Cornish method of preparing this), but cream tea was probably my favorite meal, so much so that I had it a second time at the British museum. Clotted cream with strawberry jam atop a plain scone served with English breakfast or Earl Grey tea, mixed with milk. Why did I not discover this combo sooner. Ugh.
English breakfast:
The ingredients for this are incredibly basic, but also comforting af. Baked beans on hash browns. Two things I hardly ever eat, but when combined together GAH I want to eat it again! Plus regular toast with butter and milk tea. Like rediscovering a long-lost friend.
Agatha Christie plays:
Witness for the Prosecution with its crazy ending.
The Mousetrap with its classic Christie setup (literally felt like watching one of her novels come to life) and amusing characters. I love Christopher Wren (obviously not the architect) especially.
Westminster Abbey:
Maybe one of the closest things I’ve had to a genuine religious experience in a long while, a bit moreso than St. Paul’s for me actually (though if you’re really into architecture, you can’t go wrong with St. Paul’s). So much history buried in between the cracks, perhaps literally given all the tombs here. The tomb of the unknown soldier. I almost cried on the spot.
The Globe:
Lady Macbeth sob-screaming into a pitch black theater was probably the most horrifying sound I’ve ever heard in a performance. This is how you do Shakespeare right.
They weren’t doing performances in the actual Globe proper, but during our tour of the outdoor theater we saw a bunch of theater students practicing on stage, though I can’t really explain what exactly it was they we rehearsing for aside from enunciating gibberish vowel sounds and practicing interpretive line dancing. Or something.
The tour itself was also great. Shakespeare apparently burned down the original Globe theater during a production of Henry VIII because he thought it was a good idea to fire a cannon into the theater from the top of the stage. And apparently there were no casualties apart from a man whose pants caught on fire, only for him to be so drunk that he attempted to put it out with beer.
Also it was perfectly normal to heckle/yell at the actors during a performance and sometimes the actors fought back, which meant that it was also perfectly normal for audience members to randomly die from fighting during the middle of a performance.
The Tintin shop:
Not super special or anything, but I’m [surprisingly late in discovering that I'm] a sucker for Tintin merchandise and this was pretty much heaven for me. I didn’t have room to fit the 37cm Snowy plushie in my suitcase, but I did buy a miniature Haddock and Thomson bust and a Marlinspike Hall notebook and I’m probably just going to order the rest online because they have a Black Friday sale this weekend...
British museum:
The I am Ashurbanipal exhibit was great as expected. My favorite part was where they took a giant relief that had a ton of not-actually-simultaneous events going on at once (this being before the age of comics) and broke down each scene by flashing lights on the reliefs themselves to highlight key characters and actions. Some of the actions that I wasn’t clear on at first glance turned out to be surprisingly brutal. But such was the ancient Middle East.
Also I like how the exhibition gift shop thought it was a good idea to sell these cute lion plushies after going through a whole exhibit about ancient Assyrians torture-killing lions for sport. Too soon.
Victoria and Albert:
The Video Games exhibit was also great as expected, though a little more sparse in content than I’m accustomed to for a museum exhibit. But I understand that even showcasing this stuff is new for museum curators and I have to commend them for even trying to document what modern-day video game culture is like.
The first set of exhibits showcased notes, concept art, and videos documenting the design process for notable games like Journey, The Last of Us, Bloodborne, Splatoon, and Kentucky Route Zero, highlighting the ways in which the process of designing a game itself is an artistic experience. The next section brought up examples from some of the more difficult subjects in the gaming community at large: violence, censorship, cultural homogeneity, racism, misogyny, and sex, although these were displayed more as a starting place for discussion than anything else.
And lastly, a video collage of social phenomenons sparked by some of the biggest games in recent memory: Minecraft, Overwatch, League of Legends, and Eve Online. As someone who enjoys games but often feels out of touch with the latest trends (since I don't have the attention span to keep up with things on twitch/discord regularly), this was nice to watch.
As for the actual museum, so many objects to look at. The presentation is eye-catching and in some ways meant to force you to really pay attention to the design and culture underlying everyday things, not just in the past (though much of the collection is indeed from the past) but even in how these objects are ordered and displayed to you now. It’s a different experience from a jack of all trades museum like the Met or a pure history museum like the British museum or a pure art museum like most other big museums. It feels special. And of course I wish I had more time to actually pay attention to the little things I was seeing because I honestly didn’t have time to pay attention to everything.
Tate Britain:
Was here mainly for two things, both of which I LOVED:
The Edmund Burke Jones exhibition: which made me realize how much I really like the art of the Romantic era, and particularly the pre-Raphaelites and their refreshing treatment (after all those Medieval and Renaissance rooms, anyway) of classic art subjects like the Bible and Greek mythology. Plus a dose of Arthurian legends and fairy tales like Sleeping Beauty. I’m just glad that actually let us take pictures for most of the exhibit.
Other Romantic era British painters, or namely Turner, Constable, and Blake: I’ve had a thing for Turner’s paintings ever since being introduced to him from a DeYoung exhibition a few years back, and Tate Britain happens to have the largest single collection of his paintings in a museum which was great, some of which I actually remembered seeing at the DeYoung exhibit previously. The other artists don’t have as many paintings there per say, but what they did have was good as it is. I need me some more Blake in particular, cause I really like his stylistic (and sometimes morbid) approach to the Bible and related subjects.
The Tower of London:
So much gruesome (and silver linings) history in one place. The twilight tour was nice in that the campus itself is closed to the public so your group has exclusive access to the area, although you don’t really get to see inside most of the buildings like you would during the day. But this gives a pretty good overview/introduction to all of the important parts of the Tower, with enough historical coverage to understand what happened here and who/what else to look up later (note: Guy Fawkes, Sir Walter Raleigh). Our yeoman tour guides were pretty funny too.
The British Library:
I love looking at old books. The main collection here covers an extensive overview of how mankind has kept knowledge since at least the Dark Ages, with some bonus showings from Michael Palin/Monty Python and the Beatles-- two British pop culture groups that were foundational for me growing up. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms exhibition basically educated me on how British history actually does exist before William the Conqueror (woops), and of course, Beowulf!
St. John’s Bread and Wine:
Duck foie gras toast. omg.
Unfortunately they didn’t have the bone marrow on the day I finally went for this, so I have to come back again.
Afternoon tea at Fort Mason’s:
The $70 high tea experience was worth it if only for the truffle mushroom bread I had at the very beginning of this. Oh my god I wanted to cry.
Also, after having just had shitty airline tea, the tea here was amazing. I don’t usually like black tea without milk, but the raw English breakfast tea alone here was just on point. I feel like I could never find this anywhere else but in London.
John Soane museum:
This guy was clearly trying to make a statement with the way he arranged his house. That painting room trying to show off how better he was at showcasing art than the National Gallery, with hidden secret compartments that made me feel all giddy the moment they were revealed. And the model room with its huge diorama of the Pompeii archeological site at the time it was being excavated almost 200 years ago. Madman or Renaissance man, who can say.
St. Paul’s Cathedral:
I traded getting to eat pies for seeing the inside of St. Paul’s Cathedral instead, and I don’t regret it. That dome is the closest thing you’ll see to the church architecture in Italy, but it still is quite amazing in its own right. It’s crazy how well the building survived after being bombed on during WWII, having been built back on the 17th century. Christopher Wren (obviously not the Mousetrap character) was a genius.
National Portrait Gallery:
I was foolish enough to think I could combine this and the National Gallery in a single afternoon and wound up having to do this alone on a separate day. Luckily I had enough time to cover most of it.
It was nice to finally put a face to names I’d only read about before like John Donne.
Favorite portraits: Richard III, young Queen Elizabeth I, JMW Turner, Sir Walter Scott’s bust, Emily Bronte, George Eliot, Arthur Conan Doyle, Beatrix Potter, Robert Scott, George V and his family, Rudyard Kipling, and I have to say, I think Charles Darwin probably had the most epic looking portrait in the museum.
Millennium Bridge:
I walked back and forth on this bridge on multiple days like the mad tourist I am.
Other notes:
I basically visited or saw a different part of London everyday on this trip, and it was kind of cool to realize how expansive and vast this city actually is.
Clerkenwell, Westminster, Covent Garden, Soho, Notting Hill, South Kensington, South Bank, Millbank, Bankside, Victoria, Bloomsbury, The City of London, King’s Cross, Spitalfields, Canary Wharf, Greenwich
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
Sunday, November 11, 2018
London (pre-trip)
Currently Listening: Civ 6 OST - England (Atomic)
You must be somewhere in London
You must be loving your life in the rain
You must be somewhere in London
Walking Abbey Lane
I'm flying to London next week!
Okay, so this trip is kind of a big deal for me (and it's only just hitting me now lol) for a few reasons:
1. First time traveling alone internationally. Well, technically I did arrive alone in Japan for maybe a couple of hours, which is the closest feeling I've had to this, but yeah, I'll be alone for a week this time. It feels kinda late for me to be doing this, actually, but I'm glad it's finally happening.
2. I actually chose to go Thanksgiving week as part of a deal I made with my parents not to come home for Thanksgiving (which I usually do for Dad's birthday) in exchange for coming with them to Indonesia over the summer (which I didn't really want to do, but whatever it's family).
3. I've been to London before, but the last time I was there was around 7th/8th grade so I don't really remember that much of it. I asked my parents what we did back then and apparently we spent most of our time waiting for other family members and then failing to make it in time to Buckingham Palace lol.
I do vaguely recall St. Paul's Cathedral and Paddington Station, and the Tube of course, but part of me is wondering whether those memories are made up recollections and ugh I have to ask parents again. My British second-cousin also introduced me to Theme Hospital on that trip, which happens to be my favorite Sim game of all time.
4. London's (and rather, a good chunk of the UK) been high on my wishlist for years now, in part because of my love/interest in:
- British history (seriously, I spent the better part of a year reading about the War of the Roses and the Tudors and I'm still nowhere near done with that era in my history-learning bucket list)
- British literature
- Museums
- Historical sites
- Theater
- Tea and scones
---
Anyway, people are apparently surprised that I'm already complaining about not having enough time with 1 full week in London, so let me break down what I have planned and what I've already decided I don't have time for.
1. Museums
I have this travel bucket list/goal of seeing all the museums (okay, maybe not all, but at least most of the important ones) in the world, and London pretty much tops the list for me here (followed by Florence/Rome, Madrid, and then Amsterdam/Berlin/the rest of Europe because I'm saving Paris for last lol).
Museum of London
Felt it appropriate to start with an introduction to the history of the city. I did this with Chicago last time and it went pretty well, and London has even more history at that.
The British Museum
Apart from the fact that it's freaking huge, I'm really looking forward to the ongoing I am Ashurbanipal special exhibit. Past experiences at the Oriental Institute (University of Chicago) and the Met's regular collection have left me with a soft spot for ancient Middle Eastern history and this just hits the spot.
And yes, we can argue about the ethics of the British effectively showcasing stolen treasures from other countries... but I'm not planning to travel to Syria anytime in the near/distant future for obvious reasons, so I'm okay with this in this case.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Jade is in London right now and just told me today that this is now one of her favorites... so yeah, really high expectations for this one haha. Victoria and Albert is the world's largest museum about decorative arts and design, so for anyone so inclined into thinking about design, this is the place to be.
Also I can't recall the last time I saw a big museum do an entire special exhibit about Video Games... super hyped!
National Gallery
Because no trip to Europe is complete without seeing a shit-ton of European paintings. Also currently displaying the Courtauld Gallery's Impressionist works due to that one closing for renovations.
National Portrait Gallery
I never thought I'd be into looking at a bunch of portraits for hours, but then I wound up spending an entire day at the National Portrait Gallery in DC, and this is London which has even more historical figures, sooo this is a given haha.
Tate Britain / Tate Modern
Modern is usually the one that everyone talks about, but I'm actually more interested in seeing Britain simply because British paintings (pre-Raphaelites! JMW Turner! that Ophelia painting!). I'm kinda sad that they're not doing the William Blake exhibition till next year because I'd have to return at around the same time next year to see it and I've already got plans for next year...
Sir John Soane's Museum
If the website doesn't give it away, this house looks amazing. And those models! And I'm trying to squeeze in a tour here between two British Museum visits :(
British Library
Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (Beowulf!) and a tribute to my favorite member of Monty Python (Michael Palin!).
National Maritime Museum
They recently renovated this with four new main exhibits, three of which cover subjects that I have had past/future obsessions with: Pacific Encounters (Captain Cook!), Polar Worlds (Robert Scott!), and Tudor and Stuart Seafarers (Francis Drake!)
Royal Observatory
I'm starting to add an astronomy requirement to all my trips now. Lbs (...thanks, Chester) but seriously, when there's an observatory, there's an opportunity to see stars.
What I had to cut:
Imperial War Museums
Not that I'm not interested in war... but this felt more appropriate for a return trip; I'm still kinda high on pre-20th century British history right now. Similar to how I'm holding off the Holocaust museum in DC for the next return trip and ugh I need to start planning that.
Natural History Museum
Think I got enough coverage/overlap from the ones in NYC / DC / Chicago / LA for now, but I'll probably see this next time.
2. Historical Sites
The Tower of London
Doing a special evening tour. I think it fits the reputation this place has haha.
Westminster Abbey
I have another soft spot for historical religious sites and also the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries.
Shakespeare's Globe Theater
Technically a reconstruction, but I've always wanted to see a Shakespeare production in its original context (see also Shows section below).
Oxford University
Doing a custom Literary Oxford walking tour with this agency. Lewis, Tolkien, Carrol, Pullman, Sayers, Eliot, aaaah!
What I had to cut:
St. Paul's Cathedral
Not open on the day I was hoping to see it and too hard to squeeze in elsewhere. :(
Churchill War Rooms
Too much extra planning involved, but I'll probably combine with the Imperial War Museums next time.
Houses of Parliament
I have to come back when I have an open Saturday >_>.
3. Shows
Company
Oooh, a gender-flipped Sondheim. And OOOH, THEY ACTUALLY DO TICK-TOCK-- sorry, the Broadway nerd in me is coming out right now.
Witness For the Prosecution
An Agatha Christie mystery in a real-life (historical) council chamber!
I'm trying to see if I can squeeze in The Mousetrap (another Christie mystery) on another night as well.
Macbeth
Macbeth happens to be one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, in part for its varied adaptations that have left an impression on me over the years:
- the interactive theater experience Sleep No More, which I previously reviewed here
- the hot Michael Fassbender version
- the creepy Kurosawa film, Throne of Blood
- the illustrated children's version from Tales From Shakespeare (I'm not sure who thought this was kid-appropriate, but it got me interested lol)
So it felt only appropriate to see this at the Globe in its original glory (including uncomfortable seats just like the old days lol). I'm just bummed that the pre-show talks were sold out already when I went to buy tickets.
What I had to cut:
RSC's Don Quixote production, but eh I still need to read the book anyway.
4. Food
I'm actually trying to make food more of a priority this time...
Not 100% committed to places yet, but here's just a sampling of what I'm looking for:
- Afternoon tea (SCONES)
- Sunday roast (with Yorkshire pudding)
- Fish and chips
- Scotch eggs
- St. John restaurant, as featured on Anthony Bourdain's show. (mm roast bone marrow...)
- also St. John's doughnuts
- British pies
- English breakfast
- Bread and butter pudding
- British Indian food (where do you think chicken tikka masala came from?)
5. Other
The Tintin Shop in Covent Garden
Because I can't find enough Tintin love in the States and FUCK I WANT THAT SNOWY PLUSHIE
Foyles Bookstore in Charing Cross
Do I even have time to go book browsing...?
6. Next time
I originally wanted to go to the UK so I could visit other parts of the country outside of London, but I'll probably have to come back in the summer when it's a bit more clear and I hopefully have more free time. Some places I had in mind:
- Bath (b/c Jane Austen)
- the Lake District (b/c Beatrix Potter)
- Yorkshire Dales (b/c the Bronte sisters)
- Glastonbury (b/c King Arthur-- okay, I know it's a medieval hoax but still)
- Stratford-Upon-Avon (b/c Shakespeare)
- Hadrian's Wall (b/c the Romans)
- Edinburgh (b/c the Scottish National Galleries. Their exhibit at the DeYoung in SF was one of my favorites.)
- Isle of Skye (b/c ugh, just google the photos)
You must be somewhere in London
You must be loving your life in the rain
You must be somewhere in London
Walking Abbey Lane
I'm flying to London next week!
Okay, so this trip is kind of a big deal for me (and it's only just hitting me now lol) for a few reasons:
1. First time traveling alone internationally. Well, technically I did arrive alone in Japan for maybe a couple of hours, which is the closest feeling I've had to this, but yeah, I'll be alone for a week this time. It feels kinda late for me to be doing this, actually, but I'm glad it's finally happening.
2. I actually chose to go Thanksgiving week as part of a deal I made with my parents not to come home for Thanksgiving (which I usually do for Dad's birthday) in exchange for coming with them to Indonesia over the summer (which I didn't really want to do, but whatever it's family).
3. I've been to London before, but the last time I was there was around 7th/8th grade so I don't really remember that much of it. I asked my parents what we did back then and apparently we spent most of our time waiting for other family members and then failing to make it in time to Buckingham Palace lol.
I do vaguely recall St. Paul's Cathedral and Paddington Station, and the Tube of course, but part of me is wondering whether those memories are made up recollections and ugh I have to ask parents again. My British second-cousin also introduced me to Theme Hospital on that trip, which happens to be my favorite Sim game of all time.
4. London's (and rather, a good chunk of the UK) been high on my wishlist for years now, in part because of my love/interest in:
- British history (seriously, I spent the better part of a year reading about the War of the Roses and the Tudors and I'm still nowhere near done with that era in my history-learning bucket list)
- British literature
- Museums
- Historical sites
- Theater
- Tea and scones
---
Anyway, people are apparently surprised that I'm already complaining about not having enough time with 1 full week in London, so let me break down what I have planned and what I've already decided I don't have time for.
1. Museums
I have this travel bucket list/goal of seeing all the museums (okay, maybe not all, but at least most of the important ones) in the world, and London pretty much tops the list for me here (followed by Florence/Rome, Madrid, and then Amsterdam/Berlin/the rest of Europe because I'm saving Paris for last lol).
Museum of London
Felt it appropriate to start with an introduction to the history of the city. I did this with Chicago last time and it went pretty well, and London has even more history at that.
The British Museum
Apart from the fact that it's freaking huge, I'm really looking forward to the ongoing I am Ashurbanipal special exhibit. Past experiences at the Oriental Institute (University of Chicago) and the Met's regular collection have left me with a soft spot for ancient Middle Eastern history and this just hits the spot.
And yes, we can argue about the ethics of the British effectively showcasing stolen treasures from other countries... but I'm not planning to travel to Syria anytime in the near/distant future for obvious reasons, so I'm okay with this in this case.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Jade is in London right now and just told me today that this is now one of her favorites... so yeah, really high expectations for this one haha. Victoria and Albert is the world's largest museum about decorative arts and design, so for anyone so inclined into thinking about design, this is the place to be.
Also I can't recall the last time I saw a big museum do an entire special exhibit about Video Games... super hyped!
National Gallery
Because no trip to Europe is complete without seeing a shit-ton of European paintings. Also currently displaying the Courtauld Gallery's Impressionist works due to that one closing for renovations.
National Portrait Gallery
I never thought I'd be into looking at a bunch of portraits for hours, but then I wound up spending an entire day at the National Portrait Gallery in DC, and this is London which has even more historical figures, sooo this is a given haha.
Tate Britain / Tate Modern
Modern is usually the one that everyone talks about, but I'm actually more interested in seeing Britain simply because British paintings (pre-Raphaelites! JMW Turner! that Ophelia painting!). I'm kinda sad that they're not doing the William Blake exhibition till next year because I'd have to return at around the same time next year to see it and I've already got plans for next year...
Sir John Soane's Museum
If the website doesn't give it away, this house looks amazing. And those models! And I'm trying to squeeze in a tour here between two British Museum visits :(
British Library
Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (Beowulf!) and a tribute to my favorite member of Monty Python (Michael Palin!).
National Maritime Museum
They recently renovated this with four new main exhibits, three of which cover subjects that I have had past/future obsessions with: Pacific Encounters (Captain Cook!), Polar Worlds (Robert Scott!), and Tudor and Stuart Seafarers (Francis Drake!)
Royal Observatory
I'm starting to add an astronomy requirement to all my trips now. Lbs (...thanks, Chester) but seriously, when there's an observatory, there's an opportunity to see stars.
What I had to cut:
Imperial War Museums
Not that I'm not interested in war... but this felt more appropriate for a return trip; I'm still kinda high on pre-20th century British history right now. Similar to how I'm holding off the Holocaust museum in DC for the next return trip and ugh I need to start planning that.
Natural History Museum
Think I got enough coverage/overlap from the ones in NYC / DC / Chicago / LA for now, but I'll probably see this next time.
2. Historical Sites
The Tower of London
Doing a special evening tour. I think it fits the reputation this place has haha.
Westminster Abbey
I have another soft spot for historical religious sites and also the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries.
Shakespeare's Globe Theater
Technically a reconstruction, but I've always wanted to see a Shakespeare production in its original context (see also Shows section below).
Oxford University
Doing a custom Literary Oxford walking tour with this agency. Lewis, Tolkien, Carrol, Pullman, Sayers, Eliot, aaaah!
What I had to cut:
St. Paul's Cathedral
Not open on the day I was hoping to see it and too hard to squeeze in elsewhere. :(
Churchill War Rooms
Too much extra planning involved, but I'll probably combine with the Imperial War Museums next time.
Houses of Parliament
I have to come back when I have an open Saturday >_>.
3. Shows
Company
Oooh, a gender-flipped Sondheim. And OOOH, THEY ACTUALLY DO TICK-TOCK-- sorry, the Broadway nerd in me is coming out right now.
Witness For the Prosecution
An Agatha Christie mystery in a real-life (historical) council chamber!
I'm trying to see if I can squeeze in The Mousetrap (another Christie mystery) on another night as well.
Macbeth
Macbeth happens to be one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, in part for its varied adaptations that have left an impression on me over the years:
- the interactive theater experience Sleep No More, which I previously reviewed here
- the hot Michael Fassbender version
- the creepy Kurosawa film, Throne of Blood
- the illustrated children's version from Tales From Shakespeare (I'm not sure who thought this was kid-appropriate, but it got me interested lol)
So it felt only appropriate to see this at the Globe in its original glory (including uncomfortable seats just like the old days lol). I'm just bummed that the pre-show talks were sold out already when I went to buy tickets.
What I had to cut:
RSC's Don Quixote production, but eh I still need to read the book anyway.
4. Food
I'm actually trying to make food more of a priority this time...
Not 100% committed to places yet, but here's just a sampling of what I'm looking for:
- Afternoon tea (SCONES)
- Sunday roast (with Yorkshire pudding)
- Fish and chips
- Scotch eggs
- St. John restaurant, as featured on Anthony Bourdain's show. (mm roast bone marrow...)
- also St. John's doughnuts
- British pies
- English breakfast
- Bread and butter pudding
- British Indian food (where do you think chicken tikka masala came from?)
5. Other
The Tintin Shop in Covent Garden
Because I can't find enough Tintin love in the States and FUCK I WANT THAT SNOWY PLUSHIE
Foyles Bookstore in Charing Cross
Do I even have time to go book browsing...?
6. Next time
I originally wanted to go to the UK so I could visit other parts of the country outside of London, but I'll probably have to come back in the summer when it's a bit more clear and I hopefully have more free time. Some places I had in mind:
- Bath (b/c Jane Austen)
- the Lake District (b/c Beatrix Potter)
- Yorkshire Dales (b/c the Bronte sisters)
- Glastonbury (b/c King Arthur-- okay, I know it's a medieval hoax but still)
- Stratford-Upon-Avon (b/c Shakespeare)
- Hadrian's Wall (b/c the Romans)
- Edinburgh (b/c the Scottish National Galleries. Their exhibit at the DeYoung in SF was one of my favorites.)
- Isle of Skye (b/c ugh, just google the photos)
Saturday, September 10, 2016
once more before a break
This weekend is the first real weekend I've finally had to myself, with no pressing plans, in 3 months. It didn't really hit me until a few minutes ago... and I am so relieved right now.
One of the reasons I stopped blogging as much recently was because I never really felt like I had the time anymore, and whenever I tried to make time, I'd either get paranoid over how much time I was spending (because writing takes me 6+ hours, and I dislike interruptions once I've started), or I lose sleep in the process and end up going to bed around 3 to 5 in the morning. And these days it takes me 3-4 days to recover from one night's worth of little sleep, even if "little" happens to mean 6 hours. After that, I can't really self-process or partake in activities that normally would require some level of mental acuity, like reading, or job search prepping, or even starting everyday errands. And I hate it.
It is nice to not have to be so rushed for once.
Now that I've (more-or-less) recovered from emotion hell and have had some time time to look backwards and forwards... here's a lengthy post on four things I've had on my mind while in the process of moving on. Some of this may be more frank or straightforward than would be expected of a technically public-but-personal blog, but eh, I like openly processing things in this manner sometimes. I'm still in the midst of figuring all of this out for myself, so consider the thoughts and opinions represented part of an ongoing work-in-progress... because it's taken me years to come this far.
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On job searching, resumes, LinkedIn, positioning statements, and "building a personal brand": I've seen it often stressed by career counselors and in stuff I've consulted in my own research that you should emphasize your accomplishments, or what you achieved, rather than your duties or simply what you did, when talking about your past work experience on your resume or in other places that recruiters and potential employers will check. Things that you would be willing to brag about to other people if you had the chance. But well, what if you aren't necessarily proud of even the work you did do?
Barring the fact that I can't really quantify the accomplishments or the effect that my previous work had (since much of it was structured around simply doing what needed to be done anyway), compared to say, managers or people in finance, I find it difficult to really speak excitedly about my past work at work in the same vein; after a certain point, I felt like I was just working to get by. Ironically, I've found it more exciting to talk about what the overall project goal for my team was, rather than what my individual contributions towards that goal were. Part of that may be tied to my own self-doubt regarding how valuable I really was to my own team and some of the frustrations I experienced in working with them in the past, which hasn't been helped by fact that I did get laid off before our last project was completed.
If anything, I'm more proud of the little things I've done outside of work in the past years (schedule planning for friends and family; successfully conducting multiple Bible studies in spite of ongoing faith issues; individual conversations and personal emails; making headway with a number of friends, some of whom I've struggled to be present with over the years; this wedding I just officiated), most of which isn't really all that relevant to any potential future employer in the field that I actually want to find work in.
And that's not to say that I'm looking for work in the wrong industry or place. What few strides I've managed to make, exploring my options and working on side projects in my spare time, have made me feel more confident that I honestly do still want to work in software. It just feels harder for me to leverage my past in a way that may captivate potential future employers, the way all these career advisors and recruiters in the industry talk about it. The implications have even been imparted to me in more negative terms by some: spend too much time situated in one job, especially a job that you don't like, and it actually can reflect badly on you as a person or prospective employee.
That's honestly something I've struggled with for a long time. I like coding, but I'm not as driven to pursue new opportunities or developments in the industry (or at least historically, anyway) compared to other people I know, especially the ones I would look up to. I highly value the time I get outside of work to do other things, because I believe there is so much more to living than simply "what you do" as Silicon Valley puts it, but for me personally it often lopsidedly turns into prioritizing my free time above anything else... because in a normal 9-5 work environment, I don't have to "make time" for work like I have to for anything else.
Even more than that, I usually just feel like I don't have enough time outside as it is, because there's simply too much else I want to do in life. Even now that I'm unemployed, I still don't feel like I have enough time; I've barely scraped the surface of all the little things I've wanted to do since I got laid off, and that's not including unplanned time that I've needed to recover mentally and emotionally, and it's already been three weeks. Time just feels like it's moving faster than ever for me, and I don't know if I can keep up with it.
But that's enough musing about my professional life for one day.
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One thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is the limits of relationships-- my own limits in particular, as I've been a lot more conscious of how my desire to maintain connections with people in different areas of life comes at odds with my low tolerance threshold for being around people. Under normal (non-traveling) circumstances, two days in a row is pushing it for most people; by that point my mind starts to shut off and I just want to chill at home alone. And then I get disappointed when I experience a conversation with a good friend that breaks off into the silence of uncertainty, even though a lot of that silence reflects my own state of being.
Consequently, there are individuals who I've known throughout the years who I still think about sometimes, but haven't really kept in touch with for a long while... or was never really close to to begin with, but part of me still wonders what might've been if we did actually talk more than once at some get-together every year. In some of these cases, it doesn't even make much sense given that we lack apparent common interests, or opportunities to meet (did I mention I haven't really had a free weekend in months?) combined with physical distance. And then I wonder why I even bother thinking about it then.
Social media has a weird effect sometimes-- in the sense of fooling you into thinking that you're up-to-date with someone's life and therefore are still in some sense "close" to them, or close enough to be able to talk to them like you're still a part of their life. And I fall for it so often, failing to acknowledge how one-sided it is. Even while there's some part of me that still at least wants to know, at least wants to not be out of the loop the next time I might see them, at least not miss out on the privilege my other friends are getting in being able to still be part of this person's life. Because I am inclined to like (or think I like) being friends with people even when I don't really know them well... or only know them from the image they project online.
It's why I get excited sometimes when people reach out to me out of the blue. I like to think of myself as always open to people (given time availability), even though that's not really the case. But when another person is willing to give you a chance first... I guess it ultimately makes me feel good about myself. Like someone actually wants to talk to me!
Basically, I base a lot of my self-worth on how much other people validate me even though I shouldn't. It's what makes reaching out so difficult for me at the same time: because when I'm rejected, I take it so personally, as a reflection of something wrong with my own identity. It's something I really need to work on; I can see all the ways in which I've let opportunities go and relationships die by not acting out of fear. I just wish I had more energy to be present for others with the chances I do get.
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At present, I'm kind of in this weird situation where I happen to be more continuously involved with church, or particularly small group, than I ever really have in the past, while at the same time I'm also more distant from God than I've ever really been (or as I put it to my therapist: "we aren't on speaking terms right now.") I've been more-or-less open about this with most of my small group, in addition to a lot of other personal things that I'd never have imagined sharing with anyone even a couple of years ago. And they've been incredibly supportive in the process.
To be more specific: I don't really know what or how much I really believe anymore... although I say that with a very heavy caveat to follow. Ironically, I have no problem with conducting a Bible study for other people (in fact breaking down and analyzing Scripture is something I still enjoy doing a lot), but I have issues more with how we apply the messages that we take away to real life experiences. Perhaps I'm going too far on the academic side of things here, but I've found that the more I've learned about the Bible and its history and the nature of how it's interpreted across different churches and denominations in the world... the more difficult I find it to just accept what I read or hear at church at face value. At this point I'm more inclined to doubt the historical accuracy of much of it (at least up until David's time period), and even when it comes to the specifics of Jesus and Paul's lives, there's a lot that I'm skeptical about for now.
To add to that, church that we have today is not the same church that emerged two millennia ago, nor is it as monolithic as some people like to imagine. The fact of the matter is that it's possible for one Christian to come to a completely different interpretation of what they consider to be truth from another, with both using the Bible as justification, and it's not always clear which view is really more valid to everyone else (unless you have something like Sacred Tradition to define that for you, as I imagine Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox would expect). Even with the aid of contextual analysis, the Bible is not a one-size-fits-all reference for how to live your life; there are plenty of issues that are current today for which it is silent. But people will pick and choose what they consider to be right through the lens of their own experiences, more often informed by their own cultural context than anything else, often beginning with an assumption on a topic (see: abortion) and trying to justify that assumption by going backwards to Scripture instead of the other way around.
This problem is not just limited to the Bible either; I can see a parallel in say Supreme Court debates regarding the constitutionality of laws and whether we should care more about what what the original writers intended at the time of writing, or whether we should revise our interpretations as our culture evolves and new and unforeseen situations emerge for which past precedent doesn't hold as well anymore. But in that regard, I don't think Christianity could've survived till today without continuously evolving, and adapting to new and unforeseen needs and cultural situations, and as a result certain understandings and beliefs that may have been taken for granted in the past may make less sense today. And yet a number of people will insist that a statement made in one book of the Bible holds true for everyone in all situations. I mean, the Bible itself documents the evolution of a people's understanding of and relationship with God over time, so naturally there are already laws and ideas in earlier books that get annulled over by later ones anyway. And I'm pretty sure the same holds for the way churches come into being and operate today.
This is not to create a slippery slope for bad theology nor to try to completely invalidate the church, but rather to point out what I see as a reality that's too complicated to be restricted to a notion of complete and total acceptance or rejection of it. I would like to think that at least some of the Bible's authors earnestly believed in the purpose for which they wrote, even if some aspect of what resulted doesn't reflect the actual historical record.
I've seen the argument made from a conservative standpoint that if you disregard the accuracy or truth of one part of Scripture, like say the creation story or the fall of man, you have to disregard everything. That is to say, if the Fall didn't happen in reality the way Genesis recorded it, then Jesus's sacrifice is meaningless, and likewise if Jesus didn't rise and come back from the dead, then the continued existence of the Church that we have today is also meaningless. I used to worry about this all the time too, back when I initially started doubting: that if I came to some realization or conclusion of Scripture being historically false, then all the experiences I'd gone through over the years would've been invalidated and our continued striving ultimately futile and pointless... up until I figured out for myself that that sort of fundamentalist-driven mindset is more like digging yourself deeper into a hole to try and save yourself from the tsunami that is about to come. So much church doctrine that is followed today isn't explicitly spelled out in the Bible at all to begin with, but rather emerged over centuries of fine-tuning our understanding of both Scripture, as well as our understanding of how God works in the world at large. I don't believe it's fair to attribute the entire basis of the Christian life to a book that didn't even exist in its entirety during the early years of the movement; it obviously came from much more than that.
Even if I were to come to reject the church's teachings, I cannot ignore the impact that it's had on my life and perspective, along with the good I've been able to witness and experience in the midst of my worst doubts and fears. There are many things that churches do well that I wish I could see more of outside of them, to the point where I almost wonder sometimes if man was meant to only accomplish greater good in the world through an infinite series of misconceptions or misunderstandings of the way the world really is. How many people in the world would be as motivated to be thoughtful of others, to love and forgive their enemies, to sacrifice time, money, and hospitality for strangers in their midst were it not for the influence of religion in their life? How many people would be as intentional about building relationships and communities even when it inconveniences them?
Obviously, there are people outside of religion who do this as well. But I've seen enough in my experiences outside of Christian community to note that the exact or entire standard for what it means live a good life isn't always well-established or widely accepted even in those contexts. Some people are willing to forgive old grievances, and others aren't, but whose place is it to say who should or shouldn't? Whose responsibility is it to help the poor, and where do we draw the line before it turns into a waste of time and resources? How much of what we possess and own is really ours, and how much of our success in life is due to our own accomplishments as opposed to the privilege and opportunities we received because of what family or social status we were born into and genetics we were given? Is grace even worth considering? And what are we ultimately striving for or trying to achieve with our lives; or is it even necessary to have an answer for that question?
There are also many religious communities out there that work specifically at trying to cultivate an attitude of mindful awareness, particularly about the way we live and make use of our limited time on Earth, and in the end try to achieve something good out of that, even if their conception of why they do so may seem at odds with those around them. And I'm not convinced that they're just doing good "in spite of" the trappings of their religion or whatever cynical view that may be taken of their work. And to turn the chessboard around (sorry, Umineko reference >_>): to what extent does the Bible have to actually be historically accurate for the truths that people have taken from it to still hold? Is it really pointless if, somehow, its adherents still earnestly work at making the world a better place because of it? If they still strive to do better in the process?
Of course, there are plenty of ways in which Christians over the years have caused more harm than good as a result of problematic thinking or discriminatory practices and the divide between good intentions and good results. But as I said before, the church isn't a static entity. Understandings will evolve with time, and I believe more people will become more cognizant of these issues, just as our culture at large is becoming more open and aware of issues and injustices that have long hidden under the surface of society with impunity (like the current state of race relations in America). At least, that is also part of what I would like to try and help accomplish within my own church: an increasing awareness of the beliefs and behaviors that are often taken for granted in the community, and the impact those can have on the people they seek to reach, in the hopes of being able to mutually understand and build relationships with other people and communities, regardless of their faith affiliation.
As for what all this musing has to do with my relationship with God... I found it easier to talk to God in the past when I honestly believed the words in Scripture to be an accurate reflection of what really happened in the past and of what God really said to us. But now that I'm not so sure anymore... it's been hard for me to say much of anything directly to him anymore, other than to wonder if I'm still doing the right thing sometimes (which is kinda inevitable). Otherwise, I don't really feel much of anything, unless you call apathy a feeling. I also find it difficult to partake in prayer and worship these days, because I lack the conviction or faith to do such things honestly, and worship music is so often structured or written in lyrics that do not reflect what I honestly feel anymore. But I still try to take to heart what truths I do see in Scripture, the ones I see as more reflective of how life ought to be lived. As my therapist put it to me recently: the imprint of the image of God is still on me, in my desires and intentions, even if my specific beliefs aren't entirely in line anymore.
When it comes down to it, even with all of my personal issues regarding the nature of truth and Scripture itself, I don't see my life as any less enriched or wasted by still being involved with church. Perhaps I'm just lucky to have been able to find a community that still accepts me for who I am, even when I don't always feel like I fit in with what is considered orthodox or normal, and when I'm aware that many others have been ostracized from their church communities because of their beliefs. But in that regard, I believe that church communities that do so aren't living up to the standards set by the Jesus that can be seen in the New Testament, the one figure who they claim to follow, who went out of his way to be present with the outcasts of society in his day. There is more to life than simply trying to live it "correctly," and punishing those who fail to meet our standards of right or proper living; but unfortunately, that is what we are prone to doing most often.
All that to say, I'm still in the process of figuring out what all of this will mean for me in the future. Someday, our group will disband and people will leave, and I don't what will happen then, if my beliefs will have changed by then to the point where it no longer makes sense for me to remain anymore, or if I'll find a niche somewhere where I can still contribute somehow. Will I stay, or will I go? At this point, I honestly don't know. But I refuse to give up on it all yet.
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Little things I look forward to in the coming months (aka a giant list of lists):
- Finishing Ace Attorney 6 (Spirit of Justice). So far it's feeling a lot more "polished" than Dual Destinies did, perhaps because the current development team (which originally started with the spinoff Miles Edgeworth games) has finally figured out its groove on how to handle a mainline game. I like how it combines all of the investigation elements that have been introduced in past games: Psyche-locks, Ema Skye's crime scene investigation techniques, analyzing video footage, Apollo's Perceive bracelet, Athena's Mood Matrix, revisualizations, and now Divination Seances. It reminds me of how far the series has come from its early days. That said, the new character names thus far have been rather cringe-inducing (Pees'lubn Andistan'dhin and Tahrust Inmee... ugh), although granted this is the same series that started with Frank Sahwit and Sal Manella so I dunno if I should be surprised.
Other games in the long-term to-play queue: Trails in the Sky II, Fire Emblem 4 and 9-10, Arcanum, The Witcher III, Baldur's Gate II, Pokemon Sun/Moon, FFXV, Persona 5, Torment.
- Refreshing my knowledge of Data Structures and Algorithms in preparation for interviews-- okay I know, you can't ever be truly "prepared," but I just want get some practice in dealing with both familiar and unfamiliar problems and articulating my thought process, since it's been years since I last had to do a real live interview, and I still remember what it feels like to be frustrated with yourself over not being able to answer a question that you could've had you actually studied your basics beforehand. Like for one thing, I haven't actually had to analyze algorithmic runtimes or really been pressured to try and optimize my own solutions to a problem in a long time, and those are areas that I want to get better at for my own sake.
This probably sounds weird to some people, but I actually do like revisiting things I used to know, or potentially developing an even better understanding of them than I did before, as has happened in recent years when I've reread books or revisited subjects I've studied in the past, like American history or Japanese. Perhaps it's the sense of becoming a master of my own "domain" for once, since I'm so used to behaving more like a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none, as Ryan has called me more than once in the past (thanks a lot... even though it's true, sigh).
- Upcoming musicals: Assassins, Hedwig and the Angry Itch, The King and I, Finding Neverland, Into the Woods, HAMILTON, Roman Holiday, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and possibly Rent. I may consider another trip to NYC next year once Anastasia starts running on Broadway next spring.
- Catching up on all the books I don't feel like listing (see goodreads). I haven't finished a book in a few months... which is a long time for me haha.
- All the online classes I've wanted to at least audit but never had the time to focus on cause of work. Currently going through: Probability, Astrophysics, Chinese history (empire to present), Italian opera, Linux, and Parallel Programming in addition to Data Structures/Algs Review and Interview prep. Also looking at both Medical and Computational Neuroscience, God and Consciousness in Philosophy, A Global History of Architecture, the Ancient Greek Hero, the Meaning of Rome, Human Anatomy, Paradox and Infinity, Justice, Shakespeare, European Paintings, The Quran, Visualizing Japan, and the American Civil War and Reconstruction era, among other things. And not currently in online class-form, but I'd like to look more into the history of Britain, the Spanish Civil War, and Southeast Asian conflicts of the 20th Century including Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
Why exactly? Because all of these subjects have piqued my interest in some way at some point in the past few years or even decade, and in some respects reflect my overall desire to understand more of how the world works, in its full and total complexity. I quote this post from Wait But Why that I have yet to finish reading (woops), but which encapsulates my general feelings on learning about topics that are unfamiliar and difficult to understand:
A Wait But Why post can be a few different things. One type of WBW post is the “let’s just take this whole topic and really actually get to the bottom of it so we can all completely get it from here forward.” The ideal topic for that kind of post is one that’s really important to our lives, and that tends to come up a lot, but that’s also hugely complex and confusing, often controversial with differing information coming out of different mouths, and that ends up leaving a lot of people feeling like they don’t totally get it as well as they “should.”
The way I approach a post like that is I’ll start with the surface of the topic and ask myself what I don’t fully get—I look for those foggy spots in the story where when someone mentions it or it comes up in an article I’m reading, my mind kind of glazes over with a combination of “ugh it’s that icky term again nah go away” and “ew the adults are saying that adult thing again and I’m seven so I don’t actually understand what they’re talking about.” Then I’ll get reading about those foggy spots—but as I clear away fog from the surface, I often find more fog underneath. So then I research that new fog, and again, often come across other fog even further down. My perfectionism kicks in and I end up refusing to stop going down the rabbit hole until I hit the floor.
...I’ve heard people compare knowledge of a topic to a tree. If you don’t fully get it, it’s like a tree in your head with no trunk—and without a trunk, when you learn something new about the topic—a new branch or leaf of the tree—there’s nothing for it to hang onto, so it just falls away. By clearing out fog all the way to the bottom, I build a tree trunk in my head, and from then on, all new information can hold on, which makes that topic forever more interesting and productive to learn about. And what I usually find is that so many of the topics I’ve pegged as “boring” in my head are actually just foggy to me—like watching episode 17 of a great show, which would be boring if you didn’t have the tree trunk of the back story and characters in place.
- And to end: a long-term travel itinerary wishlist:
Basically I'm set for the next decade and then some lol.
Aaaand that took me 10 hours to finish. I'll have to take a break from this for a bit to actually get stuff done. Later.
One of the reasons I stopped blogging as much recently was because I never really felt like I had the time anymore, and whenever I tried to make time, I'd either get paranoid over how much time I was spending (because writing takes me 6+ hours, and I dislike interruptions once I've started), or I lose sleep in the process and end up going to bed around 3 to 5 in the morning. And these days it takes me 3-4 days to recover from one night's worth of little sleep, even if "little" happens to mean 6 hours. After that, I can't really self-process or partake in activities that normally would require some level of mental acuity, like reading, or job search prepping, or even starting everyday errands. And I hate it.
It is nice to not have to be so rushed for once.
Now that I've (more-or-less) recovered from emotion hell and have had some time time to look backwards and forwards... here's a lengthy post on four things I've had on my mind while in the process of moving on. Some of this may be more frank or straightforward than would be expected of a technically public-but-personal blog, but eh, I like openly processing things in this manner sometimes. I'm still in the midst of figuring all of this out for myself, so consider the thoughts and opinions represented part of an ongoing work-in-progress... because it's taken me years to come this far.
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On job searching, resumes, LinkedIn, positioning statements, and "building a personal brand": I've seen it often stressed by career counselors and in stuff I've consulted in my own research that you should emphasize your accomplishments, or what you achieved, rather than your duties or simply what you did, when talking about your past work experience on your resume or in other places that recruiters and potential employers will check. Things that you would be willing to brag about to other people if you had the chance. But well, what if you aren't necessarily proud of even the work you did do?
Barring the fact that I can't really quantify the accomplishments or the effect that my previous work had (since much of it was structured around simply doing what needed to be done anyway), compared to say, managers or people in finance, I find it difficult to really speak excitedly about my past work at work in the same vein; after a certain point, I felt like I was just working to get by. Ironically, I've found it more exciting to talk about what the overall project goal for my team was, rather than what my individual contributions towards that goal were. Part of that may be tied to my own self-doubt regarding how valuable I really was to my own team and some of the frustrations I experienced in working with them in the past, which hasn't been helped by fact that I did get laid off before our last project was completed.
If anything, I'm more proud of the little things I've done outside of work in the past years (schedule planning for friends and family; successfully conducting multiple Bible studies in spite of ongoing faith issues; individual conversations and personal emails; making headway with a number of friends, some of whom I've struggled to be present with over the years; this wedding I just officiated), most of which isn't really all that relevant to any potential future employer in the field that I actually want to find work in.
And that's not to say that I'm looking for work in the wrong industry or place. What few strides I've managed to make, exploring my options and working on side projects in my spare time, have made me feel more confident that I honestly do still want to work in software. It just feels harder for me to leverage my past in a way that may captivate potential future employers, the way all these career advisors and recruiters in the industry talk about it. The implications have even been imparted to me in more negative terms by some: spend too much time situated in one job, especially a job that you don't like, and it actually can reflect badly on you as a person or prospective employee.
That's honestly something I've struggled with for a long time. I like coding, but I'm not as driven to pursue new opportunities or developments in the industry (or at least historically, anyway) compared to other people I know, especially the ones I would look up to. I highly value the time I get outside of work to do other things, because I believe there is so much more to living than simply "what you do" as Silicon Valley puts it, but for me personally it often lopsidedly turns into prioritizing my free time above anything else... because in a normal 9-5 work environment, I don't have to "make time" for work like I have to for anything else.
Even more than that, I usually just feel like I don't have enough time outside as it is, because there's simply too much else I want to do in life. Even now that I'm unemployed, I still don't feel like I have enough time; I've barely scraped the surface of all the little things I've wanted to do since I got laid off, and that's not including unplanned time that I've needed to recover mentally and emotionally, and it's already been three weeks. Time just feels like it's moving faster than ever for me, and I don't know if I can keep up with it.
But that's enough musing about my professional life for one day.
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One thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is the limits of relationships-- my own limits in particular, as I've been a lot more conscious of how my desire to maintain connections with people in different areas of life comes at odds with my low tolerance threshold for being around people. Under normal (non-traveling) circumstances, two days in a row is pushing it for most people; by that point my mind starts to shut off and I just want to chill at home alone. And then I get disappointed when I experience a conversation with a good friend that breaks off into the silence of uncertainty, even though a lot of that silence reflects my own state of being.
Consequently, there are individuals who I've known throughout the years who I still think about sometimes, but haven't really kept in touch with for a long while... or was never really close to to begin with, but part of me still wonders what might've been if we did actually talk more than once at some get-together every year. In some of these cases, it doesn't even make much sense given that we lack apparent common interests, or opportunities to meet (did I mention I haven't really had a free weekend in months?) combined with physical distance. And then I wonder why I even bother thinking about it then.
Social media has a weird effect sometimes-- in the sense of fooling you into thinking that you're up-to-date with someone's life and therefore are still in some sense "close" to them, or close enough to be able to talk to them like you're still a part of their life. And I fall for it so often, failing to acknowledge how one-sided it is. Even while there's some part of me that still at least wants to know, at least wants to not be out of the loop the next time I might see them, at least not miss out on the privilege my other friends are getting in being able to still be part of this person's life. Because I am inclined to like (or think I like) being friends with people even when I don't really know them well... or only know them from the image they project online.
It's why I get excited sometimes when people reach out to me out of the blue. I like to think of myself as always open to people (given time availability), even though that's not really the case. But when another person is willing to give you a chance first... I guess it ultimately makes me feel good about myself. Like someone actually wants to talk to me!
Basically, I base a lot of my self-worth on how much other people validate me even though I shouldn't. It's what makes reaching out so difficult for me at the same time: because when I'm rejected, I take it so personally, as a reflection of something wrong with my own identity. It's something I really need to work on; I can see all the ways in which I've let opportunities go and relationships die by not acting out of fear. I just wish I had more energy to be present for others with the chances I do get.
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At present, I'm kind of in this weird situation where I happen to be more continuously involved with church, or particularly small group, than I ever really have in the past, while at the same time I'm also more distant from God than I've ever really been (or as I put it to my therapist: "we aren't on speaking terms right now.") I've been more-or-less open about this with most of my small group, in addition to a lot of other personal things that I'd never have imagined sharing with anyone even a couple of years ago. And they've been incredibly supportive in the process.
To be more specific: I don't really know what or how much I really believe anymore... although I say that with a very heavy caveat to follow. Ironically, I have no problem with conducting a Bible study for other people (in fact breaking down and analyzing Scripture is something I still enjoy doing a lot), but I have issues more with how we apply the messages that we take away to real life experiences. Perhaps I'm going too far on the academic side of things here, but I've found that the more I've learned about the Bible and its history and the nature of how it's interpreted across different churches and denominations in the world... the more difficult I find it to just accept what I read or hear at church at face value. At this point I'm more inclined to doubt the historical accuracy of much of it (at least up until David's time period), and even when it comes to the specifics of Jesus and Paul's lives, there's a lot that I'm skeptical about for now.
To add to that, church that we have today is not the same church that emerged two millennia ago, nor is it as monolithic as some people like to imagine. The fact of the matter is that it's possible for one Christian to come to a completely different interpretation of what they consider to be truth from another, with both using the Bible as justification, and it's not always clear which view is really more valid to everyone else (unless you have something like Sacred Tradition to define that for you, as I imagine Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox would expect). Even with the aid of contextual analysis, the Bible is not a one-size-fits-all reference for how to live your life; there are plenty of issues that are current today for which it is silent. But people will pick and choose what they consider to be right through the lens of their own experiences, more often informed by their own cultural context than anything else, often beginning with an assumption on a topic (see: abortion) and trying to justify that assumption by going backwards to Scripture instead of the other way around.
This problem is not just limited to the Bible either; I can see a parallel in say Supreme Court debates regarding the constitutionality of laws and whether we should care more about what what the original writers intended at the time of writing, or whether we should revise our interpretations as our culture evolves and new and unforeseen situations emerge for which past precedent doesn't hold as well anymore. But in that regard, I don't think Christianity could've survived till today without continuously evolving, and adapting to new and unforeseen needs and cultural situations, and as a result certain understandings and beliefs that may have been taken for granted in the past may make less sense today. And yet a number of people will insist that a statement made in one book of the Bible holds true for everyone in all situations. I mean, the Bible itself documents the evolution of a people's understanding of and relationship with God over time, so naturally there are already laws and ideas in earlier books that get annulled over by later ones anyway. And I'm pretty sure the same holds for the way churches come into being and operate today.
This is not to create a slippery slope for bad theology nor to try to completely invalidate the church, but rather to point out what I see as a reality that's too complicated to be restricted to a notion of complete and total acceptance or rejection of it. I would like to think that at least some of the Bible's authors earnestly believed in the purpose for which they wrote, even if some aspect of what resulted doesn't reflect the actual historical record.
I've seen the argument made from a conservative standpoint that if you disregard the accuracy or truth of one part of Scripture, like say the creation story or the fall of man, you have to disregard everything. That is to say, if the Fall didn't happen in reality the way Genesis recorded it, then Jesus's sacrifice is meaningless, and likewise if Jesus didn't rise and come back from the dead, then the continued existence of the Church that we have today is also meaningless. I used to worry about this all the time too, back when I initially started doubting: that if I came to some realization or conclusion of Scripture being historically false, then all the experiences I'd gone through over the years would've been invalidated and our continued striving ultimately futile and pointless... up until I figured out for myself that that sort of fundamentalist-driven mindset is more like digging yourself deeper into a hole to try and save yourself from the tsunami that is about to come. So much church doctrine that is followed today isn't explicitly spelled out in the Bible at all to begin with, but rather emerged over centuries of fine-tuning our understanding of both Scripture, as well as our understanding of how God works in the world at large. I don't believe it's fair to attribute the entire basis of the Christian life to a book that didn't even exist in its entirety during the early years of the movement; it obviously came from much more than that.
Even if I were to come to reject the church's teachings, I cannot ignore the impact that it's had on my life and perspective, along with the good I've been able to witness and experience in the midst of my worst doubts and fears. There are many things that churches do well that I wish I could see more of outside of them, to the point where I almost wonder sometimes if man was meant to only accomplish greater good in the world through an infinite series of misconceptions or misunderstandings of the way the world really is. How many people in the world would be as motivated to be thoughtful of others, to love and forgive their enemies, to sacrifice time, money, and hospitality for strangers in their midst were it not for the influence of religion in their life? How many people would be as intentional about building relationships and communities even when it inconveniences them?
Obviously, there are people outside of religion who do this as well. But I've seen enough in my experiences outside of Christian community to note that the exact or entire standard for what it means live a good life isn't always well-established or widely accepted even in those contexts. Some people are willing to forgive old grievances, and others aren't, but whose place is it to say who should or shouldn't? Whose responsibility is it to help the poor, and where do we draw the line before it turns into a waste of time and resources? How much of what we possess and own is really ours, and how much of our success in life is due to our own accomplishments as opposed to the privilege and opportunities we received because of what family or social status we were born into and genetics we were given? Is grace even worth considering? And what are we ultimately striving for or trying to achieve with our lives; or is it even necessary to have an answer for that question?
There are also many religious communities out there that work specifically at trying to cultivate an attitude of mindful awareness, particularly about the way we live and make use of our limited time on Earth, and in the end try to achieve something good out of that, even if their conception of why they do so may seem at odds with those around them. And I'm not convinced that they're just doing good "in spite of" the trappings of their religion or whatever cynical view that may be taken of their work. And to turn the chessboard around (sorry, Umineko reference >_>): to what extent does the Bible have to actually be historically accurate for the truths that people have taken from it to still hold? Is it really pointless if, somehow, its adherents still earnestly work at making the world a better place because of it? If they still strive to do better in the process?
Of course, there are plenty of ways in which Christians over the years have caused more harm than good as a result of problematic thinking or discriminatory practices and the divide between good intentions and good results. But as I said before, the church isn't a static entity. Understandings will evolve with time, and I believe more people will become more cognizant of these issues, just as our culture at large is becoming more open and aware of issues and injustices that have long hidden under the surface of society with impunity (like the current state of race relations in America). At least, that is also part of what I would like to try and help accomplish within my own church: an increasing awareness of the beliefs and behaviors that are often taken for granted in the community, and the impact those can have on the people they seek to reach, in the hopes of being able to mutually understand and build relationships with other people and communities, regardless of their faith affiliation.
As for what all this musing has to do with my relationship with God... I found it easier to talk to God in the past when I honestly believed the words in Scripture to be an accurate reflection of what really happened in the past and of what God really said to us. But now that I'm not so sure anymore... it's been hard for me to say much of anything directly to him anymore, other than to wonder if I'm still doing the right thing sometimes (which is kinda inevitable). Otherwise, I don't really feel much of anything, unless you call apathy a feeling. I also find it difficult to partake in prayer and worship these days, because I lack the conviction or faith to do such things honestly, and worship music is so often structured or written in lyrics that do not reflect what I honestly feel anymore. But I still try to take to heart what truths I do see in Scripture, the ones I see as more reflective of how life ought to be lived. As my therapist put it to me recently: the imprint of the image of God is still on me, in my desires and intentions, even if my specific beliefs aren't entirely in line anymore.
When it comes down to it, even with all of my personal issues regarding the nature of truth and Scripture itself, I don't see my life as any less enriched or wasted by still being involved with church. Perhaps I'm just lucky to have been able to find a community that still accepts me for who I am, even when I don't always feel like I fit in with what is considered orthodox or normal, and when I'm aware that many others have been ostracized from their church communities because of their beliefs. But in that regard, I believe that church communities that do so aren't living up to the standards set by the Jesus that can be seen in the New Testament, the one figure who they claim to follow, who went out of his way to be present with the outcasts of society in his day. There is more to life than simply trying to live it "correctly," and punishing those who fail to meet our standards of right or proper living; but unfortunately, that is what we are prone to doing most often.
All that to say, I'm still in the process of figuring out what all of this will mean for me in the future. Someday, our group will disband and people will leave, and I don't what will happen then, if my beliefs will have changed by then to the point where it no longer makes sense for me to remain anymore, or if I'll find a niche somewhere where I can still contribute somehow. Will I stay, or will I go? At this point, I honestly don't know. But I refuse to give up on it all yet.
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Little things I look forward to in the coming months (aka a giant list of lists):
- Finishing Ace Attorney 6 (Spirit of Justice). So far it's feeling a lot more "polished" than Dual Destinies did, perhaps because the current development team (which originally started with the spinoff Miles Edgeworth games) has finally figured out its groove on how to handle a mainline game. I like how it combines all of the investigation elements that have been introduced in past games: Psyche-locks, Ema Skye's crime scene investigation techniques, analyzing video footage, Apollo's Perceive bracelet, Athena's Mood Matrix, revisualizations, and now Divination Seances. It reminds me of how far the series has come from its early days. That said, the new character names thus far have been rather cringe-inducing (Pees'lubn Andistan'dhin and Tahrust Inmee... ugh), although granted this is the same series that started with Frank Sahwit and Sal Manella so I dunno if I should be surprised.
Other games in the long-term to-play queue: Trails in the Sky II, Fire Emblem 4 and 9-10, Arcanum, The Witcher III, Baldur's Gate II, Pokemon Sun/Moon, FFXV, Persona 5, Torment.
- Refreshing my knowledge of Data Structures and Algorithms in preparation for interviews-- okay I know, you can't ever be truly "prepared," but I just want get some practice in dealing with both familiar and unfamiliar problems and articulating my thought process, since it's been years since I last had to do a real live interview, and I still remember what it feels like to be frustrated with yourself over not being able to answer a question that you could've had you actually studied your basics beforehand. Like for one thing, I haven't actually had to analyze algorithmic runtimes or really been pressured to try and optimize my own solutions to a problem in a long time, and those are areas that I want to get better at for my own sake.
This probably sounds weird to some people, but I actually do like revisiting things I used to know, or potentially developing an even better understanding of them than I did before, as has happened in recent years when I've reread books or revisited subjects I've studied in the past, like American history or Japanese. Perhaps it's the sense of becoming a master of my own "domain" for once, since I'm so used to behaving more like a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none, as Ryan has called me more than once in the past (thanks a lot... even though it's true, sigh).
- Upcoming musicals: Assassins, Hedwig and the Angry Itch, The King and I, Finding Neverland, Into the Woods, HAMILTON, Roman Holiday, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and possibly Rent. I may consider another trip to NYC next year once Anastasia starts running on Broadway next spring.
- Catching up on all the books I don't feel like listing (see goodreads). I haven't finished a book in a few months... which is a long time for me haha.
- All the online classes I've wanted to at least audit but never had the time to focus on cause of work. Currently going through: Probability, Astrophysics, Chinese history (empire to present), Italian opera, Linux, and Parallel Programming in addition to Data Structures/Algs Review and Interview prep. Also looking at both Medical and Computational Neuroscience, God and Consciousness in Philosophy, A Global History of Architecture, the Ancient Greek Hero, the Meaning of Rome, Human Anatomy, Paradox and Infinity, Justice, Shakespeare, European Paintings, The Quran, Visualizing Japan, and the American Civil War and Reconstruction era, among other things. And not currently in online class-form, but I'd like to look more into the history of Britain, the Spanish Civil War, and Southeast Asian conflicts of the 20th Century including Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
Why exactly? Because all of these subjects have piqued my interest in some way at some point in the past few years or even decade, and in some respects reflect my overall desire to understand more of how the world works, in its full and total complexity. I quote this post from Wait But Why that I have yet to finish reading (woops), but which encapsulates my general feelings on learning about topics that are unfamiliar and difficult to understand:
A Wait But Why post can be a few different things. One type of WBW post is the “let’s just take this whole topic and really actually get to the bottom of it so we can all completely get it from here forward.” The ideal topic for that kind of post is one that’s really important to our lives, and that tends to come up a lot, but that’s also hugely complex and confusing, often controversial with differing information coming out of different mouths, and that ends up leaving a lot of people feeling like they don’t totally get it as well as they “should.”
The way I approach a post like that is I’ll start with the surface of the topic and ask myself what I don’t fully get—I look for those foggy spots in the story where when someone mentions it or it comes up in an article I’m reading, my mind kind of glazes over with a combination of “ugh it’s that icky term again nah go away” and “ew the adults are saying that adult thing again and I’m seven so I don’t actually understand what they’re talking about.” Then I’ll get reading about those foggy spots—but as I clear away fog from the surface, I often find more fog underneath. So then I research that new fog, and again, often come across other fog even further down. My perfectionism kicks in and I end up refusing to stop going down the rabbit hole until I hit the floor.
...I’ve heard people compare knowledge of a topic to a tree. If you don’t fully get it, it’s like a tree in your head with no trunk—and without a trunk, when you learn something new about the topic—a new branch or leaf of the tree—there’s nothing for it to hang onto, so it just falls away. By clearing out fog all the way to the bottom, I build a tree trunk in my head, and from then on, all new information can hold on, which makes that topic forever more interesting and productive to learn about. And what I usually find is that so many of the topics I’ve pegged as “boring” in my head are actually just foggy to me—like watching episode 17 of a great show, which would be boring if you didn’t have the tree trunk of the back story and characters in place.
- And to end: a long-term travel itinerary wishlist:
- Chicago
- Great Britain (London, Bath, Glastonbury, the Cotswalds, Peak District, Lake District, York, Yorkshire Dales, Hadrian's Wall, Edinburgh, Inverness, the Scottish Highlands, Isle of Skye)
- Spain (Madrid, Cordoba, Seville, Granada, Barcelona)
- Italy (Venice, Florence, Rome, Pompeii, the Amalfi Coast)
- Greece (Athens, Mycenae, Olympia, Delphi, Meteora, Santorini, Crete)
- Japan round 2+ (Yakushima, Kagoshima, Kurokawa, Fukuoka, Hiroshima/Miyajima, Naoshima, Osaka, Koya-san, Nara, Kyoto, Hakone, Yokohama, Tokyo, Dewa Sanzan, Yamadera, Sendai, Ishinomaki)
- China round 2+ (Lhasa, Jiuzhaigou, Yangtze River, Zhangjiajie, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai, Beijing, Mutianyu or Jinshanling Great Wall, Datong)
- Eurail trip (Zurich, Munich, Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris)
- Turkey (Ephesus, Cappadocia, Istanbul)
- Peru (Lima, Cusco, Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca, Arequipa, Culca Canyon)
- Boston and Philadelphia
Basically I'm set for the next decade and then some lol.
Aaaand that took me 10 hours to finish. I'll have to take a break from this for a bit to actually get stuff done. Later.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Japan
So I actually typed this up the week after the Japan trip, but put off posting it till now cause I was hoping to maybe add some pics to this desperately long post first... but that never happened, and I doubt I'll find the time to sort through all of them AND post them in one go. I'm busy enough with other stuff as it is.
Instead, I'm leaving that job to the also somewhat-stuck-in-2013 photoblog and putting this up as is.
Just arrived home on Sunday (11/9) and I already want to go baaaack.
Highlights and other thoughts. This is gonna be a long one.
1. FOOD. SO MUCH FOOD
2. Places
3. Memories
4. Anime/Manga/Video Game merchandise.
5. General notes on traveling:
6. What I'd hit up next time:
Instead, I'm leaving that job to the also somewhat-stuck-in-2013 photoblog and putting this up as is.
Just arrived home on Sunday (11/9) and I already want to go baaaack.
Highlights and other thoughts. This is gonna be a long one.
1. FOOD. SO MUCH FOOD
2. Places
3. Memories
4. Anime/Manga/Video Game merchandise.
5. General notes on traveling:
6. What I'd hit up next time:
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Plane Crashes
Air Asia QZ 8501 vanished early this morning local time, somewhere to the east of the Indonesian island of Belitung while en route to Singapore from Surabaya. The plane is still yet to be found.
This feels uncomfortably close to home right now considering my family and I just flew the opposite route (Singapore to Bali, specifically - but they're pretty close) two days ago, and we're flying Air Asia tomorrow to Jakarta.
I used to have a major phobia of plane crashes over large bodies of water and air turbulence during flights (ironic considering the number of times I've been on a plane in my life: too many), but lately I've been feeling mostly apathetic about it, considering that the likelihood of dying in a plane crash is statistically much lower compared to dying in a car crash. It's just that it's easier to picture escaping from a car crash compared to a plane crash (especially from a plane going into the ocean), and the crashes this year have been more high profile than usual even though the overall frequency was lower, so it seems a lot scarier than usual.
(Then again, I haven't experienced any turbulence on a flight as bad as one particular trans-Pacific flight from 8 or so years ago that apparently caused planes smaller than the one I was on to shift a few thousand feet... I thought I was going to die on that flight.)
It's really more like a "I won't be paranoid about it until it actually happens" kind of feeling though, since if it ever does happen I probably won't be worrying about it for very long anyway. Que sera, sera.
Still, for the families awaiting news on the fate of that plane... Lord have mercy.
This feels uncomfortably close to home right now considering my family and I just flew the opposite route (Singapore to Bali, specifically - but they're pretty close) two days ago, and we're flying Air Asia tomorrow to Jakarta.
I used to have a major phobia of plane crashes over large bodies of water and air turbulence during flights (ironic considering the number of times I've been on a plane in my life: too many), but lately I've been feeling mostly apathetic about it, considering that the likelihood of dying in a plane crash is statistically much lower compared to dying in a car crash. It's just that it's easier to picture escaping from a car crash compared to a plane crash (especially from a plane going into the ocean), and the crashes this year have been more high profile than usual even though the overall frequency was lower, so it seems a lot scarier than usual.
(Then again, I haven't experienced any turbulence on a flight as bad as one particular trans-Pacific flight from 8 or so years ago that apparently caused planes smaller than the one I was on to shift a few thousand feet... I thought I was going to die on that flight.)
It's really more like a "I won't be paranoid about it until it actually happens" kind of feeling though, since if it ever does happen I probably won't be worrying about it for very long anyway. Que sera, sera.
Still, for the families awaiting news on the fate of that plane... Lord have mercy.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Gent, Belgium
On first day out, we stopped at the town of Zeebrugge in Belgium. In retrospect there wasn't really a whole lot to see compared to the other ports- I think it was meant to be more of an intro/lighter port seeing as how it was the day after we boarded, and in fact some of the passengers actually boarded from Belgium, but I was sort of caught up in the excitement of it being the first site to see that I didn't care much. Zeebrugge is more of a port/industrial town with only a few tourist sites that we passed by on the bus; the actual tour that we took this day was to Gent (Ghent? the locals seem to spell it without the h), about an hour away, for a rather pretty but short hour long canal ride through the city. (the only thing I remember about the bus ride was not seeing any moving cars anywhere... but it was Sunday morning and Belgian people like to sleep in too.)
One of the passengers from Belgium told us about college [which sounded like high school] and gymnasium [which sounded like college], except I have no idea how accurate that actually is considering I just tried to look it up and I don't see any sign of it. One of those might actually have been trade/vocational school, though.
A lot of the sights in Belgium actually foreshadowed or marked the beginning of trends that I'd notice recur repeatedly in later ports; I suppose in part a sign of how the people of Europe are pretty closely related to each other even though their nationhoods are distinct. Distance wise, this trip felt like traveling from the west to the east coast of the US, only everyone speaks a different language and culturally share less in common even though they still share something. I think I was more surprised by the number of trends that repeated themselves.
Examples:
- Windmills. Lots and lots of windmills, some seemingly over the ocean.
- Also in the picture, really gloomy weather. It rained at every single port in the trip at some point during the day.
- Canals in the city. I really wish there were more cities in America nearby that had canals like the ones in each of the cities we visited. They make everything so pretty.
- Shared religious heritage. Christianity has had a major impact on the development of each of the countries we visited, and incidentally the majority of the tourist sites we visited happened to be cathedrals. Belgium was actually one of the few places where we didn't enter a cathedral, but in place of that we did pass by an old monastery on the canal. The majority denominations of the areas we visited were either Protestant (particularly Lutheran, since the Reformation happened in Germany) or Eastern Orthodox, moreso the latter the closer we got to Russia. What few Catholic churches we came across had been converted for use by the other denominations, but I'll get to that in a later post.
- St. Michael beating the dragon. This motif shows up in multiple countries; I'll point it out a couple of times later if I can find more pics. The first time I saw this sculpture, I misconstrued what the tour guide said (as he'd been talking about a different subject seconds before) as "the patron saint of the monastic beer brewers of Belgium, St. Michael, beating a dragon." Or maybe the beer brewers of Belgium did decide to adopt Michael as their patron saint after all. The reference itself is to Michael the archangel defeating the dragon during the war in heaven in the book of Revelation.
- Technically a combination of the last two, but reinterpreting Christian motifs and symbols within the country's cultural context. Which for Belgium's case I guess is the beer brewers and their patron saint. Belgians really love their beer. (and their chocolate and their waffles.)
- Odd expressions of egotism in history. I just thought of this one on the spot, and I say odd because... well, it might just be the fact that I grew up in a different age/culture, but some of the things the medieval Europeans did are just plain weird or crazy.
- non-handicap friendly restrooms and sites. I don't know how all of the wheelchair-bound people we saw on the ship got around at the ports... well technically, there were handicap friendly excursions available for purchase, but most of the major sites they mention at these ports aren't exactly that, so I dunno what they'd end up seeing.
- Families of ducks. okay, maybe just because I'm weird and love taking pictures of ducks. Just wait till we get to Copenhagen...
Anyways, this tour was the shortest one of the trip as it mostly consisted of the canal ride. I wasn't taking notes or too many photos at this point so I'll just note some of the random things I saw on the boat besides the ones already mentioned:
After the canal tour, we had an hour of free time to explore an area around the center of the city called Korenlei... which happened to have a few chocolate shops (not pictured.)
And then we got back on the canal for the last stretch to head back to the bus.
All in all, it was a pretty decent tour, even though it wasn't as long or involving as the ones that followed in later days. Considering how long it took to make this post, though, I have no idea how the later ports are going to turn out. -_-
I decided to make a Flickr account (1 terabyte of storage for free is pretty cool) to upload and organize the pics this time. I didn't include all of them in this post, so the link to the full set will be added at the end of this and subsequent posts. I'm somewhat dreading St. Petersburg now...
But anyway, next stop: Berlin!
full photoset.
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| About to take a TAXIBOOT. |
A lot of the sights in Belgium actually foreshadowed or marked the beginning of trends that I'd notice recur repeatedly in later ports; I suppose in part a sign of how the people of Europe are pretty closely related to each other even though their nationhoods are distinct. Distance wise, this trip felt like traveling from the west to the east coast of the US, only everyone speaks a different language and culturally share less in common even though they still share something. I think I was more surprised by the number of trends that repeated themselves.
Examples:
- Also in the picture, really gloomy weather. It rained at every single port in the trip at some point during the day.
- Canals in the city. I really wish there were more cities in America nearby that had canals like the ones in each of the cities we visited. They make everything so pretty.
- Shared religious heritage. Christianity has had a major impact on the development of each of the countries we visited, and incidentally the majority of the tourist sites we visited happened to be cathedrals. Belgium was actually one of the few places where we didn't enter a cathedral, but in place of that we did pass by an old monastery on the canal. The majority denominations of the areas we visited were either Protestant (particularly Lutheran, since the Reformation happened in Germany) or Eastern Orthodox, moreso the latter the closer we got to Russia. What few Catholic churches we came across had been converted for use by the other denominations, but I'll get to that in a later post.
- St. Michael beating the dragon. This motif shows up in multiple countries; I'll point it out a couple of times later if I can find more pics. The first time I saw this sculpture, I misconstrued what the tour guide said (as he'd been talking about a different subject seconds before) as "the patron saint of the monastic beer brewers of Belgium, St. Michael, beating a dragon." Or maybe the beer brewers of Belgium did decide to adopt Michael as their patron saint after all. The reference itself is to Michael the archangel defeating the dragon during the war in heaven in the book of Revelation.
- Technically a combination of the last two, but reinterpreting Christian motifs and symbols within the country's cultural context. Which for Belgium's case I guess is the beer brewers and their patron saint. Belgians really love their beer. (and their chocolate and their waffles.)
- Odd expressions of egotism in history. I just thought of this one on the spot, and I say odd because... well, it might just be the fact that I grew up in a different age/culture, but some of the things the medieval Europeans did are just plain weird or crazy.
- non-handicap friendly restrooms and sites. I don't know how all of the wheelchair-bound people we saw on the ship got around at the ports... well technically, there were handicap friendly excursions available for purchase, but most of the major sites they mention at these ports aren't exactly that, so I dunno what they'd end up seeing.
- Families of ducks. okay, maybe just because I'm weird and love taking pictures of ducks. Just wait till we get to Copenhagen...
Anyways, this tour was the shortest one of the trip as it mostly consisted of the canal ride. I wasn't taking notes or too many photos at this point so I'll just note some of the random things I saw on the boat besides the ones already mentioned:
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| they have to cut the branches off the trees every year, or else the trees die. don't quite understand how that works naturally... unless they've just been trying to prolong the lifespan of these trees so that it looks pretty/ordered. |
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| "and to your left you will see a naked man about to jump off." totally confused the hell out of me at first. (it's a statue.) |
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| "and a naked woman on the other side." |
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| replica of a barge used back in the day. apparently this one was horse drawn. O_o (and in other cases the guide mentioned the captain having his wife tow the boat because it was cheaper than a horse.) |
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| open air book market on a Sunday morning along the canal. I wish I were over there right now. |
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| I believe this used to be a Catholic monastery. during the iconoclast riots after the Reformation they threw books out of the windows (or I'm guessing anything with an icon on it. because Protestants hate icons.) to the point where it was apparently possible to walk across the canal without getting your feet wet. also was converted to a textile factory afterwards. |
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| guide says this is a good chocolate store in belgium. take note. |
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| to paraphrase the guide: typical Belgium, showcases a cannon that doesn't actually work properly and is more dangerous to stand behind of when firing than in front of. |
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| the castle of the counts. inspired by the castles of other countries, the count (Philip of Alsace) came back from the second crusade and decided to build one for himself to showcase his... ferociousness or something. except it was too cold to live in so it only got used for administrative purposes while he slept somewhere else. and eventually got converted into a textile factory like every other historical building in this city. |
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| view of the square at Korelei. |
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| bathroom break at the Meat House. |
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| we passed by a glass enclosure (on the left) of belgian people eating lunch who stared back awkwardly at us as we gaped about trying to find the restroom... which was upstairs and had absolutely no lights, so it was almost impossible to see anything save for the one window in the public sink area. |
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| no trip to belgium is complete without having actual belgian waffles. in belgium! oh and I almost got run over by a street bus as I was running over to this window. seriously, who puts public transit tracks directly in front of a vendor like this? granted, there were no sidewalks here as the streets were entirely cobblestone. |
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| all I recall here is something about a fish market where people used to bury their dead underneath because there was a church next door, and they believed that the closer you were buried to a church the more likely you would end up in heaven... which meant discovering a bunch of skeletons in a bad condition in the basement here centuries later. the church next door also smelled really badly because of all the dead bodies buried beneath it - only the filthy rich could afford to be buried there, so naturally it smelled like filth. |
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| another view of Korenlei from the bridge. |
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| I have no idea what this is but it looks pretty. |
 |
| Another view of the barge from the opposite side. |
I decided to make a Flickr account (1 terabyte of storage for free is pretty cool) to upload and organize the pics this time. I didn't include all of them in this post, so the link to the full set will be added at the end of this and subsequent posts. I'm somewhat dreading St. Petersburg now...
But anyway, next stop: Berlin!
full photoset.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Cruising through Northern Europe
I'm back from Europe!
Oh in case I forgot to mention (kinda meant to post something but never got around to it), I was in Europe on a cruise with family the last two weeks. It was pretty great. Or rather awesome just for the fact that it was Europe. Cruises have their pros and cons traveling wise, which I will get to in a bit.
This particular cruise was a 14 night trip around Northern Europe. The schedule:
Day 1: Southhampton, England
2: Zeebrugge, Belgium (took a tour to Gent)
3: At Sea
4: Waarnemunde, Germany (took a tour to Berlin)
5: At Sea
6: Stockholm, Sweden
7: Helsinki, Finland
8+9: St. Petersburg, Russia
10: Tallinn, Estonia
11: At Sea
12: Copenhagen, Denmark
13+14: At Sea
15: back at Southhampton to transfer to flight home
-during which I had little to no internet access because the going rate on the ship itself was $.75/minute and we were too cheap to bother with that. Technically a few of the ports had free wi-fi, but the speed wasn't really sufficient enough to do much except to receive emails and not respond to them... and check Google Reader. Speaking of which, I should probably switch to an alternative now that the "ends on July 1st" messages keep popping up...
I'll probably do an individual post for ports later, but for now I'll talk about the cruise itself. Being on a cruise is basically like being on a glorified hotel in the middle of the ocean... It's quite nice. I guess if you're prone to motion sickness, then it's probably not a good idea, and even though the ship is large enough that it doesn't rock back and forth as much while traveling (some days I didn't even notice the ship was moving), it is still possible to get seasick if you aren't accustomed to it. Luckily it wasn't a problem for us this time around, though.
But aside from that, you basically get free (or rather, already paid for) meals on the ship if you stick to the buffet or the main dining restaurant. There's a show every night in the main theater which you can see if you feel like it; casinos are open to anyone over age 18 on the ship; and there's lots of lounges and a few pools and a fitness center and a spa and some other facilities on the ship, with activities hosted by the cruise staff going on everyday. To be honest, I'm more of the type who prefers to relax in the stateroom during an at sea day unless a particular event catches my interest. Someone asked before I left, "Doesn't it get boring?" because you can only do so much on a boat that's at sea... well, I guess it depends on how you prefer to entertain yourself. I've sort of grown used to somehow finding something to do wherever whenever.
I noticed this time around that the majority demographic of the cruisegoers were elderly white people... of course. Although considering that we departed from England and the majority of the other passengers were from the UK itself, it makes sense. It kinda made it so that I didn't feel as inclined to participate in much of the activities going on, though - it's easy to stand out when you don't match the typical demographic of the audience. There were a decent number of teenagers also, probably there with their families, that I'd notice hanging out throughout the ship, which I presume was through the teen club they have on board. It's odd how quickly cliques can form on a two week cruise...
The one thing I like about cruises is that it gives you the ability to visit lots of different destinations at once without having to worry about outstanding traveling costs in a short span of time. 7 countries in two weeks is no small feat if you're traveling by plane/land, and plus you normally would have to worry about finding lodging and figuring out food at each place you visit. At least with a cruise, you just have to worry about making it back to the ship on time, but otherwise you've got a place to stay and food covered for the entire trip.
On the other hand, the fact that you visit so many places in such a short time span means that you spend a lot less time at each individual place, mostly around 5-10 hours per destination/country, which isn't really a lot of time to appreciate each place on its own. Often for the sake of time, our tour bus had to pass by a lot of places without stopping, so I had to settle for taking pictures of some major sites from the window of a moving bus, which generally caused them not to turn out so well a lot. You end up having to practice being able to take decent pictures while moving... which isn't a skill that comes up much for most people I would think. Even with St. Petersburg, where we had an extra day, I felt like I didn't have enough time to fully appreciate it. I've already got a list running in my head of things that I want to do there when/if I ever go back, but that probably won't be for years at least.
[The other thing I don't like is beingforce-fed so much food all the time. If you're lacking in self control (eh heh) it's really easy to go overboard with the eating since there's so much food available. I mean, I was eating more at breakfast than I usually have at home for lunch/dinner sometimes, and that's not including lunch/dinner on the cruise... But alas.]
I'm probably going to do an individual post per port, perhaps with some pictures and captions included. I was debating whether or not I wanted to just upload an album with captions as appropriate, but there's too many pictures than I'm comfortable with uploading and some things I'd want to write don't fit with any particular picture, so I'll probably end up writing more of summary anyway. I took notes on the tours in order to alleviate the inevitable "what the hell did I take a picture of" moments and also because some of our tour guides spouted enough information to fit an encyclopedia, and I like keeping track of random knowledge. This vacation in particular was a lot more history oriented than past vacations I've been on tour-wise- especially St. Petersburg, which ironically happened to be the youngest city we visited (founded in the 1700's)- so I have a lot more to write about than usual... but what can I say, I love history.
[as a side note, I also managed to finish 3 books, a few Gundam anime, and got somewhere midway through the newest Fire Emblem during the downtime on the plane trips and on the ship... but yeah. I also feel randomly inspired to read lots of 19th century Russian literature now.]
Oh in case I forgot to mention (kinda meant to post something but never got around to it), I was in Europe on a cruise with family the last two weeks. It was pretty great. Or rather awesome just for the fact that it was Europe. Cruises have their pros and cons traveling wise, which I will get to in a bit.
This particular cruise was a 14 night trip around Northern Europe. The schedule:
Day 1: Southhampton, England
2: Zeebrugge, Belgium (took a tour to Gent)
3: At Sea
4: Waarnemunde, Germany (took a tour to Berlin)
5: At Sea
6: Stockholm, Sweden
7: Helsinki, Finland
8+9: St. Petersburg, Russia
10: Tallinn, Estonia
11: At Sea
12: Copenhagen, Denmark
13+14: At Sea
15: back at Southhampton to transfer to flight home
-during which I had little to no internet access because the going rate on the ship itself was $.75/minute and we were too cheap to bother with that. Technically a few of the ports had free wi-fi, but the speed wasn't really sufficient enough to do much except to receive emails and not respond to them... and check Google Reader. Speaking of which, I should probably switch to an alternative now that the "ends on July 1st" messages keep popping up...
I'll probably do an individual post for ports later, but for now I'll talk about the cruise itself. Being on a cruise is basically like being on a glorified hotel in the middle of the ocean... It's quite nice. I guess if you're prone to motion sickness, then it's probably not a good idea, and even though the ship is large enough that it doesn't rock back and forth as much while traveling (some days I didn't even notice the ship was moving), it is still possible to get seasick if you aren't accustomed to it. Luckily it wasn't a problem for us this time around, though.
But aside from that, you basically get free (or rather, already paid for) meals on the ship if you stick to the buffet or the main dining restaurant. There's a show every night in the main theater which you can see if you feel like it; casinos are open to anyone over age 18 on the ship; and there's lots of lounges and a few pools and a fitness center and a spa and some other facilities on the ship, with activities hosted by the cruise staff going on everyday. To be honest, I'm more of the type who prefers to relax in the stateroom during an at sea day unless a particular event catches my interest. Someone asked before I left, "Doesn't it get boring?" because you can only do so much on a boat that's at sea... well, I guess it depends on how you prefer to entertain yourself. I've sort of grown used to somehow finding something to do wherever whenever.
I noticed this time around that the majority demographic of the cruisegoers were elderly white people... of course. Although considering that we departed from England and the majority of the other passengers were from the UK itself, it makes sense. It kinda made it so that I didn't feel as inclined to participate in much of the activities going on, though - it's easy to stand out when you don't match the typical demographic of the audience. There were a decent number of teenagers also, probably there with their families, that I'd notice hanging out throughout the ship, which I presume was through the teen club they have on board. It's odd how quickly cliques can form on a two week cruise...
The one thing I like about cruises is that it gives you the ability to visit lots of different destinations at once without having to worry about outstanding traveling costs in a short span of time. 7 countries in two weeks is no small feat if you're traveling by plane/land, and plus you normally would have to worry about finding lodging and figuring out food at each place you visit. At least with a cruise, you just have to worry about making it back to the ship on time, but otherwise you've got a place to stay and food covered for the entire trip.
On the other hand, the fact that you visit so many places in such a short time span means that you spend a lot less time at each individual place, mostly around 5-10 hours per destination/country, which isn't really a lot of time to appreciate each place on its own. Often for the sake of time, our tour bus had to pass by a lot of places without stopping, so I had to settle for taking pictures of some major sites from the window of a moving bus, which generally caused them not to turn out so well a lot. You end up having to practice being able to take decent pictures while moving... which isn't a skill that comes up much for most people I would think. Even with St. Petersburg, where we had an extra day, I felt like I didn't have enough time to fully appreciate it. I've already got a list running in my head of things that I want to do there when/if I ever go back, but that probably won't be for years at least.
[The other thing I don't like is being
I'm probably going to do an individual post per port, perhaps with some pictures and captions included. I was debating whether or not I wanted to just upload an album with captions as appropriate, but there's too many pictures than I'm comfortable with uploading and some things I'd want to write don't fit with any particular picture, so I'll probably end up writing more of summary anyway. I took notes on the tours in order to alleviate the inevitable "what the hell did I take a picture of" moments and also because some of our tour guides spouted enough information to fit an encyclopedia, and I like keeping track of random knowledge. This vacation in particular was a lot more history oriented than past vacations I've been on tour-wise- especially St. Petersburg, which ironically happened to be the youngest city we visited (founded in the 1700's)- so I have a lot more to write about than usual... but what can I say, I love history.
[as a side note, I also managed to finish 3 books, a few Gundam anime, and got somewhere midway through the newest Fire Emblem during the downtime on the plane trips and on the ship... but yeah. I also feel randomly inspired to read lots of 19th century Russian literature now.]
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