The Atomium, a replica of an iron molecule with nine aluminum spheres (built for the World Fair in 1958) has been renovated and remixed and comes to the kid and the kid at heart as an otherworldly playground of sorts. Spotted on the Cool Hunter, Billy T says the Atomium has been dubbed the “Kids Sphere Hotel.” Kids are entertained by films and other packaged events. When it’s time to dine, within the restaurant you’ll find a panoramic view of Brussels. Seems like one awesome place to visit when in Brussels – see the Cool Hunter for more photos and visit Atomium for all details!
Gordon Wiltsie on NPR
Who among you out there doesn’t like outdoor photography? Not a single one of you, I imagine. There is something deep down genetic to our love for the outdoors, to our appreciation for color and form and harmony in nature. I know that whenever I travel, I simply MUST carry a camera, not simply because I want to remember the places I’ve been, but because the photos I take are a reminder of the beauty that lies outside my door, outside my city.
And if there were any single ideal job (other than being Hugh Hefner) it would have to be adventure outdoor photographer. I have sitting here on my book shelf several volumes of outdoor photography by folks like the late Galen Rowell and James Balog. And over at NPR I noticed that there is a new volume worth checking out by the well-known photographer Gordon Wiltsie.
Wiltsie has shot some of the world’s best mountain climbers and explorers while out on expeditions, and he has compiled some of the best among those photos in a new book called To the Ends of the Earth: Adventures of an Expedition Photographer. In this NPR interview, Wiltsie talks with Alex Chadwick about his adventures and profession, including some of his other work as a writer. To wit, he was the author of a critically acclaimed study of the nomads of Mongolia’s Darhad Valley that was featured in the October 2003 National Geographic.
Take a moment away from you day and give a listen.
Hong Kong Travel Essay
There are lots of places in the world I’d like to go, but there are significantly fewer where I’d like to live. I wish I could say I’ve lived more places. The experience of living abroad is one that every single American should experience at some point in his or her lifetime. And while I’ve had the opportunity to go a couple of great places and rent an apartment, shop at the local store, get to know some locals, one place I have not even visited is Hong Kong. But it is so high on my list of places I’d like to go that I always keep an eye out for articles on Hong Kong.
And so imagine my surprise as I was reading last night the 2006 Best American Essays (I get several books in this series every year and highly recommend them) and I came across this essay called City Out of Breath by Ken Chen. Beautifully-written, the essay is both a travel story and a voyage of discovery for Chen and his father, who find in Hong Kong a vibrant city of “energy and flashy contradictions”, an electric admixture of Asian and Western” where “walking becomes an act of silent storytelling, figuring people out.” I was surprised to see the essay in this particular collection because the Best American series already has a whole volume dedicated to travel, but I’m also glad I found it, because as I was sitting alone in my bad last night reading Chen’s essay, I was reminded once again how much Hong Kong appeals to me, how much I can’t wait to go there someday…or perhaps even to live there.
LA Mapped
I believe there is a mapping gene. That is, there is a gene (I am guessing it is on the Y chromosome, since not many women I know share this passion) that codes for a protein in the brain that creates a passion for maps. I have it.
In fact, I am sitting right here in my home office with a lovely map of the country on my wall, and at work I have maps of new York City and the world. I stare at them every day, not just for directions around the city or to figure out where, for example, the Mississippi runs through Arkansas. But also, at least where the world map is concerned to help me figure out where I’d most like to travel next . Maps are truly one of the most amazing creations of mankind.
So bearing this in mind, I’d like to highlight a post over Boing Boing from earlier in August that discusses the show Los Angeles Mapped, currently on display in Los Angeles through 2007 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The maps are diverse in both subject matter and style, with a finely detailed railroad system map to a movie-star map to a map showing the early Owens Valley. This is way cool, and I only wish I’d been able to drop by the exhibit during my recent trio to LA. Perhaps Neil can go and check it out for us. But if not, the site here actually has some excellent representations online that you can peruse. It is very well done and I have to say that I wish they were selling some of these as well. I’d love to have the map pictured here on my wall as well.
Space Tourist Anousheh Ansari Blogs
What does space smell like? That is a question that Einstein himself may have pondered. His equation is one of the lesser known, but certainly important ones of all time: S=fb2, where Smell (S) equals a universal funk constant (f) minus one’s body odor (b) squared. It is a brilliant piece of Einsteininan mathematics that has been used in the development of high energy particle physics and odor eaters.
OK, I took some scientific/poetic license there. It wasn’t Einstein who came up with the Universal Funk Quotient, it was Enrico Fermi. He was Italian. So what’s this got to do with anything? Well, here I was perusing the Web today, wondering what in the world…or out of it…would interest gadling readers, and then I came across the blog of the first woman space tourist.
Anousheh Ansari just got back from her most amazing trip to outer space aboard the Soyuz TMA-9, and boy is she happy. And why wouldn’t she be? For a mere $20 million, she was able to float around planet earth with little or no work to do (she was a tourist, remember) and then returned on Friday after 11-days aboard the international space station. She said, finishing up my thought from above, that space smelled like burnt-almonds. Of course, that may have just been the burnt-almond flavored air freshener that hangs in the windshield.
No matter. There are videos and photos and written words on her site ,and, of course if you Google her, there are a gazillion stories about the trip she made. But most of all, I suggest you take a look at the video and make note that she issues a personal thank you to YouTube. If that isn’t the most 21st century thing you’ve heard this year, I don’t know what is.