Bill
Bryson’s ode to OZ focuses on much more than just Sydney, but it is such an excellent read that I had to make it
today’s book pick. My mom got me In A Sunburned
Country as a gift three years ago before I embarked on my voyage to Australia. In his own words, Bryson admits that
"Life cannot offer many places finer to stand at eight-thirty on a summery weekday morning than Circular Quay in Sydney." Bryson marvels at
the Harbour Bridge and shares his excellent and always entertaining history lessons about the founding of the city and
its landmarks, including details of how the famous Opera House came to be. He spends four days walkling all over the
city, visiting museums and neighborhoods that hug the harbour. Bryson does mention a book by another travel writer that
is worth noting here too: Jan Morris wrote the book Sydney in 1992, excerpts of which appear in her collection
of world travel stories.
Sydney Blogs
Sydney Opera House Panos
The
Sydney Opera House is one of those landmark places that define a city. Like the Seattle Spaceneedle, the Empire State
Building and the Hollywood sign, it is a one of a kind place. And how cool, then, to have such an excellent series of panoramic photos of the place. Both
the full-screen version and some of the ones here really
bring out the majesty of the place. You can also check out a bunch of other nice photos and shots at this site. I have to admit as a panoramic
photographer that the Opera house is one of the to places I’d like to shoot at some
point in my life.
Chicago Exhibit on Tsunami
Chicago’s small The Notebaert
Nature Museum is running an interesting
exhibit on last year’s Tsunami, with photogrphs and maps meant to convey the extent of the damage and devastation
wrought by the horrible natural disaster that left at least 216,000 people dead or missing in 12 Indian Ocean
nations.
It’s not a massive exhbit, you have to salute them for the effort. it contains photos and several exhibits
that examine the scientific underpinnings of this particular tsunami as well as others that have occurred in history.
There is also a detailed map showing the locations of the few tsunami warning systems that currently exist, mostly off
the coast of the northwestern United States. They have, of course, with some of the money donated over the last year,
now built one for the Indian Ocean, which might have saved thousands of lives if it had been bult prior to the
earthquake. Worth checking out if you live in or are planning a visit to Chi-Town.
Zoom and Go
About two
years ago, a friend of mine and I were thinking about doing audio tours of Manhattan for ipods. We have jobs so we put
it off and put it off. And of course, now there are a million different c companies making audio tours for the ipod.
And so we were talking recently about doing video tours for the ipod. Or some kind of video company for the ipod. Well,
it looks like we’re missing out again. Lately, I’ve seen a bunch of companies doing video ipod stuff. And just recently
I found one doing stuff related to travel. The company, called Zoom and Go let’s people upload video to their
servers and then people download them for when they want to travel to a place.
Is the video good? Not
really. Not the stuff I’ve seen demoed. But it has potential. And with hordes of people traveling these days with video
cameras, I could see this picking up. The key, of course, is they’re going to have to start paying people, and even now
there is still no viable payment infrastructure for micropayments (say .50 to $1) for stuff on the Web. But we’re
getting close .So maybe there is still an opportunity for me to do this after all. Hmmmm…