Archive for the ‘human interest’ Category
Filed under Photohunt, human interest, the good earth, travel, trivia
This is what white tigers do on a lazy afternoon:
“I am bored.”
“I wish I could get away from these people. They are starting to annoy me.”
“I should just go down to the water and cool off.”
“Whew! I love this!”
“Now my coat is squeaky clean.”
This white tiger can be found at the world-acclaimed Singapore Zoo, which is known for its open animal dens. I was one of the annoying people who kept staring at him. I just really loved his beautiful white coat.
Trivia:
- White tigers have blue eyes and pink noses, and no, they are not albinos. White tigers resulted from a rare genetic combination.
- White tigers descended from Mohan, who was caught by an Indian Maharajah in 1951. He was bred, and became the proud father of many cubs.
- There used to be five kinds of tigers in the world. Only three remain today. The other two are extinct.
- Only 7,000 wild tigers are alive today. They are being hunted and killed at an alarming rate for their coat. They are also losing their homes in the wild to real estate development.
Before I went to the zoo, I didn’t care so much about tigers. I only thought of them as animals to be feared. Now I think of them as beautiful creatures to be saved. I think I am going to adopt wildlife as another advocacy.
Filed under human interest, travel, trivia
Well, I have. He is Amigo, a Yellow-naped Amazon at the Jurong Bird Park in Singapore. Listen to him count and sing in English, Chinese, Japanese, and Malay. He is so cute!
Filed under Photohunt, human interest, travel, trivia
This is the aerial view of Chicago as seen from the sky deck of the Sears Tower. I just love that beautiful loop of roads in the center. It’s called Circle Interchange, one of the worst places to be stuck in traffic in the world, and it’s an example of a Spaghetti Junction.
But still, I love Chicago! I hope to go back there someday.
Filed under human interest, trivia
I noticed that when planes take off, they fly the other way and then turn around to follow a straight path to the destination.
And when planes prepare to land, they fly over the destination and then turn around to begin descending to the airport.
It’s like writing the number 8. You will notice because if you sit by the window, one of the wings of the plane dips when the plane turns around. I noticed that this happens all the time.
Why is that? I am just curious, is all. Maybe it has to do with a law of physics? Or could it be just a flying technique?
I am trying to understand why.
Filed under human interest, people, travel, trivia
It’s Robert Pershing Wadlow, from Alton, Illinois. He was 8 feet 11 inches tall when he was last measured in 1940, when he was just 22 years old. When he was nine, he was able to carry his father, who was 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighed 170 lbs, up the stairs of their family home.
To illustrate, this is how tall he is, and this is how short I am:
That’s a life-size replica of him at the Guinness World of Records Museum in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, a tourist town I visited and fell in love with last week. (That’s for another entry, though. :)) I am half his height at about the same age!
And this is how my foot compares to his:
I wear an Asian size 5 shoes by the way, which is size 4 in the US.
