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.
Filed under food trip, human interest, travel
Okay, this is not really a food “trip,” but a list of foods that caught my fancy in this land far, far away.
The day after I came in, someone in class passed around a plate full of what I thought were red twisted candles. LOL. My newfound friend, Sarah (who has a palmtop that I envy, I kept looking at it), explained that it is strawberry-flavored licorice candy. I tried it, and I liked it. It’s really long, like a candle; I just twisted it to look like a loop, as you see in the photo.
I haven’t seen this candy in our candy stores. Or am I just not exposed enough to sweets?
And here’s an oddly-shaped squash (to me, anyway) that I saw in another friend’s house, where we ate dinner last night. I thought this was some kind of American vegetable unheard of in Asia, and then he told me it was squash. The only squash I’ve seen before are the pumpkin-like ones we have back home.
Here’s another kind of squash I found in his backyard. (The man grows vegetables in his backyard and makes his beer at home!)
He said it is yellow squash. I thought it was yellow eggplant.
Afterwards, we had a sumptous dinner of grilled vegetables (which included the yellow squash in the photo), grilled beans, grilled corn, spicy chicken, and rice (yipee!) out in his patio. The vegetables were cut into slices,wrapped in foil, and then grilled. You rub some kind of Japanese paste to the corn and then grill it. Yummy!
It was my first real meal since Friday. As much as I appreciate expensive airline food, and as much as I like burgers, nothing beats having rice for a meal. Thanks a lot, Santa! 
Filed under human interest, travel
It wasn’t even a wish, it was more like a passing thought. I wrote in my journal at the beginning of the year that I wanted to go back, and look, it is coming true!
I’m leaving later today for Hong Kong. From there I’ll be flying to Los Angeles, and then to Dallas, Texas, and then finally to Lexington, Kentucky. Lexington is the horse capital of the world, sometimes also called “Athens of the West.”
I was given an assignment that requires me to travel to the corporate headquarters, thanks to my fairy godmother who is always watching out for me. I’d probably be pulling all my hair out doing the work, but heck, it’s still a trip and it’s a rare opportunity. Actually, I am more excited about the trip rather than the work. LOL.
I am glad I am going because I didn’t get enough of the place when I was there last year. For one, I wasn’t able to get on a horse. The best I did was feed a mint to a horse before it ran in the racetracks. And I won a dime from the race, by the way. 
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Filed under Photohunt, human interest, travel
Do you see what I see?
I snapped these photo soon after taking off from the Legazpi Airport. It’s on the northern part of the Philippines, by the way, right where the world-famous cone-shaped Mayon Volcano is.
I thought the clouds looked like a bear hiding in the bushes.
Look, he is standing up and scratching his right cheek!
Filed under food trip, human interest, trivia
Am I the last one to know that coffee can be made from animal droppings?
I saw these jars while having lunch at Abaseria Deli and Cafe, a Filipino restaurant that also sells accessories, native houseware, and delicacies that can’t be bought anywhere. I was looking over the shelves when a friend pointed these out to me:
I’m told this coffee was featured on TV. I don’t watch TV so that’s probably why I didn’t know.
I did a quick search on the web, and learned that Philippine civet (also known as alamid) is a cat-like animal that is said to eat only the best coffee cherries, which contain the coffee beans. Producers of the Philippine civet coffee call this natural processing. Right. And the digestive process of the civet is said to add to the rare taste.
This coffee is considered gourmet, and is very expensive. You can check the price on the bottle.
Filed under Photohunt, adventure, human interest, travel, trivia
This is the Delirium, a thrill ride at the Kings Island Amusement Park in Mason, Ohio. (Trivia: This park is the biggest in the Midwest. It was once featured on The Partridge Family and Brady Bunch.)
Riders are seated on a ring facing outward with their legs dangling in the air. A giant arm swings the ring back and forth as if it is swinging a slingshot, and riders are spun in a 240-degree arc 137 feet in the air, or roughly more than 13 stories. Hanging, indeed!
I didn’t ride the Delirium because I was already dizzy from the other thrill rides in the park, and besides, I didn’t have the guts to go up on it. Just looking at it from afar made my insides knot.
