Archive for the ‘trivia’ 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, 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.
Filed under Photohunt, art, travel, trivia
Can anything be more apt than this?
This is Atlas carrying the world. In Greek mythology, he was punished by Zeus to bear the weight of the Earth on his back.
According to Wikipedia:
One of Heracles’s labors was to collect the apples of the Hesperides. Heracles went to Atlas and reasoned with him. Eventually, Atlas agreed to collect the apples, and Heracles was left to carry the weight. Atlas tried to leave Heracles there, but Heracles tricked him and Atlas was left to carry the heavens forever. In his epic Odyssey, Homer refers to this Atlas as “one who knows the depths of the whole sea, and keeps the tall pillars who hold heaven and earth asunder..”
This is why a book of maps is called Atlas. A book containing maps of the world is called World Atlas.
This statue is somewhere in Manhattan. Photo taken by my trusty digital camera.
Filed under Photohunt, art, human interest, travel, trivia
I’m late again for PhotoHunt, but what can I do? I am never home on weekends. I just got back from a weekend of beach and sand in Negros. Will post about it later. 
My entry for this week is a shot I took last year of the Washington Monument in Washington D.C.
It looks small, but it’s really huge when you go near it. It is in fact the world’s tallest stone structure and the world’s tallest obelisk. It is made of marble, sandstone, and granite.
It’s an imposing structure. You wouldn’t miss it. It’s among the first you can see when you go to Washington D.C.
Filed under Photohunt, art, human interest, travel, trivia
This is the Crown Fountain, a fountain of many colors in the Millennium Park of Chicago. The park boasts of one-of-a-kind art pieces, this fountain by Catalan artist Jaume Plensa among them.
The fountain changes colors every few seconds or so. Sometimes a face of a person or a collage of several faces appears on the LED screen. The structure is made of glass, built inside which are the lights that give it color. The sprinkles of water add to the bright effect. If I had brought a change of clothes, of if we had more time, I would have played under the fountain. 
I’m the girl in a blue-and-white striped jacket in the third and fourth photos. Photos were taken by Robert Haggard.
This is my entry for this week’s PhotoHunt.
