I confess that before I went there, I had no idea that Bonn was on the Rhine. I found it out by studying the map in my hotel room, so the next morning I went for a walk to see it - the famous river that I'd never seen before. There were little patches of snow lying around and puddles that were essentially ice, so I had to walk rather gingerly ( Read more... )

Near where I was staying is a 'heritage park' with housing built for government big wigs in the 1930s. Like most older Darwin houses they are on stilts.

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I have to teach about China next week. Today I was looking at pictures to entertain the kids and, inter alia, found these.

Shanghai Bund before WW1.

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A close-up of the tiled bell tower at Nerano.

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As mentioned yesterday, the town has a number of wonky half-timbered buildings.

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Despite the heat, I was very determined to complete a full circuit of the lake (total distance about 3.5 km). The official name of this lake is Ho Hoan Kiem, which I think means Lake of the Returned Sword (see previous post). The popular name is Ho Guom, which means just Sword Lake. Guom is probably a less sinicized word for sword than Kiem - ( Read more... )

On our way from the Van Dien crematorium back to the city we passed through the southwestern part of the city along a ring road named after Pham Van Dong. The official population of Hanoi is only 2 million, but everybody agrees the actual population is at least double that number. Under the Vietnamese system of residential registration, you are ( Read more... )

Agra was about 5 hours by bus south from Delhi. We travelled through somewhat dusty countryside - a decade later the road apparently traversed an industrial belt, but it wasn't so in 1970. Agra itself was not very enticing, but just outside the town there are two major attractions the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort ( Read more... )

I went down late on Thursday night, spent the day at a meeting and came home late Friday night. I stayed in an Ibis hotel which was cheap and very comfortable. I'd booked a double room and they 'upgraded' me to a queen bed. I couldn't see that it was any larger than a plain double bed, but still... the only thing I'd complain about was the fact ( Read more... )

Gladesville Hospital was opened in 1838 as the Tarban Creek Lunatic Asylum and closed in 1997 as Gladesville Hospital. In between it was known as Gladesville Hospital for the Insane. The site is heritage listed and suffers from the usual difficulties - what was designed for mentally ill patients according to mid-19th century conceptions is not ( Read more... )