Up in the haze

Up in the hills in the centre of Java, two to three hours out of Jakarta, through rice paddies and fruit trees lies the city of Bandung. Its much nicer than Jakarta, though its still hazy and polluted (whether this is self-generated or just gets blown in from Jakarta down below I don't know, probably a bit of both).  There are more trees though, which makes it better. Bandung is the home of LIPI, the Indonesian Centre for Sciences (or similar translation of the acronym) and where our Indonesian contacts work. Its also where we store a lot of gear for fieldwork. So we took the trip up to LIPI to sort through the field-gear, through some things away, check what we had and prepare everything for shipping to the field-sites.  This field-work has a lot of equipment I can tell you that!

An interesting bridge for all you engineers out there - the arch is upside-down!

 The Geoteknologi Department

Once the gear was sorted we took an excursion to the top of a mountain, which was shut due to clouds, despite the trees looking all misty and atmospheric and rather cool. So we went to the local waterfalls, which were interesting, but not particularly nice. They smelt a bit funny, were a bit too foamy and the water was just the wrong colour. Even up here, this part of the world is polluted.  And its a shame because otherwise this place might have been quite pretty.

Well, pretty if they also got rid of all the concrete structures around the place too which made the whole area look not unlike a badly designed Rivendell.

Just not the colour waterfalls should be if they desire to be in the picturesque category

Nice-ish

Not that the place was all bad, the two restaurants we visited for lunch and dinner were very good.  Proper Indonesian fare. Very tasty. And there was a thunderstorm on the way back, which did help clear the air somewhat.

A light show on the Rocks

I do like Sydney, it really is a very nice city. In fact I'd say its biggest fault is that it knows its so good and goes around flaunting it. In that kind of way that makes you want to dislike it. So much so that I enjoy telling people that Sydney's annual rainfall is approximately twice that of London, with 37 more rainy days per year.

I spent last weekend in Sydney, visiting with a few friends who had never been there before (international students eh, what are they like!). Despite doing and seeing things that I'd mostly done before I still had a good time.  And Sydney was having a light festival called "Vivid" where there are all sorts of lit-up landmarks and art installations around the city, making it a fun place to explore after dark.  Here are some photos:

Sydney harbour, pretty as ever.

Some jellyfish around circular quay

No idea, but fun

Of course, all public art is really just an excuse for a playground.

This staircase was fun.  It lit up only the steps that people were standing on.

Art, not without its pretentiousness, these things have something to do with self and consciousness and stuff.

The Opera House gets in on the act with some great light shows.

The Rocks

More stuff on the Rocks, it certainly made the between pubs part of our evening's drinking more entertaining.

Tassie Trip: The A5

We were told this was the scenic route through the heart of Tasmania, and it was.  But this was no minor road, it wasn't even a B-road, it was an A-road, the A5!  And when it got the Great Lake, the tarmac dived off down the B-road and it was several tens of kilometers of dirt gravel track, with very isolated communities overlooking a large expansive lake with grey moody clouds gathering overhead.  An unexpected but quite cool adventure.