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Istanbul Modern
So far so good. I’ve been having nice time. There is a ton to see in Istanbul, and I’ll try to get photos up tomorrow. I’ve fallen in with a good crowd at the guesthouse, and we’re heading to a New Year’s party tonight. It looks like I’ll arrive in 2011 a few hours ahead […]
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Basilica Cistern
This underground chamber was used as a water supply. Nobody knows why the Medusa heads were used to support those two columns, but it may just be that they were the right size and the builders got a good deal on them. Many of the columns and capitals were reclaimed from older buildıngs. I had […]
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Topkapi Palace
This photo is of the Library of Ahmet III, just one small building at the palace. Perhaps every school kid ın the country was there en masse, so it was a game of trying to get to each of the rooms either before or after a stampede came through. Museum displays of some of jewels […]
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Aya Sofya
My first day in Istanbul I went to the Aya Sofya. Built in the sixth century, it was the largest church in the world for about a thousand years until the Ottoman invasion, when it was turned into a mosque. Much of the original artwork was left intact.
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Turkey 2010
I just bought a plane ticket, and I’ll be headed to Turkey for a couple weeks after Christmas. I’m not sure how often I’ll have Internet access, but I’ll try to upload some posts and photos during the trip and more afterward.
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Grand Canyon
A few weeks ago I went on a backpacking trip with some friends in the Grand Canyon. It was a great time. My friend Dave leads these trips for the Sierra club, but this one was just four friends going. He did a great job.
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Hoover Dam
We hit Hoover Dam on the way to the canyon. I didn’t notice before how Art Deco it was.
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NRT to BUF in time for Christmas
I’ve made it home. Things were a bit confusing in Dulles. A number of people got bumped off my flight to Buffalo. There was too much luggage, so the plane was going to be over-weight. The policy is that they’ll take the luggage, and leave the people stranded in the airport. I almost volunteered to […]
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Sesshin
I’m back in Tokyo after three days at the Tekishinjuku International Zendo. I stayed in their guesthouse a little way down the road, and lived a short three-day stint as a monk would. I had a little bit of trouble finding my way back to the guesthouse from the temple in pitch blackness the first […]
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Nara and Koyasan
Over the past few days I’ve been to Nara and Koyasan and back to Kyoto. I’m leaving Kyoto today to go to the Zendo that I’ve mentioned before. There have been a couple of delays in getting there, but I’m looking forward to it. It looks like somebody is going to owe me ten bucks. […]
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In Nara
Today I took the train from Kyoto (the capital for a thousand years up until about 1868), to Nara, which was the capital for a while before that. I’ll be checking out some very old temples here tomorrow and then heading to Koyasan the next morning to stay at Shingon Buddhist temples there for two […]
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Fun Stuff
In addition to being a reasonably upstanding tourist, I have been known to fall in with a crowd of international misfits and ne’er-do-wells usually referred by their vulgar name, “backpackers.” While sometimes thought of as an Australian phenomenon, they do in fact originate from points around the globe, including the US of A. In fact, […]