Mere Hong Kong (more HK)

A few more photos to share...

The Bird Garden... lots of birdies for sale!

The flower market

View from "The Peak"

Hair-raising gondola ride down from the Buddha on Lantau

Swallows' nests in the apothecary

We hope that everyone is enjoying the transition to fall as much as we are here in Cambridge! It's that time of year when brisk winds whip up the fallen leaves to give you an occasional thwap! in the face when out for a walk... I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon enough.

12 Days in Hong Kong

Mike was invited to present at the Synthetic Biology 4.0 conference held at the Hong Kong University of Science at Technology earlier this month, so we went a bit early and traveled around the impressive metropolis for a week.


Hong Kong was a fascinating experience for the senses, and very easy for the non-Cantonese speaking Western visitor. HK was a British colony fom 1860-1997, so many things (including signs, menus and public transport announcements) are in both Cantonese and English.

A short list of favorites from the trip:
- Attending Diana Krall's first concert on her China 2008 tour
- High tea at the Peninsula Hotel
- Nighttime view of the harbor... from our hotel room!
- 25-minute dramatic gondola ride up to the Buddha on Lantau
- Riding the funicular up to the Peak
- Shopping shopping shopping
- Dim sum at Maxim's in City Hall
- Walking through markets and the Graham wholesale district
- Hiking on Lamma followed by a very fishy lunch (yum!)

The DNA Age

Here is a NY Times article describing the Personal Genome Project. My boss, George Church, is the project leader and a subject.

Wrap it up.

Skipping rocks at the park

This is the last set of Spain images, and good thing... we have pictures from a wedding, Chicago, and Hong Kong coming down the pipeline.

This little set is from the last 3 days of our trip, which we spent in Madrid hosted by my cousin Katie, her husband (and awesome cook!) Javi, and fab kids Fiona and Ivan. Mike and I had just moved to Copenhagen when Katie and Javi were married in 2004, so we were able to hop down to Madrid for the festivities. This was our first (and long overdue) visit since then.

We did a little sightseeing in Madrid, but the focus was on spending time with the Perez-Hill family. (A second visit to a city is always nice as things like the transportation systems seem familiar, and a feeling of needing-to-see-it-all is not as pressing.)

My cousin rocks... we're going on 25 years of cracking each other up...

Oh, the places we've gone.

I just added that map in the sidebar to the right.

And we thought that we travelled a lot. Ha! Clearly, we have some work to do.

Perhaps we'll start playing the lottery... or maybe Mike can engineer a Money Tree?!

More Spain.

I'm nearing the end of Spain photos selected for the blog, so enjoy!

Tapas tab on the bar at Bodega Santa Cruz, Sevilla

Flamenco in Cordoba

These last few pics are from Cordoba, taken at La Mezquita, a religious structure with a stunning interior and varied history. The structure began as a Christian Visigothic Church around 600AD, was then refashioned into a mosque for 500 years beginning in 711, and in 1236 became the Catholic diocese of Cordoba.

Beautiful Muslim architecture from the interior of La Mezquita, Cordoba

Light pours into a chapel of La Mezquita, Cordoba

Patio de los Naranjos (Patio of the Oranges), La Mezquita, Cordoba

SPAIN Part III

We're in Hong Kong at the moment, but our blog is still stuck in Spain.

Here's another installation of photos - this time from Sevilla, our favorite city of the trip.

Charming and bodega-laden, Sevilla has managed to retain its turn-of-the-century charisma despite the high number of tourists trawling the streets. This kind of old-world beauty amidst 21st century tourism reminded us of Venice, whose magic shone through in a similar way.

Updated to add: GO SOX!

Sevilla rooftops from the cathedral's belltower.

In front of the historic cigarette factory (Act I of Carmen!)

Flamenco dresses!

A teesy corner of the gardens in the Alcazar.

Basketball in the river... on kayaks...

More photos, please.

You got it.

Here we have a selection of images from Ronda. Did we luck out on that stopover or what... Ronda is famous for its historic bullring and annual festival. Read more here.
We just happened to be staying in a teensy town called Alpandiere, 15 km from Ronda's centre, during the weekend of The Big Event.

Note: while we did not attend a bullfight, we did watch Las Enganches on Sunday morning in the bullring - Andalusian horses parading in their finest. It was quite a spectacle.

The Alhambra

Most of our day trips from Frigiliana went like this: drive 5km to ocean, swim/sun/eat paella (repeat as desired), drive home and make pitcher of sangria to drink while watching the sun set.

To break up all the sun and sand, we took a trip to Granada for a half day and toured the Alhambra. People, it was awesome. Here are some of our photos...

Click on any of these photos to see the ginormous version appear on your monitor.