It took us 8 years: 1+1 = 3!

 Today it's our wedding anniversary.  This photo was taken on our wedding day on Feb 24, 2008.


















You have to say, us hippos are slow-moving creatures.  It took us almost eight years for this to happen--the picture was taken on Feb 12, 2016, when our baby Hippo was 1.5 days old. 

So many things happened in the eight years, I don't know where to start.  But when comparing the two pictures, the most obvious change was how puffy Mummy Hippo's paw had become!  That gives you a hint of how nicely-rounded she is today :).  But, to her justice, that was more due to 2.5 days of IV injections rather than her actual weight gain!

(OK, I digressed a bit).

Eight years down, a new adventure begins, this time with a new member of the family! 

Sad, sadder, and the saddest: The Holocaust History Museum, Jerusalem

I didn't visit the Holocaust History Museum during my first two trips to Israel.  Being an optimistic and happy-go-lucky creature in general, I chose to see and experience the happy side of the country and the Jewish culture/history first.  But the taste of war during my third trip gave me a sense of what people have to live through today, and a visit to the Museum was a reality check for what people had to suffer in the history, possibly the darkest part of human history. 

The Museum is a sad place to be, even before I started reading and learning anything.  The interior of museum complex, designed by Moshe Safdie, conveys a feeling of struggling to me.  The entire structure is made of concrete, and apart from the ceiling light in the main corridor (picture above), there is no single window in any exhibit room as far as I remember.  Also, both sides of the wall are tilted, pressing against you, even when you trying to bath in the only source of light in the corridor (picture above).  Some of the design is functional, as the exhibit rooms need to be dark for the purpose of multimedia presentations, more likely though, the architect tries to represent the gloomy and breathless feeling for the hundreds and thousands of Jewish people who suffered in the World War II.

There are plenty of sad texts and numbers to learn about the Holocaust, but for me the sadder part was the story-telling.  Almost in each of the exhibit room, there is a TV playing a survivor telling his or her story.  Almost each of the story made me feel like crying or shouting out loud angrily, "What was wrong--How could any human being treat a fellow human being like that?!"  One of the stories, for example, was a 13-year-old boy watching the Torah that he read during his Bar Mitzvah torn apart and burned down in front of him...Being in such a Torah-reading ceremony recently and witnessing how people treasure and worship the Torah, I cannot imagine anything worse happened to that boy. Physical suffering is one thing, but the collapse of belief is a whole different matter. 

The saddest of all though, was the last exhibit room, called Hall of Names.  The ceiling of the room features a gigantic cone displaying hundreds of photos.  Before getting over the fact that all those children, women and men lost their lives in the Holocaust, I saw the wall of the room full of bookshelves, then there were files after files on each shelf.  It turns out each of 2.6 million, and so far ONLY the 2.6 million has got a page of his/her profile on record, and this Hall of Names have room for six million in total...

A taste of war

We visited Mr Hippo's family in Israel recently, in middle of the latest war of the Israel-Gaza conflict. I had never been so close to a war before this trip and experienced the first air-raid siren (and the two following ones in the next two days) in my life.

This was my third time in Israel and everything seemed to be just fine before this trip, even though I learned that security systems in the Tel Aviv airport, where we flew in and out of the country, are much tougher than other parts of the world.  They start to check everybody out even before you enter the airport, and at least two officers will come to talk to you before you reach your airline's ticket counter.  After each round of conversation, they will put some stickers on your suitcase, and as a result, you will have a lot more of those after leaving from Israel.  I  had seven on mine during my first trip there, if I remember correctly.  It wasn't they thought me/my suitcase suspicious or anything.  Nothing personal, it is just their business as usual.  As my brother-in-law said, "Security is a national hobby."

I have a better understanding of this line during this trip.  Every new apartment is required to have a "shelter room," and when the air-raid siren blasted in the air, we dropped everything, rushing into this shelter room and waited until the siren stopped.  The same is for any public space.  The picture above shows a sign in the Tel Aviv airport, directing people to the shelter, and I took the picture in the morning we left Israel.

When it first happened, I was pretty much dragged into the shelter room before I realized what was happening, and then I heard clearly about the siren.  It was like a sudden entry of some surreal movie, and I didn't feel being scared or worried at all before we had our freedom again.  The siren blasted twice in the next two days, and by the third time I reacted quickly without anybody telling me what to do and we also heard loud noise of bombing from Israeli army intercepting Hamas' rockets nearby...Still, children played in and outside the shelter room, during and after the siren periods.  The family were together, and Mr Hippo was beside me, so I didn't feel much either.

My numb feeling finally disappeared when our plane landed in Barcelona, the next stop of our trip.  It was more of a relief than anything else--We successfully escaped the war! 

Istanbul: A condensed journey

Mr Hippo and I went to Istanbul for a conference, and we only had three days to tour around before and after the conference.  It was a intensive and condensed journey in every perspective.  

As a trans-continental city, Istanbul condenses the distance between Asia and Europe. For us (poor) Australians, we have to fly hours to reach other continents.  Yet here in Istanbul, Asian and Europe are pretty much just two neighborhoods separated by the Bosphorus.  The other continent is just a bridge/train ride away, and the first time we took the train, we were in a different continent before I even realized it.  The picture above shows one of the two existing suspension bridges cross the river, the Bosporus Bridge.  I took the picture during our Bosphorus cruise. 

Apart from condensing distance in space, Istanbul also offers a condensed view of history.  Residents with different culture and religion have left their own signatures in all forms.  The picture above shows Christian and Islamic art pieces in Hagia Sophia, which served as a Cathedral and then a mosque in the history.  When Ottoman rulers coverted Hagia Sophia into a mosque in 1400s, they actually plastered over the mosaics of Jesus and Mary.  The art piece only started to come back to life after  1935, when the Republic of Turkey re-opened Hagia Sophia as a museum.

 

My favorite form of art though is Turkish lamps.  Before coming to Istanbul, I don't remember seeing many lamps with more than three colors, but three becomes a minimum requirement here. 13 is more like an average number. Each lamp is pretty much a shiny and condensed color wheel with different designs and patterns (the picture above shows a collection of them in a specialty store in Grand Bazaar).  I would have bought a couple just for their warmth in cold Canberra winter, if we didn't have to travel to another two countries before heading home.

My least favorite form of condensed thingy encountered in Istanbul was Baklava, a Turkish pastry dessert.  I had tasted it in other parts of the world (the first time was in a kebab shop in the Jewish quarter of Boston?) and never like it, but I thought I should give myself another chance as it is more authentic here.  Luckily I just nibbled.  As I remembered before, it is SO sweet to the point that, if a bee tastes it, he will be shamed about how bland honey is by comparison!

Became an Australian citizen

 

I became a citizen today.  

The last step of becoming a citizen is to attend a ceremony where I pledge to be a citizen.  My non-religious version of the pledge goes like this:

"From this time forward, I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey."

Reading the pledge aloud (with others) was probably the most serious part of the hour-long ceremony.  The rest of the time it was more like a party.  We walked into the room with a happy version of Waltzing Matilda playing at the background, and the ceremony ended with everybody singing the National Anthem together (the official one).  Of course, it is still not very up to the happiness standard of real Australians.  One of my colleague asked me afterwards, "Did they give you a couple of beers in the end?"

Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve

We always take friends visiting from overseas to the Reserve, because it is the best place to see kangaroos, heaps of them, near Canberra.  Today, we impressed a couple of Swedish friends again; they were amazed by how close they could approach the cute creatures.  I think the nearest point they got was about 2 meters. 

It is spring time, so there are lots of newborns sticking out from their mum's pocket.  Here is a picture I took from the trip. 

We have been together in Australia for 5 years!

 

We arrived 5 years ago, today, from the US and  started our life together down-under.  It is two anniversaries in one, really.   Sept 15 2007 was the date we landed in Australia.  We also started living together from that day on!

The trip to Australia was grueling physically.  Flying from the East coast of US to Canberra, we had to change flights four times.   Yet, the 30-some-hour-journey was also uplifting, simply because there is a new country (at least for me) and a new life waiting ahead. 

We each started our trip at our home city and merged at Chicago airport.  I still remember the happiness bursted into my chest when I finally spotting Mr Hippo.  He was looking out of a window at the time, still, it took me no time to pinpoint him from the crowd--apart from the fact that he is tall, you don't see many people carrying an umbrella in an airport terminal either ("I cannot fit it in my suitcase," explained Mr Hippo).  

I patted him on his shoulder and greeted in a mixed American and Australian way, "What's up, Mate?!"

From that point on, our miserable long-distance relationship ended and a new page of our life began.  Here are the top three achievements in the past five years.  

1. We got married in Feb 2008! 
2. We each secured a permanent position (Mr Hippo in 2011 and Ms Hippo in 2012, and we both like our jobs.  
3. We had numerous adventures together, Australia and aboard.  We camped at Kakadu national park and cruised the Great Barrier Reef.  I took Mr Hippo to China in 2008 and introduced him to my family.  In 2010, we toured 10+ countries in Europe and Asia, including visiting Mr Hippo's family in Israel.  Last year we had Authentic Korean food in Seoul, and early this year we visited New Zealand.  

Looking forward, here is a list of what might happen for the next five years.

   1.   Buy a Hippo house
   2.   Start a family?
   3.   Make significant progress in our career
   4.   Continue our adventures and visit places we haven't been to, Africa, for instance...

Day 2 in NZ: from Ohakune to Taupo

After leaving Ohakune, we headed for Tongariro National Park on Day 2 of our adventure in New Zealand.

We stopped for lunch at a town actually called National Park.  Obviously hungry, only did we notice the giant kiwi sculpture on our way out.  Some artist wired bunch of branches together to recreate the national symbol!   Even though we did not see any kiwi in real life during our trip (Kiwi are shy and usually nocturnal. They are also endangered), their images are practically everywhere. We even sent a fluffy toy one to my mother-in-law in Israel.

We continued to drive northeast and visited a Maori homestead by Lake Rotoaira.  The Maori people lived there certainly picked a very beautiful spot to build their home: Mt Tongariro is just on the other side of the lake.  Imagine you wake up in the morning, and look out of your window and this is the view...

Technically speaking, the lake is not part of the National park because it is privately owned.  But the homestead was open to the public and we saw a big group of people just packing up after their picnic. 

We stayed at Clearwater Motor Lodge in Taupo for the night.  The lodge is literally on the edge of Lake Taupo, the largest lake in the country.  Our room has a view of the lake and even better, we can appreciate the natural beauty of it when soaking in the jacuzzi in our room.  The water in the lake in warm, or should I say, pleasantly hot to touch due to hydrothermal activities.  In fact, the next morning, we saw steam floating over the water--can you see the white steam In the picture?  Mr Hippo was enjoying his morning steaming treatment...

Day3 in NZ: Tokaanu and Mt. Ruapehu (Part I)

Our journey continued on Day 3 and the first stop was hot springs at the tokaanu region.  We took a 20 min loop walk outside Tokaanu Thermal Pools, and it was amazing to see steaming hot mineral ponds set in sinter basins and spluttering mud pools amidst the native bush.  It is hard to tell the actual temperature of the water by just looking at the ponds, although it is obviously not a good idea to test it by sticking fingers in--some water are actively boiling, some produces steams as shown in the picture, and others emits a slight smell of sulfur. 

Maori people in the region has used this hydrothermal energy for hundreds of years for bathing, cooking and even dyeing of clothes, and hot thermal springs are famous for their therapeutic uses. We hired a private pool for 20 minutes (picture on the right--can you see Yoyo? She looked sad because she was not allowed to jump in), which is their default length of time.  I suppose it is probably not a good idea to soak in hot water for much longer?  After all, the temperature of the natural mineral pools is somewhere around 39~41 C.  During the 40 minutes, we had to jump out several times to take a break--it reminded me of our sauna experience in Sweden...


We stayed at Discovery Lodge for the night.  The experience of staying at our studio chalet at Discovery Lodge is the best I've ever had for adventurous accomodation.  Not only we had a view of Mt Ruapehu (hiding behind the clouds between the bush on the left and the tree on the right in the picture) outside our window, the room is so perfectly designed and we got everything we need in this 20 m², including a hot plate for cooking a proper dinner.

After checking in at early afternoon and having a nap, we headed to Mt. Ruapehu for a hike in later afternoon.  The hiking trip deserves a post of its own.

Ohakune, New Zealand

 Mr Hippo and I are going to be in NZ for about 10 days.  He is here to attend his IPCC conference and I come for a software training course, both in Wellington.  We scheduled three days to tour around the Northern Island before getting down to our business.

We hired a car from Wellington airport and drove all the way to Ohakune yesterday.  This small town locates at the southern end of the Tongariro National Park, which we will be visiting next.

Ohakune is a base for skiers because it close to the southwestern slopes of the active volcano Mount Ruapehu.  It is not peak skiing season, so there are not many visitors around now.

We stayed at Powderhorn Chateau last night.  The place is built around 1919 homestead of a family who owned a timber business, so not surprisingly, everything here seems to made of wood.  The current owner managed to create a magically attractive atmosphere by combing traditional and modern elements: photos of New Zealand's saw milling and timber era on the walls, candle-shaped lamps everywhere, and heavy wooden doors that unexpectedly opened in front of us...

Another landmark of Ohakune is the world's largest carrot on the eastern side of the town.  Obviously, once upon a time, the town was famous for its production of carrots!  I have to admit, the giant carrot suddenly makes me feel very homy, as Australians are very into big things as well.  

The sign near the big carrot fits us just perfectly, "Ohakune, where adventures begin."  In the next couple of days, we are going to check out volcanoes and hot springs before heading back to Wellington.

We are also starting to pick up New Zealand accent, where they don't seem to differentiate "e" and "i."  For example, they will say "ig sandwich" rather than "egg sandwich," which could be rather confusing...

Aha, it is the sand bubbler crab!

This picture was shot during our trip to Cape Tribulation, Queensland in 2009, when we took my visiting parents to the Great Barrier Reef.  That was Mr Hippo's toes, intended as, um, not so accurate scale because he got enormous toes.

I guessed it was some beach dwelling creature who created the elegant loving pattern, but only until now did I learn it was the sand bubbler crab!  I have to admit, I have never thought about the possibility of a crab being an artist...

I was extremely lucky to capture the heart-shaped pattern before it disappeared in the next rising tide. The crabs scour the sand for food, forming it into inflated pellets.  Comparing to other artworks we saw, this pattern was rather small.  So it was probably just a byproduct of an afternoon tea ;)

Googong Dam, Australia day (Jan 26, 2012)

Since we moved to Australia, Australia Day has become my favoriate holiday for a couple of reasons.  First, it is the most, er, Australian holiday (Melbourne Cup Day is the runner-up only because it is not a holiday in Canberra).  Second, it gives me a mixed but, strangely enough, enjoyable feeling of happiness and sadness.  I feel happy because it feels like an extra day off (obviously I haven't got used to the idea of celerbrating the day).  The sadness comes from the fact that it is finally the time to get down to business, after all the happy hours of Haanukhah, Christmas, New Year, and Chinese New Year (if it happens early in the year like this time).

In the US, it is difficult to do serious business between Thanksgiving and New Year because of the holiday spirit.  For many Australians, they took quite some, if not all time off between Christmas and Australia Day.  After all, everybody got four weeks of recreational leave every year on top of all the public holidays!

To celebrate this year's Australia Day, we went to the Googong Dam for a picnic with some friends.  It was my first time there and the area was more picturesque than I thought.  In addition to an enormous water surface (about 50% Canberra water comes from here, according to Mr Hippo), we also spotted a beautiful pond unexpectedly (we had to drive all over the place, looking for the exact picnic site our friends were at).  I managed to capture the moment when two butterflies resting on some purple flowers (picture on the right)...

My grilled salmon was too popular to last long enough for picture-taking.  Of course, it would not have been easy anyway with an army of flies hovering around--I bet Australian flies are the most attentive and the least seletive kind.  My watermelon was also a hit.  Growing up in north China where watermolon was the everyday necessity for hot summer days, I have extraordinary skills of picking perfectly-ripen ones :)

Ann Arbor, Michigan, Sept 2011

When University of Michigan invited me to give a talk, I decided it was time to go back to the US, four years after I left the country.

Yes, it was a free trip. Even better, Mr Hippo was also invited so we could keep company of each other.  But the important reason was the University was my dream when applying for a graduate school 10 years ago.  Yet, I did not bear any chance because back then they would not offer any scholarship to foreign students.

So, the trip to Ann Arbor was supposed to be like a dream coming true, however, I did not have much time to embrace the happy reality of "yahoo, I am finally here!"   We were only there for three days, and with the hazy feeling of being jet-lagged and rushing in/out of the city, it was all like another dream.

Three months later, I don't remember much about Ann Arbor and the only word popped into my mind was 'cold' when I searched my memory for any impression the city left .  It was late Autumn and the rain didn't help either.  The photo above shows part of the campus.  "It is just like another college town," Mr Hippo answered, when I asked his impression for Ann Arbor.  I have to agree, and I think I like Burlington, VT much better by comparison.  Of course I am biased, just like for me Ben & Jerry is the best ice cream in the world ("It is the time that you spend on your rose that makes your rose so important," said the fox in the Little Prince).

One not-so-commonplace episode in Ann Arbor was a dinner at the Totoro restaurant.  I just had to go there because Totoro is our favorite Japanese cartoon character (probably because it is also nicely-rounded?).    Not surprisingly, they have Totoro all over the place, Smiling ones on the counter of their open kitchen, grinning ones on waiters' T shirt, and even their dishes are Totoro-sized (shown in the picture on the right).  I had never used a BASIN to eat in my life!

Luckily it was only a salad and we managed to gobble it down as a couple of happy totoros would do.  Still, this experience taught me a lesson: Look around first, then order in a restaurant that has 'hippo' or 'elephant' or 'whale' in its name! 

Lake George, Dec 2011

It has rained a lot lately, so we decided to visit Lake George and see how much water is there.


It turns out there is significantly more water  than usual.  In fact, this is the first time for me to see real water in the lake.  I remember being quite puzzled the first time when Mr Hippo told me we were driving along Lake George.  You cannot blame me; normally you would expect to see some water in a lake, wouldn't you?


The picture above was taken at a prime hang gliders site.  The picture on the right was the 140 megawatt Capital Wind Farm located along the SE side of the lake.  Ironically. the wind farm was built as part of a desalination plant project  to offset the power usage of the plant.