BonJour Glass Teapot (January 2011 - San Francisco, CA)
Food photography for my cousin’s restaurant (November 2010 - Seoul, Korea)
Food photography for my cousin’s restaurant (November 2010 - Seoul, Korea)
Food photography for my cousin’s restaurant (November 2010 - Seoul, Korea)
“New People” in Japantown (December 2010 - San Francisco, CA)
Why don’t we have auto-pilot for cars yet?!
The jetlag hit me again in the afternoon when I was driving the windy Highway #1 through Big Sur. After two naps on the side of the road it was already dark and I was just trying to make it to our hotel. Pretty much only keeping the car between the double yellow center line and the single white line on the right, allowing enough distance for the occasional other cars. That is so simple and I am completely convinced that a computer can easily do that task. I know that they have already built prototypes that can handle even heavy inner city traffic with street signs etc. In a couple of years/decades we will probably remember today’s times and wonder how and why people drove their cars. While driving a car can be fun and exciting it is also often boring and exhausting. If I had a choice to use an auto-pilot I would probably do so 80% of the time.
This made me think of how handwriting is very slowly becoming obsolete and some people have increasing difficulty writing things by hand. I remember when I went through my German great-grandmother’s old documents and how I admired the incredibly artistic and perfectly clean cursive handwriting. Sometimes I had to look very carefully to make sure that it wasn’t printed, but really written with a fine fountain pen more than 100 years ago. It is a big contrast to the handwriting today and it’s hard to imagine what will happen in the future.
Same with auto-pilot car driving. Will we eventually forget how to drive a car (manually)? Will auto-piloted cars eventually be so much safer that regular driving will be forbidden or only allowed on special streets, race tracks, theme parks?
Well, that’s probably so far in the future that we won’t even live to see this happen, but when I was fighting tiredness while cruising on PCH these things went through my head.
Bangkok
Bangkok is crazy busy and alive. There is so much to see and explore. Our two and a half days were nowhere close to enough time - especially because we got addicted to massages…
Now we’ll make our way back to Santa Barbara with layovers in Tokyo and LAX. Phew…
On a side note: My MacBook Pro has turned itself into a very expensive and useless slab of aluminum. It just stopped working and won’t even start OSX anymore. And on the Windows side I just get a blue screen. So, no more picture uploads until our return and a visit at the genius bar in SB… >:-/
At least I was able to make an appointment - with my iPhone…
Bali, oh, Bali!
As soon as we got here, I realized how much I missed this place. It’s a little too hot and a little too humid, but other than that there’s not much else to complain. And it’s impossible not to do the mental exercise of playing out scenarios about how long one can possibly live here after selling everything and scraping all savings. Imagine a life consisting of fresh fruit juices, massages and surfing…!
Now, we have two days in Bangkok before this trip must find an end.
Yook-Sam (63) Tower and Han River (Seoul, Korea - November 2010)
Also, the Korea slideshow is now uploaded.
Kyeongbok Palace (Seoul, South Korea - November 2010)
View more photos in the Korea slideshow.
Lonely tree in front of office building (Seoul, South Korea - November 2010)
View more photos in the Korea slideshow.
Autumn colors at Bulguksa Temple (Gyeongju, South Korea - November 2010)
View more photos in the Korea slideshow.
Cecile at a traditional guest house (Gyeongju, South Korea - November 2010)
View more photos in the Korea slideshow.
Two Pagoda at Gameunsa Temple Site (Gyeongju, South Korea - November 2010)
View more photos in the Korea slideshow.
