Moscow’s Gulag History Museum has moved to a new, larger, building with new exhibits and a new narrative. The building’s exterior is deliberately stark and austere, even forbidding. The interior exhibition space has been given a distinctly prison-like style. It is mostly one large multi-level hall, with many side rooms for specific topics. The […]
Browsing Posts in Travel
Moscow’s Gulag Museum
January 26, 2016
Harbin Ice Festival 2016
January 19, 2016
I’m in Harbin, China, for the annual Ice Festival. This includes various fine ice sculptures, etc. But the highlight is the gloriously insane collection of giant ice buildings at the Ice and Snow World. After dark they are lit from within, to stellar effect. This year the collection included buildings loosely modeled on St Basil’s, […]
The Imelda Marcos Shoe Collection
January 15, 2016
I’m at the Marikina Shoe Museum, in Manila. It’s a modest affair, in one large two-level room. It extols the shoemakers art and boasts a central column decorated with wooden shoe lasts accompanied by a giant boot. But that’s not why people come. The undisputed draw is the Imelda Marcos Shoe Collection. The great lady […]
Masai Mara: Zebra Crossings
August 20, 2015
I’m in the Masai Mara for the great annual zebra/wildebeest/tourist migration. The migration climax is when the herds ford the crocodile infested Mara River, so I spent a morning watching at a crossing point. There weren’t many wildebeest crossing that day, but I saw two herds of zebra cross. There were crocs waiting, so the […]
Gorilla, Gorilla, Woops
August 11, 2015
I’ve been on two Mountain Gorilla treks in the last week, one in DR Congo and one in Rwanda. I got to see two family groups and watch a lot of relaxed interaction and play, which was extremely cool. In the Virunga National Park in DR Congo, I visited the Humba family. By chance I […]
DR Congo: Nyiragongo
August 6, 2015
“I survived Nyiragongo, but he ate my camera.” When I was about ten, I had a very clear idea of what a Real Volcano should look like. A steep cone, with a razor sharp rim and sheer cliffs down to an inner caldera with a bubbling pool of lava. Aah, it is to dream. Nyiragongo […]
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