Then we drove to Las Vegas, a city that’s arguably more beautiful at night than during the day.
Revisiting the city, I have found out that that many free shows at various hotels, such as the Pirate Battle at Treasure Island, the Volcano at Mirage & Bellagio fountains were still on.
8 September 2017 – 10 September 2017: Grand Canyon National Park
We departed Nevada on the 8th Morning and headed towards the Grand Canyon.
US roads are great for road trips – relatively flat and straight. Few cops hiding in the bushes like a lone lion trying to ambush a herd of migrating antelopes. Not many tolls to extract that extra few dollars from your wallet.
Grand Canyon is in Arizona, close to the border to Utah. We stayed in a small town called Kanab in Utah, which is at the border of Utah and Arizona. Although the longitude of Arizona and Utah are roughly the same, but because Utah has day light savings and Arizona does not, there is an hour time differences between the two.
The road went from Utah and Arizona back to Utah a few times, telling the exact time became hard if you were not watching where you crossed the border.
Utah and surrounding has some unique landscape and rock formations.
Horseshoe bend is named after its shape. The river beneath is the Colorado river.
There is a dam with a hydraulic power station a short drive away from the Horse shoe bend.
We went to the Grand Canyon North Rim the next day, it was cloudy in the morning, top of the canyon was shrouded in fog. But as the day went on, the fog started to disperse. By middle afternoon, the mist was gone. Grand Canyon took off the veil and revealed its true self to us. Sunset is beautiful in the canyon – sunlight shone from an angle and brought the contrast out of different layers. The scenery was spectacular.
Grand Canyon North Rim
Then the next day we proceeded to the South Rim.
If you are driving, there is no short cut between south rim and north rim. Going from North to South (or vise versa) involves driving around and cross a bridge over the Colorado River. The river isn’t the only thing named after the neighbour state to Arizona, there is also a place called Colorado City along highway 389.
Scenery at side of the road was also amazing, it’s not often when you see a gigantic gap in the middle of a vast flat plain.
South rim gives a more complete picture of the canyon than the North rim. Not only can you see the Colorado river beneath, different layers of the canyon are also very clear.
If you want to gain a bit knowledge on the grand canyon, the Yavapai Geology Museum is a place you should not miss. It’s also a place to understand why it’s called the grand canyon – there are three layers of canyon on top of each other, and the museum is one of the best places to witness this.
There were plenty of elks in the national park, they were not afraid of people either. On the way back from Grand Canyon south rim, we narrowly missed a deer that jumped right in front of the car.
Deer
10 September 2017- 13 September 2017: St George – Bryce Canyon National Park
Utah is an interesting place. I was warned of lacking of proper alcoholic drinks in the supermarket. Yep, no wine or hard liquor sold here, only Low-alcoholic beverages available. There were also some Mormons dressed in traditional clothing.
We visited Bryce Canyon national park. The view was special in its own way. It’s not often one sees a view point hoarded by a bunch of photographers. But at Bruce Point, we witnessed a group people with professional equipment positioning themselves at best viewing spots waiting for sunset.
Various birds came to greet us at breakfast.
Birds in the Bryce Canyon National Park
13 September – 14 September: Salt lake city
Keep on driving north, we stopped over at the Salt Lake City.
Road to the Salt Lake City
Since the city has been named after it, we became intrigued by this great salt lake. So we went to see the lake for ourselves. Then we found out there was place with plenty of wildlife – Antelope Island.
Going over to Antelope Island State Park involves driving across a bridge over the salt lake.
There were plenty of birds on the lake. According to an official website, the region supports several million birds during busy seasons of the year.
A part of the lake looked like a mirror, reflected sky.
The first time, it was with Singapore Airlines, flying from Sydney to Los Angeles. The flight went pass near the edge of north pole. The second time I flew to New York with Thai airways, stopping at Bangkok. This time it’s from Sydney to LA again, but it was with Fiji airways, stopped over at Nadi.
The night is short when you fly into an incoming sun. I still remember the first time when I flew to the other side of earth, the sun rose up twice as faster than usual, land mass and the dry salt lake drenched in morning light. In contrast to this time, which was mostly ocean view with a glimpse of Los Angeles where the plane landed.
I did a return road trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco and travelled this leg on my own.
Los Angeles
After resting for two days, trying to get over the jet lag. I Started driving along the coast from Santa Maria to Salina, stopping over at Carrizo Plain National Monument, partly because it’s on the way and partly because apparently the place had beautiful valleys full of flowers.
Except, I went there in the wrong season and all I saw where hays, beautiful golden hays. Despite inviting golden undulation, hiking was out of question because the temperature was soaring over 32 degrees (90 fahrenheit).
Carrizo Plain National Monument
There were surprising large amount of oil drills in California, both inland and near the coast.
Oil DrillsWild turkey
Quite a few attractions along the coastal California are next to de-commissioned industry areas. Take Morro Bay for example, there is a huge piece of amazing rock in the ocean, plenty wildlife in the neighbourhood. But not far away there are also three gigantic chimneys.
Morro Rock
There were quite a few vista points between San Simone and Big Sur. At certain vista points, squirrels and other seabirds were awaiting in the car parks. Those animals seemed to be used to be fed by tourists – you can tell by the way those animals act towards humans. When wildlife looking at people with expecting eyes and itching towards any open car doors, there is a good chance that they had previous experiences of getting generous handouts from visitors.
Squirrel
At seal vista point, one can see plenty of elephant seals, lying lazily on the beach. Those animals are here all year round.
Elephant seals
Keep on driving up north, you will reach Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. I didn’t get to drive through Big Sur state park because part of highway 1 was closed. So I spent one day doing the coast drive and another in the Big Sur state park. In between I spent two days away from the coastal area.
When I was in California this time, there was a heatwave, and being in the ‘warm season’ – It’s almost 40 degrees (103 F) inland. I stayed in accommodation more than I would like to. It’s so warm that San Luis reservoir seems steamy. Even visiting the park at 7am, the place was shrouded in red.
Back to coastal, McWay Falls in the Julia Pfeiffer Burns state park is a short walk from highway 1. Twenty minutes walk will take you to a place with spectacular views.
Moss Landing is another example of wildlife sanctuary next to industrial area. Various websites indicated that monetary was a good place to spot sea otters.
So I went to there. But instead, I was greeted by a large colony of seabirds and seals. Sea otters on the other hand were hard to find.
Eventually I ended up in San Francisco. Having a few apps of my own, the valley was a place I must visit.
I landed at Launceston on 10th March, then the rest of the people from our bushwalking group and I have been picked up from Launceston airport the next day & driven to the ‘edge of the world’. It was a 3.5 hour drive. The walk started from Arthur River, it was much along the ocean with bits & pieces inland.
Tarkine Coast Walk Map
11 March 2017
The journey started from the end of the world, this end of the world:
End of the world
This section of the track was shared by 4WD, hikers, dogs, wallabies and from the footprints, horses.
There was a section at the beginning of the track where logs apparently swept up by the sea blocked part of the beach.
We camped next to a stream on the first night. The organizer of the trip was experienced and had planned the trip in such a way that we were camping near water sources most of the nights. Not only we were able to re-fill our water, there was also opportunity to take a quick dip.
Apparently there were also Aboriginal carvings near our campsite on the first night.
12 March 2017
We woke up in the rain, the weather was gloomy all the way until lunch. It’s the day we spotted the first sick penguin and we called WIRES from my phone, but there was nothing much else we could do.
There were a few smaller towns along the way and some houses had solar panels, I even spotted one with both solar panels and windmill. Nearly all of them had rain water tanks. I guess the drawback of living in such a beautiful place close to nature is the lacking of utility such as electricity and water so one has to live off the grid.
Lunch was at a scenic little lagoon. A few people dipped into water for a quick swim while I was busy drying the tent.
We came across a few beaches filled with seaweed. It smelt awful. I was uncertain whether it was from the rotting seaweed or the rotten seafood, I mean sea creature wrapped in those seaweed. Seagulls seemed to not mind the smell and happy to be next to it though.
13 March 2017
The first three days, we had to share the beach with 4 wheel drives and buggies. When automobiles go pass you every 30 minutes, it doesn’t feel too much like a wildness track. On the good side, we have been getting water from the friendly local drivers.
The weather has improved since the second day. By the third day, there was amazing blue sky. It’s marvellous to walk on the beach where there was endless ocean on one side, and perpetual sand dunes on the other.
We saw the second sick penguin on our journey, but this one was in much better condition than the last one. It turned itself around and prepared to go back to the sea.
14 March 2017
It’s the first day into the territory where no vehicles were allowed. We bush bashed a bit and was slight lost in the morning. But soon we found our orientation, and ended on the beach. It’s not terribly hard since it’s a coast walk, we aimed for the beach, any beach really. Then we headed south as usual.
By the afternoon, we ended on the endless beach again. Because the landscape was fairly exposed, the wind showed its power. There were forceful waves on our right side, we had to be careful dodging some persistent invading ones, and we could see sand has been blown off the sand dunes on our left.
Occasionally tide caught up with one of us and one ended up with wet boots.
15 March 2017
This morning, we walked into an area full of bush food. There were a few people in the group who were experienced in bushcrafts. So I had some fresh bush fruit. It was great experience.
We pitched our tent next to an open area next to the cliff. The wind picked up at night, I laid in my tent, worried about when my tent was going to give in and collapse on me. I even got out trying to tie down the line, but it did work – the gale was too strong. The around 4am, the wind changed direction and with it, brought the rain. This somewhat relieved pressure on my tent, so I was able to get some sleep finally.
16 March 2017
After a night of strong wind, I woke up in a half collapsed tent and only had 2-3 hours of sleep.
Because it rained during the previous night and in early morning, we had to go across a few swamp.
I jokely called the water we have been drink the pure ‘Tasmania tea’ because of slightly yellowish stain in the water. But it’s very safe to drink, because the water was mainly from creeks and there were very few farms and towns up the stream. Colour of the water was from leaves.
The journey ended on the bank of Pieman River. We took a ferry down to Corinna, and were picked up by a shuttle bus after lunch.
Is capitalism failing? We are not talking about issues such as inequality or ethics. I am talking about survival of the human species, because it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what would happen when there is an ever increasing population in an enclosed system … such as earth.
It looks like that we are not even trying!
In old days, a peasant spent spring, autumn and summer labouring away with little to do in the winter 3-4 winter months.
Nowadays in developed countries, pets such as cats or dogs seem to be having even a more leisurely life, they don’t need to hunt, looking for shelters or defending their territory, everything has been taken care of by their owners.
And yet, people still have to work through long days just to provide roof over the head, put food on the table for themselves and their families.
Even wildlife don’t seem to work near as much.
Not convinced? We can start by looking at some graphs:
Average annual hours worked
According to OECD data, workers in OECD countries work about 1763 hours per year, or 33.8 hours per week. There has been a gradual decrease in the working hours amongst OECD countries.
The industrial revolution made it possible for a larger segment of the population to work year-round, because this labor was not tied to the season and artificial lighting made it possible to work longer each day. Peasants and farm laborers moved from rural areas to work in urban factories, and working time during the year increased significantly. But since then there has been a gradual decrease in working hours. However the decrease in working hours is nothing compared to the known improve in productivity.
Productivity has increased tremendous amount since the industry revolution. Taking Agriculture and manufacturing for example: according to the this reliable source, number of hours needed to produce 3 pound of chicken has reduced from slight more than 2.5 hours in the 1900 to around 0.25 hours in the 2000.
With a cotton gin, in one day a man could remove seed from as much upland cotton as would have previously taken a woman working two months to process at one pound per day using a roller gin.
The sewing machine, invented and improved during the early 19th century and produced in large numbers by the 1870s, increased productivity by more than 500%.
There are examples after examples of such innovations that have truly improved productivity and it seems that efficiency in many sectors have increased tenfold or more. This improvement in productivity could also be reflected by the percentage of population in various industries.
US GDP by industry 1st quarter 2014
Sector contribution to GDP trend 1951 – 2013, India
As percentage of agriculture and manufacturing shrinks in the total GDP, one sector has taken over – services.
And by what means has it increased so much. Let’s compare how ancient economy worked against how modern economy operates.
In the old days, with the bartering system, it’s like my basket of cotton for a chicken of yours. Nowadays a worker works certain amounts of hours a week for certain amount of money which usually was transferred into worker’s account in bank A. Then, maybe later, the worker uses a credit card from bank B to purchase some goods from a website. The company C behind the website then contracts delivery company D to deliver the goods to the worker. There is a good chance that company C is not the actually the producer of those goods.
As you can see, there are many more parties at work for a simple transaction between the buyer and seller which didn’t exist before.
Going back to the prehistory times, humans just built shelters. Nowadays, sometimes paper work for building a home will take as long as the actual physical task itself. The proposed dwelling will be judged based on aesthetic value, structural design, stormwater treatment plan, height, width and the possible shadow it might cast, amongst other things.
While as quality control is a good thing and many government members are doing their best in building better communities. There are, a lot of other cases, when government went to extremities to prevent progress from happening.
There are bureaucrats who are getting paid to knock down development proposals to adding more dwellings in a city that chronically has a shortage of housing for very weak and minor excuses because some people in the neighbourhood don’t want accommodate more people in the area.
There are also many other ways your government hire people to interfere or monitor with your daily life without much positive effect. One of the worst aspects, is probably wasting money on war and related endeavours. What takes years to build, can be annihilated in hours.
Employment sector is working in a much more sophisticated way too. In the old time, it’s just a boss decides whether to hire a person who wants a job there. Nowadays it’s hiring manager through HR who often enlists Job agencies that use third party websites to advertise for a job. Employment opportunities created: many, efficiency enhanced: none.
And yes, efficiency in many sectors have increased tremendous amount, but efficiency in the sector doesn’t imply efficiency in the economy as a whole.
This begs the question, of all those professions that did not exist in the ancient economies, do we need so many people to work in them? Of course this excludes truly innovative fields that did not exist before, such as genetic engineering which can prolong the life and enhance health, space exploration or production of robots that can substitute humans from day to day chores.
Technology – if remember correctly, the section containing any articles about it used to be called Science in the news and magazines, but as computers take over, it’s called Science & Technology. Now simply, Technology.
When computer first came out, people were excited, thinking that it would take over many mundane jobs that were used to be handled by humans.
Well, sure, some of those jobs were taken over by computers.
And yet, through the years, computing employed more and more people, but at the same time a great part of it descent into developing a newer version which does essentially the same thing and requires many people down the chain to re-train in order to do the same job.
Then there was the raise of searching engine, one would have thought that information could be better sorted and resource can be more appropriately allocated. Yet Search engines need money to run, and most search engine are free for users. The money that enables those search engines to operate is funded by sponsored links. Yes, money will make sponsored link more ‘relevant’ in a way.
Not only that, but also, there is a secondary market ‘enable’ website to be more ‘relevant’ than they should be.
So even though searches do return some of the relevant results, information is no longer sorted to cater the need in the most efficient way. And in this way, the initial purpose of the search engine is partially compromised.
It’s not terribly hard to create full employment – just hire all the unemployed to dig huge holes then ask them to bury those holes, simple and easy. But this idea would strike most people as retarded. Yes, because such an action is rather useless.
The gist of capitalism is making more money, but the goal of human race is to survive and propagate. The two does not coincide. So it is no surprise that businesses spend most of their effort on trying to make more profit and not driving humanity forward.
Under capitalism, a proper government’s fundamental responsibility is to protect the rights of the individual and making all relations between the individuals peaceful. So in a way, there is an incentive for the government to keep jobs that don’t create real values to the society. And by keeping everyone employed and busy the society is safe and prosper. It is even said, that some people, when given nothing to do, don’t know what to do with themselves.
Personally I prefer to see a more efficient world, in which people only need to work minimum hours to create necessities, with most of the work taken cared by robots. A world in which all people get their basic needs such as food and shelter taken care of, but those with access to more resources will use those resources for real productive innovations, such as AI robots that can substitute human in harsh extreme environment, better equipment for space exploration or genetic evolution that lead to regeneration of limbs or organs – to name a few, not just some ’innovation of convenience’.
We know that socialism and communism don’t work because they deny human nature. But devoting resource for expanding humankind’s horizon isn’t considered altruism, because it does not take a genius to figure out the fate of species with ever expanding population in an enclosed system, even with unlimited food.
I have finally sorted out the pictures I have taken while on the rest of trip last month.
Most of them were taken in Wuhan(武汉). But there were a few taken in other cities and towns. A lot of those pictures were of tall residential buildings. They sprouted out mostly in the past 5-10 years. Before year 2000, there were almost none of those super tall towers, then bam! Now the city is now full of them.
There were also a few pictures taken around East Lake(东湖), Guiyuan Temple(归元寺), near the Yangtze river(长江) and at a few other odd places.
East Lake/东湖:
Guiyuan Temple(归元寺), HanZheng Jie(汉正街) & ZhongShan Park
Some other places:
If you love shopping, you should definitely visit HanZheng Jie(汉正街), large variety of goods are guaranteed at low prices! Although be able to speak Wuhan dialect does improve your bargain power in general.
Recently, my cousin and I visited Chengdu(成都), Huanglong(黄龙) and Jiuzhaigou(九寨沟).
My Cousin
Chengdu is a is the provincial capital of Sichuanprovince in Southwest China, that houses some 14 million inhabitants. Most parts of the city are modern, but there are also a few ancient places reserved for their historical significance.
Sichuan is famed for its hot and spicy food. I like hot and spicy food, so when we first went to a restaurant and ordered dishes and waitress asked ‘normal hotness?’ I replied with ‘yes’. But my cousin reminded me ‘you are in Sichuan’. And she was right. Despite the fact that we ordered ‘slightly spicy’ food, it was much hotter and spicier than I had expected.
The route to Huanglong(黄龙) & Jiuzhaigou(九寨沟) was through many tunnels. The road followed Min river(岷江). I was amazed to see many power transmission towers on tall mountains.
Huanglong is 3000 meters above sea level. So we were warned of altitude sickness. It wasn’t too bad for me, but there were a couple of people started throwing up while coach was traveling through the mountain region.
Huanglong was beautiful. We took the cable car up and walked down a couple of kilometres back to the entrance. I was constantly out of breath, most likely due to high altitude.
‘Jiuzhaigou(九寨沟) has a population density of 2000 people per square meter’, someone who has recently been there joked. Although it’s a bit exaggeration, there were a lot of tourists.
We spent a whole day there, walking some 20+ kilometres up and down the ‘Y’ shaped valleys. There were buses running up and down the same route, and we caught those a couple of times too.
Jiuzhaigou’s famed for its beautiful waters. The water displayed alluring colours because of the mineral and algae in the water.
This is ophiocordyceps sinensis, also know as insect plant (冬虫夏草).
Cordyceps
I bought some on the way back. Insect plant is formed when fungi invades worm, and in China, it’s a herbal remedy. Apparently they only grow on tall mountains with altitude over 3000 meters.
On the road from Chengdu to Huanglong/Jiuzhaigou, we went past parts of the area worst affected by 2008 earthquake. Some of those towns were surrounded by tall mountains on all four sides with only one road going in and out of the place. Awe was how I felt.
Speaking of awesomeness, we have also had a day trip visiting Qingchengshan-Dujiangyan National Park (青城山-都江堰国家公园). Qingchengshan is famed for being one of the cradles for Tao religion and Dujiangyan is an irrigation system that was built some 2200 years ago. Dujiangyan divided river into two parts: inner river and outside river. The inner river is narrow but deep and the outer river is broad but shallow. Inner river is channelled into towns and farming area and the outer river is diverted away from civilization. During dry season, more water goes into the deep inner river while as during flooding, more water goes into broad outer river. Thus regardless of the weather, quantity of water into the town and farming area is regulated.
In recent months, a family has risen to fame. They had more local media coverage than movie stars and better return on their assets than the hedge funds of wall street.
They are the famous bondi hoarders.
Bondi Hoarder
Yep. A simple search revealed various news articles about this family of hoarders in the past months. The articles were even in multiple languages!
But bondi hoarders nature talents go beyond garbage collection and hoarding, they are also great investors. Their bought their property in 1973 for $15,000. Now it’s worth $2,000,000+
Dow Jones index
Yep.
During the same time, Dow Jones stock index went up 20 times. But Bondi Hoarders house went up by more than 100 times!
Mean while, the hoarders continue their battle with the Waverley Council who intend to auction off their house to cover for continual clean-ups costs.
Light to Light is a 30km one way trail that hugs the coastline between historic Boyds Tower and Green Cape Lightstation in the Ben Boyd National Park, New South Wales, Australia.
Light to Light trail map
This walk was almost like a miniature version of the Great Ocean Walk, with slightly less scenic views that was compensated by friendly neighbourhood wildlife.
SceneryA mob of kangaroos
The track was reasonably well marked except for the bit where it left Bittangabee Bay campground and heading towards the Green Cape Lightstation. We had to do a bit bush bashing to get back on to the right track.
My bushwalking buddy on Light to Light trail
The best way to meet the locals are during meal times.
Friendly wallaby at Saltwater Creek campsite where we stayed the first night
Local wildlife seemed to be used to people. At first they would observe and lurk in the background, but as soon as you showed them your intention to share food, they would come right up to you.
Over friendly wallaby wanted to know what’s in the food bagSuperb fairywrens
These neighbourhood animals were easily satisfied – be that some jerky or a pack of instant noodles.
An sneaky possum at Bittangabee campsite where we spent the second night
If you love nature and wildlife, Ben Boyd National Park would be a good place to visit.
So last weekend I went to Warrumbungle for bushwalking and visit a private observatory with a bush walking group that I occasionally hang around with. And that was the question that bumped into my head while was preparing for the trip.
Bushwalking group – some new people and some old faces
The trip went well, there were plenty of wildlife at Warrumbungle, beautiful scenery too.
Wallabies in front of headlightsCute, fluffy apostle birds
Looking forward to the day when humans permanently land on Mars and give a definite answer to that old, profound question: ‘is there intelligent life on other planets’ and answer: ‘yep, we put them there.’
