Our first day in Tokyo, we visited a cat cafe. I think Wade really missed Jade & Grem.
A less floofy resident of the cafe
Pingxi, Taiwan - Wade decorating our “sky lantern”
The finished drawing
Preparing to launch
Up it goes!
Taipei 101 - the tallest building in the world …for a few years, until the Burj Khalifa was completed.
The view from the top
The tuned mass damper near the top - protection against typhoons and earthquakes, since both are pretty common here.
We went to a six-story-high electronics market in Taipei, with all kinds of gadgets. Wade looked at various drawing tablets, including at this Wacom store (one of three) but honestly this photo was just for the embarrassment value of the life-size waifu cutout.
I thought about getting the neon female reproductive system, for Jess, but couldn’t pull the trigger.
Just look at this boi
There are a lot of motorcycles here. Everywhere we’ve been since leaving Europe, actually.
At a random market stall near the Chatuchak Market. I have no idea either. There were a LOT of smaller (obviously) phallic objects on offer as well, from pendants to … tobacco pipes, maybe?
Again, I don’t know, I was just amused.
We stopped by the last couple hours of an Engineering Expo at the (very new) Bangkok convention center. Open to the public, and free, you just had to register, and “Company” was a required field in the registration … so we put down Wade’s robotics team, “CC4H 4027 Centre Punch”.
There were many cool things on display, including these giant screws.
We stopped and chatted for a while with the rep for the company that builds this drone. It’s mostly for civilian uses like surveying, he said - you can mount a LIDAR unit in its belly, and get 120 km range - but also the government has used it for aerial surveillance to find drug plantations.
We also stopped for a while and Wade chatted about cubesats with this rep … who it turned out was not a corporate rep, but one from Thailand’s nascent national space program, which is basically just at the level of designing, building & operating their own small cubesats. Pretty neat!!
We were just walking along in this public park, in Bangkok, when we saw this ~3-4 ft long Water Monitor Lizard wandering past.
Aaaand then we saw this much larger fella, ~5-6 ft long. That’s a large lizard to encounter in a public park.
Bangkok, Thailand - Wade and I both really enjoy the aesthetic of tumbledown building along the river side.
At the Taj Mahal, on Wade’s 17th birthday. The craziest, most impressive thing about the Taj is the intricate inlay work in the marble … which we didn’t capture in photos at all. Nevertheless.
Agrasen Ki Baoli, in Delhi - a stepwell built in the 10th century to provide people with access to water during dry periods
The finale to our safari was coming across this herd of 40+ elephants, of all ages, by and later in the Tara river, in Tarangire National Park. We sat and just watched them play and bathe and nurse and play-fight for at least an hour, before finally heading back to Arusha with full hearts.
An African Wolf, according to the Internet; a Golden Jackal according to our guide.
A Black-Backed Jackal
Thompson’s Gazelle. These guys are everywhere in Serengeti.
A Baobab tree in Tarangire National Park.
Cape Buffalo
We saw a couple of hyenas, but I didn’t get any pictures. I did get this one, though, of a hyena’s footprint, left overnight, right outside our “luxury tent” accommodations. The buffalo also left tracks there, and we heard but did not see jackals.
Big Birds
Medium-size Birds. (Crowned Cranes)
Cheetah!
A shrike. They apparently make a habit of impaling prey on plant spikes, both as food storage and to impress mates. (Look it up!)
Rock Agama. Pretty amazing color.
I did not know that Vervet Monkeys have turquoise testicles, but they do!
A mature male lion, taking a break from his mating duties (his lady was chilling nearby).
Many hippos. Generally, our guide told us, they spend all day floating and snoozing, then come out to graze at night.
Big ole crocodile
Waterbuck
