Relics of a more civilized age…

It may be due to watching David Lynch’s Dune at an impressionable age, or perhaps reading Michael Moorcock’s Oswald Bastable series at around the same time, but I have strong steampunk affinities. In particular, I’ve always regretted the fact that the great airships were phased out after the the Hindenberg disaster.

Although there seems to be a suggestion every 10 years or so that an airship revival is imminent, it never seems to happen. Still, I am inspired nonetheless by a couple of articles (via Slashdot) that seem to give hope that it may yet happen, enabled by the rising cost of oil.

It seems to me that these could be very useful for short-haul passenger trips around south-east Asia – perhaps they would be safer than the chronically over-loaded Indonesian passenger ferries, and less prone to disasters. They would also be very useful for moving cargo around China, or India….

I’ve written previously that my apartment overlooks the port of Singapore, and that I’m fascinated by the constant flow of ships and their cargo, as well as by the streams of commerce that they represent; perhaps one day it will be my good fortune to live with a view of a Singapore Airship Port, with gleaming zeppelins depositing passengers and goods from all over the world…

It’s a wonderful world

Inspired by Niti’s latest post, here’s my world map. I think I’ve done this once before, but this time I’ve only included countries where I’ve walked around and spoken to people, not stopovers:

create your own visited countries map

Speaking of which, I saw an article in the IHT yesterday about Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. While I was applying for my MBA, my plan B for staying in Asia was to train as an English teacher. I did some reading up on conditions in the countries in the region, and Cambodia didn’t sound fun, to say the least – there were warnings of violence, crime, shootings in the streets… Well, that was 2003, this is 2007, and things have changed: Phnom Penh is now the “next Prague”, where the young go to reinvent themselves. Guess I need to get there while I (if no-one else) still think of myself as young…

From Changi

Hmm, I’m at the new budget airlines terminal at Changi, which I’m impressed to see has free internet access! Not a bad little terminal at all, better than many ‘main’ terminals – Beijing, I’m looking at you! Not sure what the situation will be once I arrive in Bangkok, I’m hearing a lot about the problems with the new airport there… Well, we’ll see.

Name the countries

Hehehe, sorry Tom – I got 58 on my first go

To Singapore – and beyooooond!

I mentioned the otherday that I find the prospect living in Singapore very exciting as this little island becomes a world leader in bioscience and life-extension technologies. I like the idea of these medical techniques becoming common here, before they hit the streets in the rest of the world.

I was reading Wired News earlier  and one article caught my eye: Space Tours for Taikonauts. China, it seems, wants to build up a space tourism industry. No doubt they will, but it seems premature when they have only had two successful space shots – and that in Soyuz-based capsules, which might be OK for millionaire mavericks, but not for mass travel.

Anyway, that got me thinking – didn’t I read something a while back about Singapore developing a spaceport? I didn’t recall hearing anything about it since, so it seems to be very low-key. Still, a quick Google search established that the plan is very much alive and well, and the Singapore space port should be active at Changi in 2009!

• Wikipedia article: Singapore spaceport
• Official site: Welcome to Singapore Spaceport

This is so cool. Advanced bioscience and cheap space travel, in a Garden City with great food and loads of kung fu schools. I realize that this is a highly personal view of an ideal place to live but, you know…..

Flying visit

Back in Singapore for the intensive, 1-week module. My flight from Beijing was delayed by a few hours, so I spent the early hours of Sunday morning in the departure lounge of Beijing Capital Airport, which isn’t exactly sparkling… Now I appreciate 24-hour Changi even more! All of the duty-free shops and so on in Beijing airport had posters with the English slogan “Miss your trace from the forms of fairyism”. I can not begin to imagine what the original Chinese meaning was!

Getting up early today reminded me ofsome of the good things of life on campus: the birdsong, the early morning sunlight orange on the trees… It also reminded me that my room is airless, hot, and unpleasant to be in. I felt a real wave of affection getting to the class and seeing all my classmates; this week is the last time I’ll see them all together – except graduation, I suppose, but that’s a year away. They’re all good people, and I’ll miss them.

The course iteself, Innovation for Profit, is interesting; our visiting Professor, Schlomo Maitel, is a great speaker. I hope to learn a lot this week. On Friday, I move out of the Graduate Hall; I’ll spend the last two nights in a hotel. So, I spent a lot of time yesterday sorting and packing my remaining possessions… I’m typing this as I try to contact a friend who will be looking after a case for me; supposed to be taking that over tonight.

I decided I would open a hosting account; I went for a personal solution with Server Logistics. I’ve got a basic installation of Drupal installed, so I’ll keep popsting on how that goes…

China!

Hooray, I’m in China! It feels like coming home – I’m only a few blocks from where I lived last year; people in various places I used to hang out in remember me and are friendly… and the sheer energy of China makes me smile and feel as if I’m waking up from a tropical torpor… My new home is an apartment, nothing to write home about but with living space, a nice flatmate, and AIRCON! Yes, at last! Blogspot.com is still blocked, so I can;t read this blog myself, but at least I can still post. Going out shopping for clothes today…

Tired with lots to do

Blogging this from a Bangkok cybercafe, having arrived from the meditation centre yesterday. What can I say? Wow….

This course was tougher than the first one last year. I took a lot of frustration and anger that had built up during the MBA, and it took me fully five days to clear that away. I was also incredibly tired after the exams, and the 4am starts didn’t really allow me the chance to recover, so maintaining concentration was pretty tough – especially in the afternoon sessions when the heat of the Thai summer built up! Despite that, I made some real breakthroughs in my meditation technique, and I feel totally refreshed and invigorated – and more determined to maintain meditatition in my daily routine. All week, I had intense bad dreams, meaning that deep-rooted sankaras were rising up; many other people on the course had the same experience, I discovered later.

It was also great on the last day of the course to talk to my fellow meditators. Some were really incredible people, with fascinating life stories, and it was a pleasure to meet them.

Anyway, tonight it’s back to Singapore, and on with things. I have so much to do before I fly to Beijing on Thursday night… I checked my exam results online last night, and they were OK: mostly As. As expected. I just scraped through MBO, but a pass is a pass, so I’m happy. I did better than I expected in MA, so that was a pleasant surprise! The quantitative subjects are all out of the way now, which is a relief; the courses I’ll be taking in Beijing are all qulitative, so I don’t have any big worries.