Perils of Phototourism

As I write this, we are steaming southbound towards Ketchikan (for a long overdue itinerary, see this). The clouds are glowing as the dying embers of the sunset recedes below the horizon. The cool evening wafts by as I type this relaxing in a recliner on our stateroom’s spacious balcony. Life is pretty good, I admit. But something is missing.

No — its not the two umbrellas I left in the balcony overnight to dry that, come sunrise, had been blown into the sea. Nor the dwindling population of digestive enzymes in my stomach from eating daily multi-course lunches and dinners and frequent trips to the 24/7 cafe. Not the electrons bumped to lower energy orbits from snapping over a thousand photos in the last week. And certainly not sleep, given the amount of food-induced or hiking-induced afternoon naps recently taken.

Alaskan Lou Bien Tan (路邊貪)

For the uninitiated, Lou Bien Tan (路邊貪), is the celebrated Taiwanese road-side food carts that line the night markets. Many of these hole-in-the-wall establishments pioneer the cutting-edge in culinary cuisine, all eaten out of cardboard bowls with plastic spoons. I encountered Alaska’s slightly more luxurious version in the form of Tracy’s King Crab Shack, in the state capitol of Juneau (alas, no Sarah Palin sighting). We happened on this shack by way of hunting for an afternoon snack after being tipped off in the local newspaper.

Tracy's King Crab Shack in Juneau, AK

Photo dispatches from the front lines

Armed with my digital camera, I am constantly snapping photos — emptying a battery in the matter of hours. Armored against the cold with gloves and a Princeton beanie, I bravely fight off the winter chill and cold rain to bring you these few amateurish photos.

Roof of Princess Wilderness Lodge in Denali Mountains.

Whittier, AK

I had a delicious Salmon BLTA (Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato, Avocado) today in Whitter, AK. Whitter is a sleepy seaside port buried in the Chugach mountain range. In fact, the only route to the town is through a 2.5 mile one-lane tunnel that shares both cars and trains. Driving through the small rocky entrance is slightly terrifying, as you are literally driving on railroad tracks in the darkness. One recalls too many movies of cars dangerously driving on railroad tracks. For a modest $12 fee, one buys the garauntee that you will not meet a train in the tunnel. Amazingly, one-third of Alaska’s freight passes through this port town, and consequently through the one-lane tunnel.

Whittier is at such a high elevation, that if you had a room on the tenth floor, your window would be the first layer of clouds. There is no sky; the port is surrounded by a panoramic wall of mountains, with a canopy of thick clouds. The clouds are so low, as if some heavenly hand had pushed downward, that the mountaintops are completely engulfed, and we are sealed in completely. Its at once both majestic and claustrophobic.

View from Whittier, AK

Fog permeates the quiet port. I imagine that, any second, a pirate ship’s cannon blast will pierce the silence, and a Johnny Depp character will leads a throng of crooked-tooth pirates to raid this sleepy port for vittles.

From Whitter, AK we left on a day cruise of glaciers in Prince William Sound. Besides Glaciers Galore, we also happened upon a small raft of otters.

Raft of otters in Prince William Sound

[on the Celebrity Millenium Cruise -- posting via satellite wireless]

Dearest Elderly

A high school friend once remarked: “I wish I was 70 and retired.” I have always reacted incredulously — who wants to be frail and elderly when there is so much of the world to explore? Our first night, however, we stayed at Princess Wilderness Lodge, a rustic lodge tucked in the Alaskan mountains, within sight of Mt. McKinley, North America’s tallest earthen creation. There I learned to admire age.

At the lodge, elderly couples abound — a wrinkly old man wearing a red hunter’s hat calmly smoking a pipe in the cold mountain air with his wife of fifty years; a group of white-haired folks wearing green bingo visors passing the night playing cards in the wooden main lodge; an old couple tightly holding hot chocolate walking back to their cabin in the early morning. Their movement slow not from the atrophy of their muscles, but with the measured patience of a mind existing without regard for the passage of time.

The highlight of this lodge is the main lobby, where a vaulted ceiling houses several panes of glass, with a view of the mountains.

Rustic lodge with view of Mt. McKinley

Alien World

As my flight descended below the clouds on approach to Anchorage Int’l Airport, I beheld a view wholly alien and fantastical. Outside my window stretched miles of dark sharp-peaked mountains, barely discernible behind a hazy blanket of clouds. Mordor-like, as if guarding some unspeakable evil.

Gravity seems lessened; the mountains have unearthly angles, and the trees are too needley and tall. Even light behaves differently. Rays of light behave unnaturally, imparting the water with a plastic sheen as it refracts. A dark oily substance — which I later found out to be mudflats — invades the water like a plague infecting cellular tissue. What is this place?

Vistas and Vision

Sitting here on Alaskan Airlines flight 97 bound for Anchorage, I can’t resist but be drawn to the colored patches of farmland passing underneath. I realize that my upcoming trip will be an exercise in vision. I will be using my eyes to visually devour glacier vistas, and then to position my camera to sear those images into digital posterity. In the near future, when I am back in my featureless cubicle, these images will be a trigger for the vast network of neurons that preserve my visual memory.

This anticipation of my future desire to view the photos I capture begs the question: why do we enjoy vast open visuals? Why are we attracted to visual scenes with dimensions of depth and breadth?

I am no expert on visual aesthetics, and am without access to google onboard my flight. In the spirit of speculation however, let me postulate a few theories.

Alaska

Heading off to Alaska! I will try to post blogs and photos as I get internet access. If not, wait for a whole slew of posts when I get back.

Photo of an Alaskan cruise to make you jealous.

Morpho menelaus

(Posting has fallen by the wayside while I finish my work before I depart D.C. for a much-needed vacation in Alaska, home of glaciers and eskimos.)

I volunteer at the Insect Zoo at the Natural History Museum. One of my duties involves manning the Butterfly Pavilion, an enclosed space with live butterflies that visitors are invited to walk through. Watching little kids wondrously marvel at the patterned explosion of color is a welcome respite from my day job planning nuclear war strategy (just kidding) at RAND.

In particular, the Menelaus Blue Morpho (Morpho menelaus) always draws gasps when it unfolds its blue iridescent wings and glides through the air. Always an unexpected sight, as the outside of the Morpho’s wings are dark brown. Many a photographer have been observed sitting in the 90F 80% humidity pavilion for up to an hour, patiently waiting to catch a glimpse of the Morpho with its wings open.

The iridescent coloring of the Morpho (and other butterflies) is sourced not in some pigmentation, but in the carefully manipulation of light by nano-sized photonic structures. (click below to read the rest of this entry)

Kogod Courtyard

Blogging now from Kogod Courtyard. One of my favorite public places in D.C. — a large courtyard nestled at the center of the three-story National Portrait Gallery. Not only is the courtyard bathed in sunlight, but an elegantly curved glass canopy, composed of curved aluminum lattices and glass panes, shelters the courtyard from the elements. Inside the large courtyard-turned-atrium, a smattering of ficus trees and black olives trees sit in white marble planters. Stepping into the courtyard for the first time, one immediately feels the refreshing dichotomy of a sun-lit courtyard with the climate-controlled air and the cool black granite floor.

Upon discovering this a few weeks ago, I sometimes escape here to work. Something about working here, among air and stone and light, listening to the stirring melody of Ennio Morricone’s Gabriel’s Oboe, reminds me of my undergraduate years perfecting essays in the Carl Icahn atrium back in Princeton. A far cry from the confines of my cubicle, the courtyard brings a sense of peace and productivity long lost from my college years. This is one of the reasons I love DC so much… the quantity and quality of public spaces in our capital is so inviting.

Link: Kogod Courtyard named an ‘Architectural Wonder’