Washington, DC: Memorial Day Images

Memorial Day Parade

Memorial Day Parade

Lincoln Memorial

Vietnam War Memorial

Smithsonian Museum of American History

Smithsonian Museum of American History

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The Banaue Rice Terraces: A Living Cultural Landscape

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My interest in exploring the northern part of the Philippines started from looking at a piece of art at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, California.   Among the display of ceramics and pottery engraved with gold and other decorative stuff,  a wooden carving of a male figure squatting on a platform with the lower arms on top of each other, resting upon his knees, caught my eye.  According to the docent, the wooden sculpture was called "Bului" which literally means "granary guardian" in the "Ifugao" tribe dialect. The carved wooden sculpture was set on a platform on top of another platform, a mortar.   Our docent explained the significance of the wooden mortar (which was used with the pestle, to separate the husk from the rice, sort of rice mill) and linked the story to the Rice Terraces in the Cordillera Mountains of the Philippines built 2000 years ago by the “Ifugao” tribe. So two years and three hundred kilometers north of Manila later, we explo...
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Poland: The Wieliczka Salt Mine

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One of the most spectacular UNESCO World Heritage Sites I visited this year was the Wieliczka Salt Mine near Krakow, Poland. It was founded in the 13th century to mine the rich deposit of salt. Salt mining stopped in 1996 when the low price of salt on the world market made it too expensive to mine and the mine was slowly flooding. But miners did more than just extract salt. They left behind them a breathtaking record of their time underground in the shape of statues of mythical, historical and religious figures.  Part of the salt mine became an art gallery, chapels, cathedral, and underground lakes. Today, Wieliczka Salt Mine is one of the most visited National Monuments in Poland. For safety reason, less than one percent of the mine is open to visitors, but even that is almost four kilometers in length. There are 20 chambers to visit and 800 steps to climb of which 350 at the beginning take you down into the mine. You can’t just visit and wander around on your own. All of t...
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The Amazon, Part 3: The Tree Killer Tree

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"There are 121 ecosystems in the world and 80 of those can be found in the Amazon, and it is in the Peruvian Amazon that you will find the green biome , more than two-thirds of the world's plant species,” said Vics, our naturalist-guide.   Through our small boat excursions, we were able to see the most bio-diverse part of the Amazon, the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, the largest wetlands in the world.  We went through its narrow rivers, tributaries and black waters and lakes to hike the “Amazon Jungle”. Day-3: Jungle Trek Strangler Tree or Tree Killer Tree From the Turmalina, we hopped into a small boat.  The boat hardly moved, we just used it to get offshore.  We walked a tiny bridge and short pathway to get to the lake.  We then crossed the lake using a catamaran to get to the edge of the lake where we found the entrance to the trail.  Within minutes of leaving the larger river, we entered a narrow trail into the canopy of trees, kill...
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