International Travel Goal 2011

Last year, I promised myself that each year I would travel to at least one international destination and at least one local destination. Thanks to the Cebu Pacific's Piso seat sale I was able to visit Hong Kong with my sister last year. Luckily, I also got to fly to Bangalore, India because of work. Cebu & Bohol were my main local destinations for 2010.

I'll be flying off to Beijing later. I feel totally unprepared because unlike my Hong Kong trip last year, where my sister and I really had to plan our itinerary and figure out how to get around Hong Kong by ourselves, I am more of just tagging along. I read a few articles here and there on places to visit and how to get around, but nothing too detailed. So, right now I'll be printing out Beijing-related stuff in case we need it. I also downloaded a few apps on my Nexus One.

I'm just hoping to experience as much of Beijing as I can (hopefully the good stuff) and to bring home decent photos. I found a few photos on Flickr, which gave me inspiration.

The Great Wall by Gedsman

The National Centre for the Performing Arts by red ernest

The Temple of Heaven by Stuck in Customs

Last Song Syndrome

Every now and then a random song just pops into my head and gets stuck there for a while. Some call this the Last Song Syndrome or LSS.  If you Google this term you'll be able to find a Wikipedia entry on "earworm", which is a borrowed translation of the German word "ohrwurm" .

Ohrwurm means...

...a portion of a song or other music that repeats compulsively within one's mind, put colloquially as "music being stuck in one's head."

It's interesting because I've been using the term "LSS" since high school but I've never encountered the term "earworm" until writing this entry.

Burn, baby burn

Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen (phew!) developed the very well known bunsen burner around the 1850s. Today is his 200th birthday and Google honors him with a very special doodle.

Google doodle for Robert Bunsen's 200th birthday

Since the image above is a screenshot you can't see that the doodle is actually animated. Go visit http://www.google.com if you want to see the animation (while it's still the 31st! If you visit this later than the 31st, you can probably find the animated logo in the Doodles history).

The very first Google doodle was released on August 30, 1998 for the Burning Man festival. If you look through the Doodles history you'll notice that the first doodles that came out were pretty simple. The main subject was always the Google logo and only "accessories" were added to pay tribute to a certain occasion or person. Over time the designs have evolved and doodles are now more interesting than ever. I especially loved the Pacman tribute last year because it was a live Pacman game that you could play! You can still see the logo in action (and play) here (http://www.google.com/pacman/)

Pacman Google doodle

What about you, what's your favorite Google Doodle?