Life as J

As a perfect follow-up to my previous post, I went on a cherry blossom trolley tour last weekend, right here in Vancouver. Apparently, Vancouver has its own Cherry Blossom Festival every year, which spans almost two months! Now, you might be thinking - how are there cherry blossoms in Vancouver? According to some historians , the first flowering cherry trees were presented as a gift from the Kobe and Yokohama mayors in the 1930s. Since then, I guess the Vancouver Park Board has managed to cultivate the trees and spread the beauty throughout the city. I actually (again) wasn't aware (now you probably think I'm a hermit) of how many cherry blossoms there are in the city. I'd seen the occasional pink tree here and there, even in my own neighbourhood, but nothing like what I saw on the tour. I certainly didn't see 80,000 trees (quoted from those same historians) but I was able to admire those gracing the UBC campus: As well as on streets in the Shaughnessy area: I was...

It's nice to be able to just drop everything and enjoy yourself once in awhile. Now that work has slowed down to a more relaxed pace, I was able to take a mini-trip down to California. Lucky for me, the weather turned out to be exceptional and throughout the weekend, the sun tirelessly shone through cloudless skies. Since the road conditions were perfect, it was a great opportunity to check out the Lick Observatory , just outside San Jose. Prior to seeing the Observatory, I actually wasn't aware of its existence. Apparently, it's part of the University of California, and it's more like an observatory park - the grounds are home to six telescopes! Unfortunately, since it was daytime, I didn't get a chance to look through any of the telescopes; but it was still pretty cool learning about how modernized astronomy has become, while still maintaining some legacy techniques. It seems, just like everything else, a lot of work is done remotely with only a few technicia...