Hawaiian Paradise Park

 17 August 2021

First day in Hawaii, just south of Hilo in a residential area, visiting a dear friend. This was the view from my room at dawn - not a great "view" per se, because it's largely obscured by bushes, but the birdsong and the incredible lush foliage and flowers were so beautiful in my eyes in the moment.

There are sadly no sand beaches nearby, just rocky lava shelves from which I would be afraid to try and swim, but the ocean is absolutely incredible and I walked along the shore for hours.

The lava created so many different shapes and textures here. This reminds me of an elephant's skin.

A little spin around so you can see what was behind me and in front of me.

Testing the panorama feature. What do you think?

The ocean always has some love to give!

The scenery behind, the contrast between lava and lush is so striking.

By this time I had been in the sun for 2-3 hours, so I stepped into the forest to get some shade. At the edge of the lava it was alternating mangrove and pine forests.

Is this a baby coconut? So cute!

That part of the forest got too difficult to navigate, so I went back to the lava.

Tried again to find a shortcut through the forest. It dead ended on someone's private property, but along the way I saw this magnificent tree.

The mangrove forests were muddy and hard to navigate... as someone found out.

Backtracking the way I came, and I was tired but still couldn't stop taking pictures. Look at the pattern showing how the lava flowed.

And a closeup of the little flowering plants in the cracks.

Finally, I can see the place where I started from (the shady area at the top). Nice little 4 hour walk...

I also took far too many videos of the waves crashing against the rocks, but unfortunately, I hadn't figured out how to block the wind from blowing on the camera's microphone, so they look beautiful but sound dreadful.

Here are two videos which have a bit less wind noise.

Complutum Roman City Archaeological Site, Alcalá de Henares

 01 July 2021

Today I went on a day trip with a friend and colleague to see a Roman archaeological site just outside of Alcalá de Henares, where I went to university last year. It was once a prosperous city called Complutum and is now partially covered by the modern city; fortunately, the part on the outskirts of town was excavated and preserved.

It was free to visit and provided quite good signage explaining the various parts of the city. Some of the signage was designed for kids and looked like it accompanied a special tour for schoolchildren on field trips.

Arriving back in town after a rather long walk, this is the Puerta de Alcala or old city gate.

I was surprised and tickled to see Mike from "Monsters, Inc" on a balcony.

Wall mural in homage to "Don Quixote" by author Miguel Cervantes, a local celebrity after his death.

We had lunch at Las Huellas vegan restaurant, one of my favorites. We ordered burgers but they offer many different things on the menu. Sadly, there was no lemonade today.

On the way back to the train station, I noticed this window with its original wooden blinds.

I do like Alcalá de Henares. It was nice to visit my old haunt again.

Madrid wanderings

 02 January 2021

Met up with a friend to hang out in Madrid today. The streets are mostly deserted until mid afternoon, as it's the norm here to stay up late and get up late. We had the streets mostly to ourselves until around 3:30pm, when we decided to call it a day and head home as it began to feel too crowded.

We started at Plaza del Sol, popping in at a favorite ecotienda or natural food shop, where I found what I believe to be US style cornmeal. Until now, I had only seen polenta, which is a much coarser grind, and corn flour, which is a much finer grind. Beans and cornbread, here I come!

We then decided to have brunch at Federal Café, a casual restaurant which serves full breakfast fare, including pancakes and a number of egg dishes. A typical breakfast in Spain is coffee with toast, so breakfast/brunch places tend to be popular with the expat crowd. I was hungry and didn't remember to take a photo of my plate, sorry not sorry!

Here are some sights from along the way. As those of you who have been following my blog are probably aware, I love architectural details, especially doors and manhole covers. This one, found right by the Noviciado metro station entrance, says "GAS". 

This building is currently in use as a Presbyterian church, but what fabulous Moorish style brickwork! As you can see from this photo, we had some sunshine in the morning. The difference between sun and shade feels quite stark in winter. Temperatures are dropping below freezing at night and not warming up all that much during the day, especially if there is any wind at all, so it was so nice to feel the warmth of the sun.

We passed by this bakery called "Resposteria Perruana" and we were remarking on how cute and colorfully iced the Christmas cookies were... and then I realized the whole shop is actually dog biscuits! Just goes to show that there is a market for anything.

We decided to walk there without using Google Maps, so we just followed any street that looked interesting, like this one.

At the other end of the alley was this building with great Art Deco style brickwork.

After brunch, we decided to wander around some more without a fixed destination. This facade of a (shop? restaurant? church?) is done in hand painted ceramic tiles, old and dirty but you can still see how fine they are. I hope someday they will be cleaned and restored, what a beauty.

Here is a closer view:

Another architectural feature that I saw several of today is the wooden mini facade installed directly into the portico of a stone block building. The restaurant goes back to 1983, but I suspect the woodwork is much older. Unfortunately, this photo came out very dark and does not do the details justice.

This is a closeup of the too-dark doorway on the right hand side in the above shot. Here you can see the stained glass window and the wonderful wooden carving.

There are some really cute and creative gingerbread dioramas in some of the bakeries.

This one even has a gingerbread train and railroad tracks, so cute!

This new sweet shop near Chueca called chök is tiny but exquisite.

They had a selecion of artesanal chocolate bars, candies, and truffles, including several vegan options.

They also had a fantastic array of beautifully decorated doughnuts, cupcakes, and individual size cakes, also with some vegan choices.

At Chueca, barely visible behind the station in the below photo, is a new vegan grocery store called Only Vegan. I didn't take a photo, but we went inside and their selection of vegan "meats" and "seafood" was the best I have seen here so far.

 

 

And from there, we popped into the metro and went home. A decent day of wandering, in my opinion.