In early August I visited my buddy Dain in Seattle for a weekend (lots of fun, maybe I’ll post a few pictures later), and then Teiko and I went backpacking near Palm Springs, CA for a long weekend.

We took the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway to get from the desert ground (where it was 105F/40c) to about 8000 ft / 2500 m of elevation, where the temperatures were much more enjoyable. We spend two nights up there, hiking several miles and climbing Mt. San Jacinto Peak with 10824 ft / 3300 m above sea level — it was lots of fun, even though we had to adjust to the thinner air at first. Pictures below:

After descending back to the desert that is Palm Spring in summer time, we spend another night in a nice downtown hotel, before heading back to Irvine.

After a cold night at the South Rim (19F/-7C) we set out from the South Kaibab Trailhead at 7260 ft (2213 m) on Tuesday morning. We hiked 7 miles (11.3 km) all the way to the Colorado river at the bottom of the Canyon, descending to 2480 ft (756 m), where we set up our camp for the night at Bright Angel Campground. On Wednesday we headed up the North Kaibab Trail on the north side of the Canyon, hiking some 8 miles/12.9 km (including a detour to Ribbon Falls) to Cottonwood Campground at 4080 ft (1244 m), halfway up to the North Rim. After a night with wonderful, star-lit skies we did a little morning hike to Roaring Springs before grabbing our packs and heading back to the bottom, where we set up camp once more and headed to bed early. Friday morning we got an early start and set out for our ascent out of the Canyon via the Bright Angel trail, a 9.6 mile (15.5 km) climb from 2480 ft (756 m) to 6860 ft (2093 m)! With sore legs and blistered feet we eventually reached the South Rim in the afternoon, where we camped for another very cold night (16F / -9C) before driving back to Irvine on Saturday.

It was a great trip — even though I’m still sore. The views were breathtaking on every step of the trail, the weather was good throughout most of the trip, and it was nice to get away from computers, email, cell phones, etc. for a few days. Both Kenny and I took our digital cameras with us, and even though it’s hard to capture the full enormity of the Grand Canyon in pictures, the photos we took are still impressive. I therefore invite you to browse through them (and there are quite a few), first mine and then Kenny’s:

Unfortunately, we narrowly lost the game tonight (and I got a bruised nose in the process). Hence this is the current situation, photographed 10 minutes ago:

P.S. Apologies to Teiko for being overly ’scratchy’ for the last two weeks.

At the end of the trip I had another special surprise for Teiko — but just check out the pictures below, especially the last three.

Yep, that’s right, I “popped the question” and she said yes! Yippie! And before you ask, as of now there are no concrete plans for a time and place, so stay tuned…

P.S. Happy New Year, everyone!

I did, however, manage to explore Haifa itself as well as go to Jerusalem for two days. The latter was especially impressive with its rich history and religious significance for several major religions. Most of my stay there was spent in the Old City with its maze-like alleys, street bazaars and countless churches, temples, shrines, etc. I had come prepared with plenty of information about various sites and their significance, but it was still tough to keep up with all the different religious denominations and their respective beliefs. Among other things, I visited the Western Wall of the Old Temple (the holiest site in Judaism) and followed the Way of the Cross, along the Via Dolorosa, to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the site where it is believed that Jesus was crucified and later buried.

Naturally I’ve taken many pictures, a selection of which you can check out below.

All in all it was great trip, both from a work perspective as well as personally. Israel is a very fascinating country, and I hope I can return one day to visit more places, learning hands-on about its impressive history.

Well, I have just returned from this trip and I had a great great time. Fortunately I was able to squeeze in a few days of sightseeing in and around Sydney before the conference. I spent most of the time exploring Sydney itself but made a day trip to the nearby Blue Mountains National Park. I took plenty of pictures, some of the better ones can be found below. The conference also went well; I got some good feedback at my poster presentation, attended several interesting talks and met many new people.

P.S. I have not forgotten about the Israel trip, I just decided to write about Australia first.

As you might remember, I traveled to Finland to attend a conference. On my last day in Helsinki I had some time to explore the city, of which you can find some pictures below. Helsinki reminded me quite a bit of Gothenburg (or Stockholm and Oslo, for that matter), and I liked it a lot.

After a week in Finland, I traveled on to Germany, to visit my family. The big surprise (although I was suspecting it to some extent) was that Teiko came to visit for a week as well, just in time for my birthday — what a great idea! On my birthday all of us (except for my sister’s boyfriend, who unfortunately couldn’t make it) visited the zoo in Arnhem, Netherlands, which was lots of fun (see below).

Update: I added four pictures from Teiko’s camera, taken on a day trip we took to the “Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord”, a nearby former steel mill area.

For those of you that heard of yesterday’s earthquake in the Los Angeles area, I was still in the air when it happened. The epicenter was reported to be ~50km northeast from Irvine. From what I hear the earth shook quite a bit for 30 sec, but there was no significant damage to buildings and structures. And more importantly, noone was hurt (in Irvine as well as elsewhere).

Anyway, I will be in town for a little over two weeks, and I hope to run into a few of my old friends. My German mobile phone number for the time is 0163/6845919, so give me call or send me a message if you are in the vicinity!