Gibraltar itself represents a geographical and political anomaly, a British Overseas Territory situated on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, just across the Strait of Gibraltar from Morocco. As we drove closer, the landscape transformed completely, and soon we could see what defines the entire region: the Rock of Gibraltar towering massively above everything else, its limestone bulk rising over 400 metres above sea level.

First Glimpse: Europa Point and the Southern Edge

Our initial stop was Europa Point, the southernmost tip of Gibraltar, a flat, rocky headland that marks the boundary between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The point gets its name from the mythological figure Europa.

Near Europa Point sits Gorham’s Cave Complex, a cluster of archaeological sites. The complex consists of caves situated at sea level, each containing archaeological and palaeontological deposits spanning over 100,000 years of Neanderthal occupation. In 2016, this site received UNESCO World Heritage status, earning its designation because of the exceptional evidence it holds about how Neanderthals lived. We tried making a spontaneous visit, only to be turned away as the site operates on an extremely restricted access system, with a three-year waiting list to gain entry for serious visitors. The limited access, while unfortunate for us, reflects the delicate nature of these sites, where any uncontrolled traffic would risk disturbing irreplaceable scientific evidence.

The Monkeys on the Mountain: Encounters with Barbary Macaques

As we ventured toward St Michael’s Cave, ascending the winding paths through the Upper Rock Nature Reserve, we began encountering the Rock’s most famous residents: the Barbary macaques. They represent Europe’s only free-living wild monkey population.

Tourists constantly attempted to feed them, despite clear warnings. The animals have learned to exploit this human generosity, demonstrating remarkable problem-solving by unzipping bags and rifling through pockets in search of food.

The Cathedral Beneath the Rock: St Michael’s Cave

The path to St Michael’s Cave climbs steeply on a well-paved road for thirty minutes before reaching the entrance. Several lookout points along the way made the walk up less of a grind.

The cave system itself is a network of interconnected chambers carved over millions of years by rainwater slowly percolating through limestone. Today, the largest chamber functions as a space for hosted concerts, theatrical productions, and opera performances. The cave derives much of its visual drama from its extensive formations of stalactites and stalagmites – mineral-rich water dripping from the ceiling deposits layer upon layer of dissolved rock, gradually building downward from the roof while simultaneously building upward from the floor. Some stalactites hang like pale icicles; others have fused with stalagmites rising to meet them, creating continuous columns of mineral deposit.

The name derives from a similar grotto in Monte Gargano, Italy, where – according to Catholic tradition – the Archangel Michael made an appearance. This connection explains why the cave carries religious significance despite being fundamentally a geological formation rather than a sacred site in the traditional sense.

An installation called “The Awakening,” a light and sound show, transformed the cave into an additional cultural experience. Within this light installation appears an ethereal figure – an angel formed by the projection mapping technology and the natural rock formations.

A Short Stay

Despite the natural and historical richness of what Gibraltar offers, we didn’t linger longer than a few hours. Tourism in Gibraltar often works this way – the territory is small, and its main attractions cluster around the Rock. Many visitors arrive on day trips from southern Spain, explore the key sites, and then depart. We were no different. We faced a 4.5-hour drive toward Granada, leaving Gibraltar behind and transitioning into the landscapes of inland Andalusia.

See more of Gibraltar here

The luwak coffee has no added milk or sugar and is sweet on its own. It tastes like regular black coffee with sugar in it, but then I’m not a coffee drinker, so my taste for it isn’t as nuanced.

The luwak eats the coffee cherry (the fruit that contains the coffee bean), and. The bean itself is partially digested and defecated and then used to make the coffee. Yes, the coffee is actually made from part poop. Plantations send people out into the woods to specifically look for the poop. The guide said 1 kg takes 42 days to produce.

It’s one of the most expensive if not most expensive coffees in the world. Our guide at the plantation called it a “cat-poo-ccino”!! The plantation doesn’t actually charge for any of the tours and samples (except for the cup of luwak coffee), but rather they rely on people buying coffee and tea to make money.

The next stop was the monkey forest. It was really cool to see monkeys running around with humans so close to them.

There was a sign that said to not stare at the monkey for too long, but I clearly forgot…

Monkeys like to play too!

The monkey forest was the coolest place in the whole tour. Mike’s video has even more clips of the monkeys. Check it out below.

The next stop were some rice fields. But a freak rainstorm occurred and cut that way short. At first we thought, it’d be okay with a little, but then it just poured.

The raindrops were HUGE.

15 minutes later, the rain was gone. A bit of a drive later, we reached a waterfall as the conclusion of the tour.

From there we drove back to our accommodations and passed by some more rice fields. Throughout the car ride, we chatted with our guide about sorts of things like the history of Indonesian independence, North American culture, and life in Indonesia. One thing that really stood out to me was that he spoke very fondly about how dad prepared dog meat really and how much he enjoyed eating it. To him, it’s something super normal and part of the culture, but it seems so foreign to us in North America.

This ends our day trip in Ubud. See more of the trip here.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 90,000 times in 2014. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 4 days for that many people to see it.

Visiting Arashiyama and Sagano just outside of Kyoto was probably one of the best parts of the trip. We rented bikes and leisurely biked around the area looking at the natural scenery.

And biked through a forest of bamboo.

Passing by ponds with water lilies.

And hiked up a mountain while listening with Pokemon walking music.

To see monkeys at the top.

And also to be rewarded with a mountain-top view of Kyoto.

Kyoto

In Kyoto, our trip was much more cultural, when we visited the Kinkakuji (金閣寺), a temple with gold-plated exterior walls. It is by a small lake, so one can see a clear reflection of the temple in the water.

In downtown Kyoto, we stumbled upon the Nishiki Tenmangu Shrine. The entrance was illuminated by beautifully lit lanterns.

In the Higashiyama District (if I recall correctly), we saw more of the traditional architecture. Many shops here sell small trinket items and ceramics for tourists and was definitely a huge shift from the modern Japanese metropolis.

Our accommodations was quite traditional as well, complete with sliding doors, floor mats made of bamboo and futons.

Links to more photos:

• Kyoto
• Arashiyama and Sagano

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 80,000 times in 2013. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 3 days for that many people to see it.

Here’s an excerpt:

19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 81,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 35,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 13 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

The day after my friends and I went to Berchtesgaden, we went to Wilhelma, the Stuttgart Zoological Botanical Gardens.  It has a fancy name, but it basically is a zoo with exhibits for other life such as plants and insects.

Seeing as how I’ve never been to a zoo before (at least I don’t remember), but I have been to the safari and Biodome in Quebec, this trip to the zoo was quite interesting for me.

To get in, my friends used their student ID’s to get a student discount, but I however, didn’t have my ID anymore since I lost it.  I ended up using a letter of enrolment from my university to prove my student identity.  The best part about doing that was that I managed to communicate what I wanted speaking only German.

When we entered, we looked on the park map to see the best route we could use to see everything, but since the zoo had a plan for that, we decided to follow it.  It had a strange system of showing visitors which path to follow.  The intended path was marked by a yellow elephant with a direction to walk in and the path back to the beginning was marked by a blue elephant.  We tried our best to follow this route, but we didn’t really manage too well.  We still ended up diverging from the path.

Our first destination was a group of greenhouses that had plants from all over the world, but in particular, we saw a lot of cacti.  For some reason, the people at the zoo really like cacti.

Moving on, we saw a flock of flamingos just chilling there.  They didn’t really do much except just stand there and drink water.  We did get to see some flamingos standing on one leg just like what a lot of animal documentaries show.

Moving further along, we saw a peacock just wandering around the park.  We didn’t get to see it open its tail, but it was still pretty cool to see one live.  It kept trying to move away from the little kids that kept trying to chase it, but I still got a picture.  Apparently, according to Wiki, the umbrella term for the animal is “peafowl”, while the name “peacock” only refers to the male peafowl.

While we walked around the zoo (while deviating from the yellow elephant path), we came across a lot of signs that pointed to the “Titanenwurz”, which in English means “Titanum”, the tall and large plant local to Sumatra that has a smell similar to rotting corpses when it blooms.  Apparently, this zoo holds the world record for the tallest Titanum plant during blooming.

Moving further along, we ended up indoors and the only lights that illuminated the inside were a set of blue lamps inside a display.  In the display, there were bats.  Some of them hung there while others flew around randomly.  They didn’t shriek or make any noises for echolocation or anything like that though.  They were also bigger than I thought they were.

Moving further along, we came across plants that reminded me very much of Pokémon.  I guess the Pokémon were modeled after this plant.

The next part was the best part of the zoo: monkeys.  The monkeys here were really small and all they did was jump around from one branch to another.  While I was taking pictures of them, I moved my camera a little too close and it tried to grab my camera strap.  I felt its fingers brush against my hand before I moved my camera away.  While watching the monkeys, I kept hearing little kids yelling “baby monkeys!” in German.

There were other monkeys too, but those weren’t as interesting because they mostly just sat around eating (especially the apes).  Next, we moved on to see the more exotic animals – the big cats.  For some reason, these animals weren’t really in the mood to do anything.  Instead of sitting around like the monkeys, the big cats pretty much were just lying there.  None of the cats did anything special except the leopard when it got up to eat.

Next we saw other exotic animals like okapi (never even heard of this animal before) and various African/South Asian animals.  It was pretty cool to see an elephant duck down to grab food with its nose to eat.  I’ve never seen anything like that before.  The giraffes were cool too, but they weren’t quite as tall as I expected, but maybe these ones are of a different species or are just younger.  The rhino wasn’t very cool either since the zoo staff got rid of its horn, but maybe it’s safer that way.  But then again, a pissed off hippo could probably destroy a rhino.

The zoo also had some less interesting animals such as cows, chickens, lambs and various other farm animals that people eat on a regular basis.  This was probably the most boring part of the zoo.  These animals smelled absolutely terrible and weren’t very interesting to look at.  The cows here were only penned in by a electrified rope (which my friend touched and received quite a nasty shock – that was quite hilarious).  The next bunch of animals were saw were the bears.  Seeing the bears promptly reminded me of Stephen Colbert’s famous quote, “bears are godless killing machines!”  They do look quite menacing, except for the polar bear, who didn’t really feel like doing anything at all.  Maybe it was too hot or something.

The zoo even had some animals from Australia like crocodiles/alligators (I know the difference between them, but I don’t know how to “see” the difference) and kangaroos.  We didn’t get to see the kangaroos up close because some zoo personnel were cleaning the area at the time.

At this point, I realized that the zoo was a lot bigger than I thought.  We had already walked around for about 3 hours but there was still so much more to see.  Here are some more animals we saw.

Here comes the nastiest part of the exhibits – the insects.  Here they showed a lot of just purely disgusting pests like cockroaches, although, there were some cool ones like the insect that is able to disguise itself as a leaf.  They camouflaged themselves so well that it was almost impossible to see them.  However, on the more pleasant side, butterflies are always nice to see.

To finish our adventure at the zoo, we saw penguins.  I had no idea that there are some species of penguins that can survive such warm temperatures (or maybe all of them can – I don’t know).

After about 5 hours of walking around the zoo, we saw almost everything.  By now, our legs were very tired and we didn’t really have the energy to walk around anymore.  Instead, we did have enough energy for video games because afterward, we all went back to my flat for a good Team Fortress 2 (thanks to Valve for making this game free to play) LAN party.

More photos here

The Blog-Health-o-Meter reads This blog is on fire!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 6,600 times in 2010. That’s about 16 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 85 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 120 posts. There were 48 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 3mb. That’s about 4 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was November 23rd with 83 views. The most popular post that day was South Korea: Yet Again Swallowing the Bitter Pill.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were zamunda.net, facebook.com, dailyblogged.com, google.com, and en.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for p1i windows 7, p1_usb_signed_drivers, p1_usb_signed_drivers.rar, p1_usb_signed_drivers package, and failed to load resource sony ericsson.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

South Korea: Yet Again Swallowing the Bitter Pill November 2010
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Connecting a Sony Ericsson P1i to a Windows 7 x64 Computer in Phone Mode December 2009
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Snow Leopard on a Dell Inspiron 1520 June 2010
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How to Install Solidworks 2008 on a x64 Operating System November 2009

SolidWorks 2010 Side-By-Side Configuration Error Fix August 2010
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