Sierra Leone P2

So for the past week I have been exploring and enjoying the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone and its surroundings.  This bustling city is situated on a peninsula at the beginning of one of the world’s largest harbours and has many great attractions including its beautiful beaches and the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary.

The beaches in the area have some of the whitest sand and clearest water in the world. Throw in the tropical climate and this place is set to explode with tourists once the negative opinions of Sierra Leone are gone. From experience I can say that these beaches are far more inviting then those of typical holiday locations Thailand and Bali. A day relaxing at these beaches, accompanied by cheap drinks and food certainly will be a moment in your life you will never forget!

The Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary is a 100 acre location providing a home to over 100 chimpanzees that have been rescued throughout the country. Most chimpanzees in the sanctuary come in at ages under 5, where they are still fully unable to fend for themselves, and worse still many come in poor physical condition having been mistreated by their previous owners. I was even told by one keeper that a few chimpanzees have been drinking beer and smoking cigarettes before being rescued by the sanctuary. While exploring the sanctuary it is outstanding how close you can get to these marvelous animals, being allowed to hand feed them (structured meals of course!) and pet them. Visiting the sanctuary is truly a one off experience!

My next few days I will be travelling inland, to one of the nations diamond rich areas to learn about the past, hear about the future, and maybe find myself a diamond while I''m there.

References
http://kathrinschmidt.wordpress.com/
http://www.tacugama.com/

The Sun

The Sun

Think of the hottest place you've ever been. It could be the Australian outback, a nudist beach, perhaps even where you are right now. Great, now think of that place with a small room, stuffed with about 150 people you know, with everyone wearing thick sweaters, tracksuit pants and breathing on each other. Why am I saying this? Because that is not even remotely close to how hot the Sun actually is, but that won’t stop tenacious tourists, like you, will it?

The hottest thing, since Miley Cyrus’ hit single “Wrecking Ball”

Being about 4.6 Billion years old, with a temperature 5 x 10⁶ K and a size that’s 12 000 times that of Earth, it’s no wonder your average travel agency even thinks of sending you to the Sun: Earth is a much safer and well-explored place. But why go somewhere someone else has already been? I, for one, haven’t personally reached the Sun, but my team did try and get as close as possible without compromising health regulations.
Basically, the Sun is a medium-sized star, with the planets in the Solar System (including Earth) revolving around it. Additionally, it’s constantly emitting UV, gamma and X-ray radiation from the solar flares that gracefully dance on the face of the Sun.

Tourist “hot-spots”. Literally.

As stated earlier, solar flares are a wonderful sight if you ever get close enough to the Sun. It’s basically an acceleration of charged particles toward the plasma on the Sun’s surface due to magnetic connections, resulting in a sudden discharge of energy from the Sun’s surface in the form of a volcanic eruption, as seen above.
On another note, you can click on the image to watch some footage taken by NASA in 2011 of an actual solar flare that occurred (our video cameras melted before we realised how ridiculously close we were to potentially getting hit by a solar flare. Whew.)

Another marvel to see while you’re decently close to the sun is the renowned Sunspots. These dark areas of the Sun are formed by concentrated magnetic fields on the Sun, which generally have cooler temperatures than the rest of the Sun (about 3000 – 4500 K).
Why is this so fascinating? It seems that sunspots actually move around on the Sun’s surface by its magnetic field acting on the Sun’s own magnetic generation, causing the sunspot to shift across the Sun.

Conclusion

If the Sun isn’t right for you, you still have time to reconsider; in fact, you have up to 5.4 billion years to reconsider your options, until the Sun bursts into a supernova and become a red giant. In any case, the Sun is always a fine option for new and uncharted paradise, just as long as you can withstand the excessively high heat and radiation levels.
And even then, just floating around in space with a good view of the Sun is a nice second option if you can’t afford getting that close to the Sun. So get out there and get your Vitamin D straight from the source.

References

You can read all sorts of stuff on the Sun, but how many of those sources can take the heat? Get it, because the Sun is hot and -- Look, here's a bunch of informational links about the Sun.
Puns - Don't hate; Appreciate.

Sun (2014). Retrieved April 23, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun.

The Sun (2013). Retrieved April 23, 2014, from http://nineplanets.org/sol.html.
Sun: Overview (n.d.) Retrieved April 23, 2014, from http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Sun.

Solar Flare (2014). Retrieved April 23, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_flare#Cause.

Mos Eisley

Mos Eisley

 

“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” Those were the infamous words of Obi-Wan Kenobi, used to describe the spaceport at Mos Eisley, Tatooine. And, as true as those words stand, you should probably go there and see how accurately Obi-Wan summarises life in Mos Eisley. After all, its colloquial nickname is “the armpit of the galaxy”.

Life in the “armpit”

Mos Eisley is well-renowned for its illegal spice and arms dealers in its shady alleyways. Other illegal, and legal, trade businesses also contribute to the city’s reputation throughout the galaxy.
There is fairly little effort given to preventing this illegal activity, as Mos Eisley greatly lacks law enforcers. And even so, most of these businesses have enough wealth to bribe their way out of getting arrested. In any case, illegal goods are a trademark of Mos Eisley.

Places of interesting interest

Being a primary trade port on Tatooine, Mos Eisley is home to many remarkable locations for the average tourist. As such, I can only recommend so much. But these places specifically have peaked my interest while in the city:
Jango Fett Arena, named after the famous Mandalorian bounty hunter, Jango Fett, is a large colosseum, where large beasts are often pitted against each other as a form of entertainment for the denizens of Mos Eisley.

As well, the Mos Eisley Cantina at 3112, Outer Kerner Way, is a great place to drink and dine with the local citizens and smugglers, who would beat you up if you gave them the wrong look.
Unlike most of the shadiest places in Mos Eisley, the Cantina was the ideal place to discuss private matters because of the anti-Droid policy employed there. This policy is further enforced with a Fabritech EPT-212 system in the main doorway that detects any Droids that attempt to enter the building.
Mos Eisley Cantina has seen its share of fire bombings, showdowns and Bledsoes’ disease, but it’s still alive and running as well as it was since the Old Republic Era.

Conclusion

Mos Eisley may not be the safest place in the galaxy, but it sure has some great landmarks and decent people, just as long as you pay off your debts at the right time. If you’re looking for exotic souvenirs to take home with you on your way back home, you’re most likely to find it in these markets at bargain prices. So, logically, this is the one place where anything illegal is probably legal enough for you to get away with. Why not start dealing with banned goods on Mos Eisley today?

References

If you want to survive in Mos Eisley, you need connections. And to get these connections, you'd better not look like a tourist. Look at Han Solo, and how he nearly got shot by Greedo. But that's another story.
So, what you need is the knowledge and know-how about Mos Eisley to gain trust from the shadiest denizens on the city. Because if you want to survive, sometimes you have to be a bit crazy:

Mos Eisley (n.d.). Retrieved April 19, 2014, from http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mos_Eisley

Mos Eisley (2013). Retrieved April 19, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mos_Eisley

"marcin_klaban" (2012). Mos Eisley StarWars city on desert. Retrieved April 19, 2014, from http://www.360cities.net/image/mos-eisley-starwars-city-on-desert-tunisia#179.10,-11.20,70.0

Sierra Leone

People across the globe, when asked would probably come to the consensus that Sierra Leone still resembles how it looked in the movie “Blood Diamond” with an ongoing civil war, illegal diamond trading and poverty conditions that appall even the most rugged of travelers.  In the last decade Sierra Leone however has been (mostly) war free and is beginning to be seen in a more positive light. When planning my trip there I even noticed the Australian ‘smartraveller’ website places the nation in only the 3rd most dangerous alert level! 

So while exercising a ‘high degree of caution’ I booked my flight to Freetown, the nation’s capital and made sure to get my yellow fever and malaria vaccinations...just in case. Over the course of my trip I will be telling you about the places I go and hopefully showing you how worthwhile a travel destination Sierra Leone is.

Stay tuned for my next post where I will tell you about Freetown and the beautiful coastal parts around the capital.

References

• http://www.smartraveller.gov.au/zw-cgi/view/Advice/Sierra_Leone
• http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/ColoredBlankMap-World-10E.svg

Gotham City

Gotham City

Gotham City, New Jersey; The home of Batman, the masked vigilante protecting the city from nameless lackeys to villainous scum alike. But, apart from the crime, corruption and eerie cityscape Gotham has to offer, it still has some fairly unique aspects that really puts it ahead of most places in the United States.
Sure, Gotham’s seen its fair share of near-apocalypse by the hands of heartless villains such as Ra's al Ghul and Bane, but that simply makes visiting Gotham City even more exciting and memorable!

Everyday Life, euphemistically presented.

The daylight operations of Gotham City are much like other metropolitan areas, as most businesses work within Gotham’s economic centre of manufacturing, arts, jewellery and other industries. Companies such as Wayne Enterprises are renowned for their economic impact on Gotham’s corporate sector, through the development and research of advanced technologies.
Not surprisingly, there are criminal organizations established illegally to abuse these businesses, such as gangs and crime families. Some of these gangs are united, such as Black Mask and Great White, possessing greater power and authority than smaller criminal organizations.

Tourist Hot-spots

Gotham City is full of interesting places to explore, such as Ace Chemical Processing Inc. and the Gotham Docks. But, I’ll leave that to you to find out for yourselves. I’ll give you tastes of two of the most well-known places in Gotham.

One of the go-to places in Gotham City is the famous Wayne Manor at 1007, Mountain Drive.  This rustic building has been passed down from generation to generation in the Wayne family line, now currently housing Bruce Wayne and his trusted butler, Alfred Pennyworth. Rumour has it; the legendary Batcave is hidden well beneath the manor, though no actual solid evidence has been able to prove such theories.
Though walling a well-worn façade, Wayne Manor had been burned down by Ra's al Ghul in 2005, but was rebuilt the way it was by 2013.

On the complete polar opposite, Arkham Asylum is an extremely questionable yet oddly comforting place to visit, filled with all sorts of crazed criminals and psychopaths with varying sanity levels, giving you a very wide spectrum on life through their eyes.
Located on the outskirts of Gotham City, Arkham served as a former hospital for mentally-ill patients, now it acts as an asylum for the criminally insane, which included its original founder, Amadeus Arkham. Even with its twisted back story, the staff members at the asylum also offer interesting insight into life at Arkham, such as Harleen “Harley Quinn” Quinzel and Aaron Cash. 

Other Notable Aspects

The GCPD (Gotham City Police Department) is a core factor in maintaining the safety in Gotham City, especially during its night life. Commissioner Jim Gordon, one of the department’s few incorruptible officers, is well-known for his assistance with Batman in the arrest and overthrow of Joker and Bane.

In terms of Gotham’s architecture, the city maintains a combination of Art Deco, Neo-Gothic and Post-Modernist façade styles from reconstructions over the course of time. Some notable pieces of Gotham’s culture are seen in its tall buildings and gargoyle statues littered around the skyline.

Sometimes, you might even see the Bat Signal in action! *flails arms*

 

Conclusion

If you’re looking for some action in your next holiday, think about Gotham City as a choice. Maybe you might bump into the Batman while you’re there.
Though Gotham may not offer any fantastic hotels or signature food items, it is well-established for its historical cityscape over the years, as well as its notorious denizens that roam the city (and its underground networks).

References

Wanted to find out more about Gotham City before you get a face-full of Joker Venom (which is highly unlikely since the Joker's downfall in 2008)? Check out these nifty websites with more content on the people and back story of Gotham to keep you in the know.

• Gotham City (n.d.). Retrieved April 15, 2014, from http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/Gotham_City.
• Gotham City (Location) (2013). Retrieved April 15, 2014, from http://www.comicvine.com/gotham-city/4020-23611/.
• Gotham City Map (2013). Retrieved April 15, 2014, from http://batmangothamcity.net/gotham-city-map-archive/.
• Gotham City (2014). Retrieved April 15, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotham_City.
• Gotham City (Nolan Films) (n.d.). Retrieved April 15, 2014, from http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/Gotham_City_(Nolan_Films).