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Hogmany fireworks viewed from Blackford Hill, Edinburgh

apart from having been missing in blogging action… it appears that we have begun another year. how terribly surreal is this turn of time into a new cycle of day and night! a part of me did not really want to cross over to 2011, because while 2010 had a somewhat shaky start and some mind-boggling challenges, it turned out alright, and i am not sure if it could get any better.

in fact, i didn’t want the good times to end. because for a long long time, or as far as my (probably distorted) memory could recall, i actually got to enjoy a lot of laughs, mostly at myself but also with others. i also got to meet up with many old friends, and visit many places i had never thought i would manage to squeeze into the year nor within my modest income. but it worked out, thanks (in part) to the generous obligatory paid European vacation. and for a long time coming, i actually felt i could be efficiently productive, am given real responsibilities and work ownership, and felt genuinely appreciated for the efforts i made. and if i may say so, i am able to enjoy research and proper collaboration, again. what a difference a supportive environment can do for your self-esteem! i am most grateful.

i wish to hoard the good times. and if it is possible, grow and keep them blossoming.

— some happy memories of 2010 —

• heading back to SG for Lunar New Year with flights sponsored by painstakingly accumulated Lufthansa’s Miles and flying Singapore Airline’s mega jumbo-jet.
• driving north-east through some spectacular Scottish landscapes with Lucy in Zippy#2 to the Isle of Skye.
• showing my brother Wee and Lolli some of my favourite spots in Edinburgh and a wee bitty of the country even though their stay was super brief and they were completely not kitted out for any real adventures, culinary or outdoor-sy.
• made it to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in north MN with goofy goof companion, Alex, who did all the portaging between lakes! we cooked up a storm at the B&B but also enjoyed an amazing Swedish pancake breakfast prepared by the hosts.
• making it to Antje and Matt’s German wedding (after missing their hippie-Seattle celebration last year) and getting a personal-tour of Hamburg city from dear friend Frauke.
• flying more than halfway across the globe to be at Stella and her Pete’s wedding in Maui. travelling solo on the island, witnessing a spectacular sunrise, saw many breathtaking sights and waterfalls, enjoyed some incredible local cuisine, and discovered Hawaiian coffee — it is amazing!
• got to hillwalk again, properly! saw some very beautiful bits of Scotland: Loch Lomond & the Trossachs area, bits of the Arroachar Alps, bits of the Isle of Mull.
• Stelladoro came to visit me and we had a wonderful time catching up and a lot of fun on our walk through muddy bogs in Rannoch Moor with the hillwalking club which ended with a spectacularly manic  hitch-hike on a deer-stalking jeep-mobile to make the last train back to Glasgow that evening.
• made it to the west coast of USA, finally! i didn’t get to see everything i wanted but it was a good start, and i got to catch up with Ulli-baboooleee and meet her Antoine. we even saw some wine country and caught up with some old classmates from Tübingen and Wales!!!!! perhaps i’ll make it back someday… for i’d like to get lost in Muirwoods and camp at Point Reyes, be mesmerized by some giant glowing jelly fish at Monterey Bay Aquarium… and indeed, i’d like to enjoy another bottle of GundlachBunschu’s excellent 2007 Vintage Cabernet Franc.
• got to enjoy some traditional German cuisine again at Petra’s X’mas dinner and learnt how to make divine vanilla sauce — one of the heavenly treats on earth!
• made it to the Cairngorms and met some very gentle and adorable Reindeer!

2010 was a good year despite some trying times, e.g. the challenges of being-together-apart in long distance relationships, but there was a lot of happiness and delight to be found in everyday’s little simplicities and the many amazing adventures.

i hope 2011 will be a positively enriching and rewarding one, too, for everyone.

(i endeavour to put up some pics related to these happy memories in the next few days…)

strange encounter with an old lady who decided to contribute US 20 dollars to what she deemed as beautiful: the sight of a loving couple eating al fresco at a fast-food chain.

i was off to the suburbs again! this time, it was for K’s graduation party, and a wonderful excuse to catch up with her sister, C, parents, D & T, and sweet Bailey boy, the Irish terrier! high-school graduation parties, as i am told and am beginning to appreciate, are apparently a Minnesotan affair. i don’t remember having one of these growing up… and suspect that anything vaguely similar would have to be a get-together outing that people do with friends during the vacation. no, i didn’t ever have a high-school graduation party… the farewell dinner in Wales was something quite surreal… people were leaving in the night, bound for far-away places… many of whom i may never see again… i wonder if i might make it to my own 10-yr reunion! i sure hope so. in any case, the concept of graduation parties is a pretty interesting one… families have their own for their graduating child, and parents of students at the school collaborate to host one for the graduating class; the philosophy (at least part of it) behind it all is to (help) make sure that kids do not get into chemical-related trouble… i suspect the other bit of the apparent enthusiasm might be a Mid-western thing; it’s a close-knit community and parents are very much involved in pretty much everything…
i often take so much of such parental-worries for granted. the childhood that me, my brothers, and my friends experienced, is probably one of the most sheltered you could probably have… then again, times have greatly changed. but i knew of the dangers and the ‘stigmatisation’ too of getting into that sort of things… yet, i am often awed by the enormous courage and trust that my parents have to let us flee their nests for the crazy western civilisation, aware of the potential ‘harm’ that we may encounter! then again, i know pretty well how rebellious i am particulary when it comes to asserting my own freedom!
ahh freedom… with it comes responsibilities; something i learnt, the hard way. the ‘access’ to freedom is part of growth… and celebration of life transitions is certainly a wonderful way to embrace these changes positively. there’s nothing better to do so with family and friends; people who’ve watched you grow, and people who have been part of it too! i feel honoured to be part of the company at K’s party… even though i don’t particularly feel quite influential in any way… but it made me feel special to be able to share the family’s friendship.
as the party trickled into the night, a bonfire was made in the garden pit… K, her friend H, D,T, C and i sat around the warm fire and shared experiences… i got to roast a marshmallow with C’s help and let it sit on top of my brownie cake before enjoying it! B was briefly about trying to pick up a few scrapes of delicious left-overs. the moist after-rain night felt refreshing and earthy. there’s something magical about a bonfire. it draws people in. its warmth is comforting… and the smell of burning firewood rekindles so many fond memories…

the late arrival of the abundance of snow this winter reminds me of the snowy wonderland experiences i had in germany… cycling on the fresh powder snow and sleighing down the Österberg hill, skiing and snowman-making. memories… precious indeed…
it has been quite a long time since i’ve been back to germany… so when an invited talk at a research lab in the former german east came up some time early this year, i took the opportunity to go, and to visit Berlin, a city i have heard so much about, but have never visited while i was studying in Tübingen.
i had quite an adventure getting to the east of germany… cancelled flights, re-routing, and lost baggage… the extreme temperatures in the usa made it impossible for the ground-staff at the airport to de-ice the planes… there was also a mishap that occured a few gates from where my flight was scheduled to depart… kind of freaky with a nwa-plane ending up on top of a baggage-loading truck. lots of commotion… i couldn’t even begin to imagine if the driver was dead or badly injured… i really hope not. it was terribly awful…
when i arrived in Leipzig, i spent the first hours of my arrival in distress; my baggage didn’t make it onto my connecting flights… wondering what i ought to do with myself for the next day when i was due to give my talk… instead of resting, i roamed the old town of Leipzig and blabbered in my somewhat rusty german to find something decent to wear the next day…
the germany i knew, unlike asia, or the uk, or the usa for that matter, has quite a tradition in his (yes, because germans call their country, fatherland) working hours… at least that was what i knew when i lived in swabia… to my surprise, though, Leipzig proved to be quite an anomaly… shops at the newly built Hauptbahnhof (train station), were in business opened till 10pm… upkeeping the city’s known status as the oldest trading centre of germany in the era prior to WWII. i did find something at the Esprit sale rack and a pair of trousers… lingerie… toiletries… and something to eat.
one thing i really appreciate when i am in a different country, city or place, is the convenience of street stalls in asia, the little grocery stores and take-aways of britain, new york… yet, i do appreciate the weekday-work-and-weekend-rest ethos of central europe too… it’s something that is quite sacred and guarded, and very rightly so.
in any case, i had a rather mixed experience in Leipzig… which may be reflected by the state of the city and its apparent appearance to an outsider, foreigner, like myself. i feel the great dichotomy of extreme warmth of the local people, particularly in helping me find what i needed, and showing me around, and yet, at the same time, a level of poshness by a few elites, the cold retail dominance post the fall of the Berlin-wall, and an erie sadness in the mixture of old Gründerzeit buildings, communist era (GDR) architecture, and modern signature glass structures. most of the orignal inhabitants are no longer living in Leipzig; fled to the west, in hope of a better future, while those from the west have slowly moved in, because of the relatively cheaper cost of living and progressively booming trade scene.
the old town of Leipzig is rather charming… famous churches (Nikolai — where the reformation began; Thomas — where J.S. Bach was the city’s music cantor), old quaint little Kaffe-hause… market place, town-hall areas… if not for the bold and gaudy modern retail departmental stores, entertainment centre, offices etc. sprouting in place of the old buildings that do not seem to withstand the neglect of the communist episode. it is a fascinating on-going place of change and reshaping… not just the physical image of the city, but also its peoples identity…

Bach is honoured outside the Thomas Kirche, by Felix Mendelssohn, also a celebrity of the music city
i was perhaps more affected by the reception i had at the research lab… partly my own fault for assumming all reserach labs of the particular kind in germany, would be the same, and partly for having gotten used to the hospitality and causalness i’ve enjoyed in the many places i’ve been fortunate to visit and to work… it was a bit of a disappointment, too, in that the older generation researchers i spoke to had pretty set ideas of the way things should be done… or how one’s path of research should be paved… i do admire people who have built a strong history of a particular background, but i also feel that a degree of open-mindedness to other related fields is just as important… particularly in neuroscience.
perhaps one crucial thing i did begin to realise was that no matter how much german language, cultural understanding, etc. i have gained in my past experiences, it was not going to be enough for me to be fully integrated in the society… no matter how much i love the fact that germans and the continental europeans are so much more culturally, philosophically, politically, and environmentally aware and involved in public discussion. it is a sad realisation that there are at times limits to complete assimilation… that there are perhaps practical reasons why people tend to choose places that share the same language and heritage in their decisions to emigrate… and perhaps age has taught me to be less adventurous than i had previously been.
nonetheless, i was grateful for the opportunity to share my work with those who seemed interested enough to ask provocative questions, and help me reflect on my work and ways to improve it… it was also good to have visited and to have explored the work ethos, atmosphere of the lab, and to decide if it would be for me, just as much as it was for them to consider if i might be suitable for the post. in the end, i am glad it was mutual, although a little un-nerving; one always end up feeling inadequate in some ways. (BTW: thanks for the well-wishes that was left on my earlier post!)
in any case, i have some great memories to keep; giving a talk in the Wilhelm Wundt lecture room is quite an honour, not just because he’s considered the father of psychology, and neuroscience, but also because it happened to be located in the city he lived and taught; i got to visit Bach’s place of work and creativity; and most fun of all, to visit Berlin with dear friend f, who met up with me in the east.
here are some of the places we visited during the day-trip to Berlin:

remnants of the wall, which used to run through Postdamer Platz, now the site location of Sony Center, Berlin. the colorful facade belonged to the west… behind in the skyline, are modern skyscrapers of PWC and DaimerCrysler bringing forward the financial and economic opportunities much needed for Berlin’s re-emergence.

relics of the former east: traffic lights with walking green-man and stationary red-guy… an icon and symbol that marks what used to be parts of eastern germany. uniquely in Berlin, both western and eastern traffic lights co-exist. notice too, the old-fashioned german “ß” on the street sign, which also has a french accent!

Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas — Holocaust Memorial by architect Peter Eisenman.

while the sculpture has a sombre feel to it, i couldn’t resist a peek from one of the towering stelaes. the labyrinth of undulating columns of differing heights have an erie feeling of isolation and incomprehensible desolation…

Brandenburg Gate… the symbol of Berlin and Germany… now surrounded by foreign embassies, most notably, the allied countries of the west, and Starbucks Coffee!

the German Parliarment: Reichstag; Dem Deutsche Volke — “for the German Folk”. it is usually uncommon for germans to display nationalistic tendencies; a post WWII-trait (something which i find endearing) … this is probably the only place where you will see german flags been hoisted with pride… notice the long queue of humans snaking along the steps towards the entrance… we had to brave the freezing weather for about an hour to enter the building… but it was well worth it for the bird’s eye view from the Dome (below), designed by British architect Sir Norman Forster, was simply wonderful.

the energy-saving mirror column within the Reichstag Glass Dome. the spirally walk-way brings visitors to the very top of the dome, rendering a spectacular view of the city… and a peek onto the ongoings of the debates within the parliarment… an epitome of an “open” parliarment.

police on horseback riding past the Swiss Embassy on the left and to the right, Chancellor Merkel‘s office, the Bundeskanzleramt.

the icon of former eastern propaganda — the tv-tower… pretty cool space-like structure, if you ask me.

anyone who visits Berlin by train will be greeted by its impressive glass train-station… although it is enduring an engineering mishap, thanks to the last-minute changes to its design in order to shorten part of its roof structure so that it would be open in time for the 2006 world-cup. quite an un-german thing to do…
one important historical fact i learnt while in the former split-city, is that Berlin was in the former east of Germany. such that west Berlin used to be an island in the east… i, ignorant me, had no idea of this rather ridiculous situation in which the western allies subjected themselves for nearly 50 years; the awkwardness and apparent chasm marked by the wall, must have been quite an experience. as the rebuilding continues to smooth the past historical differences and merge the two cities… one could not but notice the richness and charm that has continued to exist in tandem… i will have to visit Berlin again… some day. for there were so many other places of interests which i didn’t manage to visit… particularly the museums and the option to listen to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra perform… hmm.