i find myself hungry for the written word, lapping up new experiences as yet unexperienced; experiences gleaned from the internet, from numerous travelogues, the nytimes, women writing in blogs about babies, interior designs, art and their social life, facebook photo albums, anything.


Air bubbles trapped inside frozen Lake Druzhby, a freshwater lake.

sometimes when i feel particularly unmotivated by my indoor surroundings and the company that i keep, i try to lose myself in the outside world, the real world. momentarily, Davis' new LQ turns into a minimum-security prison and i become an inmate, starving for news and stories from the out there. not just any  old news or story, however; my current passion lies in travel accounts.


Two LIDAR operators, a chef, an engineer and a marine biologist visited Watt's Hut and was rewarded for their efforst with an auroral display.

i can't get enough. i read and read and read any books i can find in the Davis library that is even remotely related to travel. thus far, i've found myself whisked away to the overland trails spanning Iran to the oriental far-east: Marrakesh, Delhi, Benares, Tehran, Lahore, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Luang Prabang, Hong Kong, Taramarang, Kathmandu, Vientiane, Hyderabad, Denpasar, Kabul, Siliguri (hehe, i giggle each time i read the word Siliguri)...the list is endless and still growing. i greedily absorb each writer's joy, anticipation, anxiety borne of travelling to new places, disappointment, harassment by locals, disillusionment, and the rediscovery within themselves of why they chose to place themselves in situations where they have no control over in the first place.


Ginormous blizz tails formed all around station after a huge blizzard, blocking entrances and stairways.

photo albums from close friends on facebook is a close second-favourite. a picture says a thousand words, and that saying doesn't get any truer than when i'm clicking through photo after photo of a holiday/travel album. paris, japan, mornington peninsula, redang, hong kong, the grand canyon. anywhere looks better than here, everywhere the grass is greener.


Crosses on Anchorage Island.

i guess you can say that i am living vicariously through them, that this new hunger in me has become my form of escapism from the world i live in right now. i want to see things, and feel things, and learn things, and know things, and touch and smell and revel in all that is alien, exotic and new.


A group of 7 Emperor penguins decided to drop in to station one Monday morning.

it is such a paradox, really. here i am, already seeing, feeling, learning, touching, smelling and knowing things at the end of the world, a place where people will readily fork out tens of thousands of dollars for a 10-day round-trip, and still, i am dissatisfied. actually, i am not dissatisfied, i am just...


An iceberg along Crooked Fjord and the Sorsdal Glacier a few of you might recognise/be familiar with.

i love being here and this is not me trying to convince myself or anyone otherwise. i really do love it here. i love the starkness, the whiteness and the way beauty exists here in harsh strokes and lines, all corners and jagged edges of icebergs and snow tails. i love hearing the call of the elusive Emperor penguin, and whenever they arrive, all 21 hands on station rush out to capture that moment on camera. i love it when a blizzard blows through, because it is then and only then that you feel the awesome power of this land, that the only one in control here is nature; not the people who wantonly erect buildings made of fibre-glass and pump fuel through a giant fuel-eating machine to ensure that electricity is provided all year-round. these people who think they are taming this land, they have no idea.


Traversing Crooked Fjord was like taking a ride across an icescape.

still, for all this wintery wonder that i am surrounded in, i just can't wait to get out of here and start my own new adventures. i know i am stricken with some sort of wanderlust that isn't going anywhere any time soon.