Sunny Day in Bangkok: Thammasat University

Last semester I took a subject called TU140 : Thai Studies. I got a traveling assignment in the topic of "old Bangkok". Students have to take pictures of any old corners of Bangkok and write about it. So I decided to choose "Sala Chalermkrung Royal Theater" and planned a one day trip with my friends. Here's the route...

Thammasat Uni. > Silpakorn Uni. > Suankularb School > Sala Chalermkrung

Starting with Thammasat University original campus (Ta Prachan campus). The university is located along beautiful Chao Praya river. This is a well-known university among Thai people which has often been involved in Thai national politics. Its campus was the site of the 14 October 1973 uprising and the 6 October 1976 Massacre.

> Read more about Thammasat

The famous Dome building

We walked out the south gate entering Ta Prachan area. In Thai it means "Moon pier" paired with Ta Pra-athit or "Sun pier" which is the area in the north of university. Ta Prachan area is covered with giant umbrellas of small bazaar. Along the road are full of food stalls, clothes, and amulets. We saw many amulets collectors stopped by considering on buddha images, witchcrafts, talisman etc. If you're not expert in those things, it's easy to get confused between the real and the fake ones.

Amulets stalls along the road

Sunny Day in Bangkok: Silpakorn University >>>

Travel the Trans-Siberian Railway at Home with Google Maps

credit: worldfocus.com


Haven’t you always wanted to travel the Trans-Siberian railroad?


Now you can take one of the great train journeys of the world without leaving the comfort of your own home.


A new joint venture between Google and Russian Railways provides a virtual gateway to the world’s longest continuous railway.


Look out the window and take in the scenery as you travel more than 5,600 miles from Moscow to Vladivostok. Here’s the portal in English and in Russian.


There are more than 150 hours of footage shot from a moving train, as it winds across seven times zones.


You’ll travel over the Volga, the Yenisei and the Ob Rivers; around Lake Baikal, the deepest freshwater lake in the world; into and out of cities like Novosibirsk, Russia’s third largest; through the Barguzin mountains; and alongside wooden Siberian villages. The 30-minute-stretch from Petrovsk-Zabailkalsky city is particularly picturesque.

To accompany your voyage, you can choose to listen to the hypnotic, natural sound of wheels churning along the tracks. Or, you can select to have Russian radio or traditional balalaika music piping through the “train.”

Riders aren’t able to listen to literary classics like Tolstoi’s War and Peace and Gogol’s Dead Souls, but you can, provided you understand Russian.

If you’re feeling antsy and don’t think you’ll last cooped up on the train for the full six-to-seven days of the voyage, you can stop, jump off and explore fourteen cities en route (a luxury that a Moscow-to-Vladivostok ticket won’t allow).

Through Google Maps, you can view video, look at photographs, and read facts and descriptions of historic sites, museums and markets.

Take, for instance, the city of Ulan-Ude — the capital of Russia’s Buryat Republic and major center of Tibetan Buddhism — about three-quarters of the way to the journey’s end.

On a short side trip, you can take a video excursion down Gagarin Street, view photos of the city’s panorama, and read about the Ivolginsky Datsan, where the body of Khambo Lama Itigelov, leader of Russian Buddhists from 1911-1918, is preserved.

View the full Ulan Ude map on Google

While you may not be able to feel the wind on your face, talk to your fellow passengers, or taste the fresh berries and homemade pirozhki sold along route, this virtual train ride will give you a sense of the vastness of the landscape of the world’s largest country.

My weekend plans? I’m finally jumping aboard the Trans-Siberian.

- Christine Kiernan

Mannheim

Mannheim is the second-largest city in the state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart. It is located in the northwest of the state at the confluence of the river Rhine and Neckar. There are two big cities situated near Mannheim. First is Ludwigshafen, which is just on the opposite side of the river Rhine, and Heidelberg, which is in the southeast on Neckar river. Since Heidelberg is a university city, many students live in Mannheim and travel to Heidelberg by trains everyday.

Wasserturm (water tower), the landmark of Mannheim

This city is very famous as a city where Karl Benz invented the world first gasoline-powered car. His first car appeared on the streets of Mannheim in 1886. The name "Benz" is the origin of Mercedes-Benz nowaday.

Karl's first automobil "Benz Patent Motorwagen"