If you are concerned about getting an infectious disease while on your travels, there’s is an easy tool called HealthMap to track current disease news around the world. You could find the travel health report from your government, but on this website you can see all the reports that have been released on a pretty map!
The global map
HealthMap main page
This is the main page of the website where you can see pins for all of the current reports for disease cases this week. This includes many different categories of diseases, which you will find in the box on the right of the map.
Disease categories
Disease categories include vector borne diseases, respiratory alerts, animal alerts, neuro alerts, and others.
You can click on a disease category to see the locations of reports, or you can click on each disease name to find data for that specific disease. You can also click on the time series button in the menu in the upper right to see the chart of cases over time. Continue Reading
Although American universities are some of the best in the world, there are plenty of good ones around the world too. I’ve had the benefit of doing my PhD jointly at 2 top universities on 2 different continents: National University of Singapore (NUS, ranked 24th) in Asia, and Imperial College London (ranked 8th) in Europe. I’ll go over some of the benefits of doing a PhD abroad in Europe or Asia based on my experiences.
I spent most of my first 2 years in Singapore, and the last 2 in London. It’s a long enough time in each place to get past the honeymoon period. You’ll be forced to adjust and learn about the culture in each place. It’s not a vacation, and it’s definitely not a semester abroad kind of experience. You become an “expat” of sorts, and have to figure out a lot on your own. Continue Reading
No question, travel is awesome. Even though I’ve been a poor grad student with lots of deadlines, I’ve managed to travel during PhD things and wouldn’t want it any other way!
These are the last few months of my PhD before I have to hand in, and travel is helping me get there. How? Let me explain.
Any excuse to travel
While I’ve been lucky to have a major move between Singapore and London built into my PhD program, I’ve also taken opportunities to go to regional conferences while based in both places. When I didn’t have a PhD related reason to travel, I would try to go home to New York. Having a young nephew and niece, this was important for me so I wouldn’t feel like I was missing everything. Continue Reading
That’s it, I’m done with London! Although my student visa for the UK goes until May 2017, I’m leaving London in 2 months. Not that there is anything wrong with London. It’s just not working out for me at the moment given life and circumstances.
How I got here
I’m in a joint PhD program that allowed me to spend half the time in Singapore and half in London. I lived in Singapore for most of 2013 and 2014. In January 2015, I moved to London with the intention of staying through until I finished my PhD. I kept my mind open to the idea of staying in London, but wasn’t sure either way. Now a few short months from finishing, I had to decide how I would deal with my living and financial situation. Continue Reading
It’s been about 2 years since I’ve worn flip flops, and much longer since I bought a pair. I find they usually don’t fit my feet that well, and they aren’t so good for my feet in general. Until now, I had’t found something to replace them. This is my Iguaneye shoes review for an alternative to flip flops or sandals.
Updated on 31 December 2016, 12 February 2017, and 22 March 2017 from my 3 month trip! See below.
Enjoying the ocean view on Kangaroo Island in Australia
I have a habit of checking Kickstarter every few months or so and backing some projects that I find useful or really like. In the past, I’ve backed some travel related gear, ultimate events, and a few food or water related equipment. Here are my favorite Kickstarter projects this time round.
Why I back projects
Different perspective
Instead of thinking of this as buying a product, Kickstarter promotes the perspective of “backing” a project. This means you are an investor, no matter what amount of money you put in. By backing a project, you are giving the creators a vote of confidence that their idea is a good one and worth the effort.
Insider info
I like getting updates on the progress of a project during the campaign phase and after it’s been successfully funded. You get a sense for what effort really goes into the process. Plus, you get to see each stage of the process, not just the end product. Continue Reading
Cafes! I love me a nice cafe. Although Asian countries aren’t known to be full of coffee drinkers, but Singapore has more hip cafes every time I go back. Singapore cafes I like have to have a really nice vibe to it. This one does, and I would return!
It was a hot, hot day. I thought I could collapse on the walk to Jimmy Monkey, and it was only about 450 meters from where I started out for lunch just before.
It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but on the inside there were good vibes all around. They had a nice big communal table in the center of the room, with plenty of books and magazines around to browse through. The ceiling was high, with exposed fixtures. One large corner had a few windows and a few couches for lounging. Most of the other tables were small round or rectangular tables for a few people at a time. We took seats at the end of the big table, smack in the middle of the room. Continue Reading
I went to the Singapore Garden Festival while I was there for about 2 weeks recently. I hadn’t been to a Singapore festival until then! When my friend had discounted tickets, I had to grab the chance. It mostly consisted of a maze of indoor and outdoor floral displays throughout the Gardens by the Bay, which usually has many beautiful flowers anyway.
Copenhagen is a popular touristy harbour city, with quite a price tag on it despite some cheap flights from other parts of Europe. After my short trip to Warsaw, I couldn’t wait to plan my next 3 day trip and I picked this Nordic city to spend another few days struggling with my thesis. This is a Copenhagen short trip!
On this trip in May, I went on 2 walking tours and spent the rest of my time working in the hostel or in cafes. These walking tours were run by Copenhagen free walking tours, which works on a donation basis. Continue Reading
This month marks the start of the half year of my PhD that I have left before my submission deadline. Since it’s pretty much a hard deadline, I have to take this time seriously. This is where I scream and pull my hair out.
Actually, no! I’m not going to do that.
Instead I’m going to tell you about what I’ve been thinking about lately about the whole PhD thing and how I’m going to tackle the last bit of it! I don’t know if all will go according to plan, but it never does anyway! The important thing here is that I’ve kinda figured out how to deal with it and I haven’t been freaking out about it. Continue Reading
Hey, I'm Chewy! I'm a science journalist currently living in New York. I'm an introvert who likes to see new things and learn. Here I write about my travels and musings about food, places and cultures. Check out my photos, reviews, and random thoughts!
