Isn’t summer break fun?!

You can go around and around time limitless, you can read whatever unrelated to subject books you want to read without any guilt, and you can blog as often as you may

Boston attraction is such a precious bonus to me. Bonus? Yes. Because it wasn’t the main reason why I choose Boston as a place to further my study. I just  knew it has many good universities, good libraries and resources for my study, and it is filled with international student from all over the world. I didn’t expect that it will also be darn beautiful and historical, it is the birth place of America’s independence. In many ways, somehow, it reminds me of Yogyakarta

One of the most famous tourist attraction in Boston is the Mapparium, a three-story, stained-glass globe built in 1935, designed by Boston architect Chester Lindsay Churchill, where by standing at the bridge inside it you can have an inside view of the world. The Mapparium is sheltered inside the ‘Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity’.

 A writing on the wall right after you reach the second floor before entering the Quest Gallery.

The Quest Gallery, Multimedia exploration of spirituality and the the life of Mary Baker Eddy, a great women from the 19th century.

There are 608 concave glass panels, which are illuminated by 300 lights placed outside. Electric clocks ring the equator, showing comparative times around the world. Visitors enter on the elevated bridge through the Indian Ocean and exit through the South Pacific. Due to the unique reflective qualities of the curved glass panels, people whispering privately near Australia can be heard distinctly in Greenland.

The globe’s geography at the Mapparium was NOT been updated. It still represents the pre-World War II, colonial countries of 1935. There are many countries on the Mapparium that no longer exist today; for example, inside you’ll see countries such as French Indo-China and Tanganyika. Some other changes are many countries have gained their independence nowadays. A large number of countries in Southeast Asia and Africa were still under European control in this map. Today, Israel and Palestine are working on their boundary dispute but in 1935 the entire region was called Palestine. And there are many more changes. The world is indeed evolving.

I am not supposed to take picture inside. You can see it in here.

BUT, I do manage to sneak and shot this picture by covering my camera with the booklet while the guide was giving explanation it is hard to get a full view or even just a half view of the globe by doing so.

click to enlarge

As you can see, Indonesia is still written as Netherland Indies.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 at 6:56 am and is filed under JouneyJournal, knowledge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.