Ethnobotanist James Wong

Yesterday I watched James Wong's telly show about growing your own drugs. He is an ethnobotanist and tells us how we could use nature and our gardens to make remedies and infusions. Here is a teaser....

Check out Mr. Wong more by reading interviews made by the Telegraph and here by Horticultureweek.

(Related to this subject, check out the Society of Ethnobiology, the International Society of Ethnobiology and the Institute for EthnoMedicine.)  

Urban Farming

Check out this little short movie about an urban farmer in the US.
I find it very well-made and interesting...



Here you can find out more about the book, the (old blog, new) blog and author.



Spectacular and curious hotels

Following the previous post about a different stay-away place, I found some other cool hotels that I would like to share with you.

Similair to the tree hotel in Sweden, there is a tree hotel (check availability here) in Peru close to Machu Picchu. It is called the Inkaterra Mucho Picchu Pueblo Hotel and one of their rooms the Canopy Tree House. Beautiful!

Outside Dubai you could live in the resort of Hydropolis. Its a hotel with rooms under water. Watch a nicely done trailer on youtube here.

But even in Sweden we have rooms under the water. If not cristal blue water, you could still glimpse some fishes reach a small, traditional-looking house floating in the middle of lake Mälaren. May I present Hotel Utter Inn.

Something much more icy, is the famous Icehotel in Jukkasjärvi. It is completely built in ice and therefore has to be newly built every season. Here are some photos that the hotel has choosen from the season 2009/2010.

The last hotel I would like to show you, also suitated in Sweden, is perhaps not so spectacular and curious looking as the previous presented. But it does stick out. Clean design, made from an old industrial mining on the island of Gotland. I am of course talking of Hotel Furillen (Swedish article).

(follow the links and click

on photos to get to the source)

A room in the trees please.....

A family member of mine use to say that you cannot hinder the birds to fly around your head, but you can stop them from building a nest there. Its really a metaphor about letting go of what other thinks and says of you. Perhaps if you build your own nest you may be able to have a better understanding of the situation, since you might have changed your perspective and are above the feelings on a safe spot.

This morning I was as usually checking through the news and found a very interesting article about a tree hotel in northern Sweden. Prices for a night is prolly more thought of for the ones travelling on a big budget (2000-4000sek/night) or those who wants to celebrate something. Perhaps an unusual honey moon, like lovers in a nest...

The birds did not create this. But they inspired us to think of the possibility of another place to live...or perhaps just to get away from the busy city life and live closer to nature. In 2008 a movie called "Trädälskaren" (The tree lover) was released. It is about building a little place to live high up in a pine. To live up there connects us to ancient time and dreams, where the tree is the symbol of life force, growth and grounding.

The tree lover was the inspiration for the Tree Hotel (following links and click on image to transfer to the homepage and origin of photo). I really like the beautiful a room with a view, the ufo....

....and this one is my favourite in style...the mirrorcube.

There is a great reportage done by BBC where you could get a better feeling of the rooms and stay within them. Watch it here.