Sam’s Photo Blog

Time flies when you are having fun. I spent some time wandering around Boston in the wee hours and it had a very different feel compared, the street performers and crowd has disappeared, leaving the historic buildings behind.

Quincy Market, I got in trouble for ‘wandering’ in while they were cleaning…I didn’t know any better :P

The Rosebud Diner near Davis Square, Somerville. You can only get away with the intense pink neon lights with such a classic setup.

Running into a war veteran and chatting with him. Inside, the war has never really ended for him and substance abuse is one way for him to get away.

I didn’t expect to do much at the Aquarium initially but turned out there was a little of different stuff going on. It was really neat working alongside the biologist and trainers that oversee the well-being of the animals.


I spent a morning with the group that maintains the large area for the penguin exhibit. Here they are feeding them fish and logging them so they don’t get overweight.

Rockhopper Penguin

African penguin moulting (changing fur)

Me in a wetsuit for the morning. The penguins knew I was new so were poking at me curiously.

There are always lots happening the Giant Ocean Tank…

This cownose ray is fast swimming bugger!

In the Animal Medical Center they were doing a check-up on recovering stranded sea turtles.


Whale watching, this time we spotted 2 humpback whales logging near the surface. The size of these animals are just baffling!


Tomorrow I will be starting a 2-week roadtrip with Anthony, John, and Ludwik. Just putting us in a van would be an experience by itself, with insults flying everywhere. We have started a blog, Engineering East Coast Expedition, for updates along the way, see you there!

Reading week for the poor Engineering students! However, my school just loves to put midterms right after the break to keep us on our toes. Well I had to get my ‘fix’ of snowboarding for the season. We went to Blue Mountain, a great view over the Georgian Bay area.

Weather wise it was -1DegC (a little warm), shallow layer of powder but icy at some slopes.


Pouyan’s ski mask reminded me of the Arctic Avengers from CS!

I love ski-lifts, they are so relaxing and you can see so much from up top.

A collision between Pouyan and Justin! Skiers have the most spectacular wipe outs with their gear scattered all over the hill.

We did almost 12hrs of ski/snowboarding and totaled about 40-50 runs. We were really tired on the way back…

The past week in Boston went by way too fast, but I did get to catch-up with friends and co-workers. On Sunday night, Pat, Ryan and I went to the St.Anthony’s Feast in the North End.

Feast is definitely a good word to describe the North End. There were lots of food, drinks, games, and concerts but I still don’t know who St.Anthony is except people like to pin dollar bills to his figure.

Summer in Boston have so much happening and the overall mood is very relaxing.

I worked in the New England Aquarium for 3 days and it was a lot of fun. Even after spending hours near the giant ocean tank taking photos of the different animals I didn’t get tired of the seeing the expressions on the children’s faces when a shark or sting rays swims by.

I had the opportunity to go behind the scenes and watch them feed baby penguins, perform a endoscope check on a French Angle Fish, and join the seal trainers during their training sessions.

Tim and I went on a whale watch and we were very fortunate the whales were breaching (jumping) out of the water! Hard to imagine the power needed to send these 30 tonne animals out of the water!

Work starts tomorrow for me, I am quite excited. Hope everyone have a good start at school and work for the coming term.

So on Monday I went on a whale watch, it was a beautiful day with a very calm sea (1-2ft swells).

I was amazed at the size of the whales, at one point we were moving parallel with a fin whale and it was bigger than our boat!

A lot of time they surface, everyone rushes over but the whale has already made a deep dive into the ocean already.
With the boat, my arms, whale all moving at the same time it was pretty tough to lock on a shot.
Everytime I go indoors I would feel slighly woozy so I stayed outside. By the end of the 4 hr trip I was a little pink and light-headed from all the wind.
I definitely recommend it to those planning on visiting Boston, the staff on the boat were very knowledgeable and throughout the trip provided facts and described different species of whales and their behaviors.

Afterward, I did a photoshoot at the Aquarium focusing on the different animals.

After that I dragged all my belongings to the bus station and hopped on the bus, they gave me some slack and allowed my 82lb luggage. The bus trip lasted 14hrs and by the end even though I didn’t do anything, I felt like I was beaten up. Now I am back home enjoying my mom’s cooking!