Top all-time · #17790
Drifting Clouds 片雲の風
Personal blog · driftingclouds.netculture
Drifting Clouds 片雲の風 is a personal blog at driftingclouds.net about culture. Since 2016, 4 different Hacker News readers have linked it 13 times, most often “From Siberia to Tibet: Life on a Train”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-02-12, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Linked as a travel account of overland rail journeys, including Siberia to Tibet and Kazakhstan, and as a first-hand report from Singapore on trying lab-grown meat, which one commenter says was a one-off restaurant offer.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Travels with Jani
Most-linked posts?
- From Siberia to Tibet: Life on a Train2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-07-14
What Hacker News says?
I've worked a fair amount in Saudi Arabia, and yeah, even by (low) Gulf standards it's a deeply fucked-up place and definitely a ticking time bomb. A few things people don't realize until they've actually been there: - Not all Saudis are rich. Quite the opposite, there are destitute beggars on the streets of Riyadh. The women were the saddest side, kneeling by the roadside begging for alms in their all-enveloping pi…
Comment linking /tag/saudi-arabia/
on “Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse”Submitted From Siberia to Tibet: Life on a Train as a story · 15 points
HN discussionMore train travel: https://driftingclouds.net/2018/07/04/from-siberia-to-tibet-...
Comment linking /2018/07/04/from-siberia-to-tibet-life-on-a-train/
on “Across Kazakhstan by rail”Submitted I paid $22 to eat the lab-grown chicken nugget of an unlikely future as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI recently had the chance to visit Jakarta after over 10 years away, and they're finally starting to get some things right. The recent emphasis on public transport is particularly promising: the first MRT (subway) line finally opened this year, there's a lot more on the way, they've beefed up the commuter railways, Jakarta airport T3 is head and shoulders above the old ones, etc. Some bloggage on the topic: https://…
Comment linking /2019/04/01/jakarta-by-rail-airport-rail-link-and-skytrain/
on “Indonesia Plans to Move Its Capital Out of Jakarta, a City That's Sinking”Submitted I paid $22 to eat the lab-grown chicken nugget of an unlikely future as a story · 2 points
HN discussionHere's a story of travelling a similar route, but finishing off by taking the highest train ride in the world to Tibet instead: https://driftingclouds.net/2018/07/01/from-siberia-to-tibet-...
Comment linking /2018/07/01/from-siberia-to-tibet-preamble-paperwork/
on “The longest train ride in the world (2019)”Submitted Manufacturing Bula: Mass Tourism in Fiji as a story · 1 points
HN discussionFascinating story -- and the author really lucked out in that the technicians were there at the same time, because just showing up in places like this without making arrangements is not a good idea. For comparison, some thoughts about the opposite end of the spectrum for Pacific travel: https://driftingclouds.net/2019/03/12/manufacturing-bula-mas...
Comment linking /2019/03/12/manufacturing-bula-mass-tourism-in-fiji/
on “A Journey to the Disappointment Islands”I was recently in Mongolia, and one of the more memorable sights (in a country packed to the brim with them) awaited me next to the station building in the godforsaken town of Choir, a heat-blasted former Soviet military base in the middle of the Gobi Desert. The scenery all around was rocky desert, battered commieblock apartments and barbed wire... and a solitary silver Socialist Realist statue of Jügderdemidiin Gü…
Comment linking /2018/07/07/from-siberia-to-tibet-ulaanbaatar-gorkhi-terelj-and-the-gobi-desert/
on “Sigmund Jähn, the first German to travel into space”That works if your target audience is English speakers. However, the main consumer of pinyin is Chinese in China, where it's ubiquitous for glossing the readings of Chinese characters, either because some people can't read them, because some characters are obscure, or just for stylistic reasons. Some thoughts on the topic: https://driftingclouds.net/2018/07/17/from-siberia-to-tibet-...
Comment linking /2018/07/17/from-siberia-to-tibet-china-as-a-tourist/
on “Chinese, Taiwanese Restaurants Drop 'Golden' and 'Dragon'-Take on Mandarin Names”Lab grown meat has never been sold in Singapore supermarkets. There was one (1) restaurant that offered like 10 portions a week as a publicity stunt, and they recently went belly up because funding ran out and the business just doesn't scale. https://driftingclouds.net/2023/06/15/i-paid-22-to-eat-the-l... https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/cultivated-meat-produ...
Comment linking /2023/06/15/i-paid-22-to-eat-the-lab-grown-chicken-nugget-of-an-unlikely-future/
on “Australian lab-grown meat cultured from quail cells hits the market in Singapore”
