Travel

Delhi’s Azadpur Mandi Vegetable Market

Posted on January 10, 2012January 3, 2015 by Sam Kornstein in India Food Waste, Photography, Travel

Last week, my friend Paul and I explored Delhi’s Azadpur Mandi vegetable market. We were there gathering information for a food waste research project we’re working on, trying to understand where the food comes from, and what happens to it once it arrives. If you’re interested in learning more about our project, check out our recent blog posts on the MIT Public Service Center website. Azadpur is the largest wholesale vegetable market in all of Asia. It spans 80 acres in North Delhi, and receives over 700 truckloads of produce every day. We learned that the trucks come from all over India, with some trekking 72 hours from the south to drop off their shipments. It was chaotic. It was

Battling Food Waste in India

Posted on January 9, 2012January 3, 2015 by Sam Kornstein in India Food Waste, Research, Travel

Note: This blog post was originally published on the MIT Public Service Center website. It’s the first post in a blog series sharing findings from a research project I’m working on throughout the month of January. January 9, 2012 Paul Artiuch and Samuel Kornstein are graduate students at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Throughout the month of January they are in India researching market-oriented approaches to reducing agricultural food waste. Last fall, we each participated in the Development Ventures course in MIT’s Media Lab. The objective of the course was to identify ways to leverage for-profit business models to tackle some of the world’s most pressing international development challenges. As we both had an interest in finding ways to

Today in Delhi

Posted on January 5, 2012January 5, 2012 by Sam Kornstein in Current Events, Travel

New Delhi Weather Forecast: Smoke?

Posted on January 4, 2012January 4, 2012 by Sam Kornstein in Current Events, Travel

I arrived in India yesterday, and will be here for a few weeks working on an MIT research project. I’m in New Delhi at the moment, and am sad to say the pollution here appears to be pretty bad. There’s not a cloud in the sky, but it’s still not blue. Here’s a shot from my window: I decided to check to forecast to see how this sort of thing is accounted for, and was a bit shocked by the accuracy of weather.com. Today’s forecast – 68 degrees with Smoke: On the upside, the sunrise was spectacular through the haze. I’m slightly optimistic that isn’t isn’t typical, as the 5-day forecast doesn’t show any smoke on the horizon. And when

National Park Landscapes

Posted on October 14, 2011October 14, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Photography, Travel

Another high-definition time-lapse landscape video. There seem to be dozens of these going around these days. But many are extraordinarily well done, and this one by Dustin Farrell is no exception:

Oktoberfest!

Posted on October 8, 2011October 8, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Beer, Travel

Last week I returned from Oktoberfest in Munich – it was quite the experience. A few observations and reflections on the event: The way the event works is there are just over a dozen been tents, each of which has its own unique atmosphere and can hold anywhere from 5,000-10,000 people. Large parties can reserve a table, but for the average visitor, you need to arrive before 10:00am each day and grab a seat in a tent. I was initially skeptical as to whether I could spend four days sitting at one table per day, from 10:00am until sometime in the evening. But it turned out to be pretty easy. There were lots of great people, live music, and obviously

Road Trip Movie

Posted on October 5, 2011October 5, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Travel

I took a bunch of the footage I shot on my iPhone during my drive out west and combined the clips into a video with some music. Most of the footage is from Yellowstone, Joshua Tree, Death Valley, the Badlands, and some other parts of South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and California. Here’s the result:

Black Bears!

Posted on September 20, 2011September 20, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Photography, Travel

The last park I visited this summer was Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It’s not the biggest park, or the most visually impressive, but it was by far one of my favorites. Filled with green rolling mountains, streams, and thick woods, it was an overwhelmingly refreshing place to visit. I hope to return. While there, we stumbled upon a family of black bears. They unexpectedly emerged from some brush on the side of the road, presumably having just climbed part of the mountainside to the road which zig-zagged its way up the ridge to Clingmans Dome, the highest point in Tennessee. I fumbled to get my camera, and managed to take a bunch of rushed and somewhat blurry shots. This

Grand and Great

Posted on September 15, 2011September 15, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Photography, Travel

Shots from the Grand Canyon and Great Sand Dune National Park:

12 Days, 5,600 Miles

Posted on September 13, 2011September 13, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Travel

A few people have asked about my eastbound road trip route, so here it is. I’ll continue to post more pictures as I go through them. View Larger Map