Chichen-Itza

If you are searching for reproductions of historical sites in SL, you should visit the virtual Chichen-Itza. This sim was commissioned by the Mexico Tourism Board and it is a reproduction of the most visited archaeological site in the Yucatan Peninsula, built by the Maya civilization.

Before exploring the sim on foot, look for a giant blue butterfly at the arrival area. If it’s not in use, it should be seated on a platform quite close to you. Sit on it and wear the audio you will be given after sitting on the back of the butterfly (after you are given the audio, find it from your inventory and choose Wear), and after a few seconds the butterfly will take off and take you for a sightseeing through the sim. The butterfly will take you to each place and the audio will give you information about it.

This was one of the coolest guided tours I have been in. Riding a giant butterfly was awesome (I wish I could have one of those for me!). The butterfly even takes you INTO the Sacred Cenote (down there, and into the water!).

After the butterfly ride it’s nice to begin exploring the virtual Chichen-Itza on foot.

The most famous construction at the site is of course the Temple of Kukulkan, often referred to as "El Castillo" (the castle). It has the shape of a pyramid with the temple on top.

El Castillo is the first image that comes to my mind when I think of Yucatan. (here’s a picture of the real El Castillo)

At the winter and spring equinox at dawn and sunset when the position of the sun is right, a shadow appears over the pyramid starting from the serpent heads at the bottom of the stairs. Together with the heads it makes up the body of the Serpent God Kukulkan (which is the Maya name for Quetzalcoatl). At those times people from all over the globe travel to the Chichen-Itza to witness the event.

The Mayas used to build higher and larger temples atop of the old ones. So the El Castillo we see today used to be a smaller pyramid temple in the past. A hidden door was discovered at the foot of one of the stairways, leading to a corridor inside the pyramid, leading to the older temple, inside the new one. This doorway can also be found in SL:

Entering this door and walking through the tunnel, you will see a Chac Mool statue and Kukulcan's Jaguar Throne, carved of stone and painted red with jade spots.

Close to El Castillo is the Plaza of 1000 Columns. Quoting the notecard: “The Temple of the Warriors was built by the end of 800 A.D. It is located on the eastern plaza of the central plain of Chichen Itza. The Temple of the Warriors is flanked by 1000 carved columns depicting fallen warriors.”


The Maya name "Chich'en Itza" means "At the mouth of the well of the Itza ". This could because of the cenotes found in the place. According to a Notecard I got at the SL sim, “Cenote (say-NO-tay) is the Spanish equivalent of the Yucatecan Mayan word for a water-filled, limestone sinkhole. In Mexico's northern Yucatan Peninsula, where there are few lakes or streams, cenotes provided a stable supply of water for the ancient Maya people who settled there. The great city of Chichen Itza was built around a cluster of these natural wells, including the one known as the “Sacred Cenote.”

The virtual Chichen-Itza even has a jungle, complete with jungle sounds, a crocodile, and torches leading the way.


Whenever you are next to the flowers or the water, small and colourful humming birds come to greet you. They are very curious and keep following you and staring at you. How relaxing it is to sit down after so much walking around. I'm laying down against a moss covered log, under a lot of yellow flowers, hearing the sounds of jungle animals and looking at a blue humming bird who keeps flying around me and staring at me.


In Chichen-Itza there are also sweat house ruins or Temezcals , believed to be over 1200 years old. According to the notecard found at the display board near the sweat houses, the Mayas used to take thermal baths in order to facilitate healing, purification and relaxation in their lives.

Continue exploring and find the nice marketplace close to the beach.


Here you can even buy Mayan artefacts like the ones in the picture.


Oh, and try the “princess” animation you will find in this boat! Cool dance!


Go to the beach to meet the sea turtles. I saw little baby turtles running to the water.


This place is amazing at night. If only there was a party going on!


This is one of the sweat house ruins or Temezcals I mentioned before. And yes, that me with sunglasses at night - maybe the stars were shinning too bright ;-)


And a picture from inside the Sacred Cenote:


The Temple of Kukulcan ("El Castillo") under the moonlight.


Visit Chichen-Itza in SL! Learn about Mayan history and make cool Mexican friends - and Dutch ones too; they are everywhere ;-)

Here’s the slURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Visit%20Mexico/197/70/39

Riding an eagle, and dancing at the Sphynx

This Saturday I had a lot of fun in SL. I flew on an eagle! Wait, you said what? Yes, I flew seated over the wing of an eagle. There’s no limit to what you can do in SL, specially when you can click almost anything and choose Sit on it. My British friend Ran took me to the Lost Garden to show me that.

We flew to the top of a mountain where we could see the eagles and he told me what to do. It worked at the first try! He said it would be difficult and usually people have to try several times, but it was a piece of cake!

I have a secret: hold ALT and click on the eagle; that will center your focus on the eagle and your camera view will move with it, the eagle will be always at the center of the screen. Then, zoom in, either with the mouse or choosing Ctrl+0. Then right click the eagle and choose Sit. There! You are riding the eagle!




At night I visited the Sphynx for the first time. First I had a walk between the Egyptian temples and the underground chambers with the Anubis statues and sarcophaguses with mummies. Then I decided to go dancing. The place was not yet too full. I sat at the bar, and the wonderful host Baro offered me a drink. I sat there and talked to him, and soon came more people. I talked to Helene, a nice Dutch girl, and an American guy whose name I can’t remember (Sam?). We talked to Velvet and her companion, a 54 ton robot called Zephyrin. Wow, what a nice couple! I never thought I would go to a club where you are expected to wear a gown or a tux and see a huge robot dancing. And when the two danced wearing the poseballs, he was so big that the girl couldn’t be seen, as she was “inside” him. LOL! We talked and laughed, and they have an incredible sense of humour, I loved them! Such great guys.

And Baro’s girlfriend, Lolaa, she is so beautiful! I told her that, and she said I was kind. I wasn’t just being kind, she is really one of the most beautiful avatars I have ever seen in SL. Baro and Lolaa make a very beautiful couple, and they are so nice and friendly, they are really lovely. I can’t even remember how much time I spent there talking to everyone.

At some point, Zephyrin made a backflip. You can only imagine how it is when a 54 ton robot makes a backflip on the dance floor! And best of all, he got up (he is a HUGE robot) and came to sit between me and Helene at the bar. The chairs are so small! He took the whole space, he was literally OVER the bar and partially over me too! LOL! I’m so lucky avatars cannot be crushed, otherwise I would be a pancake now! I had to take a picture, because this is something you don’t see everyday!


It was very late in Finland and I was about to go home when a new guy came in and wanted to dance. I had wanted to dance before but everyone was taken. So I went dancing with him. It was a really nice German guy called Giovanni, who lives in my favourite part of Germany (Bavaria), so we talked about Germany, German cities and the Alps, while we danced salsa.


I really loved the animations, the salsa animations were very nice. Maybe in the autumn I shall take salsa lessons to learn to dance like that in real life.

It was a great evening and I will be visiting the Sphynx again in the future.

Submarine ride and secret underwater cave at NOAA

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) was one of the first sims I visited. Now I can’t remember how I found out about it, but maybe there was a landmark to it in a Notecard I got at the Help Island. The first places I wanted to visit were places with culture and science, and NOAA seemed interesting. I wanted to see the tsunami and glaciers.

I made several trips to NOAA, because I wanted to take my time to see and explore everything they had to show there. And it took me some time to find out how some things worked. The Earth on a Sphere pavilion was a sphere in the middle, representing Earth. Close to the door there is a display from which you can choose what you want to see, and it will appear on the sphere, but you will only see that if you enable the video option first (at the bottom of your screen, in the middle). The first time I was there I didn’t get that (I was too new to SL).

At the beach close by, there are two summer chairs. You can calmly sit on a chair, as if as it’s a quiet afternoon and nothing extraordinary is going to happen anyway... And then you click on the display nearby and a tsunami rises and floods the beach and the building nearby, living your poor avatar underwater. Help! Not even close to the real thing, but as close as it can be in SL, so you have to admire it. But hey, this is not all that there is to it. You must walk underwater to the sea, so just go ahead and walk straight ahead and away from the beach, until you see another display. When you click on it, you will see a simulation of how the movement of tectonic plates will move the sea floor up, causing the water to rise, which in turn will cause a wave that will speed towards the land as a tsunami. SL can’t show exactly how that is, so if you are interested in tsunamis you should click the links and check the websites.

All around NOAA you will find links to interesting websites with information on climate, geology, and even underwater creatures. It’s worth giving them a try.

You can also take a ride on an airplane to see a hurricane from above. I have often seen people trying to make the airplane take off but failing to do so. So I thought I would explain how it works: right click on the airplane and choose Sit. You will be sitting inside the airplane next. If you are using mouselook, press M to get out of mouselook, and use your camera controls to be able to see the airplane from a little distance, just so that the black display is visible in the screen. Then click on the display and that will activate the airplane and it will take off. It will take you for a ride and back to the same place.

After that, try taking a ride on an atmospheric balloon. Just grab on it and click the display, and you will be taken high up in the skies, above the clouds. At some point, the balloon will explode and you will be on a free fall to the ground. Oh, of course, before trying this balloon thing, if you are a girl wearing a skirt or a Scottish guy with a kilt, just be sure to put some underwear on beforehand, in case there’s people around. I had a skirt but happily I had something underneath it, LOL!

In the picture below I'm falling after the balloon exploded. On the ground you can see the airplane I mentioned above.

The first time I visited the glacier I looked at it from the wrong spot. Only after I read at Natalia’s blog her description of her visit to NOAA that I got to know you can see the glacier melting, so I had to go back there to see it. You have to stand on the beach in front of the glacier and click the black display, and it will melt.

Then, there is the submarine ride! The submarine works the same way as the airplane: first sit inside it, then click the black display and it will start. It will take you underwater and make some few short stops. Don’t just sit inside the submarine, or if you do that, take another ride and then choose Stand up to leave the submarine. After that, walk underwater. You will find a secret underwater cave:

The cave is small, but when you are leaving it through the other side, you will see creel, plants, and if you keep walking and exploring you will see schools of fish, jellyfish, crabs, polyps, sponges, and all sorts of things.

I was lucky the jellyfish don’t sting in SL! ;-)

When you click them, you will be given a link to a webpage with information on the animal or plant. There’s a lot to see and lots of information.

There was a cute crab moving around my feet when I walked below the jellyfishes.

And there are dolphins and killer whales (what not many people know is that the killer whale is not a whale, but the biggest kind of dolphin).

You might also try to do like I did and right-click on a killer whale and choose Sit, and have a free ride on its back. But then it might happen what happened to me: the whale went through under the bridge and I got stuck in it and had to teleport.

Wilhelmina swimming with the fishes.

Right at the center of this image you can see kelps (large seaweeds), and like with the other plants and creatures in this sim, if you click on it you will get info on it.

An underwater volcano, or hot spring, and the kind of life that can grow at such hot temperatures (don’t look at me, I prefer the cold!).

So many legs and this little fellow didn’t try to grab me, what a sweety!

Sponges, polyps and other sea creatures.

The SLURL for NOAA is Meteora (177,161,27).

Have fun!

Bliss Gardens

"Tired of falling through the floor?"

Bliss Basin. What a beautiful place. It’s one of my favourites. But If I would tell you that and you went there searching for it, the first thing you would see is not exactly the nature area of Bliss Gardens I mean. Bliss Basin is part of the Bliss Gardening Centre. When you enter Bliss Gardens, you will find yourself at the arrival area, a place high up in the skies (though you wouldn’t notice that right away), with wooden walkways and some display boards with information, telling how to go to one place or another. Right in front of you there is a display telling of a ballroom or something, and to go there you have to jump into the hole in the water right in front of you, between you and the display. When you do so, you will be falling through the sky (only now you see how high up in the air this place was), and you will keep falling, falling, and just let yourself fall, pressing the spacebar from time to time to slow down your fall, until you are down there. You will be in a place with high mountains and waterfalls.

But this is still a bit far away from my favourite part of the garden. It’s a pity it isn’t possible to create a landmark directly to my favourite spot – I even have the landmark, but when I teleport I always end up at the same arrival area. So what I have to do is to go to the arrival area and click on the board to teleport myself to the Bliss Basin Nature Area.

This is me in front of a waterfall, at my favorite spot.

At the arrival area, if you walk away from the displays, you will be in a garden of small waterfalls. It seems those are garden decorations you can buy if you are a resident and want something beautiful for your own garden. There are several of them, most of the same size but different styles. You can walk between them, or stroll around the wooden walkways, until... until you suddenly sink through the logs of the walkway! Then you either get stuck or you fall down. The first time it happened I thought it was a bug or an one-time accident, but it seems it is much more common than I thought: yesterday I saw a board around there that started with the line: “Tired of falling through the floor?”

Back down there, at the Bliss Basin Nature Area, you can hear the birds (even a nightingale), see the flowers, walk through suspended bridges and walkways, admiring the beauty of the virtual nature. To think that someone build this all! It’s so very beautiful!

The SLURL for the Bliss gardens is: FuturePerfect (236,127,502).

Tu fé koi sur ce cube???

Tu fé koi sur ce cube??? I still have to ask a French person what does this sentence mean, because the internet translator I use couldn’t give me a complete translation, and I don’t speak French at all.

I don’t have a place of my own in SL yet, so whenever I need to change clothes or try some animations, I have to find a calm and quiet spot where I won’t be seen. I try to find an empty sandbox, and when I can’t, I go to my favourite sandbox and get high up in the sky with the help of my workshop buster, high above the level people can fly unassisted. There I have some privacy, preferably inside my workshop box.

Before learning to do that, I have also experimented with changing clothes at the bottom of the sea, far away from the shore. I checked there were no green spots in the little map (that means, no one around) and then I felt safe to try on some clothes. Until the day some guy appeared flying (swimming?) from nowhere and saw me there. I had all my clothes on, and they weren’t even too sexy nor revealing (long tight pants and long sleeved jacket), and the only sexy things were my long flexi pony tail prim hair and high heels. He flew around me, insulted me and went away. Did he think I was a whore waiting for a client in the middle of the ocean? I must say, there are some very rude people in SL. After that, I felt much safer high up in the skies, where no one will happen to fly around (I mean, very high up in the skies).

So once I was at a sandbox and saw there was something up there in the sky, a building or something. I decided to check what it was, so I rezzed a cube, sat on it, and changed its position such that I at the same altitude as the building. It was a castle. A huge medieval castle, complete with artillery and everything. It didn’t look like it was under construction, what made me think, was there someone living in it? As far as I know you can’t live in a sandbox. Then suddenly a guy appeared flying next to me (this must have been no more than 400 m up there), and asked me “Tu fé koi sur ce cube???”. I didn’t understand but I assumed it was something like “are you sitting on a cube???”. I explained in English I sat on the cube to see what was up there. He said ok, and went to the castle. I think he was puzzled by seeing a girl on a cube. I think I wouldn’t be surprised anymore by anything I could see in SL, a girl on a cube is not out of the ordinary, really. ;-)

Diving into a virtual world

I read about Second Life for the first time in a newspaper. It was only mentioned briefly and I didn’t give it much thought. Then at work there was some talk about the tendencies of today and how everything is moving towards a virtual plane. Nothing so extraordinary, we work with distance learning so the concept is not too new. But still, a virtual world, a WORLD, were people walk, fly, meet, travel to new places, interact with the whole world, build and sell virtual things, virtual products, and so many things – that was new.

Then I read an article in a Finnish computer magazine telling about Second Life. An extensive and informative article, with pictures and an interview with a SL resident. She talked about a lecture she gave at SL on brain research and neuroscience, and it gave me an idea of how much more there is to SL than a 3D virtual environment. There’s science, culture, education, and also all the entertainment. It caught my curiosity.

Next, I visited the Second Life website, read all about it, found Torley Linden’s tutorials at YouTube, watched them all… Amazing! It was then that I decided to create an account. And little by little SL opened itself to me.

I’m always like that with everything: I read everything about it before trying. So I already know the rules and how everything works, and how you can do things... This is something I learned from having a father who used to ALWAYS try everything out without ever reading the instructions book (and damaging some things in the process!).

So, I visited SL for the first time already provided with necessary information. The Orientation Island was very helpful, but... I had some problems around there. It started with the vehicles. I couldn’t make them move. I tried everything, tried different vehicles, chose Drive, but my avatar just sat inside the vehicle doing nothing. I clicked everything, used the mouse and the keyboard controls, and nothing. And... the people around me were all as new as me and couldn’t help. I walked around the rats, amazed by them (want one!), and before visiting the rest of the island (mistake!), I saw a display about the Help Island and decided to visit it. I got distracted when talking to some people so I did not give enough attention to the warning saying I wouldn’t be able to go back to orientation island.

At the Help Island there were no vehicles. I found some people next to the tutorials and talked to them. Two men and a woman. We talked for some time and it was nice. We were all new and didn’t know much. I helped one of them with gestures. We all added each other to our Friends list. The woman was quite nice and seemed very smart and cool. Pity I haven’t seen her anymore. The guy I helped with using gestures was also really nice and we are still friends. We haven’t “met” in SL but we exchanged IM messages and he seems really cool and friendly. It’s so nice to meet interesting and friendly people! We talked about Linux!

And the other guy of the group was a disappointment and one reason why I almost thought of leaving SL aside before getting even to know it properly. I mentioned to them I was having problems with the vehicles and couldn’t manage to drive them. They gave advice, but it didn’t help much. So this second guy offered to help. Let’s go to the cars and I will show you, he said. He claimed he could go back to the Orientation island and asked me to follow him. The problem was that I didn’t know how to use the map or teleport, I didn’t manage all the camera controls well enough, and I was having a lot of trouble going through the menus and trying to figure out how everything works (sometimes reading beforehand is not enough). Everything was too fast, I couldn’t read the chat lines and try to answer and read the menus at the same time. So the guy teleported somewhere and sent me an IM saying he was there at the Orientation Island. And offered to teleport me there. I accepted. And where did I end up? At a totally different place. It was a harbour with a sex shop on it! He was inviting me to get in there and check it out. I saw the realistic skins and all sorts of prim attachments... He certainly was thinking I would buy myself a realistic skin and would next go somewhere to have virtual sex with him! Hah! In your dreams! I teleported away from there and never saw him again.

An unpleasant meeting and in world difficulties, besides a place full of lag, and I thought maybe I had seen enough of SL. Fortunately I found blogs and videos with pictures of beautiful places, and travel guides telling of all the cool places you can visit in SL. I tried again, visited sandboxes, learned to use the map and camera controls, animations, huds, all sorts of things. Made some money camping, created clothes, found out amazing freebies, prim hair, prim shoes... I met interesting people, had nice chats, and helped a lot of newbies – some just as new to SL as I am, but needed help. It was so nice to later on receive an IM from one of those I helped thanking me so much for helping him to use the map. He was so happy saying he now could teleport anywhere he liked! Hey, the world is full of nice people! Never let the bad ones spoil it for you.

It has been so nice to read about other people’s adventures in SL, that I decided to create this blog. So I can share with you things about the places I visited. I started taking pictures whenever I visit some interesting place, and I will post them here. Right now I haven’t got much time, so I don’t know how often I will manage to update the blog, but I have things to tell and pics to show. I shall post them when I have more time!

A big thanks to all of you who write tutorials and make videos explaining how to build and do things in SL, you cannot imagine how helpful you have been to all of us newbies out there! Thank you! A special thanks to Torley and to Natalia!

Second Life rules!

Here are some tips for people about to try SL for the first time:

1) Think carefully when choosing a surname from the list! The list contains all kinds of interesting surnames of every nationality. Choose rather a surname of your own nationality or one whose language you can speak or at least understand a little. I say this based on my own experience. I chose Yoshikawa because I love everything related to Japan and all things Japanese. But I am not Japanese and I do not speak Japanese at all. You cannot change your surname after choosing it! And as long as I love the name Yoshikawa, it has nevertheless been a problem when I’m approached by Japanese people who will speak Japanese to me and I cannot understand a thing! And I can’t even KNOW whether they’re talking to me at all, when there’re other people around. I have to keep always explaining that I don’t speak Japanese. I could have avoided that if my surname was from a country which language I can speak.

2) Be nice. Those avatars over there are people like you, and people have feelings. Be polite and friendly.

3) Don’t take things too seriously.

4) Respect the rules. Let’s keep SL a nice and safe place.

5) Have fun!

Best regards!

Wilhelmina

* in the first picture above you can see me making a backflip and diving at a Swedish island. More about that later! And this second pic is from the NOAA sim (more about that too later).