jacobblogs

Category: Photography

Posts that mainly focus on photography.

  • Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: 4/20, 4/21

    First non-Europe post!

    4/20: This was mostly a travel day, lost to the 10 hour flight from Istanbul to Malaysia. I got to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport around 5PM local time, and then spent about an hour more figuring out how to get from the airport into Kuala Lumpur itself, which is about 60km from the city’s center. Google thought it would take 6 hours, but it didn’t seem to know about the express train between the airport and city center, which only took 30 minutes!

    I didn’t realize when I took this photo, but my hostel is right near the base of the tallest tower in the middle!

    As I drew closer to my hostel, I realized it’s right in Chinatown in Malaysia – and right next to Jalan Petaling, a well known street market. Lots of stuff to see nearby!

    My hostel is the grey building on the corner.

    I didn’t have a lot of energy, but for dinner I went downstairs to a restaurant owned (I think) by the hostel called Mingle Cafe and got Nasi Ulam Ayam Percik, a chicken dish:

    The sauce on the chicken was so delicious. I actually am eating the same dish again for breakfast as I write this!

    I also got some kombucha, and in total the whole meal cost just under $9 USD! The prices here are a big shock to me – food and lodging are both extremely cheap, with most dishes at restaraunts I’ve seen costing $4-6 USD, and my hostel costing (for a private room!) $22/night. If I had chosen to share a dorm with others, I could have paid only $6-9/night depending on the hostel.

    Mingle Cafe, where I’ve been getting a lot of my food.

    4/21: Today I actually got to explore a little bit! Supper had been so good at Mingle Cafe that I went back for breakfast. This time, knowing how cheap the prices are, I splurged a bit.

    Mango Lassi, Iced Mocha, and the “Mingle Big Breakfast” – big was right, I couldn’t finish it all!

    This was of course also delicious, and my splurging on two drinks cost me a whopping USD $15.77… I could get used to this!

    Next, I began walking to the Perdana Botanical Garden a few km away. As I walked, I realized why many people don’t come to Malaysia during Monsoon season – it was in the upper 80’s outside, and the humidity was high – I was dripping sweat just from walking! However, it was beautiful, and you can tell you’re in a tropical country!

    On my way, I walked through a section of Petaling Street, the nearby street market, but apparently only took a few pictures.

    I’m tempted to buy fruits like this, but that’s exactly what the travel nurse I had an appointment with told me NOT to do . . . I might anyway 😛
    Some of the market is in temporary stalls on the street, but some of it is more inside buildings with hallways adjacent to the road, like this.
    The streets here are green and bustling. This street was one of the less busy ones I crossed.
    There are plenty of mopeds here too, but unlike the ones in Spain and Europe, these ones seem lighter. A lot of them look like they might be based on or inspired by the 70’s Honda Trail mopeds. I kind of like the look of these ones better!
    I like the purple-white color scheme on this one. It’s also quite old! The area where the speedometer would be was just a mass of wrapped duck tape…
    Still not as common as in Barcelona, but still far more so than in the US! I suspect many of these small ones are only 50-100CC, likely with a top speed of 35-50 MPH.

    Malaysia isn’t known for its architecture that I know of, but I did see a number of cool buildings along the way. There’s a large tower close to my hostel that’s an easy photo subject (you’ll see it a few times throughout this post) and I found a number of other buildings that looked good too.

    Another tower in Malaysia. I walked right by it on my way home later.
    I’m not sure this is a Muslim temple or not, but the influence is strong here – lots of Halal food, plenty of references around. In fact, I’ve seen multiple signs prohibiting “indecent behavior” in public spaces, usually indicated by a figure of two people kissing. Is kissing in public actually considered indecent?
    See?
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    Once at the botanical gardens, I was ready for something cold and sweet, so I fell prey to the snack stands just waiting for hapless tourists like myself to stumble upon them. I got a durian popsicle (not recommended, durian is an . . . odd flavor) and a lychee drink (I do recommend this one!)

    The durian taste lingered longer in my mouth than I desired, and kept reminding me I’d eaten it every time I burped for the rest of the day. Oh well, new experiences, right?

    Mildly refreshed, I continued my explorations of the gardens, stopping at some type of war monument.

    Something about the silver lotus flowers on the deep blue of the water in the last picture above is really satisfying to me.

    After the war monument (whose plaque said it represented the triumph “over the forces of evil” – funny how the forces of good always win), I found my way to the actual botanical garden.

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    Around this time, the sky (which had sneakily been growing darker and cloudier) began to rain. It was a relatively light rain at first, so I continued to enjoy my walk, shielding my camera from the rain with my hands while I wasn’t using it.

    Then, it started to POUR – so like several other people who’d been roaming the park, I scrambled to a large shelter nearby.

    Unfortunately, this shelter wasn’t perfect – the wind blew water in from the sides (so you had to stand more inwards) and many of the seams leaked. There were some dry spots, though!

    I read my book for a while (Brandon Sanderson’s 5th book in the Stormlight Archives series – great so far, of course!)

    Eventually, the rain was joined by lightening and thunder – a proper monsoon storm! It didn’t let up for close to an hour, and most of us just sat around, waiting. At one point, a golf cart with a few covered seats rolled up and took some of the others away (where to? hopefully somewhere dry!) and promised they’d be back for the rest of us – but 20 minutes passed without their return, so eventually, as the rain began to let up, I figured I’d venture out. I was already pretty damp, and the only electronics I had was my camera, so I took its batteries out (electronics getting wet usually won’t hurt them by themselves, if they don’t have any power source when they’re wet – as long as you dry them out completely before restoring power, they’re generally ok!)

    Just before I left, one of the women waiting let the kid inside come out, and ran through the proper waterfall and pond now present in the little area with the tree pictured above, while the rest of us laughed as she shouted with joy.

    Luckily, the rain finally begin to stop (and not get worse) as I continued to walk. The paving stones were slippery and I almost fell a few times, but I managed to get back in one piece!

    The same tower!
    A moped graveyard…
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    The river flowing through this part of town, now much higher than it had been a few hours before.

    On my way home, I ran into an indoor market, with lots of street food, textiles, some antiques, a camera store, and lots of souvenir stores. There was also an art section selling a lot of really cute paintings for quite reasonable prices! I wish I had more space in my bag, but it’s probably a good thing I don’t!

    I only got a few photos inside, but a lot of it looked like this – hallways with shops on all sides.
    Seagull? This is not a brand I’ve heard of before! The equivalent USD cost is $317, a bit pricey especially for an off-brand SLR.

    After the market, I went back to the hostel, changed into clean clothes, and wrote the blog posts from yesterday. At the market I also picked up a few snacky items for dinner:

    Tasty!

    It’s funny – the food here is so cheap, that sometimes the prices in Malaysian Ringgits lines up with what I would expect to pay in USD – except that the Ringgit is worth only about 23 cents! The two meat pasteries, for example, were 4.50 each – a little pricey for USD, but converted to Ringgets, only $1.03 each! The drink was 9.90, pricey for even a specialty boba drink in the US, but not outside of the realm of possibility – but of course, actually only cost $2.26.

    I really could get used to this… Maybe I should have spent 2 weeks here instead of in Japan!

    The last thing I did was a recruiter interview (at 2:30AM local time!), this time for an actual electrical engineering role in Washington. I’m quite excited about this one – if working at Rivian doesn’t work out, I’m hoping this will. It’s a neat sounding job at a company that seems to have good culture, and should pay pretty competitively. It’s also a hybrid position – so working from home would be common, but not mandatory. The interview went well, so here’s to hoping I get a followup interview!

    All for today! You probably won’t hear from me again for a few days, since this evening I fly to Japan. After a day or two to settle in, I should be back on track with more updates.

  • Milan, Italy: 4/19

    But what about the 18th?

    Yes, I know I skipped the 18th. All I did was travel – and once I got to my AirBNB in Milan, I just wanted to watch youtube videos, catch up on the latest releases from Dropout, and eat snacks. So I did! This was my view:

    Ok, now for the 19th:

    Breakfast was a little expensive (16 euro) but included the coffee and orange juice as part of it, and was tasty.

    I had a few hours between when I woke up and when my plane left for Malaysia (but first, Istanbul for a 1-hour layover). So I left the AirBNB with my luggage and went out to explore.

    I really like how these leaves frame the tower in the foreground. I used the flash turned down a bit to brighten them up while keeping the exposure on the tower correct. Rarely does a photo make me want to use it as a phone background, but I think this one passes the test.

    Public transit is getting easier and easier to navigate (it turns out most of it works about the same, and Google Maps is really quite good at telling you how to get to the right place as long as you pay attention to signs). I’ve now started defaulting to it instead of trying to download a ride-sharing app when I first get somewhere like I did for Barcelona and Boston. Since Lyon though, I’ve taken public transit!

    There was this ancient ruin in the middle of the intersection. It would have made an excellent frame for a portrait!

    A lot of Milan is very 80’s stark, flat, mostly boring architecture (brutalist), but there are ancient buildings and beautiful architecture scattered among the newer stuff.

    Sometimes, newer buildings offer good chances to take ‘liminal space’ type pictures. I don’t know if this fully qualifies, but I like the effect.
    When I took this photo I wished the camera had focused on the building – but in hindsight I like the focus on the fence and leaves better.
    I liked the potted cactus in the window here.
    FISH!

    After a quick bus trip and some walking, I arrived at the Basilica de Santa Maria delle Grazie – an ancient catholic church, which has Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous last supper painting inside. I did not realize until stepping in that it is also still a practicing catholic church, and there was a service going on in a side room (the one that I think had the painting in it – so I didn’t get to see it). There were tourists like myself roaming around quietly in the large stone halls, but also priests (I passed on writing in something that looked like a confessional). Feeling a little odd taking photos, I looked around and then left.

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    Outside the basilica were the remnants of an ancient wall and set of marble pillars, which I took a few photos of.

    I did love the streets of the older part of Milan. Primarily narrow cobblestone and with a lot of of old buildings, there were a lot of tourists and locals alike roaming the streets.

    I also saw another Fiat 500 Topolino! After reading a bit more about them, I learned that they’re a Fiat-branded version of the Citroen Ami. With 47 miles of electric range and a top speed of 28MPH, they don’t technically count as cars – which means they can be driven without a license (or with an easier to get license in some places), and can go and fit places proper cars can’t.

    Another ‘liminal space’ photo.
    A cute little flower shop.

    After the basilica, I decided to head to the central park in Milan, Parco Sempione, which also has the “Castello Sforzesco” (a proper castle!)

    This tiny shop was crammed with books!
    They didn’t seem worried about book thieves…

    As I got closer to the castle, the streets became thicker and thicker with tourists, and I realized that Milan does have tourism – just not so much where my AirBNB was.

    The main front tower of the castle. This one is directly above the main entrance. Judging by the stonework and the style of the rest of the castle I suspect a lot of this tower is newer than the rest of the castle.
    The four main corners of the castle had these round towers. I wonder how thick the walls are? They look quite sturdy, and walking around the castle, I could see both why a moat was effective and how difficult it would have been for invading soldiers to capture or invade, pre modern warfare.
    Contrary to childhood belief, this moat (like most moats) was not filled with water and crocodiles 😦
    More pillars…
    Some of the windows on the sides of the castles were quite large – I wonder if these are more modern additions, since they seem less logical for a solid defense (and was glass actually that good back then? I don’t think so…)
    A drawbridge!
    The real king of the castle!

    After exploring the garden behind the castle a bit more, I headed back to my AirBNB to grab my luggage, and took public transit to the closest international airport (which took an hour – MXP is actually not in Milan!).

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    I really wanted to go into the hole-in-the-wall computer store that had this vintage IBM PS/1 computer, but I only had a few minutes before my bus arrived.

    My flight to Malaysia was in two parts – first, a 3 hour flight to Istanbul, Turkey, where I had a 1.5 hour layover. The first plane I took served dinner and had screens built into the back of each seat, with a bunch of movies included.

    The remote for the screen popped out and had not only a keyboard, but a gamepad on it – unfortunately, none of the built-in games really took advantage of it.

    Dinner looks not so appetizing in this photo, but it was good, and a pleasant surprise on a flight this short.

    As we flew into Turkey, we flew over a city harbor with a bunch of ships floating in it. This is a terrible photo, but it gives you an idea of the beautiful sight I saw!

    The second plane (from Istanbul to Kuala Lumpur) took about 10 hours – this one also had a screen, and they served both dinner and breakfast.

    I managed (with the help of ocean sounds in my headphones, a sleep mask, and a melatonin) to get some sleep on the plane in between meals.

    All for this post!

  • Amsterdam, The Netherlands: 4/15

    I was tired this morning! I didn’t manage to roll out of bed (and shower and everything) until about 1:30 PM local time. Oh well – again, I’d rather explore well rested than try to cram every last second full of activities and not be able to enjoy it.

    Breakfast was at a little cafe inside an art school that is in the same building as my Hostel. It was a simple chicken panini and a plain latte sweetened with honey – but the panini was delicious, especially the sauce to dip it in.

    There are the WEIRDEST little cars here! Bikes here are what Mopeds were in Spain – everywhere, parked on the sidewalks and anywhere else they fit, and by FAR the most common mode of transport. On the roads, bikes always have the right away – even above pedestrians! You need to watch out when crossing bike paths, because they will not stop for you 😛

    But! In addition to bikes, they have a multitude of 1-2 person electric and gas ‘cars’ that are likely limited to about 45km/hr top speed (close to 30 MPH). These require a different license than normal cars if I remember right, and can be driven on most bike paths too.

    This one is electric
    Citroen Ami, I think. Electric!
    A fiat one designed to look like the original 500! But this is larger!
    This one is gas, and looks like it is from the late 90s or early 2000s.

    These little cars existed in Spain and France too, but were far less common. Here, I see one every few minutes. The gas ones make the cutest little put-put sound.

    On my walk, I found a man playing “Can’t help falling in love” by Elvis Presley on a saxophone, and stopped to take another (240P) video of him.

    I also ran across an antique store selling tiles from houses rennovated in the 60’s – but these tiles were from the 1600s and 1800s! Quite old – and each hand-painted! Of course, most of them were pretty expensive, but they were fun to browse.

    Though some tiles shared the same design, small differences between each made it clear that these were hand-painted. How cool!

    After this, I walked to the Stedelijk Museum, which is a contemporary art museum (next to several other museums). Entrance for a student (which I feel like I’m close enough to still ;)) was only 10 euro, so I went in and explored.

    After the museum, I took public transit back to (near) my hostel and grabbed a kebab pita wrap for dinner, before prepping for a remote job interview I had at 7:30 PM local time. I think it went well!

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    Dinner! Fanta, water, and a greek sausage kebab pita wrap thing.

    Finally caught up to today 🙂 The next few days might be busy too, so we will see when the next dump of posts happens! All for now.

  • Lyon, France: 4/11

    Today’s travels (4/13) have me headed from Lyon to Lille, both in France. Tomorrow, train schedules willing, I’ll finally be in Amsterdam – but to be honest, I’ve loved my time in Lyon and am sad to leave.

    There are gonna be a LOT of photos in this one, since I spent most of the 11th walking around the amazing Parc de la Tête d’Or – or “Park of the head of gold”. According to Benoit (pronounced like Ben-whee), a local I met, legend has it that Louis 16 buried a head made of gold shortly after this park’s construction. Digging is, of course, forbidden. Wikipedia’s version of the legend says that Jesus’s head is supposedly be buried here. I guess legends change source to source, maybe that’s part of what makes them legends 😉 Either way, the parcel of land has been named this since before 1530!

    One of the (many) attractions of the park is a section of botanical gardens. There are several very old greenhouses full of plants, and of course I explored them.

    The parc was full of people jogging, lounging, exploring. Many were locals, though I could tell some were tourists like myself. It seems a popular place – the largest parc in Lyon, and apparently today was pretty sunny compared to the last few days. Everyone was out!

    The greenhouses created some almost sci-fi shapes, which I enjoyed photographing.

    While next to the one on the left, I also snapped a selfie in the reflection of the glass 🙂

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    One of the coolest greenhouses had carnivorous plants! Not a lot of Venus Flytraps, but a TON of other types. I was really into carnivorous plants for a while, so I recognized a lot of these.

    Sundews like these have long slender leaves with little hairs on them. Each hair has a glob of sweet, sticky sap to attract and trap insects. Once trapped, the leaf slowly curls around the insect to digest it.

    When I had sundews, they tried to flower often! The flower must rise far above the plant, so as not to eat the pollinators 😛

    Pitcher plants like this rely on their deep “pitchers” to catch prey and slowly digest them. The pitchers evolved to make it difficult to escape the slippery walls once an unwitting bug falls in.

    There are SO many different species, and this greenhouse had a lot!

    The pitcher plants took up most of this greenhouse, and their flowers were beautiful!

    Butterworts like these look harmless enough, but their wide flat leaves are like flypaper – sticky, sweet smelling, and hard to escape once landed on! They also tend to have pretty flowers.

    A few more pictures from the greenhouse:

    The parc also had a free zoo! I didn’t walk through the zoo, but I did see a couple of zoo animals and a number of resident parc animals.

    Duckling for Josh
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    As I continued to wander the parc, I discovered a large lake (well, I knew about it from Google Maps) in the middle of the parc. This is where I found most of the geese in the gallery above – but as I walked, I heard piano music and singing drifting across the lake (Zombie, by the Cranberries). I made my way around (eventually) and found a public piano with a crowd of people gathered around.

    I took a video – but be warned, this is a digital camera from 2003 – video technology on consumer digital cameras was . . . not great. The sound is fine, but it is actually 240P quality.

    Sometimes when I’m walking around a new area taking photos, I see things that I like more for the texture or color than the photo itself. Here’s a collection of these types of photos:

    Besides the main attractions, the park was also filled with various little structures – benches, wells, grounds houses, and more.

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    There was even a mini train around part of the parc!

    I did not have time to explore the whole parc – by 5PM, I was able to check in to my AirBNB (I wanted a break from 16-person rooms), and I’d been walking since 11AM!

    A few more photos from the parc and my walk to the AirBNB.

    After resting and unpacking, I went back out for dinner (Tacos – but totally different than in the US, more like burritos with kebab/gyro filling) and went to a parc with a view over the city for sunset.

    Sorry Katerina and Felix, no mopeds in this post. This was before you sent me Moped money! Mopeds are way less common in Lyon than they were in Barcelona, but I’m sure I’ll find one to rent before the 19th. I did try the rental bikes in Lyon though, and they seem to be the fastest way for short distances (besides a car, if you can find parking, maybe).

    That’s all for now! Posts for 4/12 to come 🙂 I may not make a post for today, if there isn’t much to see – after the train, I plan to be lazy in my Airbnb in Lille for the rest of the day and go to bed early.