Dave's Photo & Travelblogue

Contrasts of Singapore

This city is full of contrasts. For example, here’s one at a food center near a government-subsidized housing block (where Singaporeans can buy a house cheap, 2x in their life). I had local coffee in a bag, with a straw. I’ve since been told it’s more traditional to have it served in the condensed milk can, but how can you beat this?

My friends, on the other hand, had McDonald’s Cafe cappuccinos and hot cocoa just next door.

In the afternoon of July 17th, I went to the new Marina Bay Sands casino/mall/hotel/skypark complex. To me it’s quite silly. They want to draw international visitors to spend their cash. But Singaporeans (and permanent residents) must pay a $100 SGD/day surcharge just to enter the casino. That’s basically forbidding them to gamble, because… well… gambling is bad.

Unless you are taking the d*mn foreigners’ money.

I also skipped the Skypark: $20 entry, no description of what’s up there, no food/drink/pro cameras allowed. Because then they couldn’t sell overpriced soda, snacks, and postcards!

Anyway, enough about that; it doesn’t matter because I don’t gamble and I’ve been up much taller buildings. Here are some cool contrasts I saw on the boardwalks by the bay. Tall vs small,

Some people have such high hopes for their children:

Others are just happy if they can avoid losing them. Yes, you’ve put your child into a giant hamster wheel.

Today was the dry run for the first-ever Youth Olympics opening ceremony. Knownst to these people but unbeknownst to me, there were flybys planned. Two pictures are worth…

I won’t include a shot of the jet flyby, because it’s not interesting at 35mm. But let me just say, afterburners over a city of skyscrapers… LOUD.

I’m going to save some of today’s pics for another post, because there are just too many good ones. So here’s one last shot with the f/2 at ISO3200, in the Pump Room brewpub at Clarke Quay. I thought there would be 4 beers in the sampler, but in fact there were 8!

What was the most beers you ever ordered with those three magical words, “the sampler, please?”

Singapore Jungle Nights

Singapore’s Night Safari is quite an interesting attraction. I was expecting more, so it was a bit disappointing when I went there on July 16th, but it’s still worth a visit.

Here’s the skinny: it’s open from 7:30 until midnight. Adults $22 SGD. BUT you can’t see everything from the walking paths! Many of the (granted, less-exciting) animals you can only see from the tram, which costs another $10. This really pi$$ed me off, because I hate touristy tram rides. AND the tram does not stop, so you basically can’t take photos, because with this light you NEED a long exposure.

One thing I felt I missed out on was the lions, which you can just barely see from the walking trail. Here’s a crop of the best photo I got with my mini-tripod: 1/3s, ISO 1600, f/2.

The Night Safari is basically a normal zoo with the same old enclosures for the animals. Most of the animals are the same, too. But many of the animals you see at a normal zoo are nocturnal, so they sleep all day. At the Night Safari, they are more awake and active.

But beware: you cannot use flash to take your pictures (though a few idiots try). It’s not good for the animals. And it’s almost impossible to get a decent shot with under $1000 of camera gear, flash or not. You need great low-light performance (non-grainy ISO 1600-3200) and a pro lens of f/2.8 or faster. My D90 with the 35mm f/2 AF-D did okay, but it was still tough. A $2,700 D700 and 50mm f/1.4 would be ideal.

Here’s a great shot that I got when someone else’s flash popped just as I had my shutter open for 1/4s. The hyenas were NOT happy about that flash.

That’s still 1/4s with a mini-tripod, ISO 3200, and f/2. So I guarantee their photo with a pocket cam (2m farther away than I was) sucked, despite the flash.

The animal show had potential. But most of the animals did not cooperate. The jumping cat didn’t jump:

The grape-sniffing whatever-it-was could not choose the hand with the grape, it was too distracted by someone’s camera flash. Then, these recycling otters decided to play with the cups & cans instead of tossing them in the proper bins…

Overall, the park was interesting, but as I said my expectations were much higher. If you go in realizing it’s just a zoo at night, and not an amazing safari-like experience, you’ll be impressed. One thing I learned: porcupines do not shoot their quills. They back into their attacker, then the spines detach from the ‘pine and stick in whatever scared them, because of their fishhook-like barbs.

For today’s last (and I think best) photo, here’s a clouded leopard. This beautiful cat was about one meter from the camera, through a pane of glass. 4s, ISO 3200, f/2 with a mini tripod. It was pretty funny watching people try to take pics through the tinted (probably one-way-mirror) glass with the flash.

By the way, I can recommend the park hopper pass, where you get to go to 2, or all 3 of the Singapore animal parks for one fee: Jurong Bird Park, Singapore Zoo, and the Night Safari. For all 3 it was $45 SGD, a very full two days worth of activities. Awesome!

Chilli Crab

When in Singapore, you must have a chilli crab. If you can take the heat, that is! I love ‘em, and on July 15th I headed to the East Coast Seafood Center my hosts.

Jumbo Seafood is the undisputed king in my book. They have everything known to Poseidon on the menu, and the crab is fantastic.

One of our number was not yet old enough to take the heat. He preferred the tasty (fried?) buns. Also, did I mention a few days ago that the 35mm f2 lens can practically see in the dark? 1/15s, f2, ISO 1600 on the Nikon D90.

And here’s a tasty chilli crab claw, coated in glorious chili-egg-sauce:

At this point, I was (obviously) recovered from the dumpling incident. This means I was ready to get up the next day and visit not one, but two zoos! One in the daylight, and one at night. Anyone ever been on a real safari? I’m dying to try it one day…

The birds and the… more birds

Jurong Bird Park in Singapore is an entire zoo filled with nothing but birds. That sounded pretty interesting, so on July 14th I decided to try it out. On the way there I stopped for lunch at a Chinese dumpling place. Bad idea! More on that later. For now, let’s see what I could do with the 18-200mm VR and my D90!

The Birds & Buddies show, which I caught just after arriving, was awesome. I could do a whole article about that, but for now I’ll settle for a few photos. First up: did you know that birds can play basketball? First one to sink 4 shots wins!

The next birds were just too fast. Even with ISO 1600 (above which it gets too grainy for me), they were still a wee bit blurry with wide-open aperture.

The birds-of-prey show had a bit more light. This show was also fantastic! They used fake baits (like a mock-rabbit with a piece of meat in it, and this rubber snake) with the trained birds.

Tropical birds ruled the park. There were more brightly-colored fancy-birds than anything else. Lots of fop-and-dandy avians like these preening pretty-boys…

And now one for the ladies among my audience. I waited a long time to get the perfect pose of these two black swans with their white-feathered baby. I didn’t know that was possible!? Maybe the little tyke is adopted.

This is one bird for the catwalk. Natural sequins, and such stunning eyes! She was so tame, too; I was about four feet away when taking this photo. Make a turn, baby… show us the back of that dress!

These two were getting friendly. And I must admit, there were children watching… two or three others, besides me.

About this time, I was feeling unusually tired. On the bus ride home, it only got worse. Let’s just say, I don’t recommend the dumpling place I tried near Lorong Stangee and East Coast Road. Something I ate there caused a few hours of serious distress.

Because of the dumplings, I postponed my plans to visit the Night Safari. But rest assured, awesome shots of animals at night will be coming up soon!

The Mer-WHAT?

After weeks of thinking about a fixed 35mm lens with a wide aperture, I finally caved in and got a used Nikon 35mm f/2 AF-D. The used price seems to be the same worldwide, and this newer autofocus lens only costs 30% more than an older manual-focus one. The wide aperture allows some nice foreground/background blur effects, and the lens can practically see in the dark. On my DX “crop sensor” camera, 35mm is like a 50mm on film cameras – the classic fixed lens size.

After buying my lens in Singapore, I walked around the city to see what I could capture with it. Here are some of the images from July 13th. First up, the Swissotel Stamford, where I stayed in 2008 when I visited Singapore during a business trip. In 1986 it was the tallest hotel in the world.

Marina Bay Sands is a huge new casino complex. It’s open, but apparently not yet completed. I love how the rooftop garden looks like a giant ship.

Let’s compare the concert hall, known locally as “The Durian,” to a real durian (the stinkiest fruit on earth).

Now the fruit, which smells like rotting roadkill when ripe:

Yeah, I can see the resemblance. But I can testify that the concert hall does not smell like rotting roadkill.

Singapore has a lot of rules and regulations. Eating or drinking on the subway: $500 fine. Smoking in public: $1000 fine. Chewing gum: forget about it. Graffiti: caning. How about this one – riding a bike through the underpass, $1000 fine. One sign is just not enough.

Finally, here’s the Merlion, symbol of Singapore. That’s right – it’s half mer, half lion. I couldn’t believe how many tourists were trying to get a picture standing in front of this Merlion. More than I’ve seen in front of any other object, anywhere in the world.

I tried to get a shot of the tourist lineup, but space was too tight. Maybe if I had a 15mm lens, haha. In fact it took several minutes to get to the rail for this shot, waiting for this and that big group to get done trading cameras so everyone had a copy of themselves in front of the Merlion.

Merlion crowds aside, Singapore is certainly a beautiful, clean, and impressive city! One thing for sure: the taxi drivers are all polite, use the meter, and don’t try to drag you to shopping malls.

Here’s a question: what was the most touristy attraction you’ve ever seen? Have you been anywhere that you thought, “I wish all these damn tourists would get out of the way so I could get MY shot!”

Solid Apartments

One thing I’ve noticed while traveling in Asia is that the nicer houses and apartments are very well built. My friends living there (businesspeople, expats, etc) live in solid concrete buildings with nice floors, high-grade appliances, security guards, and swimming pools:

On July 12th I headed from KL to Singapore via bus, so I didn’t take a lot of photos. I’ll leave you with a beautiful view over city buildings, framed by distant mountains.

Tomorrow, the bustling center of Singapore!

Yes, it’s all about FOOD

I’m sure there are more things to do in Penang, but we had our eyes on the local delicacies! Before heading back to Kuala Lumpur on July 11th, we stopped at a food fair and feasted on what the vendors had to offer. Laksa, Hokkien noodles (very spicy), satay sticks…

Here’s the spread at our table. On the far right you can see (if I remember correctly) chrysanthemum juice.

On the way out of town we stopped at Ghee Hiang, a gourmet shop that sells buns, cakes, white coffee, sesame oil, that kind of thing. The buns are awesome, but the signage is even better. I couldn’t resist…

I’m not kidding when I say all we did was eat. Here was our delicious pork-soup-stew dinner, called Bah Kut Teh (thanks, JK!).

Alright, I promise, no pictures of food tomorrow – haha!

Rotorua – Thermal Everything

I realized that a post from last month didn’t publish properly. So here’s a break between Thailand and Malaysia: a short flashback to New Zealand! On June 15th I woke up refreshed (and a bit cold) at the Cosy Cottage Holiday Park, in the thermal-spring town of Rotorua.

For those not familiar with such places, a holiday park is a combination of campgrounds, camper parking, and cabins / backpacker rooms. Like many places I’ve stayed in New Zealand, the heating in my backpacker room was not very good, so it pays to have a good sleeping bag if you travel in the winter. I didn’t, so I froze my arse off for two nights.

Cold room aside, his holiday park is pretty awesome. It has access to a beach on Lake Rotorua where you can dig a hole that fills with hot thermal water. Or you can soak in the thermal springs-fed hot tubs. For dinner you can cook food in a thermal-vent powered steam oven (more on that below).

Rotorua is all about bubbling, steaming hot thermal features – beaches, hot water, and boiling mud.

By the way, try taking a picture of something that’s boiling. It’s not so easy! Boiling is all about motion, seeing bubbles rise and burst. A still frame of anything boiling is about one tenth as interesting as you might think.

Besides Rotorua town, I checked out two attractions: the Skyline area with a gondola, a tires-on-cement luge, and several other adventure activities; and Rainbow Park, a forest conservation area that helps raise kiwi birds and release them into the wild (among other things). Here’s a green tree gecko, a native of New Zealand:

To be honest, Skyline was a disappointment (seeing as I live near the Alps). The view was nothing spectacular. And I didn’t realize I could have hiked to the top of the gondola in about 15 minutes, rather than pay >$20 to ride in the (painfully slow) cabin. The luge was pretty cool – I would have done it a second time to try the “advanced” course if my gloveless hands hadn’t been nearly frostbitten from the cold.

I went back to Rainbow Park at night to get pictures of the kiwi birds. Unfortunately, just one was out and about, and he stuck to the darkest area in the whole enclosure. Since using the flash on nocturnal animals is strictly out, and I’d forgotten my tripod, here’s the best I could do. It’s a crop of a hand-held 2s exposure of a frenetic pecking bird. But it is a photo of the elusive kiwi!

It strikes me that “kiwi” can refer to a fruit or a bird, and is a friendly nickname for New Zealanders. So if you say “I had a kiwi last night,” it’s not certain if you ate fruit for dessert, broke a conservation law by eating endangered animals, or got lucky with a local hottie. Hmm…

Now, on to steam ovens! Here’s the rack of lamb before cooking:

The lovely steam oven itself:

And finally, the lamb after four hours of steaming in a volcanically-powered oven:

It’s very tender and moist, with a texture just like pulled pork barbecue! In fact, I’d recommend to use a lower grade of meat than prime rack of lamb, because I suspect this oven would make even the toughest pork or beef flake apart in moist tidbits. By the way, the cost of this hunk o’ lamb in New Zealand: $5 USD! I love this country.

Tomorrow, (a.k.a. 4 weeks ago) I’ll relate my visit to Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland. It definitely lives up to its name!

Penang – Culinary Paradise

On the morning of July 10th, we took in this great view of Penang from the lighthouse at Fort Cornwallis (an old British fort).

Here’s a taste of the local cuisine. Laksa is a noodle dish mixed with some greens and fish paste, with a dose of chilis on top. This small outdoor restaurant is renowned as the best place in Penang to eat this regional specialty! Man, was it good. If you’re a chilihead, ask for it extra spicy.

After lunch we headed to Kek Lok Si – the Temple of Supreme Bliss! This is crowned by the majestic Ban Po Thar, or Ten Thousand Buddhas Tower.

There’s a great view of the temple complex (and the city of Penang) from the top of the tower, if you don’t mind six or seven flights of winding stairs.

Definitely a lot of Buddhas (and their related statuary) in this place!

For dinner, we went to a nice seafood market restaurant in Penang. My hosts chose some interesting dishes. The barbecued stingray was really tasty:

And the female horseshoe crab, well, let’s just say it’s an acquired taste. Definitely worth trying once, for those with a sense of culinary adventure!

What’s the strangest seafood you’ve ever eaten? Leave a comment and share your crazy food stories!

More Bangkok Streets

On July 9th, all I did was travel, starting at 7am in Bangkok and ending at 12 midnight in Penang, Malaysia. It was one of those wearying days, so I didn’t take any photos. That means a bit of flair from yesterday’s street shots!

Juice and drinks are everywhere. This high-class shop had bottles instead of the ubiquitous bags-o-juice with a straw.

There’s a lot of emphasis on uniforms, whether for workers or schoolchildren. Actually, I’m not sure if these are school or work uniforms!

Traffic is a way of life. You’ll see jams at any time of day, and hear taxis / tuk-tuks complaining about it constantly.

I think this was one of the food stalls where you choose your ingredients and they cook for you. Although after closer inspection, I’m not sure. Might just be a fresh fruit or juice stand. Either way, there’s a plethora of good, fresh produce in Thailand! Oh yes, El Guapo, I would say you have a plethora.

Thailand was a lot of fun and a lot of sweat, but somehow I’m happy to be leaving for less tourism-based areas. Up tomorrow, my first trip to Malaysia for sightseeing instead of business!