Catamaran in the bay

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Getting back into things after a long business trip.  Went back to my last home and worked for two weeks and spent two weekends with good friends and family.  But something happened that I didn’t quite expect.  I didn’t think of Sydney at all while in the States.  Didn’t miss it, didn’t think about it, didn’t yearn to come “home”.  But then I got back.  I noticed all the things that I like about living here in Australia. These are things you simply don’t get in the States.  The people are more relaxed. They are more friendly. They seem to value relationships over status. Oh, did I mention the weather?  It’s winter in Sydney, which consists of 18-20 ° C / 62-70 ° F.  That’s pretty much the same as Seattle gets in the summer.  The evenings are pretty cold, but I stay inside and put the fire on.  The message you should be hearing is that I might stay a while…

This is from our trip to Langkawi, Malaysia last March.  Amazing place, a really nice relaxed weekend.  We were out after dinner having a walk on the beach before it was totally dark.  I’m still pretty jealous of whoever was out on that catamaran. It sat in the bay the whole weekend and didn’t move.  I could see myself owning a catamaran and sailing the south pacific for the rest of my days.

Canon 7D | Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 | 46mm | f/14.0 | 1/250th | ISO200

Vivid Sydney

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Haven’t been too good about posting since we arrived down under.  Have to get better about managing the photos.

Every year, there is a light and sound art installation. It’s called Vivid Sydney. This installation occurs all over Circular Quay and the Rocks section of Sydney.  It’s a really interesting embrace of art in the public space.  One night, we went out with a few friends. We did a photo stroll to try to capture some of the light installations.  This one was a series of moving flowers on the underside of a bridge going over the Rocks.

Canon 7D |Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 | 17mm | f/22 | 6 sec | ISO2500

WA State Vineyards

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I didn’t think I would say this. I’m having some very fond memories of our trip to the Yakima Valley last year.  We went for a photo project, but we also tasted some great WA State wines.  Highlight of the trip for me was Hedges Winery, they have some absolutely great wines for really good value.  My favorite is the Hedges Family Estate – a wonderful wine for a mere $25/bottle.

Nice wines.  I’ll have some next time I get back to WA State.  This wasn’t taken at Hedges, but at a vineyard just down the road.

Canon EOS 7D | Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 | 55mm | 1/160th | ISO100

Sydney Fireworks

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When you move to a new city, you can’t help but notice all the small differences. They stand out compared to the last place that you lived.  One thing about Sydney, they sure like their fireworks here.  Obviously, the New Year’s Eve fireworks are the marquee event each year. About a week before New Year’s Eve, there is another, rather muted, fireworks display over Darling Harbour.  Fireworks randomly go off over the harbour, generally on a Friday evening. They happen somewhere around the Domain. I still haven’t figured out what the majority of those actually are.  We will be at home. Maybe we’ll be watching a movie. Suddenly, without notice, loud bangs and light will appear over the water.

This year for New Year’s Eve, we attended a party at an apartment. It was right on the beach at Rose Bay.  We had a clear view of the Harbour Bridge and the fireworks.  I’m not sure if this happens every year, but at the beginning of the fireworks, the tide was out. From my vantage point, people appeared to be standing on the water.  In reality, they were about ankle deep in water.

 Canon 7D | Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 | 55 mm | f/2.8 | 1 second | ISO200

Blue Lagoon Spa

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It was almost a year ago that we went to Iceland for the summer solstice.  Needless to say, we won’t be going back this year as the trip would take way to long.  I have to say Iceland is really a special place – I highly recommend it to other travelers.  The people are great. The land is like nowhere else I have ever seen. They have some of the most magical natural wonders.  I’ve previously posted about Thingviller and Skógafoss, but I’d like to go back to the Blue Lagoon.

I’m not sure if this was the inspiration for the really bad 80’s movie of the same name. I can’t imagine so, as that was meant to be on a tropical island. That’s something that even I cannot say resembles Iceland. However, it was a great treat for us.  There’s something in Reykjavik that the locals affectionately call ‘the runtur‘, which is essentially an all-night pub crawl.  Most of the bars stay open until 4 AM with a handful staying open until 8 AM or later.  The situation is complicated even more by the summer solstice. During this time, the sun dips below the horizon around midnight. It then starts coming back up around 3 AM.  We finally made it back to our apartment around 7 AM and woke the next afternoon around 3 PM.  We stopped for some sandwiches to calm our stomachs. Then, we went to the Blue Lagoon spa. It is a naturally heated, geothermal pool. There is mud you can put on your skin to naturally exfoliate.  The pool is naturally heated to around 37-39°C / 98-102°F.  Even better, they have a small bar on the edge of the pool. I was able to enjoy sparkling wine while nursing my hangover from the runtur the night before. I soaked in a 102°F public bath.  All in all, an outstanding experience.  The photo below shows the entrance to the spa. The designers did a great job of making the building appear just a part of the natural surroundings.

Canon 7D | Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 | 50mm | f/13.0 | 1/80th | ISO200 – 3 image HDR

Beach View

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I want to live by the beach.  Plain and simple.  I want to walk out of my front door and see this every day.  I would smile, smile, smile, a huge smile every day.

Canon 7D | Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 | 10mm | f/13 | 1/180th | ISO100

Marina Bay Sands

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I spent about a month in Singapore on business back in 2005.  Coming back 7 years later it seems the whole downtown part of the city is new.  Sparkling new buildings, manicured new public spaces, new bridges, but the same old humidity.  I haven’t felt humidity like this since I left Texas!!  Singapore is beginning to interest me significantly. There are definitely aspects of British colonial history. In some parts like little India, you can see the history of 100 years ago. The downtown core and Santosa Island, for that matter, are new and updated. They are worthy of any world-class city.

You will likely see a bunch of travel blogs focused on finding the cheapest place to stay. They are usually about hostels.  However, since the majority of my travel is business travel, I tend to stay at newer, nicer places.  Today’s photo is of the new Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore, just at dusk.  I had worked a good portion of the day. Then I went back to the hotel to grab my camera. I walked around and grabbed dinner before my midnight flight to London.  I had a little time to kill, so I ended up at the Marina.  This was the view across the water.  My only regret was that I didn’t have my tripod to make this more crisp.

Canon 7D |Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 | 28 mm | f/2.8 | 7/10 seconds | ISO 250

Stinkers!!

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As noted previously, we stayed in Langkawi, Malaysia for a relaxing weekend.  We stayed at a pretty nice resort. The resort had a great beach. It was on the edge of a nature preserve.  The resort was protecting a natural coral reef. It had a small coral nursery where they were promoting the growth of new coral.  There was wildlife all over this place.  There were nice butterflies. Slightly annoying mosquitoes were present. I saw a rare colugo (flying lemur of South East Asia) which I had never seen before. Also, there was an interesting dusty leaf monkey that looks like it has white rings around the eyes.

But the most interesting has to be the macaque, an old world monkey.  I have shared this story with a handful of people. It seems to be a trait of monkeys across Asia, as I’ve heard similar stories from various people.  After a long afternoon on the beach, we enjoyed drinks and got some well-deserved sun. We collected our beverages and a small bowl of peanuts. We were munching on those to take them back to our room to get ready for dinner. On our walk, we came across a macaque about mid-way up a tree acting all innocent.  We put down our drinks, including a can of soda. We also set down the bowl of peanuts. This allowed us to get our camera out and take a few photos of this posing macaque.  It seemed as though not even 1 second passed before about 6 other macaques jumped out of the bushes. They quickly laid claim to our drinks and our nuts!!  I really thought that they might try to make off with my sandals too!!  They have perfected the sleight-of-hand trick. One poses for unknowing tourists to put down their food and possessions. Then, a handful of others wait to make off with the goods!!! We ended up watching these guys climb the walls onto various balconies and even break one of the balcony umbrellas.  I’d say they outwitted the humans that day.

Canon 7D  | Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 | 55 mm | f/2.8 | 1/60th | ISO400

Canon 7D | Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 | 31 mm | f/2.8 | 1/40th | ISO125

Small Slice of Paradise

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A few weekends ago, we had overlapping business trips in Singapore, so we took the weekend in Langkawi, Malaysia.  We stayed at the Andaman Resort, on Langkawi Island.  The staff claimed it was one of the top 10 beaches of the world. I’m not sure I believe that.  However, it was pretty great.  We flew out on Friday afternoon/evening and returned to Singapore on Sunday night.  It was a great weekend.  Here’s a little view of that slice of paradise.

Canon 7D | Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 | 10 mm | f/14 | 1/250 seconds | ISO200

New Year’s Eve Sydney

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I’m a couple of months late on this one. We were moving and I didn’t have access to my computer. I couldn’t process and get all our shots sorted.  No further explanation needed – Sydney New Year’s Eve fireworks, taken from an apartment party in Rose Bay.

Canon 7D | Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 | 55 mm | f/4 | 2 sec | ISO 200