The Palouse

Teresa and I went to Eastern Washington and spent the 4th of July weekend touring The Palouse. Beautiful country, but seemingly not a lot to do unless you are a farmer of a photographer. We started out on Saturday around noon heading for Palouse Falls State Park around the middle of the state. The falls come out the side of a cliff due to the eroded canyon the Palouse River runs through at that point and are quite spectacular. Unfortunately, due to our early start we arrived mid afternoon and the light wasn't great. I would really like to go back there for sunrise or sunset. I have seen pictures of the area that are breathtaking.

On to Colfax, WA after that and our base for the weekend. We explored the surrounding area from there. Up at 3:30AM to get to Steptoe Butte both Sunday and Monday for sunrise and driving all over the back roads to find interesting fields and scenes. The Palouse is a region of southeastern Washington and north central Idaho and is a major agricultural area, primarily producing wheat and legumes. The peculiar and picturesque silt dunes which characterize the Palouse Prairie were formed during the ice ages. Silt was blown in from the glacial out-wash plains to the west and south. The Palouse hills consist of more or less random humps and hollows. These hills with their wheat make for some very nice photographs.

Around the world again...

February, 2011

One more time I made my way around the world stopping in Singapore, Beirut, Dubai (first time there) and London. I did not get out much in Singapore, but in Beirut we visited the Jeita Grotto again. An interesting couple of separate but interconnected karstic limestone caves that go back for miles. Unfortunately, they don't allow photos inside.

Off to Dubai where they try and out big everyone. Tallest building, biggest mall, etc. Did you know that over 75% of the residents of Dubai are foreigners?

On the way home I had a 9 hour layover in London so I hopped the Heathrow Express train to Paddington Station, then took the Underground to Trafalger Square and wandered around London a bit. It was early morning and the weather was beautiful. I saw a lot of the preparations for the big wedding, but was there a week too early and missed the actual event.

Teotihuacán City and the Pyramids

In February and March of this year I spent a lot of time in Mexico City helping to stabilize one of my companies accounts there. It was a lot of long hour days and when people asked me what Mexico looked like I tended to respond it looked like a warehouse since that was what I saw most of the time. We did manage to get out to the Aztec Pyramids in Teotihuacán City one Sunday and it was pretty cool.

There are two big pyramids in this area, the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon.

The Pyramid of the Sun is the third largest Pyramid in the world,after the Great Pyramid of Cholula, Mexico and the Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt.

China

October 15-29, 2010
In October of 2010 I made a very quick pass through 7 cities in China. I started in Hong Kong and then moved on to Qingdao, Tianjin, Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou (the last two were day trips from Shanghai.) Five of the cities I visited I had been to before and yet I was able to see new places in each one.

In Hong Kong I took a walk to the Yuen Po Bird Market and was fascinated by the birds that were being brought to this beautiful "alley" to display. I was expecting a lot of little shops and maybe some people selling birds based on the description I had read, but it was really a social gathering. There were probably 75 men and a few women hanging out, checking out each others birds and generally enjoying each others company. I was a bit intimidated taking pictures of them and did not get any great shots, but I will probably go back next time now that I am familiar with the place. One of the things I noticed this trip was the number of bird lovers and birds as pets. I understand this has only recently been the case since the bird flu epidemic some years back.

The next stop was Qingdao (24 hours) and it was a bit of a weird arrival. As the plane descended we were engulfed in a fog that made the area look eerie. It did not have the same smell or feel that fog at home does so I did not think it was fog. The next morning the sun was out and I realized we were near the sea. The terrain reminded me of southern California; brown rolling hills, rocky outcroppings all over.

The next 24 hours was in Tianjin. Tianjin was interesting for the beauty of the city. It was clean and modern with wide streets and big shopping malls. The funny story I heard was prior to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 Tianjin was not so nice looking. I was told that a city so near to Beijing could not "show up" the capital city by looking nicer, but the Olympics and the influx of tourists changed the rule and they spruced it up. The best item was an unfinished building near our offices whose financing had apparently fallen through years ago. The government put scaffolding up around it to give the appearance of being worked on. The scaffolding is gone and the building is still uncompleted.

We drove to Beijing, but the fog was so thick I didn't really see a lot of the countryside. The weekend in Beijing was pretty cool. Friday night we went to a little tourist alley that had a myriad of food stalls serving everything from tarantulas to lizards to bugs to BBQ'd scorpions on a stick. The scorpions were crunchy and salty. We stayed away from the other stuff.

On Saturday we went to the Summer Palace and spent most of the morning wandering around. It is a huge place. Once again, it was very foggy and the scenery pictures aren't as good as I would like, but there were still some interesting things. There was a woman there in the open area playing with a hacky-sack like toy who must have been 70. She was having a blast.

3 more cities to go... I'll try to finish tomorrow.

So... it's not tomorrow. It's a couple of months later and here I am. I am not the most active bloggers.

After Beijing I headed for Shanghai. This was probably the 5th time I have been to Shanghai and I am pretty familiar with it by now. On Sunday morning one of my co-workers took me to an area called Tian Zi Fang. Very cool old area of Shanghai that has been turned into little boutique restaurants and shops, but still retains a lot of the old look.

One of the more interesting things I saw in Shanghai was right across the street from the hotel. There's a park I was wandering in taking pictures and there must have been 20 wedding parties there getting their pictures taken. Popular place. There was also a guy walking his birds. They took a bath in the fountain and then he wandered off with them on his shoulders.

Where have I been?

Busy, I guess. Since my last post I went to China and did a whirlwind tour of 7 cities in 12 days, spent a long weekend in San Diego sorting through my mom's stuff after she passed away in October and then did a quick trip to St Louis where I got to have some good pizza with Aaron and Cody and Gage. Lizzie came out for Christmas and I have been taking some pictures. I'll try to get a couple of updates in here in the next few days. In the meantime... above is a nice sunrise picture I took on New Years Day as Teresa and I were headed to the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1

September 9, 2010
Just got a new Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1. These are shots from my first weekend with it. This is a great little camera. The GF1 is a micro four thirds camera with a sensor that's about a fourth the size of a 35mm negative (18mm x 13.5mm vs 36mm x 24mm), but the idea of M4/3 cameras is to give us something closer to a point & shoot with all of the benefits of a larger format camera; interchangeable lenses, full control over aperture and shutter speed, etc. The M4/3 sensor is about 9 times the size of a typical P&S.

I still love my Nikon D300, but for a smaller, lighter camera that I can grab in any situation this little guy is very nice.

Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photowalk 2010

July 24, 2010
So, once again this year I participated in the worldwide photowalk. This year was better than last year. The leader was a bit more engaged and interested in all of us having a good experience. We went to Mt. Rainier, which is always a good spot to take pictures. The distance away from town made it an all day event rather than the normal two hours of most of the other walks around the globe. There were 1112 different walks and over 33,000 people signed walk around in groups and take pictures all on the same day! The idea is pretty interesting. The picture above is the one I entered in the contest that is associated with the walk. It did not get chosen to represent our group, but there's always next year.

Last year's post Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photowalk.

Rio de Janeiro

May 23-June 1, 2010
Another business trip that allowed me to venture out and see a place I had not been to before. I started off in Campinas and Sao Paulo arriving on a Monday morning and heading straight to work. After the 18 hours of flying and layovers to get there that wasn't the best way to start the day, but I would have had to leave Seattle on Saturday afternoon to get to Brazil on Sunday so I decided to give it a shot.

There weren't too many picture opportunities in either Campinas and Sao Paulo, but I can think of a couple of things I might have captured had I had a smaller camera (see GF1 entry above).

However, that all changed when I got to Rio de Janeiro. What a great place. I was there at the end of summer so it wasn't as crowded as I am sure it gets at the height of summer. My hotel was about a block from Ipanema Beach. I took a city tour on Saturday that went to all the regular spots you should see in Rio and I would highly recommend doing it. The one I did was called All Day in Rio. We went to the Christo Redemptor statue on a high hill overlooking Rio. Unfortunately, when I was there the statue had scaffolding surrounding it. I guess they have to clean it up once in a while. We also went to the top of Sugarloaf, an enormous rock outcropping that provided tremendous views of the city and beaches. The other very interesting stop was the Sambadrome Marquês de Sapucaí or simply Sambadrome. It is a purpose-built parade area in downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where samba schools parade competitively each year during Carnival. When you see Carnival on TV you are seeing the Sambadrome.

One of the funnier things that happened was having to have a translator to translate the English the tour guide was speaking. She spoke good enough English, but with a very heavy accent. Harry, a Swiss guy I met on the tour, had been in Brazil for six months and had gotten used to the Portuguese accent and apparently saw the look of confusion on my face so he translated for me most of the day. It was hilarious.

There was a lagoon that has a 7.5km walking/bike path around it very near the hotel so I was able to get out and get a bit of exercise (not always easy on these trips). I was about halfway around on Sunday morning and was getting thirsty so I stopped and got a coconut. I had not drunk coconut juice straight out of the coconut before. It was pretty tasty.

The food was great and the weather was incredible.

New Zealand & Australia

April 16-30, 2010
I just got back from a business trip to New Zealand and Australia. Two weeks, 4 cities, a 3 day weekend and 22,588 miles in the air.

The first week was the quick part of the trip with a departure on Friday evening from Seattle and an arrival in Auckland on Sunday afternoon around 3:00... I missed Saturday altogether. Since I was pretty tired when I arrived I didn't do allot and with only two days there and two days in Melbourne (stop two on the trip) I didn't see a lot in either city. I did have a couple of good days at work in Auckland and had a great meal where I ate Ostrich for the first time.

Melbourne wasn't terribly interesting this trip since I was there on a Wednesday and Thursday. The only place I have seen kangaroos in the wild was in Melbourne on a previous trip, but we did not have time this trip to drive out to the spot where they hang out.

Since I had not been to Perth, on the west coast of Australia, on previous trips "down under" I was looking forward to this stop the most. I was not disappointed. Perth is an Oil and Gas town with almost everyone in town and practically every visitor having some connection to the industry. Our office there does a lot of business with several of the big oil and gas companies. So, I did not imagine such a beautiful city. The Swan River runs through it and has parks and running trails as well as some pretty nice homes along both sides. The sunrise above was taken from my hotel room window looking out across South Cove to the river beyond the bridge.

Friday was a work day, but on Saturday I took a 30 minute ferry ride to Rottnest Island. Rottnest was named for a marsupial called a Quokka which resembles a kangaroo and rat combination. They have a pouch, a rat like tail and stand about 20 inches tall. In 1696 Willem de Vlamingh mistook them for rats and named the island "Rottenest", Dutch for "rat nest". The island is 11KM long and the only transportation is bicycles so I "hired" a bike and off I went in search of cool scenery and quokkas. It is believed about 10,000 quokkas inhabit Rottnest Island. I saw 6.

As you'll see in the pictures there are some very nice beaches around the island. The water is crystal clear. I saw a 4' sand shark from one overlook, but it was moving away from me and I couldn't get a recognizable picture of it.

On Sunday I flew to Sydney. When I planned this trip I was unaware that Monday the 26th was going to be a public holiday called Anzac Day. Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, and is commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honor members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I. In fact, nobody at our offices in Australia knew it was going to be a holiday either since in the past they did not receive a day off if Anzac Day fell on the weekend. So on Monday a friend from work took me on a "bushwalk" from Spit Bridge to Manly. 12.5 KM of trail with spectacular views of Sydney Harbor. Then a 30 minute ferry ride back into Sydney. I spent 5 days in Sydney and had a very nice time. I also got a couple of nice pictures of the Opera House from a different angle than previous trips.

If you click on the sunrise picture you'll be taken to my Flickr site and can look at the rest of the pictures from this trip.

Around the world in 10 days!

November 14-25, 2009
I would love to say I just got back from a trip around the world, but I have been slow to add this post so I have to just say I did it and here's the story.

I was asked to go to Hong Kong for some meetings with a potential customer and put in my travel request. My boss came back to me with a request... "can you stop in Beirut on your way back?" Yikes! I'm not sure Beirut is actually on the way back from Hong Kong, but sure, I'll go there. I was in Beirut for a week back in 2001 and had a blast so it wasn't a tough decision. So, off I went... Hong Kong for 6 days and Beirut for 4 days. I flew from Seattle to Vancouver, Vancouver to Hong Kong (13 Hrs), Hong Kong to Dubai (9 Hrs), Dubai to Beirut (4 Hrs), Beirut to London (5 Hrs) and London to Seattle (9 Hrs). All in all, approximately 52 hours of flying and layovers.

Hong Kong was interesting in that we were pretty wrapped up in trying to land a new account so every night was out with the team. We had some great food... Italian one night, German the next and Turkish one night. At the Turkish restaurant there were two Chinese belly dancers who had taken all the classes and knew how to dance, but needed to eat a little more to get the right type of belly for a proper belly dancer. They just didn't have the look. On the last day we went to Victoria Peak, the highest spot on Hong Kong Island. It's quite a view from up there, but unfortunately Hong Kong has a problem with haze and the view wasn't as photogenic as I had hoped.

I arrived in Beirut at 10:00 AM and a couple of the guys from our office took me on a long drive over the mountains to the Beqaa Valley. The first stop was a national park famous for the Cedar Trees that are the center of the Lebanese flag. If you click on the picture above you'll see one of these beautiful Cedars. The drive was quite interesting. The road was rough and pretty narrow. There is a highway, but the guy driving didn't want to take that since the other road is more interesting. After we reached the top of the mountains (maybe 4000 feet) we could look across the valley at Mt Herman (the picture above). This is one of the reasons going to this part of the world is so cool. Mount Hermon is a possible site of Jesus' Transfiguration. We ended up in Zahle, the largest town in the valley and had a very good dinner (way too much food) and a nice cigar. On the way back to Beirut I was nodding off in the car pretty bad so I had them drop me back at the hotel around 7PM and was out like a light by 8:00. I slept straight through to 8AM!

It was Sunday and I was about to have the biggest adventure of my whole trip. There's a Starbucks at a 5 way intersection just down the street from the hotel so I walked down there to get a coffee and was sitting outside enjoying it and taking in the sights when a bunch of army trucks drove up to the intersection. Each of them had about 10 soldiers in the back. Several of them got out and started looking around the area, clearly scoping it out for some reason. Well, I had my camera with me and picked it up, snapped one shot and put it back down on the table. Apparently, that was a mistake. A couple of minutes later three of the soldiers were walking towards me and they did not look happy. Some questions were asked in the local Arabic dialect which I did not understand at all so I was "asked" to accompany them to see the commander. He asked me if I had taken a picture, I showed him, he asked me to delete it, I did and he then told me no more pictures. I agreed. Turns out it was one of Lebanon's many Independence Days and some dignitary or another was coming through that intersection later in the morning and you don't take pictures of the military.

I would not recommend flying all the way around the world in such a short timespan. I was pretty wiped out when I got back to Seattle. More than normal I think. But it is pretty cool to be able to say I've done it.

The next trip will be to Boston for the birth of our first grandchild. That looks to be the best trip yet.