Catching up on Koh Samui

I know I'm really on vacation when blogging becomes too much work. Not only have I been taking lots and lots of photos - way more than I can possibly keep up with from an editing, organizing, and uploading standpoint - but I also am in such a state of relaxation that I find it difficult to motivate myself to actually put my experiences into words for everyone to see.

Arrival at the beautiful Samui Airport, exited right onto the runway.

I recently returned from a six day stay in Koh Samui, Thailand, one of the country's most beautiful islands. Initially, I wasn't convinced that I was really experiencing Thailand, but rather just a tourist destination. The island is breathtaking, with white sand beaches and endless panoramic views in all directions, but how can people really live there? It took me a few days to look past the numerous hotels and other tourist traps on the island and, with the help of Melissa and her dad, to experience the local people and culture.

There are less than 100,000 residents of Koh Samui, but the population almost certainly exceeds this figure at all times due to its popularity with tourists coming primarily from Australia, Europe, and the Middle East. I had far fewer encounters with Americans than I was expecting.

There's a lot to do on the island, be it enjoying the beaches, nearby national marine park, or the lively nightlife, but when I got to Melissa's house and saw the view, these things suddenly became a little bit less appealing.

I was perfectly okay with sitting back and enjoying the view for a day or two, so that's exactly what I, Melissa and her dad, and our two friends Natalie and Ann did. 

Ann, left, and Natalie, right, posing for a future Breezer's drink ad.

Further encouraging me to stay at home for a little extra R&R was the continuing annoyance of jetlag and sickness that I was suffering from. All of the traveling and sightseeing was a little bit too much for my body to handle at first I guess. Thankfully though, this wasn't without its benefits. Going to bed very early meant I woke up very, very early. Specifically, I was up around 4:30 AM on our second day in Koh Samui, and I was lucky enough to see the sunrise.

This was taken from outside of my bedroom window. Not a bad view to wake up to.

Despite how tempting it was to stay home all week long, I was happy to get out and explore the city too. Unfortunately, these photos are still in the processing stage, so I can only share some more that I took around the house for now. I am working on the photos from around Koh Samui and should be able to post more of them in the next day or two.

The poolman: This view makes it too easy to take dramatic photos.

Keeping with tradition: Here's a shot of one of the local beers, Singha. I'm collecting
pictures of different local beers from all over the world, although I can't say I know
what I could do with them anyway.

Taken on the second floor balcony, looking into the house at a mirror that reflects the view.

This gazebo, or "sala" as its called in Thailand (and elsewhere I'm sure), was one of my closest friends while in Koh Samui. Nothing quite like lounging underneath it.

I do actually have one picture taken outside the house to share now...I took this outside of a fireworks store.

This parrot stands guard to keep people from stealing fireworks...I'm sure it's a highly effective security system.

Aside from a minor catastrophe where one of the fireworks decided not to launch and instead blew up on the ground almost exactly where I took the above photo (days later and at night of course), I'd say they added a nice element of festivity to the trip.

This incident sort of defined the trip. There were a few incidents of pure ridiculousness, whether it be a boat ride that violated every safety code known to man or a Thai coyote show where men embrace their inner woman or a firework gone awry. But, no matter how crazy things seemed to get, I was always able to laugh it off and move on, which I'm thankful for. Family, please do your best to smile and laugh it off as I did, I don't mean to worry you. I assure you I'm safe and sound back in Singapore.

And if what I've said is too much, just pretend I stayed at home the whole time and relaxed. After all, it was raining and dark, and there's no need to go out at such times anyway.

Now that I'm back in Singapore and finishing up my last few days here, I'm slowly working toward a return to "reality" with my upcoming semester of school just around the corner. What an incredible summer it's been though. I've lived more this summer than ever before, and I have a lot of people to thank for the opportunities I've had. Here's to hoping that my good luck continues and as I said, stay tuned for more information on my trip to Thailand. I promise that I'll have more "cultural" experiences to share next time.

The Best Time in Singapore: Night

When I think of all my motivations for travel, the food, people, fun and experiences to be had, I find it difficult to find a specific motivator greater than the awe-inspiring cityscapes of Asian countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Seoul. Specifically, seeing these places at night has probably been highest on my list of travel goals since first seeing photos of them. I've yet to see all of the places I'm hoping for in Singapore but I did recently get the chance to explore Clarke Quay, an upscale district lined with restaurants, bars, and nightclubs.

Used about a 5 second exposure to create the blurring effect on the water.

We spent a few hours at Brewerkz, a pretty cool brewery that's known for its Tuesday night "trivia nights". If you are ever in the mood to feel stupid, check it out, the questions are brutally difficult (at least to me - some of the teams seemed to handle them somewhat well).

Despite losing terribly at quiz night, there was a bright side. The lighting in Brewerkz was pretty awesome for photos, or so I thought.
This is Melissa and her two friends, Tanya and Ann. 

Ann, master of Cold War history and other topics, trying to keep the team alive.

Afterwards I was feeling pretty sick so we were planning to head home, but decided to do a bit of walking around first. It's amazing, really, how a place so crowded and busy can be so clean. Littering is fined heavily in Singapore, but the reality is that it's a cultural thing. The fine is $500 for littering, but the U.S. has pretty hefty fines for littering too, and from what I understand there really is no one there to enforce the littering laws of Singapore anyway. Even so, if a piece of trash falls to the ground, you're sure to see someone bending down to pick it up right away. That's a refreshing sight.

Since there isn't much more to talk about that relates to these photos, I'd like to address one question which has come up in response to my first entry from Singapore. That is, how do people afford to live here, where costs are so impossibly high for cars, homes, and in other areas?

Well, there are probably two answers. Singapore is a highly desirable place to live. Safe, clean, and filled with things to do and friendly, smart people, it's a place that those who have earned fortunes might choose to live. If business takes you to Asia, Singapore is known to be the most expatriate friendly country of all. So, for those who need not worry about money, the costs of living here don't much matter. But, for everyone else, there is a key component that makes life here much more feasible. The Company.

Singapore is home to a huge number of expatriates from the U.S. as well as other powerful countries around the world such as Great Britain and Japan. These people have relocated to Singapore for the purpose of their work, and are usually employed by companies based in their home countries. These companies are aware of the costs of living in Singapore, and thus provide substantial allowances for housing, cars, and even the hefty tuition bills one faces if sending their kids to Singapore's world-class international schools. It is far from the strictly salary based pay that we're used to here in the States. 

I could talk forever about Singapore, and in particular, the expat lifestyle, but I don't want to do that as I'm not completely confident in my knowledge of it. Spending time around Melissa and her friends here has really opened my eyes to the unrecognized differences that people in this lifestyle face, but I don't want to pretend that I really understand it all yet.

Heading further into the heart of Clarke Quay, we found this awesome shop selling, well, whatever these are. Melissa
pretended to be interested in buying one for me so that I could take a few pictures.

What place could be complete without color changing fountains...

These will be the last Singapore photos I share for a little while, as I'm now putting together a pretty big backlog of photos from my time in Koh Samui, Thailand, where I'm writing this from. Recent experiences here have defined ridiculous, I guess you could say, and I'll elaborate on that when I write again soon.

Despite how stupid I look making this pose, I've pretty much accidentally turned it into a
habit of mine. I guess I'll be embracing it moving forward, and will take photos like this
all over the place?

Night really is my favorite time in Singapore, and it's my favorite time to take photos too. I made a few mistakes when I was out shooting these, so I'm glad I still have some chances to go out and take more. Until next time, I hope you enjoyed them anyway and I will do my best to keep posting quickly. Please feel free to leave me feedback in one way or another, negative or positive.

Chinatown Heat

Having now been here for what's quickly approaching one whole week, I'd like to say I've completely adjusted and settled in. Unfortunately, the decision to enjoy club life on the night of my arrival left me pretty vulnerable to the illness that's been spreading around lately, and so I'm now trying to recover from that. It's not such a big deal, more like a common cold, but I would like to be over it soon so I can really enjoy myself. On top of this, I've now adjusted time zones once again, albeit only by one hour this time. More on that later...don't want to spoil the surprise.

Melissa and I have both been somewhat sick the past few days, and the holiday weekend had the city's major attractions packed with people, so we've postponed our biggest plans for later. Thankfully there will still be plenty of time to do everything we want to do. In the meantime, though, we did do some exploring. Melissa and her mom brought me to Singapore's Chinatown recently, where I was able to get a serious dose of Asian culture (or at least I thought so). It was actually hard to come to grips with the fact that I was actually in Asia, having been surrounded by so much "fake Asia" in the states. Hopefully that makes sense to others who might've had the chance to visit the real thing.

Contrasting designs. Skyscrapers and oriental designs.

Chinatown was crowded too, and the weather was about as tough as it gets in this part of the world from what I understand. It was almost impossible to walk in the sun for more than a few minutes without starting to sweat profusely, and yet it didn't seem to bother some of the locals. The photos in this blog are really nothing special in my mind as it was a little too hot and crowded for me to take the time to really look for good photos, but I wanted to share anyway.

I don't understand how they handled the heat.

In an effort to escape the heat, we took some time to check out a history museum that was air conditioned. It's hard to convey the drama of the building through photos, but it detailed the horrible living conditions that Chinese suffered through when first arriving in Singapore.

Part of a table modeled after what one might've seen had they been living with the Chinese during their hardship.

Those of you who have been reading my blog since my time in Ghana will remember that I wrote about the hostility I felt when taking street photos in the city. Thankfully, Asia seems to be an entirely different culture in this sense. The Chinese in Chinatown seemed to receive my camera warmly, even occasionally cracking a slight smile when realizing I was pointing it at them. There was definitely never a moment when I felt as though I was upsetting one. That said, I still need to work on getting to the point where I literally don't worry at all what people think of me if I intend to get the best possible street photos. I'm not sure if I'm willing to make that commitment just yet.

As you can see, Chinatown is quite a bit "touristy" in itself. The people need to make a living somehow.

This was a pretty refreshing sight. I didn't think to check the price, but I'd be interested to compare it to the price of bananas in Ghana.

Because Chinatown is a popular tourist destination, the prices on most things weren't particularly low. Some things, like shirts and hats, could be had cheaply thanks to intense competition, but anything of real quality was clearly priced with the tourist budget in mind. It was also interesting to see that the tourist was not strictly white but rather a healthy mix of whites and Asians.

And while I'm not very good at trying to include myself in photos, I did manage to sneak into one or two, just to prove that I was actually there. I know that the photos I'm in will end up being the most memorable, so I can appreciate when someone offers to take my (or in this case, our) picture.

Since Chinatown I've been busy doing other things as well, but I'll share those photos and thoughts later. For now, I just wanted to let you know where I wrote this blog from...I really recommend clicking this photo and then re-clicking it on Flickr, so you can see it in full screen. I promise to share more photos again soon.

The Long Journey to Singapore: Jetlagged First Days

I'm really happy that I can sit here in Singapore and say that the headache of getting here was absolutely worth it. Of course, it wasn't the 22+ hours of air travel from New York to Singapore that was so difficult, but rather the 40 minute trip from Boston to New York that pushed me to the edge of my sanity. Thanks to thunderstorms over New York City, I was unable to make my connecting flight out of JFK on Wednesday.

Not such a big deal it might seem, but when the flight I needed to be on only flies once per day, it cost me 24 hours. I consider myself a mild-mannered person, but the experience at Logan Airport dealing with Jet Blue left me pretty disappointed with the U.S. airline industry as a whole - it's pretty amazing how much more efficient and reliable international carriers are.

After a true test of patience, I rebooked my BOS-NY flight for earlier the next day to minimize any chance of missing the connection again. I was also told to reclaim my bags, and so I did that. Or, well, I at least tried to, but Jet Blue again impressed me by letting my bags leave on the plane without me despite my standing there as one of their associates described the appearance of my bags to the person who was supposed to take them off the plane for me. Thankfully, the brilliant staff at Singapore Airlines were able to track down my bags the next day with less difficulty than I had expected.

En route from Boston to New York, about to land.

My plane at JFK. A relief to see after the wait I'd been through up to that point.

I wasn't the only one eagerly awaiting boarding time.

My most forgettable stay in Germany - catching up on some news in Frankfurt's airport.

Which brings me to the point I'd like to touch upon first. Singapore is one incredible little island. In the defense of the United States and other large developed countries, it has to be easier to manage things when it only takes about 45 minutes to get from one corner of the country to the other, but what is going on here is pretty amazing. The figures speak for themselves (I'm quoting prices in Singaporean Dollars, which there are about 1.2 per US$:

• World's wealthiest nation per capita
• The population is 17% millionaires
• Most billionaire's per square mile
• There are only 2 casinos in the country, yet they gross more revenue than ALL of Las Vegas put together.    The Chinese have more money than they know what to do with, and they are strong believers in luck.
• The country's airline has been awarded world's best airline 17 of the last 18 years
• The country's airport is pristine, and is the world's most awarded airport
• ...and on I could go

But all of these things come at a price, and some of these figures are equally jawdropping.
The cost of registering a single vehicle: Minimum of $65,000 (registration lasts for 10 years)
Then, one must pay import taxes at around 100% of the vehicle's cost.
The result? A Honda Odyssey becomes a $160,000 car. An Audi S5? $275,000
The prices go up with increases in engine size, too, so Ferrari's flirt with a $1,000,000 price tag.

And despite all of this, not a minute of driving goes by without seeing a Lamborgini, Maserati, or some other exotic ride, and Mercedes and Audi are more common than Toyota and Hyundai (well, not including taxis).

The argument, I suppose, is that it makes no sense to pay the $65,000 registration fee just to drive a pedestrian car...might as well get your money's worth?

And then there's housing: Monthly rent for a reasonably nice apartment runs between $10-12,000. Houses can move closer to $25-30,000 in nicer areas.

It is simply mindblowing to me, especially after spending so much time surrounded by poverty in Ghana. I can only hope that this little country's government can continue to plan so well to prevent the economy from imploding.

Facts and figures aside, the country is beautiful. There is no such thing as a pothole, and despite the skyscraping housing developments jamming as many people as possible into what little space there is, there is no shortage of "green" here. And I'm not talking about money this time - I mean plants and trees lining every road and building, keeping with the city's pride regarding its cleanliness. I'll now be using city and country interchangeably, too, as there is only one city in this country, and it's called Singapore too.

But I didn't come to Singapore to do research...I came to have fun. And that's what I've been doing so far. I arrived at Melissa's apartment around 7:30AM on Saturday, my body completely confused as to what time it was supposed to be operating on (still trying to recover from this, I woke up at 4:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep). Again, you can see the green that I'm talking about.

Enjoying the view from the balcony, on the 8th floor.

The architecture here is especially appealing to me. I really prefer it to the older types found in New England. Taken inside the courtyard of Melissa's complex.

After settling in and a quick nap for the rest of the morning, I was introduced to an especially awesome restaurant known as Din Tai Fung, and also got a quick tour of the city. And it being a Saturday night, I also had to work up the energy to go out and enjoy the nightlife that Singapore prides itself on (oh yeah, Singapore also has the most expensive nightclub to build in the world, and most expensive mall too). I think going out and staying out late actually helped me to adjust as I was able to sleep decently late the next day, but I was completely wiped by the time the night ending.

No time to waste though, as Melissa and I went to visit the newly constructed "Gardens By The Bay" - a man made botanical gardens of sorts, and a photographer's paradise of sorts. I'll try and limit the number of photos I share just to keep things from getting outrageous, but there are no shortage of things to photograph here.

Man made trees, with solar panels filling out the tops. As time passes, the plants will grow thicker to cover the structures.

Entrance to the "Cloud Forest"

I also took the opportunity to test out the weather sealing of the camera. It's not supposed to be waterproof (meaning I can't take it scuba diving), but it is splashproof. So, I stood over by the railing and looked up. It still works, so that's good.

Looking up.

Basically, this gigantic rock structure has been turned into a botanical gardens and waterfall. The only thing missing was a water slide...definitely wish there was a water slide.

This next photo is really more about the background than the foreground. That's Singapore's Ferris Wheel overlooking the bay. Hopefully I'll have the chance to get on it before I leave.

I may have picked a bad weekend to arrive. Monday was a national holiday, so it's been pretty crowded everywhere we go. This attraction only opened about one month ago, so that probably didn't help either.

Playing with the background again here. That's the famous Marina Bay Sands Hotel. Recently built, rooms in the cheapest tower start at $400/night.

I probably would've been to embarassed to take this photo in the U.S. But here in Asia, EVERYONE has a camera, and everyone seems to love photography. It's amazing how much technology influences the culture here.

The gardens are also pretty high (which is why I want there to be a water slide so bad). I guess I'm a little bit fearful of heights still despite all the things I've been doing to conquer that fear. Here's a photo looking down from the highest bridge.

It's good that we have a shared passion for photography - helps to keep from one of us driving the other crazy.

As scenic as the place was, I could only focus on flower photos for so long. Eventually, I decided to change the target of my photos to Melissa. It's nice to have a somewhat willing subject, and I enjoyed taking the time to try and improve my portrait photography.

I did say "somewhat willing".

And here's one that was a bit more serious. Here I used a very slow shutter speed with the intention of making the waterfall in the background look smooth. Using the slow shutter speed also meant that the bright background was going to be completely blown (all white), which I wanted to do to make things a little more "high key". What ended up happening in addition to this is seen below. The drops of water flying around in front of her face actually left little trails in the air, an effect which I was pretty surprised and happy with. I guess you could call this "artsy"? 

Despite being completely exhausted and fighting my body about when to eat and sleep, I'm having a great time here so far and look forward to the schedule we have ahead of ourselves. The trouble is finding a break from all of the exploring to actually share everything. I think I did okay with the turnaround time on this one, so be patient.

Hopefully my writing opened some eyes to just how interesting this place, and this part of the world, really are. By the way, it is SO humid here. So if you're feeling awfully jealous or anything, think of 99% humidity and often crowded streets. Maybe that will make this little island a little less tempting.

The photo below is my attempt at showcasing the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. It is absolutely huge, and to think that there's an infinity pool on the roof of it (which I'm hoping to visit today) makes things that much more interesting. If you look very closely, you can see a person on the stairwell in the foreground. That should give you an idea of scale.