The Land of Oz, A Brief Introduction

24 days we'll call it...the time I've been in Australia thus far. 24 days filled with meeting new people, gasping at high prices, partying in themed attire, and lots and lots of sunshine. In fact, as I write this it's raining a bit. It's yet to rain for more than a few consecutive minutes in these 24 days, so power to you, mother nature, we're all a bit healthier now.

This is Broadbeach. Bond provided free buses for students during Orientation Week. Sorry for the terrible photo, just wanted to show you some of the coast.

Of course three and a half weeks has given me more to talk about than I could possibly expect your attention span to deal with, so I'll try and generalize and keep things to a reasonable length.

The Bentley Group! Missing two of us in this photo taken at Burleigh Head National Park.

My first observation is with regards to culture shock, or lack thereof. In comparison to the rather exotic places I've seen of late, namely Nicaragua, Ghana, and Thailand, it's not so different here. Calling the Gold Coast an extension of California isn't too far off. Now is this a bad thing? Well, to some people it might be. If you're looking for an entirely new experience and you want to have it shoved down your throat so that you have no choice but to change your lifestyle and adopt new perspectives, then Bond University is not the place for you. But, if you're willing to be a little adventurous and really look, there's plenty of culture to experience.

THIS is truly part of Aussie culture. Rugby! I had the pleasure of watching an international game between Australia and Argentina at Gold Coast's stadium.

The above photo is actually of some passionate Argentina fans. You might notice the apparent lack of hostility towards them. This is culture! Think about it, how would Red Sox or Yankee fans react if the opposition did this at their home stadium? These people are truly laid back.

Opening ceremonies

The Scrum

The Line Out

I'm going to make a serious effort to give everyone in our Bentley group a shoutout in this entry. That's Diana on the left, Melissa (of course) in the middle, and Sean on the right.

What's unique at Bond, though, is that all of this culture isn't necessarily Aussie. In fact, Bond's student body is about 50% international. Of those living on campus, the overwhelming majority of students are foreign. Unfortunately, the number of Americans is quite high. I say "unfortunately" with sarcasm of course, but hey, it's a bit boring to meet your own kind over here! But fortunately, there are more than 70 nationalities represented at Bond with noticeable Asian, European, and even Canadian influences on campus. The group of Bentley students (there are 14 of us here) have become quite close with a group of German students whom you can see below. In addition, I've had the pleasure of befriending a Ukrainian student and a number of Australians so far.

That's Nico, the finest chef in all of Gold Coast, on the left, Dennis in the middle, and Leo on the right.

Leo and Nico enjoying some of their finely prepared cuisine (with nice eating utensils too...) We spent the day at their place yesterday  for a barbecue.

So while yes, even Aussies will admit that the Gold Coast lacks culture and no, there aren't 'roos running around all over the place (you have to go about 20 minutes down the road to the nearest golf course to see them in the wild), there is a different type of culture to be found here and it just takes a bit of courage to find it. Also, just because Aussie's aren't THAT different doesn't mean they're one and the same. The accent is still entertaining and they have plenty of unique lingo to accompany it, which keeps conversation interesting. They truly are laid back for the most part and yes, many love to surf. This definitely isn't true of everyone and Aussies are wary of stereotypes that portray them as lazy beach bums rather than creative, hard-working people, so they are making efforts to change this.

This is Max La Cava, the most confident and hilarious half Italian half Venezuelan student to ever grace Bond's campus.

You'll have to forgive me as I haven't yet taken photos of Bond's beautiful campus. You can see a bit of it in this photo, though.

I won't contend that Gold Coast can match most places in the world for richness in culture though and it's true that cities like Sydney and Melbourne can offer more in this regard, but that's alright, not every travel experience has to be rich with culture. This is especially true when other factors, like the weather, the scenery, and the personalities, are so incredibly enjoyable.

A common sight at Burleigh Beach. Enjoying the water.

Laid back? Yes, definitely.

Rachael

Pat

Steve. Please forgive me for the repetitive pictures, I want to be fair to everyone.

I'll avoid discussing the weather forever as after all, it's just the weather, but really it is absolutely beautiful here. There are quite literally no clouds in the sky on most days and humidity is non-existent, yet it cools down at night to a temperature that requires jeans and a sweatshirt to be comfortable in. This will change as the season progresses into warmer weather and by the time I leave it will be flirting with 100 degrees every day, but until then, I will sure enjoy this.

And what would a discussion of Australia be without mention of the beaches. Broadbeach, Surfer's Paradise, Burleigh Heads, Sunshine Beach, Rainbow Beach, Byron Bay...the list of beaches goes on and on. What Australia is best known for, the sun and the surf, meet beautifully at these beaches where one could easily spend the entirety of the day doing next to nothing at all.

Thank Melissa for the idea to climb down here. Love the view of the Gold Coast. This is Bianca, Nicole, and Melissa.

Trademark blog pose continues in Australia.

Mom, Dad, have I scared you enough with this photo? I promise it's not as dangerous as it might look.

We consider ourselves adventurous people.

Diana on Burleigh Beach.

Ken. Sorry for the less than stellar photo Ken, wish I had something better but you were a bit late to the party at Burleigh Head. Next time...

Ah, sometimes I forget that my semester here is called a "Study Abroad". Just kidding family, I promise I'm working as hard as I need to guarantee high marks come exam time. The structure here is a bit different - more European in style - meaning more emphasis is placed on exams and less on assignments along the way. It's good for us travelers as it allows more time to explore the country, but also means high stresses around midterms and during finals.

I'm particularly enjoying my photography class. What a nice change of pace, to get away from the grind of tough business course after tough business course and get to explore my favorite hobby. I know most of what is being taught right now, but I've learned a few new things already and am looking forward to what's to come.

Part of the fun of my photography class is the weekly photo submission I'm required to do. Here are the first two:

The assignment was to take a creative self-portrait expressing who you are or what you're experiencing. My explanation is that I feel like I'm in paradise, yet I'm here to study. To get this shot I lugged a lounge chair across half the campus to put it here, changed into these clothes despite it being quite cold, put on my shades, framed the shot to include an academic building in the background (hence the "study" part), had Melissa press the shutter and then paint me with a flashlight. Quite the ordeal indeed, but good fun!

The assignment was just to display something cool taken during the week. This is a simple shot made more interesting with the help of Photoshop.

I know that this has been unorganized and I hope that it hasn't been impossible to follow. I wanted to get all of my thoughts down before posting photos to avoid rambling on about what I did, where and when, yadda yadda. Not sure if it helped to keep the thoughts focused but here are a few more I couldn't fit in.

Other things I've done:

Attended an exclusive "secret location" party at Movie World, one of Gold Coast's many theme parks.

Fallen in love with kebabs (NOT shish-kebabs)

Attended a music festival at a nearby hotel/bar/club

Left to right: Melissa, Clara, Max, Nicole, Diana - before the music festival.

The Jungle Giants at the Music Festival. Pretty good and apparently relatively famous in Oz.

Witnessed the Rugby 7's tournament grouping announcements on Bond's campus

These costumes are the traditional wear of fans at the Rugby 7's games. Supposedly it is an absolute blast to attend.

So there it is. 3 and a half weeks of time in Australia summarized in a blog entry of what is hopefully to the reader a reasonable length. I have some BIG travel plans for the month of October but I won't unveil what those are just yet. Maybe I'll save it as a surprise. All I can say is that the photos should be stunning if I'm able to do the location(s) justice.

I can promise more frequent updates moving forward and I'm even considering doing a 365 challenge starting October 1st. This would mean taking one quality photo every day for an entire year and posting it to my blog for all to see. This is a common practice among photographers and serves as a great way to continue improving and refining skills - I'll make the commitment to do it or not in the next few days. Now that I've covered all of my Asia photos and updated you all on Australia thus far I'll have no excuse but to be out taking pictures for you and I to enjoy.

Until next time, g'day mate.

Goodbye Singapore: An Appropriate Conclusion

Yes, I've now been in Australia for nearly 3 weeks and maybe it's about time I begin taking more photographs here. After all, this will be my last entry dating back to my time in Singapore and from there on out I'll have to keep taking photos to accompany my blogworthy experiences. I'll worry about that tomorrow or something, though. I think I'll spend my afternoon lounging out by the pool.

I've titled this entry "An Appropriate Conclusion" because all of the photos I have to share were taken at night. From the time that I arrived in Singapore, I more or less only had one place that I absolutely had to see, and that was the Marina Bay at night. This area defines Singapore well in many ways. There are high rise apartment buildings all around, many newly constructed and featuring enormously expensive penthouses. These are signs not only of the growing population of Singapore but also of the growing wealth found here.

Looking out at Singapore's massive ferris wheel, the Lotus Flower (red building), and the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.

Each side of the bay has a hugely prestigious hotel, too - each of which has a distinctly different representation. On one side sits The Fullerton Hotel; this is the oldest remaining building in Singapore and is a heavily renovated version of what was once Singapore's post office. Until recently it was the most expensive hotel in the country, only being surpassed when the Marina Bay Sands Hotel was opened. The Sands represents something very different, "new money" I suppose. Where wealthy tourists and even locals looking for a special night drop hundreds of dollars per night on rooms with breathtaking views.

This is a panorama of the same view. If you don't know the drill by now, I really recommend clicking it to head to the Flickr site and then reclicking the image to see the full view.

And in addition to all of this, the world's most expensive (to build) shopping mall lines the bay. Louis Vuitton even has its own separate building which sits on top of the water for all to admire. So this area at least represents one distinct aspect of Singapore: the wealth of both the people and the government. One needs to look elsewhere to see the booming business district and lively shipping port, and this is no accident. The government operates on 50-year plans which quite literally map out plans for everything, from construction to education to military spending. They decided that people wouldn't want to see these things when touring the country, so they've located them elsewhere on the island.

Cityscape of beautiful, beautiful Singapore.

I only wish that it could be so easy for much larger and more diverse countries like the United States to plan and manage their future. Unfortunately for us, there are just too many variables at play for attempts at long term planning to be viable. Or are there? Some presidential candidates seem to have thought this way but it seems our plethora of short term problems have kept any efforts to rescue ourselves in the long term at bay.

It's nice to be able to put what I've learned about photography to use in such a beautiful
place. I used a 10 second exposure to create the glasslike look on the water.

I don't mean to make this a political commentary but it's important to draw connections between our own country and the rest of the world. The world, and the gap between "us" and "them", is getting smaller and smaller by the day after all. And I have to say, spending so much time away from home and continuing to hear so many terrible forecasts for the future of western economies including our own really gets one thinking. Does it make sense to set up my life in a country with a future so unstable? This is the Asian Century and this little island of Singapore (just an example) would be an awfully nice place to raise a family. Just thoughts, but they're continuing to become more credible.

Stepping away from the deep thoughts for a moment, we happened to catch the nightly light show at the bay. It's hard to argue that this is little more than a way for Singapore to show off, to demonstrate its successes through a spectacular series of light beams and, if I recall correctly, music too?

Sorry for the terribly similar shot, but I really love the way the colors reflect on the water in this one. Note the different colors and positions of the lights in this one.

And seeing as Singapore wanted to showcase its lighting, I figured I could try to showcase mine as well. Using Melissa and her younger sister Erica as a subject, I planned out some shots which I'm really happy with. This next photo took about as much time in set up, trial & error, and post-processing as any I've ever taken, so I hope you like it as much as I do. I set the camera on a tripod and had the two of them pose in a position that they could stay absolutely still in for 8 seconds (the length of the exposure). After pressing the shutter I ran over to them with a flashlight and hit them with the light. This gives the same sort of effect as a flash set up that would likely have been way out of my price range and my baggage allowance.

Once we had the set up figured out, we were able to take turns jumping into the photo. Is this the most difficult way to get a cool photo in front of Marina Bay? Maybe, but I doubt I'll forget it if for no other reason than the effort put into making it happen.

Singapore is really a lovely place, if you hadn't gotten that impression from my writing yet. I've said it before and I'll say it again that it isn't necessarily easy to pinpoint what makes it so nice. In a way it's not that special, the perfection of nearly everything can at times be overwhelming and might even make one long for the things we love to complain about be it rude people, unpredictable public transportation, or bad weather. But when you really think about what is missing and what isn't, it's hard to argue that this tiny little country hasn't come close to achieving perfection in the technical sense.

Still kicking myself for letting them get out of focus.

I expect that my opinion of this country will change with time and as I hopefully continue to see more of the world. Maybe I won't miss it so much in a few years or maybe I'll want to go back more and more, I guess only time will tell. Until then, I'll remember it through the photos I have and the memories that they help to bring about. I hope you enjoyed my tour of Singapore and I look forward to sharing my Australian experiences soon.

Melissa and Erica, tired of being the subject of my photos, pose in front of the Lotus Flower. Yes, it changes colors all the time.

Failure to Decide: Singapore Zoo

Never have I felt it so difficult to decide which photos to share as I do in this one. Really, I've done a terrible job of narrowing the selection down to just a few of the best photos. What you're going to get here is more like my failed attempts at being a tough critic, because I like wildlife (or captivity if you count zoo animals that way) photography too much not to share. They say a photographer should only show his or her very best work. Unfortunately, I don't do a good job at that and here especially I'm probably going to share for more than I should.

This welcome area is supposed to be occupied by parrots...that is not a parrot. 

The good news is that means there's going to be lots to look at and as promised, a few videos too. My videography continues to be downright awful. I am literally including these extremely short video clips with no belief that they are any good, but rather with the hope that they help you share in the fun. Bentley does offer a filmmaking course or two, but I'm not sure it will really fit into my schedule.

The monkey scared off all the parrots!

You might now be wondering why they choose to have parrots and monkeys share the same exhibit. Well, they actually don't. In fact, neither animal has ANY exhibit. Both of the animals you see above and many more species ranging from monkeys to peacocks reside in the zoo with absolutely zero boundaries to speak of. You could (and will) encounter one of the above monkeys literally anywhere in the park. That said, the lions and other man-eating beasts are kept in enclosures. There's a fine line between kindness to animals and stupidity.

As I said, random encounters are bound to happen. This peacock was strolling along the path when we rounded the corner.

As fun as it would have been for more of the animal varieties to be roaming freely around the park, those behind fences and glass were still hugely enjoyable to watch. The first exhibit we checked out was the otters, and it happened to be during feeding time.

Eyeing the food carefully.

They waited patiently for the food to come...and then started yelling and jumping at it!

The next stop was at the White Tiger exhibit. This place is a bit infamous at the Singapore Zoo, as just a few years ago one of the zookeepers walked into the exhibit with a bucket over his head during open hours, only to be mauled by the tigers in front of quite a few zoo visitors. Nonetheless, the animal is incredible to watch and it's pretty upsetting to think that there are so few left in the wild.

The only non animal photo I'll be sharing from the trip helps to lighten the mood a little bit. Our arrival time was very close to the first asian elephant show of the day, so Melissa and I made sure to get there early for good seats. The show is very popular, and as you can by the look on this one's face, is a hit among the kids.

In the spirit with a giraffe shirt.

The show was great entertainment and showcased just how intelligent elephants really are. They're about as keen on learning tricks as dogs are, an impressive feat considering how much more coordination it must take for them to pull off their stunts. The healthy combination of laughter and information made for a great half hour or so, and there were a few great solid ops as well. I wasn't successful in capturing them all, but I at least did alright. I've also included a few very short videos for your enjoyment.

In the middle of her 180 degree turn on top of this log.

A true crowd pleaser.

I think she got a little upset in the video below... Planned or not, it was pretty funny to watch the elephant kick the trainer's hat into the water.

A bonafide hat thief.

Unfortunately, the show had to come to an end. After the performances officially ended, there was an opportunity to feed the elephants a basket of fruit for $5. Melissa and I decided against it, but stuck around to photograph the feeding. 

I'm not sure how happy the trainer looks, but the elephant looks to be enjoying herself.

Are you getting the idea yet? I'm two animals down, dozens more to go, and I've already written an entry the length of my last one. Thankfully, or at least for time's sake, not everything was so interesting and attractive to photograph. We moved on to an area of the park that's home to about a dozen or so species of monkey. While many of them were lounging near the back of their exhibits, a few were up and about. The orangutans and baboons are not located in this area but rather have much larger and more interesting exhibits.

Don't know the species unfortunately. The hand looks eerily similar to a human hand if you ask me.

Same story here. Don't know the species, but I'd have to say this monkey looks pretty old, right?

This little fellow was buried pretty far back under some trees and in dim lighting. I'm amazed at what the camera could do to keep the details.

Before stopping at the orangutans main exhibit (I say main because they actually are given the freedom to roam the treetops of a significant portion of the park. Ropes connect trees all throughout the center of the park and if you look up in this area, there's a decent chance you'll see an orange ape sitting or climbing somewhere), we headed for the reptile house and what was another amazing part of the zoo to me, the Fragile Forest. Cheesy name, perhaps, but an amazing place to be.

At the reptile house on the way to the Fragile Forest. Emerald Boa, I think.

Sticking with the theme of the Singapore Zoo, what makes the Fragile Forest so special is that there are absolutely no walls between you and the animals. The area is enclosed by a giant greenhouse-like net, and once you're in, you're part of the habitat. One of our first encounters was pretty funny - this little mousedeer somehow managed to trap himself between us and the group of people behind us, and he didn't know how to get away.

Eventually he gained the courage to run along the path to the other side as you can see above. The noise you're hearing definitely didn't come from him though. There were a whole bunch of brightly colored parrots around us too and they were very vocal. Unfortunately none of them spoke english like the pet ones usually do. The entertainment continued when we found ourselves surrounded on all sides by a pack of energetic lemurs.

Definitely looks like a cartoon character to me.

This is uncropped. I was using a zoom lens for this but still, they were extremely close.

The lemurs actually got so close that I had to change lenses to a wider one. It was awesome to be able to do this, as the lens I changed to is of higher quality and can give some really shallow depth of field. It's an ideal lens for portraits of people, but why not make some lemur portraits instead?

 

The lemurs were one of the highlights of the trip and were the center of everyone's attention inside the Forest. It's a good thing, then, that the Flying Foxes wanted nothing to do with us. These huge bats were mostly asleep, which I'm thankful for. When we went on the Singapore Zoo's Night Safari later in the trip, the same couldn't be said. I have a few pictures from that I'll share later, although taking photos of animals in the dead of night is not an easy task.

Pretty spooky stuff if you ask me.

Eventually we were scared off by the bats (really we just realized we'd spent a lot of time watching the lemurs and needed to get moving) and moved on the section of the zoo devoted to African animals. The highlight of this area was the giraffes, and specifically, the chance to feed the giraffes. Melissa has been slacking worse than I have on photo uploads so I can't share the ones she took of me feeding the giraffe, but I definitely got more intimate with the tallest animal in the world than I thought I ever would.

After I fed it I didn't want to be done with the giraffes though, so I stuck around to take some more photos of them and others feeding them. The pictures range from funny:

To sad:

The look in it's eyes is pretty upsetting. Hopefully it just is sad because it wants more fruit from people.

To downright adorable:

I pretty much laugh out loud every time I look at this. The giraffe has the world's longest tongue, in case you couldn't tell.

On the way out of the area I stopped by the rhinos and noticed one of them had a battle wound. I'm guessing this is the result of a headbutting match gone awry.

Okay. I've shared a LOT of photos and have just two more animal exhibits to go through. But again, my inability to pick only maybe the best one or two photos of  each animal means there are about 10 more photos to share. Starting with the orangutans, I explained already about their free range habitat but haven't yet touched upon just how awesome they are to watch. First of all, I clearly am the evolution of these brilliant redheaded apes. Second, they are exactly that, brilliant. I wish I had taken a video as I watched this orangutan grab some leaves to bring over to his friend to share for a snack. 

And then there were those in the treetops. The look on this one's face is absolutely priceless.

See those purple lines near the bottom of the photo. That's an unfortunate effect of shooting into really harsh light (see sky behind ape).
If I bought a lens that cost a few thousand dollars more, I could probably eliminate that...

And what could be better than orangutans in treetops? Baby orangutans climbing on ropes from tree to tree. I apologize for getting a little silly here but what can I say, I've found the ape version of my four year old self.

Finally, we concluded our day with a stop at the Hamadryas Baboon exhibit. Melissa wanted to show me this and I'm really glad we stuck around for the extra hour or so to wait for the feeding session. The keepers told us that there are more than 100 baboons in the exhibit, and I have to say, as intelligent as they are, they are some of the nastiest and without a doubt ugliest things I've ever seen. The rear ends on these things are so, so ugly. Lucky for you, I've been kind enough not to share much of this ugliness, and instead am focusing on the better looking pictures I got.

I really should've taken the time to bring out this one's eyes in Photoshop, but there are just too many other things to do under the Australian sun.

More portraiture - gradually moving up the evolutionary scale. I'll make it to humans eventually.

A cute kid. This one is young and hasn't yet caught a case of the uglies.

Some of the sprawling Hamadryas Baboon exhibit.

And in watching the video below you can get a real appreciation for how intelligent these creatures really are. This large male actually figured out a way to get more food from us. Why not spin in circles to draw attention to yourself? Surely that will get the attention of onlookers.

And finally this post has come to an end. I really hope you enjoyed it as it took a lot of effort to put this one together! I had an absolutely awesome time at the Singapore Zoo and would have no problem spending a few more days there, taking the extra time to get great photographs of some of the harder to shoot animals. I'll go as far as to say that I'm pretty proud of some of these pictures and will hold out hope that one day I'll have the chance to get photos like these in the wild (don't worry mom and dad, still starting with accounting).

There's STILL more to share from Singapore which isn't necessarily a bad thing as I'm been focusing on enjoying myself here in Australia and have limited photos to share so far. I promise that's soon to change though. More from Singapore again soon.