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. 

Goodbye Keene!

About to head off to Boston and the airport and with that in mind, I'm saying goodbye once again to my family, friends, and home. I could complain all day about it, but I can appreciate the beauty of this area for what it is - the sky is bluer here than anywhere else I've seen.

Keene also has what is without a doubt the nicest Main Street I've ever seen. This is one place I could happily hang out around without any complaints. The photos I'm posting were taken quite some time ago, around the beginning of June and before I left for Ghana. I never got around to posting them, but figured I'd show them now as an attempt to show my appreciation for downtown Keene. Sure, there are no people in these photos, but that's because it was midnight.

Mom and Dad's favorite restaurant. This place is fantastic.

Simple? Yes, but payphones actually are so rare these days that this fascinated me.

There really isn't too much to say about these pictures, and they might not even be appealing to people who don't know Main Street. Anyway, I'm sharing just to share and I hope that at least a few can appeal to a broad audience.

The famous E.F. Lane Hotel

The fine art of window shopping.

Oh, and Sadie, I'll miss you too.

Too Much Free Time - New Hampshire

You'll notice that I've given the blog a new layout. I guess I wanted a change of pace. You can explore the different "layouts" available for my posts by clicking on them in the upper lefthand corner. Also, mousing over the righthand side of the page will bring up a few different options.

Well, it's great to be back in the good old U.S. of A. I'm slowly regaining the weight I lost and am enjoying the little amount that I have to do in the meantime. At this point, just four days (one or two of which will be devoted to packing) stand between me and 4 months on the other side of the world. In the meantime, I'm doing what I usually do - taking photos of anything I can to keep boredom at bay.

I'll provide some backstory when it will help out, although I can't say the story of finding a bug on a leaf will be as interesting as meeting strangers on the streets of Ghana was.

I hope you enjoy the photos and feel free to subscribe on the righthand side of the page if you'd like.

Mike making a fool of himself for the camera's sake

I asked for a portrait, ended up with this pretty funny picture thanks to Mike throwing a football at his (our friend Dan's) face.

Above is the last photo I'm going to post from my now old camera, the Olympus E-PL1. The image quality was definitely great but I missed way too many great photo opportunities with it because it was just too slow to operate. I upgraded to the awesome Olympus OM-D EM-5 and couldn't be happier. The image quality is definitely better, but more importantly, the controls are so much faster that it gives me room to take advantage of what I've learned about photography.

So, the rest of these are from the new camera.

Mom's garden - providing plenty of image opportunities

If I were back in Ghana, this probably would've given me a heart attack. Thankfully, New Hampshire doesn't have anything but garter snakes (I hope).

My camera came with a great new lens, too. The best thing about it thus far has to be the macro (extremely close focusing) option. This lets me take pictures of tiny insects no bigger than my fingernail (like the one below). Another good way to pass time since I won't have to worry about running out of subjects.

Here are a few more photos from around the house and in the garden. I really could just spend all day outside using the lens. I appreciate how it makes me see things I otherwise wouldn't have seen, like this spider that had built its web on a plant in the front yard.

St. Andrews Cross Spider

Bonus points if anyone can tell me what this tiny little insect is. Again, never would've seen this if it weren't for the lens I was using.

This dragonfly actually sat still for me for a few minutes while I tried to get the best composition - still working on seeing the best angle and light.

And luck helps too. I was just trying to frame a shot of this flower when a bee flew in and landed on it.

To wrap up the garden photos, here are two more shots using the macro lens that I particularly like. This lens makes it way too easy.

But, it hasn't been all boring lately. One of the best things about being home is that, well, I actually have family here. My aunt Terri came to visit for a couple of days and thankfully, she shares my passion for photography. I'm pretty sure we tested the patience of my two brothers and it's becoming increasingly obvious that I'm obsessed with my camera, but at least I'm pretty happy... We went out to Kimball Farms, an awesome restaurant in Jaffrey, NH, for dinner, where the scenery is almost as great as the food. Here are a few family photos from the trip.

And here's a bit of the scenery I mentioned. I'm really loving the way this camera renders color.

And of course, no trip to Kimball's can be complete without ice cream. What you see is a small, and I could barely even get through half of it. 

Side note: This shirt is one that I was given in Ghana for taking part in a volunteer trip to a village that I mentioned in my blog before.

Having the brothers with us was great company, but it kept me and Terri from going crazy and running around taking photos all day. So naturally, we had to leave the two of them behind to take a photo walk with Sadie the following day. We just went around the neighborhood, but we had some fun anyway.

Took this in the yard before leaving, can't get over the detail. You can actually see me taking the photo in the reflection of her eye.

Early in our walk we came across a neighbor's garden that was particularly interesting. Looking like complete weirdos, Terri and I walked over to the flowers and started snapping photos. I'm confident that the neighbors running by thought we were absolutely out of our minds. Again, I saw some things I never would've seen otherwise, and I'm happy about that.

I'm told this is an invasive species, and that I should've killed it instead of photographing it. Oh well...

I took a ton of other shots around the neighborhood, but nothing really worth sharing. I was too busy chasing  Sadie out of neighbor's yards and was pretty overwhelmed with the heat (excuses).

Here's one last photo taken before Terri left - Sadie was literally licking Michael's face for a solid 15 minutes straight, so this wasn't very hard to capture. 

I apologize as I know this blog is now getting way too long, but I've been really going crazy with the camera lately and I'm also extremely happy with how the pictures look at the size I'm posting at, so I'll share a few more experiences before ending this entry.

I met up with my friends Nelson and Kurt recently to take a trip over to the nearby Pisgah Park. It's located in Chesterfield close to me, but I'd never seen it before. Here's a photo from the car ride there, I was just curious to see what it would look like and I'm decently happy with it.

When we arrived at the park the light was pretty nice. We had a pretty lengthy walk through the woods before reaching our goal, and I managed to get one decent shot of the light coming through the trees.

After a bit more walking, we made it to where we were going. There were no other people in sight and, if it weren't for us, there would've been next to zero noise at all. I say all the time how bored I get in New Hampshire, but I can really appreciate places like this. Nelson and Kurt were bold enough to do a few dives, and I took the chance to try out the burst mode on my camera. Of course I could have done better, but I'm pretty happy with what I got. 

I also did my best to capture the scenery, although my composition really should be better. This is one area I'm hoping to improve before I make it to New Zealand, where I'll really want to be taking landscape photos.

Okay, just one more set of photos I promise. Last night, we had a blackout. The power was out from about 9:30PM until after I went to sleep. Rather than letting this ruin my night, though, I actually found a way to turn it into a good thing. The lack of lighting meant I pretty much had complete control over the lighting in any picture I wanted to take, so I did some experimenting. First, I grabbed Mike and our friends who were with at the time and got them together for a portrait. Using only our friend's phone for lighting, I ended up with this result.

Those of you who have been reading from the start might also remember my first attempt at light painting, which I posted about before Ghana. Well, the lack of light outside encouraged me to try this again, and I think I've improved. I have to thank my camera in part for this, too, as it has a fancy mode that actually provides live updates of what the final exposure is going to look like. When the exposure is going for 20+ seconds, this can really make a big difference.

Here are a few shots - I'll have to get one of dad's fancier cars out to try again soon.

The lines of light running around the car are the result of the camera seeing the head of the flashlight. Did it on accident, happy with how it turned out.

And of course, what set of photos could be complete without Sadie. I didn't even try to get her in the photos, she just decided she wanted to be a part of it all I guess. This made things quite difficult as even a slight movement of her head while I was shining the flashlight on her would leave things blurry, but I got lucky a few times.

Now I just need to get my act together and try printing some of these photos in large sizes. I'd like to have a "photo wall" or something so that I can show off a little bit of what I'm doing. What did you think? Are the large images too big, or do they help the presentation? You can leave a comment here or email me if you'd like. Thanks for viewing.