Pulau Ubin

Pulau Ubin is a small island off the east coast of Singapore.

My friend Shelley and I rented a bicycle for the day for $1.50 and biked the island.







We stopped for a lunch of crab and shrimp in broth.



I also tried a durian, which is an extremely sharp and smelly fruit that they love over there for some reason. I didn't think it was horrible, but I probably wouldn't go out of my way to eat it.









The rest of the Pulau Ubin photos can be found here.

Singapore

Here's a few shots from walking around Singapore.



















The complete sets can be found here and here.

SLC-Tokyo Inaugural Flight

When Delta announced non-stop service between Salt Lake City and Tokyo, I knew I had to do a repeat of the Paris flight last year and get in the inaugural flight. I chose this year's final destination to be Singapore due to the fairly inexpensiveness of the ticket (relatively speaking) and the fact I hadn't been in that part of the world before. Plus, Singapore is a major transit hub with easy access to most of southeast Asia.



The gate area was setup with a large Japanese looking backdrop. There were dancers in the middle of the concourse, which proved fun for people trying to get to their flights.





Instead of a traditional ribbon cutting, they did a ribbon slicing with wooden swords of some sort.



The plane left the gate with tons of employees from all over the airport cheering us off. We had a large police escort all the way to the runway, plus a water cannon salute!







Long flight is long.



The rest of the photos can be found here.

Itinerary

Since I have a few family members and possibly a friend or two who worry about me when I travel, here's my itinerary. Now you have something to reference in case a plane encounters turbulence and crashes into the ocean. Luckily that never happens.


Northwest Flight 9
Departs Salt Lake City, UT (SLC) at 1:35 pm (3 June)
Arrives Tokyo-Narita, Japan (NRT) at 4:25 pm (4 June)

Northwest Flight 19
Departs Tokyo-Narita, Japan (NRT) at 6:45 pm (4 June)
Arrives Singapore, Singapore (SIN) at 1:00 am (5 June)

===

SilkAir Flight 754
Departs Singapore, Singapore (SIN) at 1:20 pm (8 June)
Arrives Phuket, Thailand (HKT) at 2:10 pm (8 June)

===

SilkAir Flight 751
Departs Phuket, Thailand (HKT) at 10:15 am (11 June)
Arrives Singapore, Singapore (SIN) at 2:05 pm (11 June)

Cathay Pacific Flight 734
Departs Singapore, Singapore (SIN) at 4:05 pm (11 June)
Arrives Hong Kong, China (HKG) at 8:00 pm (11 June)

===

Cathay Pacific Flight 711
Departs Hong Kong, China (HKG) at 4:15 pm (15 June)
Arrives Singapore, Singapore (SIN) at 8:00 pm (15 June)

===

Northwest Flight 20
Departs Singapore, Singapore (SIN) at 5:40 am (17 June)
Arrives Tokyo-Narita, Japan (NRT) at 2:05 pm (17 June)

Northwest Flight 10
Departs Tokyo-Narita, Japan (NRT) at 3:40 pm (17 June)
Arrives Salt Lake City, UT (SLC) at 11:30 am (17 June)

Some Kind of Wonderful

(This post is intentionally left vague to protect the parties involved.)

Sometimes you have something wonderful dumped into your lap, and you don't realize it until it's gone.

This has recently happened to me. I was blinded by my ... well, I don't know what. My selfishness? My self-pity party? The mind boggles.

So A.W., I apologize for not realizing things until it was too late. I learned that I need to HTFU. I just wish I hadn't learned it after the fact.

Vancouver - Day 2

Day 2 was spent at the VanDusen Botanical Gardens. Here I was able to photograph "ART!", which is:

1) Flowers.
2) Anything with a high DOF.
3) Anything with a long exposure.











Once it got late, we returned to downtown to shoot some long exposure night photography. However I made a very stupid mistake on all of the pictures which I'm still mad at myself for. I'm trying to rescue the pictures, but I think they may be beyond help. If I can make one look acceptable, perhaps I will share.

For more "ART!", click here.

Vancouver - Day 1

This last weekend I went up to Vancouver to visit some friends who moved up there a few years ago. The weather was nice - mid 60s, with only occasional rain showers. Unfortunately the cloudy weather didn't lend for the best picture taking, but I managed as best I could.

The first day started out with a trip to Shannon Falls, directly north of Vancouver.





That was followed by a trip downtown to try to find the Fluevog store. The hunt was successful, only to find they were sold out of the shoe I wanted. Oh well.





Then a trip to Jericho Beach to watch the sun set.







After returning home, I was delighted to find a Krusty the Clown cake waiting for me. NOM NOM NOM NOM