Grand Bazaar: Istanbul, Turkey

Posted on 19 May 2011 by Mimi

A trip to Istanbul is never complete without making a visit at the famous Grand Bazaar, known locally as Kapaliçarsi.

If you get there through the tram, you’ll instantly know when you’ve reached the stop for the Grand Bazaar — in addition to the automated announcement on board the tram, most of the passengers (obviously tourists!) will be getting off at this stop.

This is how it looks like inside the Grand Bazaar — lots of small shops side by side, stone walls, stone floors, and decorated arched ceilings. It has the most charming old world feel. After all, the Grand Bazaar dates back to 1461.

The market is so huuuuuuuge that a lot of people have actually taken the time to make maps of it. Me? I took the easy way out and went with a local. It was a very short trip for me though — just a little over an hour! I know. Crazy, right? But I guess it was better than not going at all.

In that short span of time, I somehow managed to buy leather gloves (soft as butter but unlined and very, very cheap), beautiful silk scarves, a set of those tiny glasses that Turks use for drinking their tea from (which came with matching tiny spoons), some bags from a shop who gave us a very good deal as we were their last sale of the day, and a few small trinkets and souvenirs for friends and family back home.

Things that I saw at the Grand Bazaar but did not buy:-

Glass mosaic lamps. I loved these so, so much. They look like antiques but actually use regular light bulbs. You can buy singletons but the ones that come in sets of 5, 7, 9 or 11 — hanging in a spiral downward pattern from what looks like a brass base — are most intriguing. I bought a set the following day from a shop not far from our hotel when I had the time to browse and choose.

Silver jewelry. I loved the lapis azuli pieces. But I didn’t buy any because I knew I’d end up not wearing them. Psst…the amber pieces piqued my interest, too!

The rugs were beautiful but I wasn’t keen on buying any either. My friend suggested that I buy a plate or vase as a souvenir. I loved the ones in turquoise but found the prices to be on the higher side. Plus, I wasn’t keen on bringing back too many of the breakable stuff, knowing that I’d have to make room for the glass mosaic lamps.

Most of the transactions are done in cash, i.e. in Turkish Lira, but some shops accept Euro and would gladly check the day’s newspaper for the latest rates.

If you are more keen on buying food items, head off to the Egyptian Spice Market. But they do sell souvenirs there, as well.

Categories: Travel | Tags: , , | 4 Comments

Dusks Falls Over Interlaken

Posted on 18 May 2011 by Mimi

The moon rises over the snow-capped mountains. An ancient tree stretches out its gnarled fingers to the sky. A stone bench with wooden slats painted red sits mutely in awe. Houses and trees gaze adoringly on their silent reflection on the frigid waters of the river that connects Lakes Thun and Brienz. Interlaken, a little piece of heaven.

Dusk falls on the picturesque town of Interlaken, Switzerland

Categories: Photography, Travel | Tags: , | 6 Comments

Anything But Work!

Posted on 16 May 2011 by Mimi

Fellow blogger and Maxis10 reviewer 1Earth once asked me what is it that I actually do for a living because, according to him, I don’t seem to do anything (!). I laughed and said something along the lines of — I do have a day job; I just hardly ever write about it, if at all.

It’s a valid point he made. All I seem to talk about — on my blog and on Twitter — is travel, which I do a lot of, but not all the time. And even though my blog’s tagline mentions work (“Losing sleep over kids, work, travel & photography“), I’m having difficulty finding a single blog post that talks about work. This is probably the first one!

You see, work takes up a huge portion of my life — some 8 hours of it from Mondays to Fridays, a good number of hours at night or in the wee hours of dawn (when deadlines loom), sometimes even on weekends and public holidays (for those dreaded ‘extraordinary’ events that require immediate action). As I type that out, only then do I realise just how big a chunk of my life goes towards work!

So as I was saying, as if it’s not bad enough that work takes up such a huge chunk of my life, push email technology means that emails reach me no matter where I am for as long as there is data coverage, and my mobile phone being on 24/7 means that you can always reach me by phone (if you have my number) except when I’m flying or run out of battery which is something really, really rare because I almost always have a car charger and a spare battery with me wherever I go (mostly out of paranoia should anything happen to my kids, heaven forbid!).

Therefore, my dear Virginia, work is the last thing I’d like to talk about or write about in whatever spare time I have. I cannot — for the life of me! — survive if I’m to think, breathe, discuss work 24/7. I’d die! I almost did. Figuratively, that is. That’s why I started this blog in the first place.

The ironic thing is — the more work I have piling up and the more deadlines I have to meet, the more ideas I get for blog posts! My mind seems to take on a life of its own and intuitively attempts to escape through yet another blog post.

P.S. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful about my job. I am grateful. I really am. Especially since it has made most of my travels possible. But I *need* to do something other than work (i.e. writing and photography) in order to keep my sanity intact. So thank you, dear readers, for reading my blog posts and commenting along the way. Indirectly, you are all keeping me sane ;)

Categories: Thoughts | Tags: | 6 Comments

Petronas Twin Towers: Snapshot From The National Library

Posted on 13 May 2011 by Mimi

I snapped this photo of the Petronas Twin Towers while standing right in front of the National Library in Jalan Tun Razak. [NB: Filipinos: Jalan Tun Razak is to KL as EDSA is to Metro Manila.]

Ever since their presence started gracing KL’s skyline, I’ve yet to tire of seeing them day or night. And I take pleasure in finding various places from which to take snapshots of them. It’s as though I’m still a tourist after all these years!

Photo taken with a Samsung Galaxy Tab. Pic unedited other than resizing and watermark. In retrospect, the pic looks a bit odd because the famous twin towers look small here in comparison to the two buildings in the foreground…

Bon weekend à tous!

 

Categories: Malaysia, Photography | 3 Comments

The Woes Of The Photographer Who Travels Alone (Or Travels With People Who Are Non-Photographers)

Posted on 12 May 2011 by Mimi

It’s been quite some time since I last wrote a proper blog post. Work and business travel have kept me too busy during the day and too exhausted at night to do any blogging.

So last night, determined to break the dry spell, I resorted to an old trick, i.e. browsing through recent travel pics to see if I could gain any inspiration. But instead of feeling inspired, I ended up feeling depressed as I browsed through the very few pics that have me in it — some with the background in perfect focus but with my face blurred; some with me right smack in the centre and very little of the scenery visible in the background; several pics with various portions of my body cut off; a few others with me in the shade, too dark and noisy for Photoshop to salvage.

Welcome to the world of the photographer who travels alone…or travels with people who are non-photographers.

Couldn't take my own pic, so I took a pic of my shoes (and stockinged feet) instead. Pathetic, I know! :( (Topkapi Palace, Istanbul. Oct 2010)

Note that I use the term ‘photographer’ very loosely here. Generally, I always refer to myself as a ‘photography enthusiast’ because I feel that my skill level does not quite qualify me yet to call myself a ‘photographer’. A DSLR camera does not a photographer make; in the same way that the most expensive set of knives does not a chef make. But I do take decent enough photos that make people (who normally don’t like having their pics taken) ask me to take their pics after they’ve seen what kind of pics I can take.

So yeah…where was I? Ah, yes. Traveling alone. That has got to be my biggest problem when traveling alone — I take very nice landscape photos but when I try to take pics with me in them, I end up looking weird because (i) the lens distorts my face when I try to take a self-portrait by extending my arm as I shakily attempt to hold my D90 (which weighs something like a staggering 2 kg/4.4 lbs when used with my 18-200mm VR lens!) at what I felt was the right angle at the time; (ii) sometimes, there isn’t a suitable surface for putting my camera so that I could take a pic of myself using the self-timer, so I end up putting the camera someplace with some weird angle; or (iii) either way, I’d feel too self-conscious to get a decent pic of myself.

It gets worse when I am traveling with people who are non-photographers. I take such nice pics of them — as though I’m paid to do so — but when I see the pics they take of me, I feel like crying (see first paragraph)!

Sometimes I get lucky when the people I’m traveling with are fast learners. Case in point: when I was traveling to Amsterdam and Paris with my mum. She’s not a photographer but after she tried again and again and again and again under my supervision (“what is the subject of your photo?”, “keep your arms close to your body” , “frame the shot so that the lamp post is just visible on the left”, etc), eventually her composition improved, she was no longer a victim of camera shake, and she actually managed to shoot many beautiful pictures of me. Just like when we were outside the Louvre — my mum tried taking a pic of me at that very same spot some 6 or 7 times, until I got so frustrated that I just laughed. My mum ended up taking the best shot of me from our Paris adventure — me, sitting in front of the fountain in front of the pyramid outside the Louvre, my head thrown back in laughter. Little do people know that I was actually laughing from frustration more than anything else!

Then there was this security guard at GenSan Fish Port. I set the D90 to Auto mode and turned Live View on. Then I showed him how to expose for a photo when the subjects are in the shade and the background is too bright — zoom in and focus on the subjects’ faces, press the shutter halfway, then with his finger still on the half-pressed shutter (to lock the exposure), zoom out and compose the photo. He was a surprisingly quick study and his composition was actually pretty good. He managed to take nice shots of my friends and I posing with a 137-kilogram headless blue marlin, posing with 3 tuna fish that were two arms’ length long, posing in front of a wooden fishing boat.

On several occasions, I’ve tried asking total strangers to take a pic of me, usually picking out people who have DSLR cameras and who looked like they knew what they were doing. Sadly, not everyone who owns a DSLR camera can take a decent photo, no matter how expensive their gear is or how convincing they look with the way they turn the camera this way and that as they snap pic after pic after pic from different angles.

Excuse me, Sir. Can you please take my picture? (Keukenhof, April 2007)

Hence my quick vent on Twitter last night:

And judging from the responses that I got, I’m not alone in my predicament.

So yeah. I just might advertise myself as a ‘travel photographer for hire’. I’ll document your travels with pics and videos of you and the places you visit. As compensation, all you have to do is take care of all my travel expenses: return air tickets, visa fees (if any), food and drinks, and (separate) hotel room. And I promise you photos and videos that will make your friends and family go ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’…plus give you free travel planning advice. Interested? You know how to contact me hehehe! ;)

Categories: Photography, Travel | 5 Comments