Arizona Pictures

Arizona at Night

Grand Canyon

Jerome

Panoramics

Grand Canyon HDR(ish) photos

I bracketed a few shots in the Grand Canyon and used some HDR/tonemapping software. While it doesn't magically make photos amazing, I think it can add some nice depth. The 2nd picture is the normal exposure of the 1st HDRed photo.

HDR version

Arizona

Ingrid's Grandma was sick last week and Ingrid went down to Arizona to be with her. She passed on Tuesday. I went down on Thursday morning and we went up North to Jerome via Prescott and then on to the Grand Canyon.

Desert

Crater Lake

Ingrid and I went down to Crater Lake for the weekend. The van did a good job of getting us there and back with no issues. On Saturday we finished the drive from just outside of Oakridge to the lake. We hung out at a pullout on the rim and read and napped for the day.

We camped that night just north of Diamond Lake at a horse camp that was full of horses. On Sunday we went back to the lake and rode around the loop on our bikes. It was around 35 miles and 3700 feet of elevation gain. We did it in under 3 hours, which is pretty good considering we were at 7000 feet and lazy.

Pics

San Francisco

Over the weekend Ingrid and I went down to San Francisco to visit with Moo, Alex and Susa. Moo was in NY and flew over for a few days. We got in some quality bed jumps, some HORSE (where I lost both times), and great food.

Van's first trip

Ingrid and I went up to Mt. Hood in the van's first trip. We went first to some crappy state campground, but it was uber iffy looking, so we continued up to Sherwood Campground a little further south. It was a really nice campground and we hung out there two days. We went biking on Saturday along the East fork of the Hood river. The ride was easy and pretty short as the upper part was washed out.

The van worked out really well for camping. It was nice to just pull over, pop the top and go to sleep. We even rigged up a shower curtain so we could use the solar shower after biking.

Ingrid in van for first night

Central Oregon

Central Oregon	Painted Hills
Barns and school	Photos from Yashica

Arizona

Ingrid and I went down to Arizona to visit her family and celebrate her dad's birthday. It was le hot.

Ride down

Zihuatanejo, Mexico

Last weekend Ingrid and I went down to Zihuatanejo for a few days to hang out. As I still can't walk too well or far, we mainly stayed around the hotel and made small trips out to get food.

We walked through the market a few times and I wanted to show her a tortilla maker. So we were going down a street and I looked into a store and then went back one and asked them where they make tortillas. After a minute I realized they were saying that the store just next door makes them.

Pictures

San Francisco

I went down to San Francisco to support our Beta for work and got to hang out w/ May a few days in SF. I got a few drinks w/ John Pottebaum and Apurva. Unfortunetly I didn't get many pictures. Mainly one of May and the ivy growing in her living room.

May at home

Ding in Seattle

Last weekend I went up to Seattle to hang out with Sara for a few days. We came across a kitchy store and inside they had Ugly Dolls. They are quite ugly, but I bought a bat for Ingrid. We decided to take Ding (the bat's name) around Seattle and document his adventures for Ingrid.

We took Ding to the aquarium, to an Italian pizza place, to beer, to a park, to breakfast and then to mojitos. Below are his adventures.

Montana

Last weekend I went with Ingrid to Montana for her grandmothers funeral. We went to some of her family's favorite spots to hang out. At the waterfall Ingrid jumped off the top and later went down the waterfall.

Montana photos

Brown Reunion

Over the weekend I went back to Providence for my 10 year reunion. My friend Jon met gave me a lift to Newport where he's working and living with his wife Aliki and two girls. I hung out there until Alex and Susa showed up and then after eating some fish & chips we went up to Brown.

We had campus dance Friday night after free beer at New Dorm where we ran into some old friends. At the dance I saw Dustin Hoffman. The next day we had breakfast at Brickway on Wickenden after walking by the old houses. Molly, Nicole, Brian, Hilda, Paul and Sofia were at Brickway too. After a nap I went over to the CIT for the Computer Science reunion and ran into a few people I remembered and profs who didn't remember us.

That night the 1997 class had a party behind the main green where I bumped into other people I hadn't seen in 10 years. I saw Tim and we tried to work the word fuck into every sentance. His wife was fucking nice enough to play along too. After that we went down to Water Fire, where they have fire on the rivers downtown. I've always liked it and this time was no exception. There was a living statue who was probably the most striking woman I'd seen in a long time.

Sunday was commencement and after some bagels with mayo and egg (as the Silver Truck is dead, damnit.) After getting some lemon ice (like a slushy) we went back to the dorm and Alex and I played frisbee until he gave up admitting I was the better.

Pauline and Aliki

Cape Alava

Last weekend Jill and I went up to Cape Alava on the Olympic Penninsula in Washington. It's a cool hike in to the beach - 3 miles of mostly boardwalk hiking through a rain forest. We got an awesome campsite right next to the beach on soft grass.

We lucked out with the weather and got sun and clear skies until Sunday morning when we were sleeping in my condo of a tent. We spent most of the time hanging out and going on short hikes down the beach. I showed Jill I was still mature enough to swear at the stove when I couldn't get it to work. That passed and we were able to to eat our mushy pasta dinner with a side of Gatorade.

Cape Alava pictures

Molly's Wedding

Last weekend I went out to the Adirondacks for Molly and Paul's wedding. I flew into Syracuse and got a rental car. They were going to give me a Neon but it was out so I got a Dodge Dakota instead, which worried me a bit cos gas was $3.50 a gallon. But I pre-paid for a tank at $2.80 so it was all good. And it was a V8, so that's fun.

I rolled up to Old Forge and found my camping spot a little ways down the road from the wedding. I wasn't necessarily being cheap, I thought it'd be fun to camp out in the woods and stuff. But it was damn cold at night. That night I met up with Molly and her friends and drank some beer. And that's good.

The next day some of us went for a hike up a - I think it was called - mountain. It was pretty and a neat hike. Afterwords there was a BBQ where we hung out and ate and drank beer again. There's a theme here.

It started raining hard around 9 and some ladies (Heidi and Erika [the 3rd one there]) were nice enough to offer their floor for me to sleep on. Erika got extra candles because I was going to be in the room and their might be odors. Hard to argue with that.

The next day was wedding day and it was pretty laid back. I hung around and had donuts with Erika and Heidi and read by the lake shore. The wedding itself was very nice and it was quickly off to the reception. With beer.

The rest of the day was spent hanging out and talking with people. That night there was dancing where I made a fool of myself trying to remember to Lindy Hop. I guess I'm going back to take some classes before I go out again. I think I even hurt my hip.

I have some pictures from the weekend here and here.

Moab Pictures

I finally got around to posting pictures from Moab over here, here, and here.

Singapore Pictures

Some pictures from Singapore.

Orchid Road

Me, Jason and Alex at dinner

Singapore

I tried to prepare myself for the heat and humidity of Singapore and I think it worked out pretty well. When I stepped outside from the airport I didn't pass out, just got wobbily in the knees.

I had a little argument with my taxi driver on the way to my hotel. I had told him the address and he kept on going on about how I need the name of hotel because that would help him. I told him I had only the address and that it was my first time to Singapore. That didn't seem to help him. But I got to my air conditioned room safe and sound, so it was allright.

I went to 7-11 to get a SIM card for Jason's phone so I could give him a call. I spent a half hour trying to call and finally gave up. Turns out you need to dial the correct country code to reach someone. Go figure.

I got in touch with Jason through his work and he told me to meet up with him at Borders so we could go to dinner. I took the MRT (or MTR) to Borders and poked around until Jason swung by. He drove us to dinner on the riverfront. We went to a Thai restaurant and had peppered crab, along with satay and little crab cupcakes. He thought the crab wasn't up to snuff, but I thought it was pretty damn good. The place he normally goes to must have amazing food.

On Thursday Jason picked me up and we went to the wedding dress rehearsal. I met the other groomsmen and the bridesmaids, everyone was pretty cool and friendly. The bestman - Lawrence - played speed with Jason's nieces Nicole and Natasha, soundly losing to the little women. Natasha started her rouse of saying "I don't like you" to me and trying to pinch my arms. At least I think it was a rouse.

We practices walking down the aisle and ordering up correctly and then walking out. I know it's a simple thing, but I had a dread feeling that I would trip and take out my bridesmaid Cynthia in front of everyone on the wedding day.

Afterwords we all went to brunch at Jason's dad's golf club. I got the original Mee-Goreng, from which the Indo-Mie Mee-Goreng instant noodles are modeled. It was quite good. Jason's dad gave me crap for only drinking Coke instead of beer. I was trying to save myself for the nightly drinking that was to come.

I got a ride with Lawrence to a movie theatre so I could watch The Incredibles, which was a great movie. I got a hair cut afterwords in a proper salon so I could look decent for Jason's wedding.

Later I met up with Jason, the other groomsmen and a bunch of Jason's dad's friends at an Irish Pub downtown. I was only going to have one beer, but it seems to be an insult to not drink with people, so more beers were pushed my way, along with fish & chips, lamb and sausages. Hard life.

At 9pm three ladies from the upstairs bar (owned by the same guy as the Irish pub who was drinking with us) came into the pub with handcuffs and picked up Jason. All of the older people stayed at the pub while us young guys went upstairs with Jason and the ladies.

Upstairs we had a section of the bar to ourselves as the shots were poured and the ladies, okay the strippers, hung around Jason. We all had a shot of Potin (90% alcohol) with Jason and the strippers. They re-handcuffed Jason (he had somehow got out of the plastic toys) to a chair and danced around for him. The other patrons across the bar watched us jealously while they drank. It was cool to be the ones in the bar everyone else wanted to be.

At around midnight we bid the ladies adieu and headed to a "karaoke" bar. I guess it'd be more accurate to call it a hostess bar. I stumbled out of the bar an hour and a half later to catch a cab home. After a few drunken calls (one of which Ron saved on his voice mail) I finally passed out until the morning.

On Friday Jason came over at noon and helped me get to the Ritz Carleton hotel where I'd be staying the last two days. After getting checked into the 6 star hotel we met up with Alex and Susa and Jason's sister to have some lunch.

After lunch we walked back to the hotel in the warm rain and took naps before heading to the pool. They brought out towels for us as we were swimming. I have to say the Ritz was the nicest hotel I've ever stayed at, and I've been to Hotel 8! There is always someone around to help you out or bring you something. Very cool place.

That night Alex, Susa and I went to the night safari, where you can take a tram through the safari and look at all of the animals. They even had hippos. I was going to throw Alex's shoes at the bastards but I couldn't get them off of his feet until we were near the hyenas.

After the safari we went back to town and met up with Jason and two more of his friends for dinner. We had more peppered crab and other cool seafood.

Saturday was the actual wedding day. In accordance with Chinese tradition, Jason and his "brothers" had to go retrieve his wife from her "sisters". This meant Jason and his friends (including Alex and I) went up to Gerry's hotel room and had to bargain for her. We went inside and were met by all of the sisters who gave us tasks to complete.

The first was to have Jason eat an apple with only his mouth, no hands involved. At the same time one of his brothers (me!) ate the same way. So we had an intimate moment with an apple between us. I asked if we had time to cuddle but the sisters moved us along.

Then we all ate something sweet (chocolate), spicy (chili), sour (vinegar) and something else (a fruit type deal).

Then it was time for Jason to make a stamp with his foot on a paper and then write out Gerry's Chinese name with his toe. But first he needed to get his foot painted. This was my and Lawrence's duty. We took lipstick and painted the bottom of his foot. I have to say it was pretty fun.

After Jason cleaned up we then had to bargain for her release. This was a payoff to the sisters. They started at 8800 Singapore dollars, which we thought was too high. Jake got them down to 12 a piece, which was some nice manouvering.

This got us into the bedroom where we had more tasks. One of which was for Jason to rap about his love for her. And the brothers were to provide backup. All of us just looked around at each other for a minute or two. I came up with two lines for Jason to use:
My name is Moo
and I have nothing but love for you.

I started beat boxing as best I could, throwing in some record scratching for good measure. Jason rapped out his lines.

The sisters told us we needed more. I gave Jason another line or two:
I even took off
my shoes for you!

It's no Run-DMC, but it was good enough. They were all impressed with our rapping and beat boxing. There is a video of us out there somewhere. It'd be neat to get a copy of it all.

Jason then had to sing a Chinese song and give the top 10 reasons why he loved Gerry. He eventually got her to come out and the mission was accomplished.

I got a ride from Kian Pin (or KP), the other groomsman, to the wedding where we were to usher people into the church. After a quick stop at McDonalds of course.

The wedding went off without a hitch and was a very nice ceremony. After the ceremony we all adjourned to the reception and had snacks. Natasha kept running by and telling me "I still don't like you." Then she asked if I was married and took me to some lady and said "This is Sam." Which was a bit awkward. The woman looked at me kinda funny and I took my leave back to Alex and Susa for ice-cream.

KP, being the good guy he is, called us a taxi and we went back to the hotel for a nap. After a nap Alex, Susa and I went to Chinatown for some shopping. I was just going to round out my shopping with a few little things but ended up buying a bunch of stuff. You can never have too many things, right?

After packing all of my goodies and my dirty clothes into my backpack, I went down to the dinner reception with Alex and Susa. Everyone was decked out and looking very snazzy. I was glad I had my new tux, otherwise I'm sure I would've looked very slobby next to everyone else. Nicole and Natasha buzzed around and came by to tell me that I owed them money (apparently from the speed game with Lawrence) and that Natasha still didn't like me. They were very cute.

As a groomsman one of my duties was to usher people into the banquet hall. I mainly just followed KP around and tried to ask people to go inside. I think I failed miserably. But everyone went in despite my work.

We had a 5 course meal with everything from shark fin soup (which was pretty good) to baked cod. Inbetween courses someone would give a speech or sing a song. They had tests for Gerry and Jason where they had to determine who was their spouse while being blindfolded. Jason had to kiss 5 women and see who was Gerry. He guessed wrong and had to drink for it. Gerry had to touch the rears of 5 men (me included!). She guessed wrong too and Jason had to drink for it.

After the dinner a bunch of us went to a swanky bar named The Velvet Room. There was a huge line to get in, but KP came to the rescue and got us ushered in with minimal fuss. This guy seems to be hooked up with all of the cool people. I tried to get away with only having one beer, but Jason's "brothers" were there and gave me drinks, and it's rude to turn them down.

The next day I had breakfast with Alex and Susa and headed out to the airport. 3 flights and 24 hours later I was back home.

I'll be putting up pictures from the wedding soon.

China Pictures

I got into Hong Kong last night and have pretty much sat on my toosh and tried to recover from the cold I picked up in Beijing (I'm 50-50 it's not SARS ;) I've hung out at Moo's place and watched TV and movies and ate (you're supposed to feed a cold, right?)

I'm off to Singapore tomorrow. It's funny how I have 2 bags of stuff now, mostly clothes for a place where you don't need much in the way of clothes. I tried on my new tux and everything seems to fit fine (even the custom shoes!)

I put up some pictures over here of China if you'd like to kill some time.

Last day in Beijing

I went back to the Dirt Market to get some last goodies before I head out of her to Quanjo tomorrow. I had a scroll shop in mind when I went into the market, but I wanted to look at other things first. I ended up buying a box, a few bracelets, and some doodad before I got to the scroll shop.

I tried to do better in my bargaining, but I think I still suck at it. It's difficult when the prices start out so low to begin with. When I see something I think of a number that I'd pay for it and they usually say that number. But that's way too high if they're asking it. Like this box with a compass inside it I was sure would've cost 10 dollars, he wanted 5. I think I ended up paying 3 or so, which is ridiculously low.

Afte spending all the money I had in my pockets, I wandered around some more, looking at all of the stuff you could buy. The Tibetan people were selling very colourful clothing and nice jewelry. To show the silver was real, they'd take a knife and cut a shaving off of a bracelet. I was down to cab fare money, so I wasn't able to buy more bracelets I'd probably never wear. The Tibetans (ok, the women) there are really beautiful - they have really open faces and nice smiles. I wanted to take their pictures, but I was too chicken. Which is too bad. They have neat clothing; thick fur lined jackets with colourful trim and jewelry on their long fingers.

I took a cab back to the hotel and walked over to my shumai stand to get two plates of dumplings. The owner seemed happy to see me and was always smiling.

As I walked back to the subway to get my massage, I was noticing everyone coughs without covering their mouths and hocks their spit all over the place. It's no wonder why SARS got big over here. I'm kinda a germaphobe, so it'll be nice to be where they're not spitting near your feet or coughing in front of you.

I went to the massage building and saw two chinese students and two westerners going in too. I noticed it was the two students from yesterday, so I turned on my heel and went back outside to wait for them to go up. After the coast was clear I went upstairs and got another hour massage.

Tomorrow I'm flying out in the morning to Quanjo (I'm sure it's spelled differently) to take a train to Hong Kong. I saw the weather forcast and it's finally dropping under 75 at night, though the heat will be a nice.

Shopping!

On Saturday I woke up early to head out to the Panjiayuan (or Dirt) Market to get in some shopping. I first had to find food, and as it was to early for breakfast in the hotel, I went onto the street looking for grub. I walked by a tricycle that had a stove on the back of it. They were cooking pancakes with eggs in them. I ordered two for 2 yuan. Pretty fricking good. I found a store down the street and bought some strawberry yogurt and had breakfast at the side of the road.

I took a cab to Panjiayuan and started perousing. The guidbook says you're supposed to ignore the 1/2 rule when bargaining, things can be as much as 10 times cheaper than what the vendors start out at. But I'm a terrible bargainer, I think I got a good bargain once in my life.

I walked around and looked at all the stuff to buy, lots of silver (which I like), jade, knives, pots, glasses, everything you could not want. The market consists of an outer ring of stores with a covered inner area with about 30 rows of vendors. You could spend all day and all of your money here. I quickly spent all of my money. I even went into my reserve money that's stashed under my insoles of my shoes.

I went back to the hotel to drop off my booty and find an ATM so I could buy food. I walked to a bank down the street and then back towards the subway. I was getting a bit hungry and saw a hole in the wall restaurant with those steam baskets. She was selling shumai (or something like it.) I wanted just a few, so I held out four fingers. She went to get another basket or two. I waved at her and pointed out 4 dumplings. She smiled and said no. It took me a second and realized you get the whole basket of dumplings. For 3 yuan (40 cents.)

I sat down outside and wolfed down the basket of grub. The lady kept looking out and smiling, so I'd give her the thumbs up. I asked for another basket, since how often do you eat in China?

I headed to the subway to get to the massage place that Gerry had told me about. The subway exit lead out to a shopping mall, it was like being back in Hong Kong. They even had a TCBY.

As soon as I got outside I heard a "Hello, sir?" and saw these two college students walking towards me. They said they were practicing their English and would like to spend some time with me, because I seemed "so friendly" Which is funny, I'm totally not friendly when people come up to me and start speaking in English - they usually want something.

We talked for a bit and I said I had a massage to go to but that we could get a beer afterwords. They nodded and showed me to the massage place. I told them I'd meet them in a bit over an hour.

The massage ladies showed me to a room and put out a silk pajama set. I figured out that the silk was so they wouldn't have to use massage oil. An hour later and much more refreshed, I headed out to the street.

The two students were there and started talking about their art school and that today was the last showing before something or other. "We just want to get your advice on our paintings." And then it'd be beer time.

So I went with them back into the building and up a few floors. We went into a little studio and I immediatly wanted to leave. They were pretty nice so I didn't want to be rude so I looked at their paintings - some of which were really good. Then they talked about discounts and how it'd be a cultural exchange. I told them I wasn't looking to buy any paintings and hit the door.

I headed west towards Tianeman square to find the famous Peking duck restaurant. There was a gourgeous sunset, one of those orange suns you only get with the lucky combination of smog and more smog. At the square there were huge crowds standing around waiting for the flag to be brought down. A large group of soldiers came out of the Forbidden City and marched to the flag. Ten minutes later the group marched back across the street and into the City.

I spent the next 20 minutes trying to find the Qianmen Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant. According to my map it was right in the open and easy to find. I had to ask like 3 people (including a Japanese man that wasn't thrilled I thought he was Chinese.) When I got across from the restaurant a gal came up to me and started speaking in English. I acted like I didn't speak English and talked to her in Spanish. I don't think I fooled anyone. She told me that Quanjude was too full and too expensive and that I should go to this other restaurant. I smiled, waved and trotted across the street.

This place had a window in front of where the chefs cut the duck into small pieces for dinner. It looked pretty good. They even had a take out area with boxes of duck.

I got a seat with some locals and ordered my duck. A minute later the food arrived. You got a plate of crispy duck meat, some sauce and little pancakes. You putthe sauce on the pancake and put the duck on that, rolled it all up and had a little meal. It was damn tasty. I almost ordered another plate, but I was getting full. Damn stomach.

I had an hour before the acrobatic troupe started so I decided to walk to the auditorium a mile or so south. I was noticing most of their streets are pretty dark, they have street lights, but it seems as if the thick air just swallows the light and leaves it gloomy. I'd normally be concerned walking down strange streets at night in a foreign country, but I kept seeing little kids running around and figured it'd couldn't be that bad.

I got to the auditorium a little early so I bought my ticket and went in search of a coke. At a little stand selling roasted nuts I asked for a coke. But I spied a beer next to the coke, so I got that instead. I asked the lady in my own little motion language if it was ok to drink the beer on the street.

I sat in the VIP section where they brought you tea during the performance. The performers did some of the most amazing stuff you'd ever see, it was just like in Cirque De Sulei, just cheaper and closer. They had a guy on a 6 foot tall unicycle, which was good in itself, who could jump rope on it, stay in one place with one foot in the air. Then he'd put a cup on his other foot, flick it into the air and it'd land on his head. Then he put two cups on his foot, flicked them into the air and they'd both land correctly on the original cup. He kept doing this with more and more cups. The cups on his foot would not be cupped together, but instead one cup facing up, the other down and so on. I'm not sure how he got them all to rotate correctly in the air to land all cupped on his head.

This is when I took out my camera and turned the video on. I'm pretty sure they didn't want people taking videos, so I held it low and ended up ruining most of the shots. :( But I have a few cool ones.

They had a gal who would balance a tray of shot glasses (that had trays of shot glasses on top of them) as she moved around the stage. Then was the chinese yo-yos (the things that look like tow plungers stuck to each other.) And guys with large bamboo flags where they'd flip around and catch the flags before they landed. And then the pole walkers, those guys are cool. The run up a pole and jump to the other one, slide around just holding on with their legs. One guy held onto the pole with two arms and then held his body out horizontal to the ground. And then pulled himself into the bar like he was doing pullups. Then there was a girl who walked up a cable to another cable, not a tight rope - this thing swayed as she walked. She'd do flips on the cable, and do flips from one cable to another. Then she stood on the cable that went down to the ground and slid down on a piece of cloth. I have that one on video.

Huanghua Great Wall

I got moving a little earlier today,almost got out of the hostel by 8:30. It's cold enough outside to see your breath in the morning - maybe a reason why I sleep in.

I got to my new hostel/hotel and got a room for the next 3 nights. This place is in a much more central location, 2 long blocks to the subway or bus station to the Great Walls. And near a Pizza Hut in case that hankering kicks in. I have 3 rooms, a bathroom, a bedroom and a main room with a movable wall dealiebob that separates the couch area from the kitchen. Pretty snazzy.

I mosied over to the bus station and asked a few people where to pick up the 916 bus to Huanghua. An hour or so later we arrived at some little town where it's necessary to take another bus or hire a taxi to get to the wall. A mini-bus driver came up to me and asked if I wanted a ride.

I was thinking I didn't because the bus is 4 yuan and he wanted 80 yuan round trip. But he pointed at the time (1pm) and I realized that I only had like 4 hours of daylight left to see the wall. I had to find a bathroom first and he took me to one. (that sounds a bit strange.) I went in and saw there were no stall doors, just one door to the bathroom. He came in and went and then stood there. I looked at him and then at the stall and back to him. He smiled, nodded and left. Which was good, cos I wasn't about to use a doorless stall with someone in there.

After that I went to his mini-bus and we drove out towards the wall. It was a neat 2 lane road that had trees arching over the roadway and people riding their bikes along. Most of the leaves had fallen and the land was just orangish yellow from the dust and sunlight. It looked a bit like how I'd think Sleepy Hollow would look like, minus all of the Chinese people carting around branches and charcoal.

We rode through a few small villages that had neat old houses that were really short and rundown. They looked pretty cool. I wanted to stop and take some pictures, but I was running late and wanted to hit the wall instead.

When we got to the wall my driver showed me a dinky little map and pointed out where we were. And then he pointed out some road on the map and motioned that he would meet me there. It took a bit of hand language to figure it out but he was going to wait down some road that I'd have to walk to from the wall. I was going to pay him when I got back to the bus station that goes to Beijing, so I figured he wasn't going to run off and leave me there.

To g