Another Evening in Singapore

Marina Bay Sands, Singapore [HDR]

If you have been following my tweets or is a fan of my facebook page, you probably knew that I went to Singapore again last Tuesday for an assignment in one of the petrochemical plant in Jurong Island, Singapore. And this time, I flew straight from my hometown, from Ipoh to Singapore. Do you know that Firefly of Malaysia Airlines fly between Ipoh and Singapore twice a day? Although it was a bumpy flight (turbo-propeller plane), it saved me plenty of time without having to travel to KLIA by taxi for a flight from the nation's international airport (minimum 3 hours ground travel from Ipoh to KLIA).

So I reached Singapore a lot earlier than I previously did, about 3.5 hours from home to the hotel room and guess what, I went on a photography outing that very evening, before I started working on the next day. This is odd as most of my previous photography outings were after the completion of my assignment.

Sakura in Kisarazu

Sakura in Kisarazu

Did I tell you that I was assigned to an installation project in Japan for more than 2 years? Now you see why I have so many pictures of Japan. I stayed long enough that the company actually moved me from the hotel to a house in a city called Kisarazu, or 木更津 in Japanese, about 20 minutes drive away from the site. Kisarazu is about 1 hour drive distance from Tokyo, and is the other end of Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line. The Aqua-Line is a highway that connects Kawasaki and Kisarazu, across the Tokyo Bay ocean, with part of it under the sea in a tunnel and the other part above sea.

My house in Kisarazu was a perfect one, where there is a canal at the back of the house, with Sakura trees lining up along the canal. I was there in last year's Sakura season. It was awesome. In this article, I will share with you sceneries with Sakura that you won't find commonly on the internet, not like the ones you see in Tokyo or Kyoto.

Night in Singapore

Singapore's Night Scenery

Two weeks ago, I was in Singapore, on a short assignment (another emergency call). I was working late until 3 a.m. in the first night and did not have the chance to shoot some beautiful night sceneries in Singapore. On the second night, which was my last night in that trip, I had dinner with some colleagues until around 9.30pm and only managed to reach hotel at around 10pm. Upon reaching my hotel, I got a Singapore map from the hotel's concierge, went to the room, put down my bag and grabbed my camera and tripod. And of course, I changed out my uncomfortable safety boots too because I know I will do a lot of walking after that. My mission, Singapore's Night Sceneries.

Without hesitating, I got myself to the nearest MRT station and got off at Raffles Place station, which is within walking distance to Merlion Park, to enjoy the spectacular night scenery as you see above.

Tulips in Japan

Tulips in Sakura, Japan

To avoid confusion, I have omitted the name of the location where pictures of these wonderful tulips were taken in the title of this article. The title would have been Sakura's Tulips. Yes, you hear me right, Sakura. It is the name of a city in Chiba prefecture, in Japanese it is written as 佐倉市.

A lot of travelers who transit in Narita Airport for more than half a day are eager to know how to spend their time while in Japan. Some would hope to visit Tokyo but it would be an hour away from the airport by train and the city is too big to be explored in half a day. What if I tell you that there is a place where you can enjoy beautiful Tulips and it is located just three train stations away from JR Narita Airport Terminal 2 station?

KLIA

KLIA - Entrance to Departure Gates

Here I am, again in KLIA, this time departing to Singapore on a short assignment. Left home as early as 3am and is now waiting to board the flight.

One thing about working as a field engineer, is that you get calls like this, emergency, need you at site A.S.A.P, travel now, thingy. Although I am fully prepared for this time's urgent call, the feeling to leave the family out of a sudden does not feel right. I hate to look into my mum's eyes and say goodbye, I'll be back very soon, please take care, although I knew that everything is gonna be alright once I step out of the door.

Well, I'm out of the door now, and I feel fine and confident again. Hopefully this short assignment goes well and I can snap some shots of Singapore to share with you guys. Saw this interesting symmetrical sight at the entrance in the airport to departure gates, just before passing the immigration counters, and thought it would make a good HDR. I have to say Malaysia's KLIA is pretty beautiful compared to many other airports in the world. What do you think? I would love to hear your comments.

Shibuya Night

At the busiest cross junction in Shibuya, Tokyo [HDR Picture]

After the previous posting of Sakura In Tokyo - Yasukuni Shrine, Shinjuku Gyoen & Inokashira Park article, I was busy reading, researching and learning about ways to improve and optimize this blog. If you have not noticed, the layout and sidebar arrangements of this blog have changed quite a bit. The loading time of the blog have improved, and of course, my favorite changes are the introduction of the header picture and Most Viewed This Week section. I hope you like them.

While doing studies about website optimization, I have also been exposed to some articles about internet marketing strategy, which includes the new FREE Newsletter Subscription Services that you see as an addition to my existing Menu Bar above. I have signed-up to an Email Marketing Company - MailChimp, and have learned about ways to manage my subscribers via emails. Those signup forms, confirmation emails and RSS Feed Emails were customized by myself. If you like my photography work here, why not sign up for my Free email subscription services? All you need to do is to enter your email address and verify the confirmation email sent to you. After that, all new articles (including new pictures) from this blog will be sent to your mailbox directly, without needing to even visit this website itself. To subscribe for free, click here.

Furthermore, the Google Adsense Advertisements on this blog have just been optimized to display more relevant ads on my blog and hopefully should get better in the next couple of weeks.

Alright, let's talk a little bit about the picture above. The picture featured in this articles was taken recently in January 2011 at one of the busiest cross junction in Shibuya, Tokyo. As stated on the caption of the picture, it was a High Dynamic Range Picture and was created from three (3) bracketed shots with different exposures. I have taken a lot of shots that day from this cross junction, and probably have spent more than an hour in that area. For this shot, I established my tripod by the side of the road and stood there for more than 30 minutes, waiting for the best moment to photograph (I remember there was a car stopping in front of my camera for almost 20 minutes, just to drop his wife to do some quick shopping and the car was there all time. However, I waited patiently for the car to leave and of course was cursing the driver for blocking my view inside me, hahaha). I hope you enjoyed this picture and since it is the only picture in this article, I hope your eyes will land longer on it, checking out every detail of the picture.

Do leave me any comments about the picture or even about the blog. It will even be better if you have suggestions that I can look into to optimize and improve this blog. I hope you enjoyed your time here.

Have a nice day!!