It's Gripped

posted by Jaitu at 18:02

As I mentioned before I very recently spent a week on holiday in Dubai. While we were there we went on a Desert Safari. We were picked up from our hotel by a very friendly guy, named Yussef, driving a V8 Toyota Land Cruiser. After collecting another family he took us out of the city and towards the desert. We took a brief rest stop at a petrol station along with roughly thirty similar vehicles from other tour groups. In the words of Yussef this was the "last toilet for two maybe three hour."
On the road again we joined a small convoy of tour vehicles. One thing you come to learn quickly in Dubai is that things tend to have a transient nature. It soon became clear that the road we were on was closed for some construction work. It didn't however become clear until we were already a mile or so beyond the last opportunity to have altered our route. No problem, just drive off the edge of the tarmac and across desert scrub until you join the other road. We eventually merged with a dual carriageway, which headed to the horizon, and set off along it. Where the surrounding sand had encroached across our two-lane blacktop Yussef simply skipped us across the central divide and took the oncoming lanes. Fortunately there wasn't a lot of traffic.

Eventually we spotted the rest of the group belonging to the company we were with and left the road once more to join them for a quick photo opportunity on top of some dunes while the drives reduced the air pressure in their tyres.

Then we were back in the Land Cruisers and off. One by one we rolled into and around the side of a large natural bowl of sand. Then we were not off. One of the other drivers had been a bit eager and scrubbed the right rear tyre off it's rim. All the other drivers got out to help and within five minutes everything was right again. Then we were off again. Snaking across the desert we played follow the leader at impressive speeds climbing, cresting and drifting through enormous dunes.


We drove around for about an hour having incredible fun with only two brief pauses. Once to free a Land Cruiser that had become hung up at right angles across the top of a dune and once to cross paths with a gang of camels.

At the end of the hour we all came to a halt near a cool box left seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Everyone was given chilled water and we climbed the nearest dune to watch the sunset.

Then off through the dusk to a permanent desert camp for an enormous Lebanese buffet and some belly dancing. All in all we were out and entertained for around seven hours and all for only forty quid each. I would highly recommend anyone staying in Dubai takes the opportunity to try this out.

Yuyatwi

posted by ElDiablo at 20:45

I know some of you guys are both into seeing the world and photography - or at least into buying cameras - so I thought you might enjoy having a look at the work of this fella, a friend of a very special person to me, who has been doing exactly that, travelling the globe and snapping his camera at it with some truly awesome results. I reckon he is very talented, and I admit I know nothing about photography but then again as John "I'm the bloody Pope" Cleese said I know what I like. See what you think, you are encouraged to leave your comments on the website - but if you do then write something meaty for God's sake, don't embarrass me with some "very nice photo" kind of blandness, c'mon let the beauty of the images touch you and tell all about it - or at least get into photo-geek mode and discuss really really hardcore stuff like light levels, exposure time or whatever.

More here and here (both in Spanish).

Thumbnail of Antelope Canyon composition reproduced with the author's permission. © Roberto Carlos Fernandez Gonzalez, all rights reserved.

Head east for disorientation

posted by Dean at 10:13

This is something I wrote for www.theinquirer.net which I write for freelance.
I thought it gave quite a nice overview of my experience in Tokyo...so here you go...


THE INQ HAS just touched down in the heart of modern Japan - Tokyo.

A quick train ride from Narita airport allows a quick view of some kind of oriental suburbia mixed with the odd rice paddy or some other small cultivation.

Shortly, the megatropolis steams into full view, but the actual scope of the city isn’t visible until our 32nd floor hotel room and we’re afforded the night’s view.

Skyscraper upon skyscraper floods the neon-lit cityscape, with seemingly no boundary to the naked eye. A plethora of fifty-floor plus buildings haunt the landscape, edging as close to the harbour boundaries as their foundations will afford.

The mist and rain cling to the night and a quick walk into the locality presents bar after bar offering sake of every domination or some kind of raw fish. The streets are filled at any time of the day, with a constant barrage of human and automotive traffic, loud speakers from gigantic advertising bill-boards coupled with in-built 100-inch LCDs surrounding the street junction corners.

This is no modern London or scraper-filled square mile, this is Blade Runner.

During the day any degree of sanity is difficult to maintain. Shibuya is a prime example of the incredible hustle and bustle, coupled with audio and visual sensory overload, of central Tokyo.

A pic of Shibuya – stay clear if you’re in a fragile mental state. A quick video is available here [also at the end of this post - Jaitu] too.


You’re completely surrounded by multiple different exits to one junction which all in turn seem to lead to a similar junction. Each junction seems to have a Piccadilly Circus-esque LCD wall, but instead of just one corner being occupied with visual eye-candy, every corner is populated with animated advertising, complete with audio barrage.

It’s almost overwhelming in the March cool air, but in the summer when Tokyo easily hits temperatures of over 30 degrees, it’s easy to see how one could go completely mad with the intensity and allow oneself to mingle with the multitude of homeless among the Imperial Palace lawns.

Trying to navigate this area is impossible. The scattered maps, when not in Japanese, seem to offer no resemblance to the actual geographics of the area. Every road from one of the junctions leads to another maze of junctions and turnings. The Japanese don’t use road names, nor do they seem to offer any type of sign, directions or local naming for the pedestrian other than the ever-looming mass of neon signs and ear-lobe smashing outdoor screen advertising – not to mention the salesmen perched upon stalls bellowing in your ears via megaphones as you pass by their shops.

If you lean into a back alley of market-stall traders or small shops, expect to be startled by the extreme length and multitude of outlets available. Endless street after street after street, as far as they eye can see, all geared towards taking your Yen, all complete with a throng of shoppers and bustling locals, are at your disposal.

Take a street map (if you can find one), take a GPS unit, take local maps gathered from the net, and hope for the best.

The streets are a maze, and when trying to travel to your chosen destination, the train is some shape or form is the most useful transit method available. But you have a seemingly massive choice, metro/underground, monorail, over-rail, this line, that line etc, all mixed together, all seemingly poorly sign posted and sparingly detailed at every station. It’s a nightmare, but a little pointing from the ticket guards usually helps – though guessing what you actually have to pay for a multi-change (from service to service) ticket is something else entirely.

The stations and surrounding complexes are unbelievable huge. Tokyo station seems to span a shopping area larger than Heathrow put together, and the whole city seems to be inter-linked underground in an ever increasing number of below-floor levels and unwieldy maze of shopping, train stations and restaurants.

Don’t expect much help from the locals either. The Japanese can generally write very good English, but they can generally not speak it, nor do they wish to try – they’re incredibly shy and wish to never make a mistake in case they embarrass themselves.

But let’s get to the point. We’re here to check out the electronics, toys and oddities of Tokyo. More later in the week in INQ Tales from Tokyo Part II. µ

What a Royal Cock

posted by Dean at 15:42

I just had to take this picture.
Walking around Akihabara in Tokyo, Japan (as you do) I spotted a huge bunch of Syrians all with the same track suit on, obviously over for some sports competition of some sort.

Their slogan doesn't necessarily translate too well...

Buy Some Land And Raise Some Kids

posted by Jaitu at 12:32

:: By Email ::

Back in Blighty.

We landed on Sunday afternoon and went straight back to work yesterday.
I'll provide a proper update and maybe an account of the trip and wedding
later.

For now I notice that no-one did anything while I was gone and that the
formatting of the site has been broken the whole time. Never mind. I'll fix
it later.

Here We Go

posted by Jaitu at 12:36

::by email::

Well, it's nearly time for us to leave for Melbourne. We'll be away for a couple of weeks while visiting family, relaxing and getting married. Pretty much everything is arranged with only a few small details to tie down when we get to there (I'll rant about the caterer when I return).

I expect things to be very quiet, even more so than usual, around here while I'm gone. Hopefully I can rely on ElDiablo to come up with something in my absence.

Australian Travel Operator Of The Year

posted by Jaitu at 17:59

Just a quick note for anyone thinking of visiting Australia. Do it, it's a lovely place. Just don't do it with Austravel. We booked our flights for the wedding through them and have had consistently poor service.

We had to cancel a ticket that was for my Father. This took three attempts and a total of around eight weeks to complete and get the refund. Providing passport information (that they had requested) to secure visas took three attempts because each time we gave them what they wanted they remembered something else they'd need. When our itinerary arrived it showed me as an Australian citizen and a visa against Naomi despite the fact that I'm British and required the visa and she's the Aussie (remember all the passport stuff?). It also *still* had my Dad on the itinerary and E-ticket. Also the E-ticket they sent us had different flight details to the itinerary. We think this has all been sorted out now.
It's not just us, another couple flying with us had not even received their paperwork (this is less than two weeks before we fly) and on their inquiry were told Austravel were waiting on confirmation of an extra arrangement they had made for their holiday. Confirmation from whom? Not exactly clear. They have now been sent their itinerary and E-ticket, complete with mis-matched flight details. There are other friends flying out for the wedding who have received equally poor service from them.

So anyway. Austravel have been crap for us and others that we know. The hold message you get when you call them proudly announces that they were voted Australian Tour Operator Of The Year 2005. I can see why they didn't get 2006. Take my advice and book it direct with Emirates.

Rant over.

Tignes

posted by ElDiablo at 23:30

I returned on Sunday from a week-long ski holiday in the French Alps. I had a fantastic time and I'm still struggling to readjust to normal life, my mind constantly going back to last week and how good it all was so I thought maybe posting about it here could help to draw a line under the whole thing and (sigh) get on with every day's boring routine.

Before this trip I had only been to the snow in three different occasions, just for the day, and couldn't ski at all. But I had always meant to take a proper ski holiday where I could have lessons and learn. I have some friends that are keen skiers and they had always asked me to go with them in one of their trips but for one reason or other I hadn't been able to make it until now. The original idea was to go somewhere in Spain but the lack of snow this winter forced us to change plans and look higher and further North. In the end we settled for Tignes because being one of the highest resorts in Europe we reckoned we should almost certainly find snow there. We ended up being eight people: three lovely girls, Cristina, ski-mad Sandra and spunky Angeles; and five boys, Antonio, Fernando, Ricardo, Fernando's nephew Jose and myself. The whole party except me set off in two cars from Madrid, they had to go via Grenoble so I flew there to join them and we continued by road to Tignes.

The Tignes resort is split in five small villages at different altitudes: Val Claret, Le Lac, Le Lavachet, Les Boisses and Les Brevieres. The place where we stayed is the UCPA auberge in Val Claret which at 2300m is the highest of the five. The UCPA is a government-sponsored non-profit French organisation whose aim is to facilitate the practice of outdoor sporting activities. We had booked a week-long ski program with them which included full-boarded accommodation, ski-pass for the entire Espace Killy (Tignes and Val d'Isere resorts) for the whole week, third-party civil insurance, ski equipment and five hours of ski instruction per day, all that for less than 600euro. The program starts on a Sunday and finishes the following Saturday after lunch. You check in before 5:30pm and can collect your equipment from their ski shop until 6:30pm. You can ski then from that very first day although by the time we arrived to the auberge on Sunday afternoon and finished all the formalities at the reception the ski shop was already closed so we got our bags up to the rooms and went straight down to check out the place.

The UCPA auberge is a hostel-like establishment where all bedrooms are modules comprising two connected 4-person cabins: each cabin has independent heating, four bunks and a sink and each lodger has its own individual closet; the module has a shared shower and a toilet. You have to bring your own towels but bedding is provided (pillow cases, sheets and a duvet). The common area in the ground floor near the reception comprises the restaurant and kitchens; the bar and adjacent rest area with tables, chairs and beanie bags; a recreation zone with two pool tables, satellite TV and PlayStation and table games; a small stage/dance-floor area; and the common toilets. There are also additional rooms for after-ski activities such as stretching and aerobic. WiFi internet access is available in all areas. The place is not a hotel so they don't offer anything like bedroom or cleaning services: you are expected to keep the premises tidy and before you leave the cleaning lady checks your room and stamps your personal card to give the OK. On arrival you are given a key to your cabin, the ski pass and you personal lodger and equipment cards (which you have to present to collect you ski gear). You also have to leave a deposit (I think it was 50euro each) which is returned to you at check out time and covers any damage to the equipment or premises. Personal insurance is not included though: if you haven't got any the UCPA offers basic accident coverage for an extra 15euro, this includes first aid and airlift service from the slopes but not any further medical treatment. We all signed for this and as it turned out we were glad we did. You are also assigned to one of the instruction groups depending on your skiing ability. Our bunch was spread out across pretty much the whole spectrum: Sandra and Jose are top-level, extremely good skiers; Angeles and Antonio while not as good are fully competent and experienced ones; Cristina and Fernando fall more into an intermediate level; which left Ricardo and myself together in the same group of absolutely wet-behind-the-ears beginners.

The usual day went by as follows: you wake up early, between 7:30 and 8:00am, freshen up and go down to the restaurant for breakfast. You then go back up to your cabin, dress up in your ski clothes and get down to the storage room where your ski gear is kept (you are assigned one of the storage rooms in the basement when you pick your equipment, access is code-restricted) put on your boots and carry your skis out to your group's meeting point where you join your ski instructor and the rest of your group mates. Morning instruction starts at 9:00am and lasts for two and a half hours. Then is back to the auberge for lunch, which is served at 12:00pm. At 13:30pm is back to the slopes for the afternoon session, another two and a half hours of instruction until 5:00pm; then back to the auberge for a shower and free time for the rest of the day. Tea and pastries are served at 5:30pm, dinner at 7:30pm. The bar is open throughout and there are organised 'après-ski' events every day, like stretching sessions, 'Gym Tonic' work outs, French stand up comedy (funnier than it sounds) or themed night disco-parties. The atmosphere at the auberge is pretty much a collegiate one, most of the lodgers are young people in their twenties but there were also groups of thirtysomethings and even older. Of course you don't have to participate of any of this if you don't feel like it, most of the evenings we just sat down to chill-out with a couple of bottles of wine or headed off to Val Claret centre for a drink and check out the shops.

As a beginner the two first days of ski instruction are hard. At least I found them hard. To the physical exhaustion add the difficulty to understand and execute what the instructor is telling you which generally involves completely different groups of muscles to the ones you normally use while balance-wise going against everything your instinct tells you to do when standing on a steep slope. Then there is the fear factor, when you lack control you pick up speed pretty quickly and if panic sets in you'll almost certain to loose it completely making the fall inevitable. It didn't help that on Tuesday morning, barely ten minutes into the first descent (and in what would be the only negative incident of the whole trip) my group mate Ricardo had to pull out. We had descended a quite steep green (cat.: easy) piste up to the 'arret-net' (safety net) placed before a busy intersection. Ricardo, who was lagging behind, started loosing control and realising he was never going to make the turn made a dumb decision: instead of dropping to the ground he continued at speed and let the chest-high safety net stop him. Which it did, but also sent him over in a somersault, his right ski getting caught under the net and not releasing the bonding. He landed violently on the other side but by then the damage had been done. He lay on the snow writhing in agony, clutching his right knee. I took off my skis and hurried towards him. Nicolas, the ski instructor, was already there calming him down, making him check if he could move his toes inside the boot and trying to get an idea of the extent of the injury. Ricardo couldn't stand up on his right leg so Nicolas called the piste emergency service on his mobile. About four minutes later a nurse with the Red-Cross logo on his yellow ski jacket came skiing down the slope dragging a sledge-mounted stretcher. The first thing she did is ask if Ricardo had personal insurance; he did have it (we had all signed for it) but had forgotten to take with him the small ID card that certified it. I explained that to her and showed my own card, that seemed to convince her and she started examining his knee but it wasn't until Nicolas called the UCPA centre and confirmed that Ricardo was effectively covered that she agreed to take him down to the medical centre. In five minutes she had immobilised his knee and loaded and secured him (and his skis) on the stretcher. I offered to go down with them in case I could be of any help but she said there was no need since as soon as he had been examined by the doctor he would be transferred by ambulance to the UCPA. And so we wished Ricardo good luck and there she disappeared down the slope at incredible speed pulling the stretcher with my struck down mate on it behind her. After that the mood of the group remained sombre the whole morning, everyone was worried for Ricardo but also scared to realise that something like that could very well happen to any of us. Fortunately when we returned to the auberge for lunch Ricardo was already there and in relatively good shape: the doctor had ruled out any serious injury and what looked initially like something nasty ended up being just a sprained knee. Ski was over for him for at least a couple of weeks though. He also had to pay the doctor for the treatment, about 100euro; and again not having his insurance ID card on him resulted in the ambulance crew temporarily taking his skis as deposit.

The fun begins when what you're being taught starts making a difference. It's like something clicks somewhere and suddenly things fall into place: you manage to keep your body and the skis at the right angle, you finally shift your weight effectively and to the correct foot in the turns, your timing improves and you start getting into something resembling a rhythm. That moment of epiphany occurred to me on Wednesday. It was rest morning and we didn't have instruction but instead of sleeping in we took advantage to go and ski all the friends together for the first time. The plan was to take the chairlift up to the Col de Fresse and do some blue (cat.: medium) pistes on the way down. At last it had been snowing heavily on Tuesday which guaranteed some great snow the following morning. I was nervous at the prospect of going down my first blue and didn't sleep well that night. The day started grey and overcast but once we got on the chairlift it opened up and a glorious sun rose over the top of La Grande Motte showing the beauty of the immaculate white valley in all its magnificence. We got off the lift at the top and headed down Prariond. There were very few people at that time so we had the ample, almost untouched piste for ourselves. I started tentatively, trying to familiarise myself with a slope more steep that anything I had done before, to remember every advice Nicolas had given me so far. Suddenly I realised I was trailing Angeles comfortably; admittedly she was minding me and therefore wasn't going as fast as she normally would in those conditions, but she kept a reasonable speed and I was following on her tracks, matching her on every turn; I could notice I was still leaning backwards a bit too much, keeping my arms to my sides and my upper body wasn't as loose at it should but I was aware of it and trying to correct it. I grew confident and started to really enjoy the descent. The high lasted almost the whole morning, until the moment when due to overconfidence and (if I was to be unfair) the advice information overload well-meaning Sandra was showering on me at the time I had a lapse in concentration and fell hard in a fast section, slamming my left shoulder into the ground. I was OK (although my shoulder is still a bit sore today) but it had the effect of sapping all the energy I had left; so from then on I just concentrated on trying to make it back to the auberge in one piece.

For the rest of the week we explored as much as we could of the awesome Espace Killy: on Wednesday afternoon Nicolas gave us our first taste of 'off-piste' skiing; on Thursday we skied through snow covered trees all the way down to Les Brevieres (1550m) where we had lunch at a restaurant, then took the lift up to L'Aiguille Percee and skied back down to Val Claret; on Friday morning we took the funicular up to La Grande Motte glacier and descended Genepy, and in the afternoon went up to the Col de Fresse and crossed to Val d'Isere; Nicolas even taught us the basics of carving that same afternoon. And every day after the ski we all got together for a drink, some games and some banter well into the evening. I enjoyed it immensely.

Saturday morning was the last chance to put on the skis since we had to check out of the UCPA that same day at 2:00pm. Friday had been the last day of instruction so we had the morning free to do as we pleased; it was again a gorgeous day so we all took the funicular and then the cable car to the very top of the Col de La Grande Motte and skied down the bed of the glacier in the morning sun (well not all of us, Ricardo, accompanied by Cris, took the funicular back down for obvious reasons). After that we rode the chairlift to the Col de Ves where the girls convinced us to follow them down a not-groomed black (cat.: very difficult) slope. I couldn't believe it but there I was, less than a week after all started going down the most difficult kind of piste there is! (In all honesty I have to thank Antonio who minded me all the way down for being still alive). After that there was just time to go back to the auberge, have a last lunch, pack our stuff, clean our cabins, check out and reluctantly, leave.

It has been said that skiing and the mountains are addictive: once the bug bites you, you are in for life. I for one couldn't agree more. I'm already looking for my next fix.

Tokyo

posted by Dean at 09:18

As I'm off to Tokyo in a few weeks, I was interested to see a HDR picture of the night-covered city scape appearing on a few blogs.

Check out bigger sizes here - it's definitely worth it.

It seems you need a camera with a decent exposure range, but to be honest, I know next to nothing about photography and digital cameras.

I've got a Sony Cybershot DSC-N2 which anyone with any knowledge of photography would probably laugh at. I've no need for an SLR or anything as I hardly ever take any pics.

Discussions on the Photoshop HDR plug-in and the best cameras to use can be found here.

Related Products:

We're all off on our (pre) Summer holidays

posted by Dean at 10:51

Woohoo. First post, and it's all good news.

Finallyyyy booked and paid for a 3 week (+1day) trip to Tokyo and Australia. Leaving 23rd March and coming back the 14/15th of April.

Oh yes indeedy.

Of course this is based around the wedding of our beloved Jules and Nim, when we'll trot on over to Melbourne to watch the lovely couple wed, but not before Tokyo, Sydney, and then Brisbane/Gold Coast. Oh YES indeedy.