MyRTW | Fotoeins Fotografie

Pho Thai Son, Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, fotoeins.com

3 Places to Eat in Central Saigon

Saigon is a metropolis in southern Vietnam with over 7 million people; some say there are upwards of 9 million in the area. Although often referred by its present-day name of Ho Chi Minh City, many still call the place by its old name of Saigon.

A big attraction in a short trip is always about the food. The out-of-this-world traffic points to everybody in a big hurry on the go, and it seems the entire population is on their motorbikes. This also suggests everybody is hungry, all the time.

Naturally, there are many places, stalls, and street-side carts, but if you’d like to sit down under cover and see what others are eating, you might give these three places in central Saigon a try.

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Joy Hing Roasted Meat, Wan Chai, Hong Kong, fotoeins.com

Hong Kong: I can eat in Cantonese

June 2012.

Yes, it’s true.

After sitting dormant in my head for years, my Cantonese has come out to play, and has been put to good use.

I can say a few words and phrases to make myself understood, but I’m not proficient enough to carry a long conversation. But I know enough to cuss if I need to, like everyone else.

It’s now halfway into my stay in Hong Kong, and I’m finding my comprehension of verbal Cantonese is steadily improving by the day. I can listen to Cantonese in conversation and I can get the gist of what’s being said. My reading and writing comprehension, however, need life support.

The important part is where my handling of Cantonese becomes particularly handy: the search for and the precise naming of food.

Here are three places in Hong Kong where I’ve adequately communicated my desire for food that “feels-like-home”:

Mak’s Noodle (Central), for the wonton noodle soup
Nathan Congee and Noodle (Kowloon), for congee
Joy Hing Roasted Meat (Wan Chai), for the barbecue duck and pork

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Words, a thousand of them: one year later

What is a picture or photograph truly worth?

A thousand words or more?

A few cents or dollars from a microstock website? Or far more for commissioned work?

Across the English Channel from Dover, England to Dunkirk, France

For years, I’ve been trained to write as precisely and concisely as possible. The “currency” in professional science is the publishing of research and results as accepted papers in peer-reviewed journals. One pays or collects this “currency” (it’s sometimes unclear which) to secure gainful employment in research science.

My approach to this blog has been more about visuals and less about prose. Photographs can provide perspective far better than a ton of words I might write. Forms, feelings, and opinions are delivered in a package, and all of that gets unwrapped in your heads. I think it’s even better if people make up their own stories when they see my photographs.

I’ve made the following choices:

the ability to show galleries with photos each almost 1000 pixels wide,
a dark background to emphasize the photos,
keeping each photo’s description to a short blurb,
where appropriate, a map from Google Maps is provided for the interest of readers,
and a minimum of distractions along the top and sidebar.

And now that I’ve more than 200 words in this post, I’d like to end with the following thought. The timing of this post marks the one year mark when I announced my intention to travel this entire year: from La Serena, Chile then to Hong Kong now.

I made the photo above on 23 Nov 2007 on board the Norfolk Line ferry across the English Channel from Dover, England to Dunkerque, France. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress (fotoeins.com).

Hawaii Big Island: along the northeast Hāmākua Coast

While visiting friends in Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii this past January (2012), my friend MK and I hop into a rental car, and we drive out on separate days along the northeast Hamakua coast and along the south Ka’u coast. Even though I’d made a number of prior visits for astronomy-related work on the Big Island, I had yet to see much of the northeast or the southern coastlines.

On today’s drive along the northeast Hāmākua coast on the Big Island, I seek out three locations: Laupahoehoe, Waipio Lookout, and Akaka Falls. Why these three?

They’re easy to reach from Hilo.
They’re all related in one way or another to Mauna Kea, that massive and dormant shield-volcano, dominating the south the entire drive along the Hamakua Coast.
They’re beautiful: what else is there?

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