So, second day in Ubud, we did considerably more walking. Markets, some temples, lots of tourists. The first three pictures are what most of the town was like. Stores selling things to tourists. There were some shops on the outside of town that sold statuary and furniture, but I’m not convinced those weren’t also for export. We walked, we drank beer, we walked some more. Didn’t buy anything but food and potables (potent and otherwise).
Despite all that, there were glimpses of real beauty; the way the statues were all dressed, the little offerings left out everywhere, the old buildings poking through and around the new. The fifty foot high god with bow and arrow at the big crossroads in town was lit at night, a beacon. I’m not sure I’d seen a lotus in bloom before. On balance, a good day. Also, I believe this was also the day I discovered Pocari Sweat, which is a Gatorade analogue. It only comes in one flavor, but it’s not bad. Especially when you’ve been walking for a bazillion hours.
(Sorry to folks on slow connections, but I really didn’t want to edit these down any further.)
Posted on 2015-12-10T06:11:47Z GMT
I think I’ve mentioned it here before a couple times. I’m doing a series of pictures of the construction site around the new transbay terminal. I also thought I should break up the monotony of beautiful island photos. The mood and the scene really has something working there, but I think it’ll fall flat unless I get more photos of the people doing the work. The real meat of photographic legwork is getting access and gaining trust. That and schlepping gear. I’ve got a lot of that still to do.
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Posted on 2015-12-07T08:01:29Z GMT
Like I said in the last post, our second destination in Bali was the town of Ubud. We picked an AirBnB based on reviews and price, and hoped for the best. The first picture is the access to the house; it was down a trail through the rice fields outside of town. I knew rice was a grass, but I’d never seen it up close. When it’s not ready for harvest, it looks like any other grass (botanists, please don’t correct me; I don’t care). So, a few hundred yards from the road, and a little hard to find. That said, once there out hosts were just great. We dropped our things and headed into town for lunch.
The town, at least at first glance, seemed entirely given over to the tourist trade. I’ve been places that were in the early stages of that transformation, with a few more art galleries and hotels than seems strictly necessisary. Ubud was several stages more advanced. The early starters in the area, yoga studios, hippie cafes, and the like, had become deeply entrenched institutions, and all of the shops except the grocery store were for tourists only. I mean, there were no signs that said so, but the prices and the people in them said so. The endless touts trying to sell a taxi ride also said so.
Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. That day, we just went and had lunch and walked around a little. Drank beers back at the room. Talked to the other guests, and tried to plan our next day. There were a bunch of temples, and some markets that sounded interesting. With that vague outline of a plan in place, we went to bed.
Posted on 2015-12-05T08:10:00Z GMT
So this was our last day in the nice spa that Sophie booked us; a really beautiful spot that I was just aching to get out of. It’s one thing to be pampered for a couple days, but completely another to tarry too long. Our last full day we got some very nice massages, ate fried food made to satisfy australians, and rested on the beach. Most of the jet lag had worn off, except that we were still waking up with the sunrise. Afternoon naps did help, though. We never did find out the story of that ship that was run aground, maybe half a mile out to sea, but I seem to see ships like that a lot; there was one in mexico, as well.
The next morning, we packed all our worldly goods into our tiny luggage and hired a driver to take us to Ubud, a small town in the interior of the island, known for its artists, at least according to our guidebook. When we got there, it was something of a different story, but that’s another post.
Posted on 2015-11-30T20:55:02Z GMT
So, in my last post I was complaining about having too much to do. I should have maybe been more careful what I wished for. I had a bit of an accident; I fractured my tibial plateau, for those at home that can’t read an MRI. I was practicing for my DMV exam on my motorcycle and bumped the throttle; next thing I knew I was in the bushes. I’d love to continue learning to ride when I’m healed, but really, I have too many other things going at once to give riding the attention it needs not to kill me.
Other things have happened to shorten the list of projects: I finished the writing machine, which I dubbed the Mosquito Cannon (as in ‘Don’t use a cannon to kill a mosquito’), as it is greatly over engineered for what it does. It’s kind of wonderful for just that reason, though. I assembled v4.5 of the watch, and it’s probably the last version I’ll do, unless something drastic happens. I’ve achieved my goals there; time to move on.
That leaves just a few things on my dance card. Photo work, including looking for a printer. The novel in progress, which I may start to serialize. Learning elixir for fun and profit. Getting my leg back up to full strength, as soon as the doc clears me to use it again. And last but not least, getting the new casa organized so we can have folks over. That’s probably a month’s work outside of work. Hopefully some time for blogging in there somewhere.
These photos are from some time before Bali; Fletcher asked me if I wanted to go to this show last minute, and I was free, so I went. That little sony kills it when you pay attention to exposure and keep it inside the dynamic range it gives you. It’s maybe as good as my D700 was in decent light, and no slouch in low light either. I also used it for the Florence and the Machine photos in an earlier post, but those were processed on my phone, so not really a great example, technically. Anyone who cares about highlight rendering should know that dcraw is poor for this camera, at least as of this writing. Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw seem a lot better.
Posted on 2015-11-30T06:52:24Z GMT
