Posts in Category: site
Update
Apologies for the lack of updates lately, I’ve just been quite busy and lazy at the same time. I have a backlog of draft posts to get to, and I only just realised that I can do this from my ipad so that’s definitely going to help. I’ll probably have new content up by the weekend, I have to finish watching The Punisher first.
Ghost Town: Population, You
Saigon sunset
Wow, have I been neglecting this place, it’s been a busy couple months, we got back from holidays (I contracted dengue fever ewww), then we moved house, and now we’re settling in. So the only progress that I’ve made on anything is upgrading my heroes on clash of clans lol. I haven’t even looked through my photos from the trip yet, which is usually the first thing I do when I get home.
I’m still setting up my workstation a bit, this will happen soon, we’re almost fully settled in our nest. Once that’s done, I can resume posting here with photos from the trip as well as photos from my new place. Hey, I turned 34, things go more slowly the older you get, or we just procrastinate more. I’ll leave it at for now, and hopefully come back with some better organised content in the near future.
Central Japan return post
And we’re back, two weeks travelling around central Japan was fun, but taking a 14-month old baby with us certainly made things more challenging and cost us some opportunities. But it was well worth it even if we didn’t get to do all that we had hoped.
Holiday Route
Flying Jetstar and arriving at (and departing from) terminal 3 was already less than ideal, although terminal 3 doesn’t have any of the good shops that terminal 1 and 2 have, so we weren’t able to do any last minute shopping before leaving the country, but at least Jetstar has direct flights. That was a plus considering that the flight was only about ten hours each way (the return flight during the day was much more bearable than dealing with a tired and extremely cranky baby on an overnight flight).
This was the first time that I’ve ever flown Jetstar on a long haul flight (I’ve flown to Tasmania domestic a couple of times) and I’m really not sure that I would do it again, even though they have the direct route to Japan. Once you add in all the extras it’s only slightly less (a couple hundred bucks each) than a full service carrier so in terms of value it’s definitely out the window. The direct flight option is where it has the advantage, Singapore is always the number one option, but Japan Airlines has direct flights from Sydney so that might be a better option next time.
Pond in Central Park, Nagoya
In the end, the main issues we had were that our (sometimes) cranky baby needed to be baby-sat/fed at the most inopportune times, such as dinner time (sunset) and breakfast times (sunrise), the best times to go anywhere because of:
- Heat, the Japanese summer is blisteringly hot (and stuffy)
- Lighting, for photography the golden hours and the blue hours are the best times to shoot during the day, but perhaps due to poor planning as well we ended up out during the hottest, brightest times of the day (the middle).
As always though, Japan is so much fun, and so amazing in almost every way, it really is like a giant theme park, the food is delicious usually, and relative to Australian prices for similar food, it’s a bargain. The shopping is endless, and the way that nature, history, and technology come together is something magical (usually). I really hope that next time we can go in Autumn or Spring (cherry blossom) season to avoid the heat, and also see some different colours on the natural side of things. Not sure where we would head next time, maybe Hokkaido, or somewhere else based on further reading. Any way, I’ve got lots of pictures coming so I’ll be breaking those down into several posts over the next couple of weeks.
King Kong
Hey, again, it’s been a while since my last post, these things seem to be getting more and more infrequent, but any way, we went to see King Kong (the musical) last week, the final night of the preview performances. Having not been to a musical or play pretty much ever, I was going in with completely no expectations or preconceptions (other than there would be a lot of singing and dancing).
King Kong (the musical)
I thought that everyone knew the story line for King Kong, but my lovely girlfriend apparently did not (but she has been to musicals before), I won’t go into it because I should think that anyone reading this blog would know the plot of King Kong. I’m going to talk about the actual performance and the theatre, first, the theatre. The show is on at the Regent Theatre on Collins St (which I’ve never been to but will be going back for a second time for a work function later this year), it’s pretty big I guess (not having any previous experience) and has a pretty big stage, we were sitting in row J, smack bang in the middle, so we had pretty good seats. For short people and kids it’s probably not the best because the gradient is quite shallow so if you have someone tall in front of you, it will be a problem (despite the seats not being aligned exactly).
After that, we have the performance, what I really liked about the show was the lighting and costumes (not counting King Kong of course), there were some pretty fancy light displays I thought, and combined with the costumes, it created some pretty spectacular viewing. The arrival at Skull Island and the natives especially were my favourite part. The giant King Kong puppet with the animatronic head was the absolute highlight of the show, without doubt (as you would expect), and is worth the price of admission by itself, his entry is long awaited, but once he shows up, he definitely does not disappoint.
I did enjoy the singing and dancing, perhaps the dancing more than the singing (that’s me though), as I can probably appreciate that a bit more, the big dance numbers were good but I (could just be me) kept having this feeling that something is going on in the background and I need to know what it is so that I’m not surprised when it happens. I think this probably meant that I couldn’t focus as well as I should have on the main action, hopefully that is something that I will learn from for my next show :D. Hey, overall, I definitely can’t say that I was disappointed or bored, the show was big, loud, and totally entertaining, King Kong is awesome!
Picture taken from wikipedia.
Photos!
Good Morning Mount Roland
Dove Lake
Cataract Gorge
Grasshopper
Toora
Some more pictures that I took over the past few months that I didn’t feel were quite up to my flickr standards, as I’m trying to get a bit more picky about what I put up there (I’m nearing 1,000 photos, so it’s taken a while). In no particular order, from a few locations around Tasmania and Victoria (southern mostly). The Toora one is quite good but I took another one quite similar and it was a panorama so I put that one on flickr. These were mostly selected for flickr initially but after looking at them and working on them I decided that they probably weren’t quite up to scratch or were similar but not exactly the same as ones I chose to put on flickr.
Speaking of which, after the recent announcement that all users would be receiving one terabyte of space and the pro accounts would be discontinued or at least grandfathered with an ads-free account becoming the new paid account type, I was trying to decide whether to keep my pro account. Having looked at the updated flickr now using my account and other non-pro accounts and trying to work out what the difference is, the only difference I can see is the lack of stats (which I don’t find that important or interesting). At first I was wondering where the ads were, then I realised that I have adblock plus on, and so that “feature” (?) is irrelevant for me, so in all likelihood (with the only feature that I lose from my pro account being stats which I don’t pay much attention to) I will give up the pro account and just go with the free account. I was only paying $25 per year, and now it will be nothing, and there’s no way I would ever use up one terabyte of data.
In terms of the pictures, hope you enjoy, I’ve already pretty much given up on panoramio, so should be posting more pictures to here than before which is a good thing I think. Except that wordpress seems to choke on iphone photos (well, the portrait orientation ones any way), it is mostly more usable and nicer. Hey, no stolen pictures this post, they’re all mine. Yeah, it’s been a while, I really should try to post more, but will leave it at that for now, and see if I have anything in the works coming up.
Coloured Dove Lake
Rocks and Waves
Fluffy Cloud Hill
Saint Hubert’s Vineyard
Pentax K200D: Used, for sale [SOLD!!]
Pentax K200D Body only
Pentax K200D Body only
Pentax K200D Body only
[UPDATE] The camera has been sold and shipped, thanks to all for viewing/bidding.
I’ve finally decided to put this one up for sale, I haven’t used it for a couple of years, and we’re cleaning out the house a bit, and since Em has a Pentax K-r herself (not that she uses that, but it’s a backup body) so I decided that this one should go. It was certainly a loyal partner back in the day going with me through Mexico, South America, Malaysia, and India, those are some pretty harsh places I would think. It’s a tough little dslr, and would match some weather sealed lenses as a backup body quite well I would think.
I’m just selling it on ebay cos that’s the easiest place to do it. The pictures I’ve attached were taken with my K-5 and the FA43, now that is a beautiful combination (especially if low light focusing isn’t involved). Go on, get over there and put a bid on, don’t just watch it, it expires in less than nine days, and it’s priced to sell ($25 opening bid, come on). It’s got built-in shake reduction (image stabilisation), less than 9, 000 shutter actuations, so it’s still got a long life ahead of it, runs on AA’s so no need to worry about where to get batteries. It’s just a very capable little camera, that would work very well as either a backup body, or a learning camera, just chuck a nice cheap prime lens (50mm or something) on and it would make a nifty little portrait camera.
Hello world!
Hi people, I will post something more substantial when I get a chance, but welcome to the new dtraCorp. This will pretty much be a photo and travel blog, but I will also blog about other assorted items, TV shows, movies, food/restaurants (maybe), cycling, gadgets, whatever strikes my fancy (who says that?). My first real post will probably be next week, and it will probably be a photo post, so stay tuned.