a Photoblog - Elk in Banff

all photos (cc) me

on the Grid - Tending the Urban Forest in Vancouver and Toronto

On opposite sides of the country are two of Canada’s iconic cities: Vancouver, British Columbia and Toronto, Ontario. In this age of green building practices and sustainable development, both cities are pushing forward to be leaders in environmentally conscious city planning and design. Toronto has adopted a green roof strategy and passed bylaws to require new developments to include green roofs. Vancouver has declared an intention to become the greenest city by 2020.

Both cities are making strides to expand the urban forest, though in very different ways.

Read the full post on the Grid.

a Photoblog - Views of Mount Rundle

click photos to enlarge

photos (cc) me

a Photoblog - Peacocks in the Park

photos by me

Bees on the Blog

So I mentioned in my last post that it's finally starting to feel a little like spring here in the Valley. Meaning that it's generally sunny and above zero, but my standards have changed drastically over the winter. With the arrival of what I consider spring-ish temperatures and weather, I've done a little bit of cleaning on the interweb. Yup, I've been busy.

The most dramatic change is probably to this blog. I know I just redid it over the summer before leaving to Singapore, but the plain black and gray was starting to feel drab. That, and I broke the layout and formatting while "previewing" new Dynamic Blogger templates. Yah, I may or may not have hit the "apply to blog" button by accident. Oops.

Really, only the background and some of the colours have changed. I switched to the Picturesque template and added a photo of mine from Cambodia as the background, and I also cleaned out most of the sidebar junk that was still on the old yellow colour scheme. Cleaned out as in deleted. So if you want to stalk my Last.fm, Flickr, or Hype Machine you'll have to make one extra click to the About Me page. Oh, the humanity, woe is you.

I also changed my Tumblr microblog. It once claimed to be "the microblog companion to my main blog," but it was starting to feel redundant. So I've remotivated that space to be a showcase of one of my interests, urban and architectural photography. Just call it me gathering inspiration for my career one day.

Oh, one last thing: I'd love some feedback on this blog layout. So, how's it look?

photos by me

Seven Days in Borneo

This past week I have been in Borneo, wandering around Malaysia and Brunei with my backpack. I left Singapore alone, but met so many people while away.Here's what I got up to those seven days away.
I spent my first full day at the Niah caves outside Miri.They have huge archeological importance because of the cave paintings and burial grounds found in one of them, which changed the migration and settlement theories for this part of the world. Also one of the sites for harvesting birds' nests to be used in soup.

After only a day in Malaysia I hopped a bus to Brunei Darussalam, literally Brunei the Abode of Peace. It is certainly a peaceful country, with not much going on and little in the way of tourism.
Thankfully the Buddhist temple down the road from my hostel was holding a Chinese opera the night I was visiting, which I was able to watch free of charge. The costumes were stunning, and the acting was well done, too. That said, it was all in Chinese so I'm not quite sure of the details of the story. It was the highlight of my trip into Brunei, though.

I left Brunei the following afternoon, so I had a little time to explore the city some more, or rather revisit everything I had already seen. The capital is very small, and there are really only a few things to actually see.
The Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque is the sole attraction, and every single tourism guide or article has a photo of it at the front. I have the obligatory photos both at night and day. So, check mark for the photos, check mark for the passport stamps.

The fourth day saw me back in Miri, where I was finally able to take a look around the city. I met an Aussie, who I ended up sticking with for the next few days, and we grabbed Japanese buffet for lunch between city walks. One such walk took us up Canada Hill (not lying, no-one could tell me why it was called as such) to the Grand Old Lady, the very first oil well drilled in Borneo and Shell's first ever.
We also hit some of the city parks, toured the wet markets, and poked through the handicraft centre. When all was said and done we joined a Brit and a Fin for beers on the roof.

In the morning all four of us (Canadian, Aussie, Brit, and Fin) boarded a flight to Mulu National Park. There we checked into a longhouse homestay, a sort of plywood shack on stilts with electricity only from 6pm-9pm. It was quite the, erm, cultural experience to say the least!
In the park we did some more caving, this time in one of the largest cave chambers in the world. They claim it's the largest, but apparently the same claim has been made by a park in Thailand or Vietnam or somewhere. Whatever. Suffice to say it was huge. Also, swimming in the river!

For the second day in Mulu I broke off from the group and did a canopy tour. In another big claim, the suspended pathways and platforms of the sky walk make up what is apparently the longest tree-supported path system in the world. Sure, whatever you say.
It was cool, but there isn't much to see up in the canopy besides the tops of trees, pygmy squirrels, and the occasional stick bug. Being 25m in the air on a wood and rope bridge is rad, though; great view of the jungle and the river.

My last day in Borneo was rather abrupt, as I had to catch a flight to Singapore in the morning. The night before was fun, though, and played through like almost all my previous nights in Miri: dinner at Ming's, the restaurant and bar across the street from the hostel, World Cup rugby with whoever was watching at the time, and beers on the roof with whoever wanted to join.
So although I went for the adventures I was able to fit in plenty of relaxation as well. That, and I remembered to pick up chewing gum before leaving the country. Score!

all photos by me

Those (Favourite?) Things Left Behind

Despite my oft professed love for Asian food, I miss pizza. Terribly. I've been having cravings for flatbreads from Twisted Tomato, an Italian restaurant in Kelowna. Not sure why my imagination is fixed on pizza, though it is likely a combination of the sharp decrease in both bread and cheese consumption since arrival. To tell the truth, things have become so bad that I purchased a Groupon for half price pie. Ruh-oh.

Don't get me wrong, I love summer as much as the next Island or Okanagan resident, but it wouldn't hurt to have a little bit of temperature variation out here. Day time highs? 32. Night time highs? 28. I don't think I've turned my ceiling fan off or closed my window since arrival. I sleep on top of my sheets. The only respite from the heat possible is the time spent in lectures, where the theatres and class rooms are kept at a frigid 18 or so. Not cool. Not cool at all.

Being a modern city that never really shuts down (the Mustafa department store never closes!) there's quite a bit of ambient light. Combine that with the haze from Sumatran forest fires, and you've got a situation where it is nearly impossible to see stars. A friend of mine spotted one the other night and we all oohed and aahed. One star. I mean, it's not like stars are an important part of my life, but you certainly notice when they are not there.

I'm just gonna come straight out and say I miss wine. There's wine here, even some of the Australian wines I know from back home. But I don't just want wine, I want wine with my wine friends. I want my quiet nights in with a nice dinner and a glass or two of red. Or white, if I'm sipping from a glass of Tantalus Riesling. Also, wine is expensive here, just like every other alcoholic beverage. Gotta love those sin taxes. And yes, that is what they are officially called.

This one requires quite a bit of explanation. I miss the right hand rule. Remember back to my True Colours post, where I revealed that I am a rational and independent green. Now think about driving. Depending on where you live, traffic flows on either the left or right side of the road. In Canada we drive on the right, in Singapore they drive on the left. This rule commonly extends to pedestrians as well: you walk on the right, especially when going up stairs. Naturally, I assumed the same would apply here, except on the left of whatever walkway I found myself. Wrong. So incredibly wrong. There is absolutely no set practice or etiquette for walking. It's a total free for all. You want to get down the stairs? Make your own way up. You want to dodge the incredibly slow walker in front of you? Find whatever route is available. See a spot you can squeeze through? Use those elbows!

I swear I'm not passive aggressive right meow.

first photo by sassyradish, second photo by acidpix, third photo by Dennis Barnes, fourth photo by willy-photographer, fifth photo by otama

Zooday was Zoo Day

A few weeks back a I went to the Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo. According to the ticket it is the first and only attraction of its kind. I have better things to research right now (midterm papers, ahem), so I'll take their word for it. Anyway, I had a really good time there doing all the usual tourist things: watched the fire dancers/breathers/eaters, watched a scripted animal show, and took the tram around to see the nocturnal animals doing, well, nocturnal animal stuff. Favourite animal? BEARCAT. It smells like popcorn. Again, taking their word for it.

When we went we made sure to buy a combo ticket, so we could come back another day and visit the actual zoo part of the Singapore Zoo. That's where I spent most of my day on Sunday. I was a little worried because I had been to the same zoo nine years ago on a prior trip to Singapore, and I shouldn't have forgotten too much from when I was 13, right? I was so incredibly wrong. Only once did I have deja vu, and that was with the orangutans, which I don't think I've ever seen in any other zoo.

Also different this time around was the fact that I had a camera, and a brand new fancy camera at that. Yes, last week I finally broke and purchased a replacement for my six-year-old Fuji (which I still love and will likely keep, just 'cause). It's a Sony HX7v, 16mp and 10x zoom. It's also incredibly slim for the power it packs, which is why I love it so much. The feature set alongside the superb hardware made this camera an obvious choice even before I saw the low price. The moment I saw a deal in Singapore I jumped, knowing I would be kicking myself late if I didn't.

All of these photos are a result of that first real day out (I played around with it a bit at a concert event to see how well it performs at night). I took almost 150 photos at the zoo, 95 of which I deemed of good enough quality to post onto my Flickr. Oh, and remember I mentioned the feature set? Two words: intelligent auto. I didn't have to adjust any of the levels in my post-production suite of choice, Picasa, for the majority of my photos. What you see is what the camera produced!

So back to the zoo. I had a tonne of fun there following the feeding schedule around the park, which allowed for some really great glimpses at some otherwise shy animals. The zebras and rhinos all came right up to the edge of the exhibit where the food troughs are, and the tigers poised atop rock outcroppings to snap at pieces of chicken that were thrown to the by the zookeepers. The lemurs needed no such coaxing, though. I even petted a few of them! Probably wasn't supposed to, though...

Uhm, just one more thing to say: this zoo was built for photo ops. The majority of the exhibits are fence-less, opting for moats instead in most cases, and the zoo really feels more like a park with exotic animals (and a few not-so-exotic ones, like ducks) in it. Some of the smaller primate species have been conditioned to stick around a certain area and just roam freely without any barriers, which is sometimes an inconvenience when a lemur decides to take a nap on the stairs. But hey, how often do you get to say that?

all photos by me

a Photoblog: Island Living

Global Climate Change

This is gonna be a short one, I think, though I have the potential to ramble on for quite a while. It's about climate change. But it's not about whether it's real or not. I don't care about that right now. I mean, I'm writing this beside a window that gives me a clear view of the foot of fresh snow outside (which I love, by the way. Not complaining about it yet!).

So what, then, am I wanting to say? This: there are mummified trees in the Arctic Circle. Scratch that, mummified forests. The logical conclusion is that at one time there were forests up there, meaning no ice. We're talking big trees, here, so the climate was right for large-scale plant growth for a substantial period of time.

Really, that's all I wanted to say. Yah, the polar ice is melting, and the slight increases in temperature and global sea level are wreaking some havoc with ecosystems and weather fronts, but who's to say that's unnatural now? A little threatening to us land mammals, sure. But if there were Arctic forests before, why not again?

photo by IngoEs

a Picture Challenge: 11 and 12 - Love and Hate

So I missed a couple days this week, due to intense procrastination on my part. Sorry. So, here are days 11 and 12 together, since they fit so well. And, instead of just listing what I love and what I hate, I'm going to list a few of the things (mostly food, it's on my mind currently) that I hated last year, and love/like/tolerate this year.

Mushrooms. All my life I have hated the texture of mushrooms, the taste of mushrooms, the everything of mushrooms. Well, not the everything. I like mushrooms when they're in the ground doing that growing thing they do. I like the clusters they form. I like the spots on some of them. And I may or may not admit to liking eating them now sometimes, but only sometimes.

Asparagus. Another food hatred of mine. Mostly because it's a vegetable with strange paintbrush-like tips. Except that last night I made baked garlic butter asparagus with cajun grilled chicken. Whoamigawd. I'm in love. Microwave some butter, throw in a couple cloves of minced garlic and a little salt, toss with asparagus, throw in an oven on a baking sheet for a while. Heaaaaaven.

Red wine. I detested wine. I would tolerate white. Now I live in the Okanagan, aka the wine capital of Canada, and I'm slowly fast becoming a wine snob. I have a wine cooler in my dorm now for goodness sake!

Those cherries in canned fruit salad. They are now my second favourite favourite part, after the pears. The former fave, peaches, ranks last now. I'm not sure what happened there.

Florence + the Machine. Now, I never hated F+tM, but last year I absolutely refused to listen to her. Bad experience with the person who recommended her to me, y'know? I'm not sure I could survive without her these days.

photo by me.

a Photoblog: Green & Black

all photos by me