Black & White Series Part 1

It seems like seeing a photo without the full glory of colors reveals something else – the details of the subject. So when I thought of updating my photo blog, I decided to run through the collection of photos from my recent trip to China. This particular shots was taken when we had a free day off on one of the weekends. We took the train and headed towards Nanjing Road – a well know tourist spot in Shanghai. The so-called square was simply amazing and plenty of opportunity for interesting photo shots.

We were walking around when I came across this man sitting on a concrete structure. He was well dressed for the occasion and seemed to be happy passing his time looking at others walking past him (Note – all photos were taken with the 12MP Nokia N8 smartphone).

Prior to trip to square at Nanjing Road, we stopped a couple stations away for shopping of clothes – this particular road was famed for vendors and shopping complexes selling latest fashion in clothes. But what struck me as I stood by the road side where the odd things like this KFC sign-board – there was something strange about seeing Colonel Sanders smiling at the crowd who is busy shopping for clothes.

Pre-war buildings plentiful, bringing us to another era in the past. This kind of reminded me of those old movies that portrayed Shanghai in the 1930s, before the start of the war.

This actually is not an old tram but rather one “cooked up” for tourists. We did not really see an actual tram in the city but a smaller sized replica seemed to be just enough for us. It was too small for us – we opted to walk instead.

We may have seen a replica of an old tram but not all is old – this police buggy that run on electricity is one of the new additions for crowd control and general policing. Seeing a police buggy in the thick of the crowd was reassuring.

To be continued…

The Offerings

Shot this more than 6 months ago when we did special prayers at the temple

Flying In

(I wanted to post this for sometime ago but had completely forgotten about it)

After hours “strapped” in to a very uncomfortable seat, the end is near. The captain have just announced that they are dropping down and getting ready to land. We noticed that we are getting closer to the lower clouds. We could not wait for the touch-down.

And as we keep descending towards the runway, the clouds started to clear and we can see the ground now

There is still clouds but we are indeed getting closer to the ground

We are clear from the clouds and now firmly below the clouds with the runway just minutes away

Creepy Moonlight

Took this two weeks ago when the moon decided to be full and creepy – it was a crappy shot because I decided to be a “hero” – took the shot free hand instead of using the tripod. I ended up with a rather badly positioned, shaky shot (and I made it worse by playing with a noise reduction function of my photo software tools).

Another far shot – slightly better and sharper shot.

Kapaleeshwarar

Hundreds year old temple that we visited when we were in Chennai

We were not allowed to photograph the interior of the temple (unless certain amount of money was paid – we refused) but the entrance itself looked stunning enough

Blueberries

Read the full review here

The box looked very impressive than the usual mobile phone package. From afar, some may confuse Blueberry with Blackberry

My older phone only allows FM radio receiver but this one allows analogue TV as well – will come in handy if one need to follow up on the news but is unable to get the hands on the cable TV

Despite the many models on the market – this one only costs RM599 but comes with an impressive list of programmes and the one that stood up for me at least is the ability to surf the internet via Wi-Fi or GPRS.

Seriously the icons looks too ugly to show off to others but track-ball makes navigations much easier than normal phone but still one level down compared to touch-screen phones.

Speeding Priest

Caught this when we were on the way for lunch in uptown Chennai – a speeding priest on the bike, not wearing helmet, proper protective clothes and had nothing but sandals to protect the feet

Chennai Autos

Bangkok has it’s famous tuk-tuk, Chennai has it’s yellow rickshaw auto.

Other than a motorcycle, this rickshaw auto is the next best thing to cut through heavy traffic jam. They can be found in many streets, so getting them is not that difficult. Rickshaw autos can sit 3 people comfortably (we managed to test it with 5 people)

Most commercial vehicles are painted in bright yellow. Yellow mini trucks often compete with the yellow rickshaw autos

Time of things to come – the Chennai streets are full with modern cars and yet one can find plenty of rickshaw autos. Rickshaw auto have evolved too – now days they run on CNB

Ice Cream

It’s summer in Chennai and a cool ice cream is just the thing everyone looking out for

Not much change from the ice cream parlours that we often have back in Malaysia but they do have plenty of flavours and colours and it is downright cheap too. The only thing that was missing in the menu – there is no flavour of Durian – a Malaysian favourite.

Chennai Chinese Food

It may not have the same taste of Malaysian Chinese dishes but Chinese food in Chennai has it’s own unique taste. Service and preparation was not that bad too

Surprisingly the crab meat was not red and it did not really taste like crab but was tasty nonetheless

This is actually a mix of 2 types of fried rice – “spicy stage 1″ and “non spicy”. The meat at the top of the rice is actually sweet & sour fish