Categories
blog photos

Dinner and Hope

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Hope

Categories
productivity

Pocket notebook

Fisher Space Pen and Moleskine notebook.

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Categories
photos

Spain, London

Spain, London photos

Panoramas

Categories
shopping travel

City Maps

When you’re a tourist in a large city, you want a pocketable map you can open in one motion, look at, and put away. A map which unfolds like a pop-up, or origami-style, is perfect for this.

  • In New York, I used vanDam‘s NYC Unfolds, which you can get at many Manhattan newsagents. Very, very handy.
  • Another option I used in London was Time Out Shortlist London, which is pocketable, thicker and heavier, but a better and more complete guide to the city. It has more maps and opens like a normal book, which is fine (avoid maps which fold over more than once).
Categories
photos

Margaret River photos uploaded

Margaret River photos

Main page

(Thanks Denis)


Categories
photography technology

RAW Software

Shooting RAW offers many advantages over using your camera’s JPEG processing, including the ability to increase the dynamic range of the original photo. It also means finding the right software to process the files into a format suitable for prints, and uploading to the web. I’ve been using Capture One 4 for over a year now, and been very happy with it.

I made the following notes when I was evaluating RAW converters, looking specifically at:

  • the level of detail extracted
  • ability to assign comparative ratings
  • customizable sharpening
  • noise removal
  • batch processing
  • color rendition for my Canon 400D files (.CR2)

 
Adobe Camera Raw

Pluses

  • great workflow with Bridge
  • excellent viewing and editing performance
  • sidecar files (ie. the ability to save your edits in a file external to the RAW file)
  • DNG format support (a standard for RAW files that is gaining wider support)

Minuses

  • doesn’t display red correctly for CR2 files, even worse when it’s converted to DNG
  • conversion is slow
Categories
blog

Chinatown

Roast duck and pork over rice for five dollars. Oranges, nashi apples, sixty cents a pound. A punnet of strawberries, a pack of bokchoy, a dollar each. Bing cherries and lychees for two dollars a pound.

I recently started going into Chinatown for groceries (along Stockton, and also Powell). Of course, I knew that things would be cheaper than Safeway or Cala, and there would also be things found nowhere else. The hustle and bustle, Asian-style manners (line etiquette equals line cutting), smells on the street and wet stores the department of public health probably wouldn’t approve of, small grannies and smaller children, docile frogs stacked in styrofoam boxes, pungent durian and jackfruit, pirated VCDs and the occasional cassette tape, and Cantonese, the lingua franca.

What did surprise me was how I felt last weekend when I went into a dried goods store, hunting for egg noodles, Chinese sausage and fish balls. Some gentle Cantonese pop played as I browsed the small aisles, and for some reason, I felt a sudden happiness, even euphoria. I listened to simple melodies, occasional words half-remembered and half-learnt, occasionally making sense, and heard in them the voices and sounds I grew up with. In this city where I’ve been trying so hard to change myself, being reminded of where I came from and who I am, and the people who helped make me this way, made me happy.

The sounds, sights and smells, take me back to market shopping back in Malaysia, pasar malams and eating in stalls, noisy cousins and relatives, and I start seeing a bit of myself in people around me everywhere I look, because they look like me, and I feel like I almost know them. Home-cooked meals, picking at fish heads, bone marrow, eating rice from a bowl.

As I need it a four block-walk away, an entire world apart, self-contained and self-sufficient.

 

Chinatown New Year

Categories
blog shopping

Convenience

Categories
blog technology

Convergence

I don’t own a TV.

However, two months ago I bought a Dell XPS 420 desktop and a 30-inch monitor (3007WFP-HC). The machine is spec’d with 4GB RAM and the least inexpensive quad processor in Intel’s lineup, with a basic dedicated graphics card. All up, slightly less than $2.5K. This is a box for processing photos, surfing the web, playing the occasional game, and occasional work (IntelliJ at 2560 x 1600 = productivity).

What I didn’t expect to be doing was watching movies on demand. I joined Netflix last week, and discovered their all-you-can-eat movies-on-demand, which comes with all but their most basic plans. I signed up for the $8.99 1-disc at-a-time plan.

I remember what a buzz there was when Netflix first came out with its DVD rentals via mail plan. I can see what the fuss is about, having just got my first DVD in the mail, but online streaming movies are amazing. Sure, the online selection doesn’t approach that of the mail-out collection (it’s growing everyday), but that would be to miss the selling point, which is huge – if I find something I like, I wait all of 20 seconds before I start watching. Quality is on par with DVD, perhaps a little less, but eminently watchable on a 30-inch screen from my couch. I’ve been watching mostly foreign movies, and if my tastes ever ran into 80’s television sitcoms and series, or B-grade movies (they don’t, but if they did), I’d be all set too. $9 a month is simply a no-brainer.

Looking online, the major free-to-air stations like ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox are making available full episodes (some in HD) of most of their series (together with ads) as well. For music, I use Pandora or Slacker, and more and more radio stations are streaming their broadcasts online (which I listen to through this sidebar gadget). I’m typing this post listening to KQED and glancing at the Windows sidebar where I have the weekend weather, latest exchange rates, and time in Australia and Asia where friends and family are.

What I do miss TV for is broadcasts of live events (basically NBA games). Then again, that’s what friends with cable, sports bars, and HDTV, another amazing technology, are for.

Categories
shopping

Favorite Tokyo stores

What’s a blog without lists? Here are some of my favorite stores in Tokyo, grouped by shopping district. Many of the foreign stores represented here also carry Japan-only products you won’t see elsewhere, which tend to push the boundaries of style and fashion a little bit more.

A shop assistant told me that most of these foreign brands will bring the same styles from overseas, but have them recut and shaped in Japan for Japanese sizes (typically one size smaller than the US, and cut slimmer) – a pleasant surprise for visitors who have a slender build.

Tokyo/Ginza

  • Uniqlo: The so-called Gap of Japan – but sized perfectly for the Asian body, good for every clothing need you could possibly think of, at prices which are the epitome of reason. Spread over five floors in the center of the main Ginza shopping area, space to browse with ample fitting rooms, and one hour clothing alterations (just 300yen for original trouser hems).
  • Ginza Hands: Four floors in the newly opened Marrioner Gate building near Yurakucho station – the same Tokyu Hands we’re familiar with, but more high-end and Ginza-style. Not as a large range as the Shinjuku or Shibuya stores (where you’ll be able to get furniture as well), but a great setting to browse in.
  • BEAMS: A well-known boutique name that has a great selection (including the more stylish slim-fits) of business shirts on the second floor. On a side street off Chuo Dori.
  • Itoya: Stationery and accessories for every budget – I really like the leather goods (folios, notebooks, etc.) on the higher floors.
  • BIC Camera Yurakucho: Might be the biggest BIC Camera store in Tokyo, opposite the Yurakucho station.
  • Muji Yurakucho: I guess you’d have to call this the Ikea of Japan, this is the Tokyo flagship store – check out the display house on the first floor. There are branches at most major stations, and they’ve recently become more serious with their clothing range, including some nice pants and denim – the Yurakucho store will perform alterations for free or minimal cost, even on clothing purchased at other branches.
  • Marui Yurakucho: Opened recently, one of my favorite department stores – excellent selection of men’s clothing, both business and casual, though prepare to open your wallet. Great for just browsing as well – other big branches in Shinjuku, Shibuya and Ikebukuro.
  • Maruzen: Bookstore with a nice foreign section at the top – Marunouchi exit of Tokyo station.

Shinjuku

  • Odakyu: This department store at the west exit has an outdoor and sports clothes section next to and beneath Bic Camera, including Lacoste and Aigle – more importantly, its sales are more frequent than you might expect for a department store.
  • L-Breath: At the south exit, this outdoor store regularly has discounted items outside its entrance. Seven floors covering your every outdoor need, with a point card too. It has a great selection of Columbia (among other brands) clothing in Asian sizes. I got my Eagle Creek carry-on roller backpack here. Currently, they’re the only place I know of that carries the Montbell coin pouch I use (I can’t even find them at Montbell stores).
  • Eddie Bauer: On the southern terrace – the American outdoor clothing company in Asian sizes, functional, solid and stylish. Has a points card.
  • Kinokuniya: Nice foreign books section at the top.

Harajuku/Omotesando/Aoyama

  • United Arrows Blue Label: Stylish shirts on the Beauty and Youth label at this well-known Tokyo boutique, occasionally discounted. There are two Blue Label stores on either end of Meiji Dori.
  • Oshmans: an alternative to L-Breath (though with fewer sizing options) just across the road from the Omotesando exit. Carries a points card too.
  • AssistOn: design store at the west end of Meiji Dori, with an intriguing selection of items from all over.
  • Omotesando Hills: Not a store, but a complex containing several high-end stores which opened last year – the interesting feature about the building is that it’s designed in a helical shape; if you walk in a straight line, you will eventually hit every shop in the building, and finish at the top. I’ve eaten at two restaurants there, an organic and an Italian restaurant – both were excellent.
  • Uniqlo UT: Designer T-shirts, but being Uniqlo, on the cheap at 1500 yen each (compare that with Design T-shirts Graniph). They’ve also recently started branching into tracksuit jackets.

Shibuya

  • The Suit Company: There are a number of inexpensive suit store franchises in Tokyo (think 20,000 and 30,000 yen price ranges) with branches (and different stock) across the major stations – think Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro. This is my favorite, found in the basement of the 109 Part 2 building, just across the road from the station. They stock suits down to 160 cm (height – the others typically go down to 165), and have a great range of Japanese-sized casual and business shirts at 5,000 yen each. The points card is a barscan code you download onto your keitai, which is scanned at each purchase; if you don’t read Japanese, you may need the help of a store assistant to set this up.
  • Suit Select 21: Has the slimmest cuts of the suit stores I’ve been to, and I preferred their styling and range over the others – and so ended up getting my suits here. Also has a nice range of odd jackets and outerwear, and like the others, a points card.
  • Perfect Suit Factory: Another suit franchise, with some interesting pieces in their Collection range (less than 30,000 yen). I bought a shawl lapel one-button business suit – it seems to me the Shibuya store (in the Tokyu Plaza building, which is next to Mark City and opposite the south exit) stocks more of these types of pieces than other locations. A nice selection of inexpensive skinny ties.
  • Franc Franc: Furniture store, a little cheaper when compared to Bo-Concept – they carry some Mogu (or Mogu-styled) sofa cushions.
  • Gap: There’s also another big branch in Harajuku – Asian-friendly sizing, though designs tend to be more adventurous than the US store.
  • fcuk: Flagship store in the Cocoti building (the other one is in Omotesando). There are some nice jackets here, though clothes are styled to a more European sizing. Has a points card.
  • Tower Records: Very good classical selection, and a number of listening stations.
  • Book First: Another bookstore with a good foreign section.
  • Yamaha: The music store has a good selection of scores (the flagship store is in Ginza), the music school has a few soundproofed rooms with grand pianos you can rent for a very reasonable 750 yen per 30 minutes.

Factory Outlets

There are three factory outlets around Tokyo that are easily reachable via train. They tend to have roughly the same stores (with some notable exceptions), are styled after the factory outlet malls found in the US and elsewhere, and are perfect for a lazy Saturday or Sunday. Discounts vary, though be prepared to be pleasantly surprised.

  • Yokohama Bayside Marina: My favorite – large number of stores, including Marui, Birkenstock, JCrew, Lacoste and Osh Kosh B’Gosh. Probably the most complicated to get to though, involving three train changes and a 5-10 minute walk.
  • Garden Walk: At Keihin Makuhari station from the JR Keiyo line. The smallest of the three.
  • Grandberry Mall: Also quite convenient, at Minami Machida on the Denentoshi line.