Incroyable!

I had an opportunity a few weeks ago to travel to Paris, France for a conference (Yes, I am extremely lucky and blessed). It was a bit awkward viewing the sites of the city since Paris is known as a romantic city and visiting sights individually, for some reason, did not feel as romantic ;-)



As always, I like to examine random items of interest rather than focus on the touristy things, so below are my highlights:

• I had major language issues, my grade 9 French was insufficient. Communicating with someone where you don’t have a common language is funny, both parties end up speaking in their own language without progress.
• The subway doors do not open automatically; I found this out the hard way.
• Very diverse country, many people of African and Arab descent.
• Smoking is quite common indoors and difficult to cope with especially coming from a city where public smoking is banned.
• The listed price always includes taxes, and discounts are listed with negative signs, i.e. -20%.
  
• The basement and ground floors are not labeled as B and G respectively in buildings or hotels. The French use 0 for the ground level and -1 for the basement. See explanation here.
• The Swiss have their own check-in line when passing through immigration.

• The exit sign … why is the guy running?

• The public washrooms are typically not free, although the one below was free.

As always, you can check out my pictures here.

Beijing

This year has probably been one of my most blessed years. I have been given the opportunity to travel to many great places in this world. I will now add Beijing, China to that list. I just spent a little over a week in Beijing, China, where I had a chance to visit many unique places, meet interesting people, and learn about Chinese life and culture. I planned on blogging in Beijing, but the higher-ups at the Chinese government decided to censor my blog, in-fact no blogs on blogspot were accessible. I have lots to talk about on my journey to Beijing, and will not mention it all in this post. So, watch out in the near future for posts on Bargaining in China, Muslims in China, and Driving in China. In the meantime, I shall leave you with my pictures and some interesting happenings during my trip.

• Visited Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City or Palace Museum, Temple of heaven, Great Wall of China, and the Niujie mosque. Check out my pictures here.
• My tour guide got a call from the Chinese government congratulating him on being single … LOL
• Spitting is quite common with the locals.
• The cars have the right-of-way in China, not legally, but if you want to survive.
• Visited the Nuijie mosque, a blend of Islamic and Chinese traditions. It was built in 996 AD. Beijing is home to 250,000 Muslims, most of them living in the area near this mosque.
• Bargaining is quite common in China. The sales people will do anything to get your attention. For example, “Hello sir, you are quite handsome”, “Here, loookay, loookay”.
• Chinese people thought I was from India and were impressed that my English was so good.

Down under

Last week I had a unique opportunity to spend a week and a half on the other side of the world in Sydney, Australia. It was an exceptional experience in talking with local Aussies and seeing the sites of the city, especially the Sydney harbour, which is quite gorgeous.

There were quite a lot of touristy things I did and captured with my camera. You can check out my photos here. Also, instead of listing the places that I visited. You can check out my itinerary here.

The most interesting part of my trip is identifying the unique parts of Aussie life as compared to my life in Toronto, Canada. Below are my observations:

Aussie slang

• 'You have done well' is good job
• 'G Day mate' is hello
• 'No worries' is thank you
• The word bloke is used to refer to a guy and shelia is used for a girl

Restaraunt etiquette

• I tried ordering a medium coffee with cream and sugar and could not be understood. Aussies do not put cream in their coffee, instead they put milk and they call it a flat white.
• Restaurants are not pushy to have you leave once you are done eating. In-fact, most places you have to go to the cashier and pay.
• No need to tip servers, since they are generally paid well enough to make a decent living.

Misc

• The Australian currency system does not consist of pennies and listed prices already include the sales tax. The amount in cents is always a multiple of 5.
• The Matrix movie was filmed in Sydney.

Random

• David Suzuki was on my flight to Sydney. He is doing a book tour across Australia.
• I was surprised to hear that students from the Philippines and India in Australia had heard of the University of Waterloo and their strong reputation for Computer Science and Engineering.

Tourist Athlete

Last week I was fortunate enough to spend three days in Vancouver, BC and two days in Whistler, BC. These two cities without a doubt are the most beautiful places I have ever visited. It is good reason that these cities were chosen as the location for the 2010 Winter Olympic games. There is so much I could talk about, but will just mention some points briefly.

Good

Weather: I was fortunate enough that it did not rain at all during the week. The weather and air quality is amazing. Imagine a light fan following you around the city with a nice breeze, that is how I felt.

Scenery: Spectacular mountains as you enter the city and a gorgeous waterfront. I had the chance to take a ferry to Vancouver Island from Vancouver and toured around Victoria, BC.

Bad

Homeless people: Vancouver has a serious homeless problem. It is a lot more evident than Toronto. If you ever visit, avoid East Hasting street, people are openly doing drugs, although there is a police station across the street from them.

Real Estate: The most expensive place to live in Canada.

Random

As I waited for my ferry from Vancouver Island to Vancouver, I ran into a friend from Waterloo also on vacation with his family. Talk about small world and coincidence. I will leave it to my readers to guess that person.

Pictures

My panoramic pictures that I assembled (click on picture to view full image):

• View of Rocky Mountains half-way up Whistler mountain

• View of Rocky Mountains at top of Whistler mountain

• View of Rocky Mountains from Vancouver beach

Pictures: The good and bad

Good

A nacreous cloud (top) appears high in the stratosphere some 20km above Australia's Mawson station in Antartica. I always had a fascination with Antarctica and the Arctic from reading National Geographic and more recently watching the CBC News National report on the Arctic.


Bad

Not much needs to be said here.

Me and my camera - Part 2

As per my previous post, I uploaded pictures from trips that I have taken this year. When viewing the pictures, I recommend avoiding the slideshow view, instead click on the picture. I have chosen not to upload pictures of myself since I like to maintain an anonymous identity, but hopefully my amateur picture-taking skills should be enough proof of my presence.

• Los Angeles: I spent the day in Universal Studios theme park. In the evening, went down to Santa Monica beach, a non-swimming beach with an amusement park.
• Pictures
  

• Las Vegas: I attended a conference here for work and managed to find halal things to do ... Even for a person like me, there is enough touristy things to do to keep you busy for a few days.
• Pictures

• Chicago: Spent a day walking in downtown Chicago. I saw the United center, Soldier field, Opera's studio, and various buildings in Chicago.
• Pictures
  

Me and my camera - Part 1

I have been meaning to upload pictures that I have taken from trips this year but have been too busy to find anytime. It is a real busy not the "busy" because I am too lazy busy. I have noticed that nobody ever admits to "not being busy" rather people are either "chilling" or I get the "busy busy" with the shaking of the head and sighing. No one admits anymore that they are really doing nothing.

This situation reminds of a Seinfeld episode, where George pretends to be busy everytime his boss walks by so that he does not get any work.

Jerry: I thought that new promotion was supposed to be a lot more work.
George: Yeah, when the season starts. Right now, I sit around pretending that I'm busy.
Jerry: How do you pull that off?
George: I always look annoyed. Yeah, when you look annoyed all the time, people think that you're busy.
Think about it... (acts annoyed for 3 seconds).
Elaine: Yeah, you do! He looks very busy!
Jerry: Yeah, he looks busy! Yeah!
George: I know what I'm doin'. In fact Mr. Wilhelm gave me one of those little stress dolls.
All right. (gets up) Back to work. (acts annoyed and leaves)
Elaine: (laughs)

I was going to talk about my photos here, but this post has become too long to serve my main attraction, so I end here and will continue in a subsequent post.

A picture is worth a thousand words

I was looking up an article on Wikipedia for a blog entry, when I came across the following picture under Islam and clothing and decided this picture was more interesting to blog about.

This picture appears on a billboard in Indonesia. The billboard shows a picture warning tourists to wear a proper attire when traveling into this city.

The picture on the left says "Wrong clothing" and the picture on the right says "Correct clothing"

My observations on the picture:

• Picture on left shows the husband with his arm behind his wife but in the right picture they stand with their hands on the side.
• Picture on right shows the woman wearing a hijab with traditional Islamic dress in Indonesia.
• Picture on right shows man wearing a traditional cap worn in Indonesia. He no longer possesses his sunglasses and is wearing a full sleeve shirt.
• Picture on left shows husband and wife smiling, but picture on right shows them more serious.
• Picture on left shows buildings and a garden in the background, while picture on right shows a mosque.
  

I agree with some of the observations, but I don't understand why the modestly dressed Muslims are less happier. Also, what's wrong with sunglasses ? They are so stylish!!!

Are Muslims unhappy non-fashionable people ?

Have a problem with this article on Wikipedia ? No problem, you can edit it yourself.

Say "Cheese"

UPDATE (12/31/2005): On boxing day, I bought this camera.

I have been blessed with a "techie" geekiness, a quality that my family and friends take advantage of to help them provide technology consulting services. I get contacted by people if they have a computer problem or need advice on buying a computer or some other gadget. I do not mind, but at times I feel overwhelmed. I cannot outsource my services to India, as I do know someone who can provide such a quality service for free. Fortunately, I have options now, as my blog will be my forum to educate my techie services seekers.

I have been researching to purchase a digital camera. Many people have asked me tips in the past, but I was unable to give a clear and concise answer. I have decided to post my criteria for finding a digital camera below. For additional reference, you can check out this report.

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Criteria # 1: Resolution

Resolution represents the number of pixels used to represent an image. Camera's measure resolution in mega-pixels. The more mega-pixels (MP), the better the quality. However, most people use digital camera's to take smaller pictures and email them, so you do not really need a large number of MP.

Rules of thumb:
2-megapixel camera: 5-by-7 print
3-megapixel camera: 8-by-10 print
4-megapixel (or greater) camera: 11-by-17 print

I am satisfied with a 4 MP because I do not intend to take larger pictures and I don't want something less than 4 MP because it would be too outdated.

Criteria # 2: Price

Price is usually effected by brand and mega-pixels. The higher the mega-pixels, the more expensive the camera. The maximum I was willing to spend was $350.00. Most of the camera's available at this price were 4 MP or lower.

Criteria # 3: Brand

Most sales people and online digital camera retailers agree that Canon is the best brand for digital camera's. Other brands such as: Fujifilm, HP, Kodak, Olympus, and Sony also do well.

Criteria # 4: Optical and Digital zoom

One of the most important tasks you do with your digital camera is zoom. Zoom represents how much you magnify your subject. Optical zoom is more important than digital zoom because optical zoom magnifies without losing quality, digital zoom does not. I would look for atleast 3x optical and digital zoom.

Criteria # 5: Size

I personally would like to put my digital camera in my pocket so that it is easy to carry. Having a small, easy to handle camera makes life easier but difficult if you do not like clicking on the small buttons.

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There are a lot of other features that I could have mentioned, but the criteria mentioned above were the most important to me. It is always good to be an educated consumer before you make a large purchase because many times we purchase items based on price and not value.

So, the next time you go to the store and a Future Shop sales associate tries to sell you a digital camera, you should be able to see through his lies.