the home of david tran (well, his second home).
finally, i've managed to set up my development environment for my site. so i can actually test stuff locally before uploading, instead of just uploading and hoping for the best. i'm not sure how effective it will be in reality though, as i don't really like to leave that computer on all the time, and not logged into the fedora os all the time as well, but i'll just have to be disciplined i guess....
just a minor update, have to do these since i've finished processing my photos (still forty-odd to upload at this point). nothing of any real note in terms of technical accomplishment, especially not anything new since the last update two days ago (or whatever it was). just wanted to post about my record month of june 2008, i smashed my previous record of unique visitors for a month (which was last month, may 2008) by over 200 uniques....
so it's been out for a couple of weeks, and i've been playing with it since the beta releases for a couple of months now, i thought i'd post some of my thoughts on it. the url search thingie, where you just type into the address (awesome) bar and it starts showing results from your history and bookmarks, very nice. the url search thingie, where you just type into the address (awesome) bar and it starts showing results from your history and bookmarks, very nice....
decided to finally work on the multiple categories for news items this morning, and have got it working to some degree, i'm sure there will be many bugs and errors, but it is in some working order at the moment. i will need to polish it up a bit, but now something that is related to travel and photography no longer has to sit in only one category. i've made some other backend changes that are probably not noticeable to the end user, though there should be more caching on the client side, meaning less data transfer, and faster loading times (as long as you look at something again)....
yeah, i'm a little disappointed, not so much with the output, cos it's probably user error, but more so with not being able to get this picture into my gallery. it was composed of fifteen shots (though only 12 were used here, original resolution 6352x4864), but glitches in the bottom part (around the REFORMA section) finally did me in, and i won't continue to try and get it to work. i want to post it here, just so that people can see it though, cos it is a pretty cool piece of art, painted by jose clemente orozco, it is a mural covering the domed ceiling at the governor's palace in guadalajara....
went and saw the incredible hulk starring ed norton, liv tyler, tim roth, and william hurt. another marvel comics film (they seem to be coming out with heaps of them at the moment) about a superhero with problems. this one i have to say is much better than the spiderman series, and at least on par with x-men (i haven't seen iron man yet), and probably better than the last hulk film (i only saw parts of that and can't really remember it)....
rant time, for the second time in little more than a week, i was almost run over by some moron in a car. last week it was some tradie who didn't check before turning out of a side street. today it was some moron in their pussy red hatch back (i like hatch backs normally, don't get me wrong) that almost killed me....
no that is not my dog (read bottom), haven't posted any news in a week or so, so i thought i better post some of the updates going on around here. i've been busy processing my photos from mexico, and uploading them here, and to various other locations (panoramio, facebook, not flickr yet). i've updated the tagging on pictures, it uses an autocompleter from yahoo, this eliminates the possibility of similar tags....
went and saw the latest (hopefully the last) of the indiana jones films, and i have to say i'll be keeping this short. i didn't like the film particularly (and after the fact got recommended ironman 
). it starts off ok, pretty much like any indiana jones film, he's been kidnapped by the enemy and forced to divulge what he knows....
we arrived in guadalajara on a monday in the evening, and went to the main hostel in town, right in the middle of peak hour. back to the haze of a big mexican city, this was our last stop before heading back home, we had three nights in town. from all accounts, guadalajara is famous for having the prettiest girls in mexico, and true to what others had said, the girls were prettier and they seemed to appear in a higher ratio than other mexican cities (though i didn't get any photos 
) ....
yeah, busy time in yucatan state (obviously we've been in the yucatan peninsula for a while, this is specifically the state), we spent four nights total in the state, and had a great time. arriving in valladolid on a thursday afternoon, we went for the hi hostel (but it was closed for renovations), so we ended up at the hotel zaci which was a pretty nice place anyway. the next day, we got up real early so that we could get to chichen itza as it opened, it's a 45 minute bus ride, so don't bother having a shower 
....
of course, whenever you go to a different country, one with it's own famous cuisine (and drinks), you must try as much as you can, mexico was no different for me. one thing to note though, tacos are probably not like the ones you are familiar with, they are simply small hot tortillas (flat) that you wrap your food in, even tacos el dorado (fried tacos) are rolled up, so you probably won't find your crunchy, easy to hold tacos in mexico. burritos are supposedly texan mexican, and nachos and fajitas as well, you may find them, but they probably will be different to what you expect....
after reading some of the posts i've made, it probably would've made more sense to post these reviews first, but anyway, today it is accommodation. i decided before the trip, that it was going to be most cost effective to stay in hostels and similar places, and as the majority of the time would be spent away anyway, it wasn't necessary to live in luxury. i don't regret that decision at all, i think pretty much all the places we stayed were fine, with a couple of partial exceptions....
after our two-legged bus trip from xpujil (which went perfectly smoothly), we arrived in tulum around sunset (7.30pm) on a monday. too late to go to the beach, so we just settled into our accommodation, conveniently located 100m from the bus station (more info later), and had dinner nearby. the plan for tulum was to see the ruins early the next day, and then pretty much spend the rest of the day at the beach....
we had a bit of an issue getting to xpujil (in the south of campeche), the bus we were meant to get on, never showed up, we got our tickets changed though, and got on the next bus. we arrived in xpujil about 4pm (on a saturday), which is pretty much just a town on the side of the highway. there are restaurants and hotels, but not much else, we didn't look too hard for a place to stay, and ended up spending the most for accommodation of the whole trip....
we arrived in san cristobal de las casas at about 7.30am on a wednesday, very tired, but at least not sick from the bus ride (i don't know how ozzy got through it ). found a hotel that had a triple room (as well as free internet, thank you lonely planet), and settled in. i was ready to go, but ozzy needed to catch up on sleep (that's right, i'm calling you out 
), so by the time we got out and about, about 11am, it was too late to get on any tours (except for one afternoon horse ride, which we declined)....
we arrived in oaxaca city on a warm, and sunny (though hazy) monday afternoon. the bus ride was pretty cool, through some mountainous, and rugged terrain; the arid, cactus-laden landscape that one would expect from mexico. unfortunately, we couldn't stop and take any pictures, so all those mountains, rock formations, and cacti will have to remain memories in my head ....
we arrived in puebla on saturday evening, with ozzy still feeling like crap, alf wasn't a lot better, but at least wasn't bed-ridden. didn't do too much that night, went for a wander down to the zocalo (which has a pretty impressive cathedral on one side, though we didn't really have a look) for dinner, but not much else, it was busy, but by the time we went back to the hostel, it was quieting down pretty rapidly. we only had one full day in puebla, the options were cholula and volcanoes....
i was going to post this at the end, but have decided to do a double post tonight. this will be a review of the transport that we used to get to and around mexico. things didn't start off well though, we had an american airlines flight (run by qantas) to los angeles delayed by about eight hours (initially they said about six hours)....
we left mexico city on thursday morning to go up (north west) to papantla in veracruz state, from where we would pay a visit to the el tajin ruins, and then onto xalapa to visit the anthropological museum there. we arrived in the afternoon and immediately found it warmer than mexico city (more tropical), wandered around and finally settled on a hotel, that was worse than we expected (more later). that was the plan, and that was how it turned out, although alf and ozzy had some issues in xalapa....
these birds are pretty common, or at least, the grackle in general is quite common. this one was one of many that landed on top of this hut at cesiak headquarters in the sian ka'an biosphere. this was the only one that i managed to get striking a nice pose though. it's looking out to the caribbean sea, this is a beautiful location, caribbean sea on one side, and a big lagoon on the other. sunrise and sunset over water (pretty much) on both sides.
these are very cool birds, very long wingspan, and majestic in flight. despite their impressive size, they're actually very light which helps them glide in the air. but they have issues when fishing, they cannot get wet, the water absorbed can cause them to drown as they can't fly with a bit of extra weight. also known as the pirate bird for their thievery. we saw these everywhere on our sunset and bird watching tour with cesiak of the sian ka'an biosphere near tulum.
the last picture i have from coba is this pyramid about 100m from the great pyramid. you can't scale it's walls, or walk inside, but you can wander around it (nothing much to see), it would be good to see it from a different angle (above), cos it definitely had an interesting design.
it's a tough climb to the top, and well, i probably should've waited a bit longer before taking this picture . i think you see a lot of pictures of the ancient mayans, and they pretty much just wore sarong-type things, it's pretty understandable, 30+ degrees and humid, i certainly wouldn't have minded. the little structure you can see poking through the tree line is the other smaller pyramid at the site.
otherwise known as nohoch mul, the great pyramid at coba is the tallest mayan pyramid (42m) in the yucatan peninsula. virtually no one was up there when we got there which was good, just the guy at the top in this picture, but i think he was on his way down when we were going up. i actually captured a picture that shows the scale of the pyramid, with alf starting the ascent down the bottom, and that guy up the top.
this is either very well restored, or very well made, because the carving is in pretty good shape. i don't know what the man in the carving is doing, so i'm not even going to bother putting my outrageous guess up, lest i look ridiculously stupid. also, you may not be able to tell, but this photo is actually monochrome, hehe, there wasn't much in it anyway, so i took out whatever little there was.
onto coba we go, site of the tallest mayan pyramid in the yucatan peninsula, and another site surrounded by jungle. the site is about 45 minutes from tulum by bus, and is supposedly quite large, so we rented bikes (it's not that big for what we covered anyway). this is a well restored ball court (juego de pelota) that you come to after the ruins near the entrance. it's not as big as some of the others we saw, but does have some interesting points. you can't climb up the front, but you can climb up the back for a different view.
on the way out, we walked past the palace, this isn't very palacial when compared to some of the other places we saw. but it does have it's charm, this picture almost looks like a drawing (or painting), if i really pumped up the contrast and sharpness, as well as saturation, i think it would look very arty (if you're into that kind of thing). that's it for the tulum ruins, but never fear, near tulum, we still have coba, and then the big sites of chichen itza and uxmal further around the yucatan peninsula.
this temple has a very central location, in front of the castle, and surrounded by several other structures to either side. that's a stele in front of it (shielded by some straw) in case you were wondering, it doesn't really have any clear carvings left on it. once again, this was another failed attempt at an hdr, but fortunately the under exposed shot came up well enough again (i think i'm just going to bracket my shots at one stop or two thirds now on). all the structures at tulum are relatively small, and this is no exception, but it does have a nice backdrop.
and finally (for tulum), this guy was lounging on one of the information tablets, this one explained the design of the site. i put this picture in because it was the best one i got of this particular iguana, check out his back leg, all stretched out.
i've got one of him from behind but it's not very good, that outstretched leg looked very awkward . but i'll post it here anyway, a nicely compressed version anyway.
this one was really friendly, people were sitting pretty close to it and it wasn't even flinching. a seasoned veteran i think, it was at this point (or probably earlier) that we thought, these aren't that rare 
. this guy was pretty big, i was getting pretty close to him, maybe a bit more than a metre from him, look at the skin shedding off his eye.
you can see the reflection of someone in his eye in the 100% crop, it's a striped shirt on the left of the eye, both alf and ozzy were wearing striped shirts, so i don't know who it was (probably need to turn the brightness up a bit, it's definitely too dark to identify on my work monitor). he was clearly very happy to just lie there catching the rays, no number of tourists were gonna spoil his sun time.
awwww, gotta love these iguanas, i just want to pick one up and rub it's belly . this one was just sitting on a rock when we walked past, so we stopped and snapped about 20 photos of it, it was a little frightened but we kept far enough away for it to sit still for a while. i think this one is a female cos it doesn't have big pointy spines on it's back. these were at the tulum ruins by the way.
those clouds look sort of threatening, it didn't rain though, not until night time anyway. down the stairway and you can wander a small stretch of beach bordered by big rocks. the scenery is almost surreal just looking at this photo.
it's a twelve metre drop (too bad my photography didn't show that), another failed hdr attempt, and again, using the under exposed shot to retain as much of the colour as possible. they should probably put the warning signs in red (i don't think rust counts).
the cactus seems about right, but the palm trees and beautiful beach? mexico does have a coast on the caribbean sea, and it's about as relaxing a beach as you could ever hope to find.
down on the beach behind the ruins, you can go for a swim (as ozzy is, if you can make him out), or just wander around the rocks and take some photos. not sure how much longer that rock on the left is going to last. there were some funny looking rocks down there, and some other big oddities, i'm not sure what they were.
here's a picture if anyone is interested.
the biggest structure at the site, and probably the most picturesque, it'll probably appear in most of your favourite (landscape) pictures from this site. you can't climb it though, i don't even recall being able to get much closer than this.
first shot of the ruins, from inside the ruins. the first main structure you see after entering the site. the ruins at tulum aren't particularly eye-catching, but the scenery definitely adds that bit of punch that the structures lack.
alf and ozzy testing out the waters, not much surf here, i certainly don't mind that, just warm and clean water. more tourism boats in the background, or at least fishing, i'm not sure which. check out the beautiful turquoise waters, one of my favourite places in mexico for sure.
that's the translation of the name (i guess) of the boat, one of several by the shore on the beach at tulum. it's quite an apt name, as you will all find out in a few days.
