Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

It't not very often that my work takes me internationally, actually, prior to this past week, never. Not that I mind that, but when this opportunity came up to travel to Kuala Lumpur, I would have been crazy to turn it down. I have never been to this part of the world and really had no idea what to expect. Its a long trip, 12 hours to Tokyo, 6 hours stopover, then another 6 hours to KL. Long day, and it crosses the international dateline. I left DFW at 11:30 AM on Friday and arrived in KL at 4:30 AM on Sunday. The airport is about an hour out of town and it was still dark so I didn't see much, and the driver was virtually speechless. My trip back was much better, still dark as it was the evening, but the driver an I had an hour long conversation. He was a local, born there, and very talkative. Made for a much better drive.

So on very little sleep, I finally got my room, showered and headed back out to explore the city. I found this little "walking tour" map that outlined several tours and decided to map out a route that covered parts of at least 3. About 7 hours and one blister later, I finally crashed back at the hotel. Renaissaince Kuala Lumpur, nice hotel by the way.

Kuala Lumpur is a not a poor city, with lots of corporate presence. I was surprised I guess, at how clean and safe it was. Mind you I did not get an opportunity to walk around much at night, as its rainy season and it rains every day, every day, from about 3 pm to 6 am. The city is also very green, both from the many, many trees that line its streets, and the moss that grows in rainy season!

The worst meal I had was essentially American food, at the Hard Rock Cafe. Not that it was that bad, but I should have just had the beer, and got some more local food.

My tourist day was a Sunday, so I am sure I did not get fully immersed in the local culture, and to be sure, on the workdays, the city was much busier, and noiser, and full of life.

I took quite a few shots on my walkabout. The Petronis Twin Towers, the KL Tower, Chinatown, specifically the Petaling area.

 

Night Shoot - Klyde Warren Park

Klyde Warren Park is one of the newest parks in Dallas, opening recently in downtown.  It is built over the RF Thorton Freeway.  Its an urban park focused on activity and events.   This was planned as a meetup shoot but with the cool weather and wind, only 2 of us showed up!   The park still has a lot of construction but there is lots to see and lots of color.  I wish I had arrived about 30-45 minutes earlier to take advantage of the waning light but was still able to get some cool shots.

Dallas West End - Scavenger Hunt

Yesterday our little photo meetup group had a scavenger hunt in downtown Dallas, specifically starting in the West End.  Again, there were only a handful of us, which is too bad as these scavenger hunts are a lot of fun, and you get some very interesting perspectives.  Its funny, for the Ft Worth one, I had a lot of similiar ideas as some of the other folks.  Not so much with this one.

Here is the full set of photos from the hunt, there's some pretty cool shots.   I think (hope) its a public site so you can enjoy them.

The topics were:

1.) Wooden
2.) WBR - Worn, Broken or Rusty (maybe macro?)
3.) TMMH - This makes me hungry
4.) O&N - Old & New (one photo)
5.) Shadows
6.) CCTC - Curved, Curves, Twisted or Circular
7.) Window(s)
8.) Motion (use a technique to convey)
9.) AEE - Alternate Exit or Entrance
10.) Working on it

Here are my shots.

At the good ol' hockey game...

How I miss the NHL...   Stupid idiots!  But thankfully there are alternatives.  Locally there is a junior team, the Texas Tornado, that is a lot of fun to watch.  Not sure what level, am thinking maybe Junior A.  Regardless, they play hard and fast.

Ryan and I went to watch the game and I took my camera to take some pictures.  I went down by the glass but it was too scuffed and dirty, so most of my shots were above the glass.  Here is a sample.

Dallas Survivor Mud Run

This popped up on my radar Thursday night, so I figured this may be cool and I should be able to get some good shots!  Well Saturday morning it was about 38F so I didn't know what to expect but it was sunny.  I got to the motocross track where they where having the event and tried to figure out how this was going to work.  The race was about 3.5 miles long and it looked tough although most of the partipants looked like they were having a good time.  It wasn't a great setup for spectators and it took me a bit of time to find a good spot but I found the mud pit at the end of the inflatable slide was about as good as it was going to get.

Here are a handful of the shots, I took a ton!