Bavarian Alps from our apartment

Every now and then, we get an amazing view of the Bavarian Alps from our apartment here in Munich. We live on the eighth floor, which is pretty high by Munich's standards and fortunately, there isn't much that blocks our view.

I was probably a little too ambitious with this panorama here. In fact, I don't think it really qualifies as a regular panorama anymore. Perhaps "super panorama", "ultra panorama" or "panoooooooorama" would better describe it. It was stitched together from a sequence of 13 photos (must have been the wind that day because I was definitely carried away!) using Photoshop.

You'll have to click on the photo to make any sense of it.

Specifications
Camera: Nikon D60 (model replaced by Nikon D3000)
Lens: Nikon 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-S DX VR ED
Flash: N/A
Tripod: Slik Pro 400DX
ISO: 100
Shutter Speed: 1/40 sec
Aperture: f13

joel@jjsolomon.com

New Year celebration in Munich

We celebrated New Year in Munich. We invited some friends of ours (note the Donnie Brasco quote) over to our place for dinner, some conversation and lots of fireworks. The latter, we did not actually have, since I am an against-wasting-money-when-there-is-so-much-poverty kinda guy. Some people rather call me a cheapskate. What we did offer however, was a splendid display of fireworks by the affluent (a.k.a. non-cheapskates) from our apartment in the eighth floor.

We had a great time with our guests that evening. There were seven of us and an ample amount of food. We didn't prepare all the food though - it was a potluck (cheapskate ring a bell?). At the end of the day, there was still much food left. Like most hosts, we kept the most of it (don't say anything!).

People started test firing their ammunition (a.k.a. fireworks) at about 10 pm and stopped again at about 11 pm. The first photo shows one of the early test shots. The silence in between was needed to prepare for the big one at midnight. Armed with my camera, I waited, took some shots, waited some more and then took some more shots. I was trying the whole time to get some "killer shots". (Since it sounded like a war zone that night, I thought I'd use some war movie lingo too)

The second photo shows Munich city center right about midnight. It was taken towards the north of our apartment. As you can see, Munich's skyline was pretty well lit up by the fire works.

The third photo was taken towards the South. As it clearly shows, the Southerners can party too.

The fireworks went on for about an hour and progressively receded.  You could almost hear the battalions running out of ammunition. Of course, there were still some persistent resistance fighters on the loose way past the 1-hour time frame. I caught one of the night's final shots in the last photo.

A couple of our guests had to leave before midnight but the rest stayed on past midnight to watch the fireworks, or at least a part of it. We had a wonderful time together that day and it was a great start to the New Year.


joel@jjsolomon.com

Last day in Bali

Our last day in Bali arrived soon enough. We saw a lot of Bali in the previous four days and had a great time there. A part of us would have loved to stay on in Bali a little longer but the other part felt it was time to go home. I was comforted by the fact that I managed to catch so much with my photography there. Having good photos helps to relive the adventure.

We visited the spa again on the last day. I had a foot massage while Jessi had a manicure. It was extremely relaxing and comfortable - both, we really needed. This was something we knew we were going to miss a lot once we got back to Munich. After that, we went over to the souvenir shop to do some final shopping and to finish the remaining Rupiah that we had. Time was flying by so fast and we really had to rush. As soon as we were done shopping, we went back to the hotel, picked up our stuff, checked out and made our way to the airport by car. Everything went smoothly in the airport. There were no delays nor any issue with immigration. Soon enough, we boarded the plane and 2.5 hours later, we were back in Kuala Lumpur.

Our visit to Bali was indeed a splendid one. Perhaps more so for us since it was our second honeymoon and this time, we were both healthy. We would gladly recommend having a vacation in Bali and would be happy to provide you some tips and further information if needed. Just drop me an email.

I've finished working on our photos from the trip and uploaded them to my Picasa Web Album. The slideshow is embedded below.



Let me know what you think.

joel@jjsolomon.com