Travel: Hundred dollar night in Doha, Qatar

The other day, we decided to have some Turkish food in the vicinity of Doha. In the midst of the city, we found this restaurant called Turkey Central Restaurant. Sounds authentic to me.

 

So we walked in and first thing that you will see is the shawarma meat being shaved off the grill. We're off to a good start. Walked in and went upstairs to dine in.

A glossy paper menu is given with half written in English and the other half in Arabic. There was a lot of food to choose from. From hummus to shawarma to BB-Q'd meat. We chose to share appetizer so we ordered the Maza appetizer which consists of Tsiziki sauce, hummus, olives, and a lot more. It is then served with hot, freshly baked pita bread.

Excuse me while I wipe my mouth, still salivating while I picture the things that they had to offer.

 

 

The service was not the greatest, mostly because of the language barrier, but they are attentive.

Here is the picture of the bread with the Maza getting scooped down. It is delicious.

Here is the meat plate. It's an orgy of the mouth.

Shawarma Plate. Fries and meat hiding under the seasoned bread.

 

I wish I can tell you guys about what the food consists of and all that jazz about it, but I am really no expert when it comes to this. From what I can tell, it's one of the best Turkish food I have ever had. Even one of the guys that was with us, confirmed that everything that they offer in this restaurant tastes the same as the ones offered in the streets of Turkey but in a lot cleaner environment.

 

To top it all off, we paid QR (Qatari Riyals) 167.00 for the whole table. That's $47.00 to feed five big full grown man. Trust me, we had a lot of left overs. Well worth it.

We then walked down the street to purchase some baklava from Pattiserie Sweets. I bought half a ki of pistachio baklava for QR 35. Close to $10. It was, again, delicious.

To end our night, we decided to go down the souqs to hang out, enjoy a cup of coffee and smoke some hookah. We sat there for about 2 hours, I had a cappuccino and ordered strawberry mint shisha to smoke. For the 5 of us, it costs around the same amount of money we spent to eat. It was QR 160 for coffee and shisha.

One hundred dollars to feed five person and enjoy the scenery of downtown Doha was a budget compared to other city America has to offer. When you get the chance to visit this country, hopefully around the winter/spring timeframe due to lower temperature and comfortable weather to cruise around town, try these places and explore others. Thanks Doha!

The view where we were sitting at while smoking shisha.

 

Oh flickr, you are so smart, touche on Explore

So the other day, I posted a picture on flickr. I posted it in a lot of group, to hope for a shot to have it featured in "Explore". For those of you that doesn't know what that means, it's basically 500 pictures that flickr deemed to be "interesting" that day.

I got a lot of comment from the groups that I have posted it in, 140 to be exact, 267 views, and 30 faved the picture as well, in a 24 hour period. That's pretty damn good, I would think. A sure shot to have it in "Interestingness".

I was wrong.

I searched for some of the ones that did make it. It had way less than what I have. Like this one for example. It was #42 on Explore.

But, flickr knew what I was up to. It knows that it was "rigged". Even though the picture I posted was worth to be on Explore.

Touche flickr... touche.

Click here to see what Explore is.

Interview on Photogrill

I have been getting a lot of praise from the picture I took with scattered clouds. I got a comment on the blog itself to be invited for an interview for a website.

It's called Photogrill. It's basically a website where pictures get selected and basically dissected after it's taken. It's a pretty cool concept to learn about the photographer and why and how the photo is taken. It definitely earned a bookmark spot on my browser.

Check out PHOTOGRILL photo shoot debriefing

Another F-18 Shot with HDR Fusion

This one is taken on a different day and during a sunset.

I figured I liked the "Slow Shutter Cam" so much that I tried another app from the developer. It's called HDR Fusion.

Here is what I came up with.

It almost look similar to my last shot due to the angle but I was amaze by this result. You can actually see the glow of the sunset and the darkness (supposedly) from the jets shadow. I had to put a bit of saturation to make the picture pop, but nonetheless, it came out really good in my opinion. I need to take more shots on this app before I give it a proper review, but I hope you guys like this for now.

Weird flickr view spikes

I know I am not a very popular choice on flickr and I am not really ashamed to say that I only get about an average view of 120 and a few favorites. What I just want to know is the weird fluctuations that I get from time to time. It'll just spike up like some sort of a viewing surge. Yesterday it spiked up to 443 and the last one was 495.

Another weird ones are the ones with thousands of views but no comment, like this picture.

Actually as I just now gazed upon my "Popular" link. It's saying that this now has the most view. Which I can totally see why.

Nonetheless, it's kinda weird how these phenomenon happens, maybe somebody is stalking me?

When lightning strikes

Tried to capture some lightning shots with the Slow Shutter Cam app for the iPhone.

There is a fault. It takes it per frame and tries to stitch it. Not complaining, just a tad disappointed.

Nonetheless, It performed. A really nice addition for in the go photographer and all you have is your phone.

Here's what I got.




The lightning is sitting on the clouds so it's a bit difficult to capture the strikes as it goes. Edited with Photoshop Express.

Tell me what you think.

Scattered clouds edited

Scattered clouds, a photo by Yukio Kawasaki on Flickr.

Here is another version. Edited on Photoshop Express and Best Camera app on iPhone. Go ahead and check out the rest of my flickr account.

Click here for black background.

Slow Shutter Cam iPhone App

I saw a post by Pete Leong on his blog that he had made a purchase recently for a certain app that I have wished iPhone would have. It's called Slow Shutter Cam.

Now long exposures can be achieved in the iPhone. I was excited to start using it, but unlike Pete, I didn't have anything that can hold the iPhone still. So I got stuck on just putting it in a stationary place and wish it luck.

Here is my first attempt at the said app. This was on Automatic setting with 8 second exposure. You can adjust how bright you want it after the picture is taken. All photos are with no edit. Just fresh from the app.

Tiger beer and Hookah.

Then I had to fly the next day and wished for clouds in the sky. Wished came true. There was a few scattered clouds in the air and shot some of it. I was a bit hesitant about shooting it since it was still daytime. Again this was shot with "Automatic" and with a 4 second delay. I was amazed with the results.



And so I pushed it to its limits and decided to do a 30 second delay. Here's what I got.



Put it on timer and tried it with a receiver on contact. They were not still due to the clouds. 8 second delay on this one.



Then they have another feature called "Light Trail". You can actually see what you're shooting as you shoot it. Here's what I have just playing around with it.


Conclusion? For $0.99, I think it is well worth it. Finally get to have some decent night shots with nothing but your mobile phone. Now off to get some gorilla tripod thing to have my iPhone still. 

A bit of a leak

Just a bit of a leak. An EA-6B coming in for some gas.

Tilting search

Search the word "tilt" on google on your iPhone or iPad.



April fool's forgotten?

Happy Birthday Paul Rudd

This is a pretty cool thing that Paul Rudd is trying to do. His father died of cancer and he's trying to make a difference through a simple idea to donate to American Cancer Society. Here's a video of him making the statement. He explains it better on his website.

According to him, a lucky donator has a chance to win an iChat date with him. A little bit of bro-mance perhaps.

PAUL SAYS...
I'm raising money to fight cancer for my birthday. Donate $26 for chance to win Live iChat with me.
via Crowdrise 2 days ago

To get more info check out this website. More Birthdays | Paul Rudd's Fundraiser

One movie to look forward to

It seems as if its a repeat of the first one, but, nonetheless, this seems funny. If you're not laughing, then screw you.

Travel: Wake Island

During my recent trip in the Pacific, we were lucky enough to land in a coral atoll 2,300 miles west of Honolulu and 1,510 miles east of Guam. It has 12 miles of Coastline in the North Pacific Ocean. Where is this place?

Wake Island.

It felt like I was Tom Hanks in the movie Cast Away, aside from having my friends around me. And having food. And water. And a bed to sleep on. And clothes. And my phone. And we did not have Wilson to accompany us. Ok, well, it's not like the movie but the place seems very serene and "untouched". No tourists to rub elbows with while sunbathing. No loud obnoxious sounds. It's you and the water. From the looks of it, it will be that way for a very long time. Access to the island is restricted. It almost felt like we rented an island for the day, with our big private jet that we flew in. Wow, we are a bunch of rockstars.

Walking around the island felt very relaxing. Even though I was wearing my Abercrombie leather sandals, that are not made for walking around the beach, which was the reason you bought it, did not matter. The amazing views and the clear blue water will soothe your mind. It felt like they laid the whole thing for us to explore. In 1935, Pan American Airways constructed a small village, we eagerly looked for it to see any remains of the place. For being that long of a time and all the typhoons that have passed by, we didn't see much. But, it was enough for us to get a grasp of how they have lived and probably partied, a lot, in this island.

Pathways was every uneasy for me. Both sides are filled with wild brushes and you certainly have no clue what lies beneath. Am I gonna get bit by a snake? As scary as it was to get bit by a venom infested snake, we kept walking. There was a weird tread marks on the sand. It looks like a bike track but we had to cross the lagoon, a bit impossible to cross with a BMX, even Cru or Bart Taylor from Rad could not cross this. (If you are unfamiliar with the movie Rad, then don't worry about it. You aren't rad enough, youtube some scenes, it's well worth it). Finally, we came to conclusion that it is snake tracks. Not a big fan. Later on the day it turned out it was hermit crabs, there was hundreds of them hanging out with the rest of their bros, chillin, by the shore.

Not a big fan of getting bit by a snake.

The culprit of the said track.

We only stayed in Wake for a total of 24 hours. It was well worth the fun and history received from the said place. It's one of the places that you would like to mark as "been there" but don't want to get stuck there. I miss the obnoxious sounds and rubbing elbows with the other tourists. Cellphone signal, 3G, facebook, and other things that you will find in a normal city. If you like the opposite of all that I mentioned then Wake Island is the spot for you. I know that this is not a destination that you can just normally purchase from your local travel agency and I actually admitted it to myself how lucky we were to stop by this historical island.

Next time you find yourself flying between Hawaii and Guam make sure to peek outside to catch a glimpse of this coral atoll called Wake Island.

One for the ladies... err, I mean my wife.