Year-end Quotes

Here are a few soothing quotes I found fitting for pictures I took throughout this year. 

"The stories we love best live in us forever" - J.K. Rowling

"The time to relax is when you don't have time for it" - Sydney J. Harris

"Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious." - Stephen Hawking

(credits to my dad for taking this picture)

Is the glass half broken or half intact?

                      

 "The grass is greener where you water it" - Neil Barringham

"Uuuuuur Ahhhhrrrrrr Uhhrrrrr Ahhhhhrrrrrrr Aaaargh..." -Chewbaca

"Call me Ishmael"- first line from Moby Dick, written by Herman Melville

"When the flowers bloom, the bees come uninvited" - Ramakrishna

"Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed." - Neil Armstrong

"Why join the navy when you can be a pirate" - Steve Jobs

India_2015- Last Stop: Doha

The last stop on this India trip is Doha, Qatar. Well, this is where our plane takes a stop for 19 hours!!These are the benefits of taking Qatar Airways!

Once we landed at the airport, we got through security, rented a car, and checked out of the airport ASAP. The first wave of heat came seconds before you even walk out of the airport. It's crazyyyyy. The weather outside was so humid and so hot and so stuffy. During our stay in Qatar, the temperature was in the 90-100 plus humidity. So crazy hot. You can't stay out for five minutes without feeling suffocated. We asked around for places to visit, because we had the whole day to be a tourist and explore the city before catching the flight back home. First place we went was the mall. Haha, yea the mall. You start to be thankful for air condition after you've been in Doha heat. We refreshed ourselves there and ate breakfast. Then walked around the mall, discovered there was an ice skating rink, many expensive shops, lots of familiar restaurants, and a gondola ride. I took this while riding the gondola, and check out how nice the view is. Even the ceiling is painted to imitate the sky. I'm telling ya, Qatar has good money. 

But once you're outside of the mall, this is what your looking at for miles. Just a dry deserty bland land. So after getting settled in the mall, we actually arranged a sand dunes ride, AKA a desert safari. A desert safari is basically what it sounds like... a safari ride on the desert. 

The first stop for this safari was at the camels. We were allowed to ride camels for a few minutes, while the safari drivers  deflate their car tires.(It's important to deflate the tires so  the cars can drive smoothly on the sand)

I took this picture as I was riding the camel. Camels are super fun to ride, and this wasn't my first time. The way you shake and wobble around on the camel is so different from elephants, bulls, and horses. Especially when the camels start to run, phew what a ride. And make sure you hang on tight when it's standing up or sitting down, there's the potential to fall off. 

And then the car ride began. Desert safari is when you sit in a car, strapped down with only a seat-belt, and roll on the sand dunes. I don't just mean roll, I mean let physics take you for a ride....

Like this

And this

And this

There were so many exhilarating drops, and so many crazy stunts. Look at this picture, we're on the top edge of the dune. I'm telling you, these safari drivers have skill. We were in the car having a great time, but at the same time so scared. It felt like you were on a legit rollercoaster, but 2x better. A car isn't strapped down to a rail like a rollercoaster, so it has the freedom to swerve, turn, etc. 

This was while going down a sand dune. The cars made it down the dune at a 60-70 degree angle. It was epic but what if we tumbled over, or got stuck in the sand, or even let the car have a breakdown. 

I think this would be a great Chevrolet model picture right? The car doors open, the sand, the water, and a special feature. The land mass you see on the horizon is actually Saudi Arabia. So while we were standing on the border of Qatar, you get a beautiful view of Saudi Arabia. 

I know this looks photoshopped, but I needed to emphasize how vibrant the color of the water really was in real life. I just couldn't capture the color in the picture though...

 So during the desert safari, we had a few stops to take pictures and take a breather outside. We took a stop right next to the beach, and it was a great spot to take a few pictures. 

This was a super quick picture I took. A quick glance to the mirror and then a snap of the mirror. I remember it was a little weird because the sun from the reflection hit the camera lens too. 

These cars are amazing. I was seriously considering to make an advertisement for these cars. Like look how sheek it looks on the sand. Ah and I took this in our car, while moving at 60mph. Isn't that a little too fast for sand?

Yea the sunset in the desert. Not a cloud nor a human for miles. This was the last stop we took to take pictures of sunset. Plus, this was at the top of a sand dune, so we were able to look at the desert for miles and miles. 

After the sand safari, we went back to the mall, and we were so dirty. There was sand all over our clothes and hair and shoes (from walking out into the sand during our stops). We cleaned ourselves in the mall, and then had dinner. The last place we we saw before our flight back to America. Then, back to the airport, and vrooom off to the USA!

THE END! Thank you all for keeping up with this trip's pictures. Keep a lookout for more posts! 

India_2015- At the top of Malaysia

This might've been the most breathtaking thing we did in Penang. There's this place called Penang Hill near the Kek Lok Si temple. Penang Hill is a resort at the top of a hilly-ish mountain, and it's supposed to have a beautiful view. We went to the Penang Hill at the perfect time. We went around 7 or 8pm, no line to wait in. We paid our tickets and then a trolley came down to the bottom, and took us up. Just saying, the trolly was amazing. It legit felt like we were on a huge roller coaster.

Once we got to the top, I realized what I was in for. I was staring at the most beautiful view of a city. And I've been to the "top" of New York City, Montreal, St. Louis, Pittsburg, San Fransico, Montrious (Haiti), Tirupati, and I guess you can count numerous amusement parks. But by far, this was the most stunning. I could have stayed here for hours, and I can only wonder what the sunset and sunrise would look like from here. The only issue was that I didn't have a camera stand, so I used my resources to stabilize the camera. Even the slightest shake would produce a blurry picture. Just imagine you were actually there...

This is a small portion of the city. You can actually see the two bridges that connect the Penang Island and Malaysia. This is much clearer than the picture above because I used a different night mode. Turned out much better than expected. 

This is at the Bhuddha temple (Kek Lok Si). I'm standing right in from of the huge statue, and I have a fantastic view of the city in front. Sorry for the smudges though...!

Ok I have to make a point here... To me, Malaysia is the wildest mix of places I have visited. Every small detail reminded me of a different place thousands of miles away. For example... 

• Roads in Malaysia look modern, like those in the U.S., but they're lanes are switched, resembling India's road lanes. 
• There are more cars than there are in India on the roads
• There are more motorbikes on the roads than there are in the U.S.
• Indian restaurants look just like they do in India. 
• When we entered the Island of Penang at night, it looked like we were entering Montreal in Canada (on the bridge with a view of city).
• Hotels in Malaysia look like Florida's hotels,
• The amount of greenery outside felt like we were in the Bahamas. 
• Shopping malls look like India's shopping malls
• The metro station look like ones in the U.S. 
• Even the food market looked like those in India

See what I mean? Craziest mix of places ever. And this ends our walk through Malaysia! Stick with me for one last post about Doha, Qatar!

India_2015- Malay Market

Malaysian food is a multiethnic mix that's eccentric and different from the norm to me. 

We took a stop at a local market to check out the fresh produce, and I had no idea what I was in for. There were 6 new fruits we bought and tried. Most of them I loved, while some of them gave me an allergic reaction.

In this picture alone, there are four new fruits I tried. All the way in the back (green fruit) is a soursop. It's cousins with the durian and the jackfruit. 

The brown balls in front of the soursop is known as the langsat. These have a thin, peelable shell, with flesh and seeds inside. Not literally flesh, just a hard-jelly-sorta-substance that tastes a little like lychees. 

Next, the purple fruit right in front of the langsat is named the mangosteen. Once you peel the purple layer, there's a fibery-and-juicy white flesh inside that also has seeds. They reminded me of a garlic clove because of the way the flesh looks inside. And the mangosteen is supposed to have great nutritional benefits. 

Right on top of the mangosteen is a box of jackfruit. Jackfruit was the one that left me with a disgusting itchy mouth.

The craziest fruit I heard about that night was the durian. If you guys don't know what the durian is... I suggest you expand those horizons as soon as possible because the durian is the bomb. Sort of literally... it smells so bad, it's banned in some countries and public transportation. I mean, there are signs in metro stations that say, "No smoking, No flammable goods, No durian". Haha, that's apparently how bad is smells to some, but it smells fragrantly sweet to others. So durians look like jackfruit, but more jagged/spikier (it's a far cousin of the jackfruit). It's also setup like the jackfruit inside but the durian has it's differences. (The durian aka the endurian in plants vs. zombies 2)

In this picture is the rambutan. At first glance, the rambutan looks like a sea urchin that is genetically modified to have softer spikes. But once you peel that skin (easy to peel),  you get a delicious and sweet-honey flesh that also tastes like a lychee. I loved this fruit the best. 

Sooo names of the fruits I've mentioned: soursop, langsat, mangosteen, and jackfruit, durian, and rambutan. 

This is the sugarcane juice process. I didn't want to go back to America without having a glass of sugarcane juice, so I made sure we had some before leaving. This is the way to squeeze the juice out of the cane. They just run the stalk into the machine, which squeezes and crushes the stalk until all the juice comes out. If you ever get the opportunity to try one, don't pass it off. Expand your horizons.

India_2015- Kek Lok Si

The name of this temple is quite a tongue twister. I challenge you to say it five times as fast as your larynx will allow. 

The entrance to this Buddhist temple starts off by going through a small market of shops. They sell soo many souvenirs and trinkets and clothing. All the items were priced well, so it's another great spot to get souvenirs. After passing the small market and before entering the temple, you cross a bridge with hundreds of turtles underneath. 

This is the walkway up to the temple. And for the first time in Malaysia, I saw some of the real world, the poverty part. I didn't include them in this picture but there were a few homeless people sitting and asking for food and money. 

A serene view of the inner court.

 I don't know if you can see but there are huge blurred splotches in a lot of these pictures. I think the camera lens had a few smudges that I didn't know of at the time. This is still a part of the inner court.

 Tens and tons of Buddha statues engraved in the inner wall of the temple.

I'm not sure what these are called, but I call them good-luck-ribbons.  There was a display of ribbons you could choose from, and each ribbon has a different statement on it, like, family to be safe, better education, good job, etc. The ribbons were free so my Mom put one on as well. I think the significance of this ribbon is for good -luck and well being. 

There are two levels at the temple. To get to the upper half, you have go up in this cable-elevator thing. This picture shows a great vanishing point, which is the point at which parallel lines in perspective appear to converge. As you go up in the glass cable-elevator, you are able to see out into Penang because this temple sits on a big hill. Just wait until you're at the top!

Once you're at the top, surprise!You're welcomed with a huge Buddha statue. I actually had no idea there was a huge statue at the top, so I really was surprised.

There is also a garden which houses the 12 Chinese zodiac signs. This is my zodiac, the dragon. A question was raised about wether I was a rabbit or dragon. I would've been a rabbit if I was born 6 days earlier. So I just made it to the dragon year!

Annd here is the final view of this temple. Fun fact: Can you identify the tall white pagoda on the right side with the gold top? I read that this pagoda is composed of three architectural styles: the bottom third is a Chinese style, middle third is a Thai style, and the top third is a Burmese style. 

Next up- learn about a few Malaysian foods!!

India_2015- Streets of Penang

Penang: a state in Malaysia

Capital of Penang: Georgetown

Where is Georgetown: on an island, off the coast of Malaysia

Where did we go: eastern side of Georgetown

How long is the drive from Kuala Lumpur to Georgetown: 3-4 hours

When did we reach Georgetown: 2am in the morning, then slept for a few and got ready for sight- seeing

We went sight seeing in a beautiful cultural area embedded into the city, just a few blocks away from the beach. I guess you can call this area your Chinatown + India-town + Malaysia-town all in one. It's pretty crazy because there's one road crammed with Indian boutiques and cuisine, while the street next door is packed with Chinese stores and cuisine, and the street next to that is a street with Muslim goods. A few streets in the other direction is a Malay cultural road. So this place is brimming with culture!!

Little, little India, can't go anywhere without seeing a little foreign culture. The "Indian road" sold tons of clothing, jewelry, shoes, indian collectibles, and cuisine. Some of the merchandise is much cheaper than in India. I've heard Indians buy clothes and invest in gold here, instead of in India, since it's cheaper.

Look at how cute this little road is. It resembles a Hollywood movie set doesn't it? But no, this is Penang Street in Malaysia. We did a lot of shopping and ate late lunch here.

I found this little corner by the side of store, and it reminded me of New York City or Philadelphia. In these big cities, you see a lot of apartments and shops and metal stairs, right? You see the same thing in this picture but the number of plants here jumped out. I have never seen pots and plants sitting outside in NYC or Philadelphia (maybe because the weather doesn't allow it or gardening is just not practical). So go Malaysia!

Throughout Penang, there are these brilliant pieces of art on the outer walls. There are about 30 different paintings, all walkable distance, and you can take cool "squad" pictures with the art. For example, with this picture, I saw some posing by sitting on the back of the bicycle, pretending to ride. There's even a map with the locations. Check out some pictures : Penang Street Art.

This is a road buzzing with tourists and pedestrians, no cars allowed. Shops and restaurants line along this eccentric road, named Armenian Street. These are the more Malaysian authentic shops than Chinese or Indian. They sell souvenirs, crafts, handmade goodies, works of art, keychains, and lots and lots of food. If you're looking for goodies to buy in Malaysia, I'd say this is the best spot. 

Black and white pictures are tremendously effective. It creates a dimensionality, to make objects pop out and recede into the shadows. I think in this picture, I definitely made the setting more dramatic and moody than the original sunny day.

While looking up these places again to write this post, I used the street view feature on google maps.  I found the exact location of the second and third picture. So I was dumbstruck when I saw the precise area we visited and took pictures of!