Back in Chicago Again

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Mark

Yes, after my first experience travelling to Chicago back in 2009, I was back there again but this time for only a week and most of the time I was located at the Q Center. This time travelling there was a little bit more pleasant but I had to take a horrendously long route. Kuala Lumpur to London and then to Chicago. 23 hours in total and 2 hours of transit at Heathrow Terminal 3.

Since I was mostly held up at the Q Center, I decided to walk around the area to capture a bit more of the scenery in the area whilst I was waiting for the shuttle bus to bring me to the Premium Shopping Outlets. Damn, stuff there are very cheap. Managed to get a new suitcase (after Air Asia broke my old one) from Samsonite as well as sunnies from Oakleys there.

If there are 4 people travelling from the airport to the training center, the taxi service will send you a limo. I kid you not!

The training center used to be a golf course and near the entrance lies the 18th hole which is a par 3.

At this distance, I don’t think I can hit it straight to the green let alone cross the lake thanks to the damn lake and how I am afraid of hitting the ball into the water.

Tallest building in the whole area, that was where I was housed which was conveniently above the dining hall where there are 3 buffet lines available for all 3 meals!

Located next to the training center is a river, its called Fox River and I am not too sure if this is the same Fox River from Prison Break. Of course after a quick Google, Fox River Penitentiary was actually a fictitious place but it was located in Illinois.

The weather there was fantastic in July with temperatures hitting 28 degrees on a high and averaging around 23-25 degrees.

The flight back however from Chicago was less than entertaining. I had to travel for 28 hours, door-to-door, meaning from the Q Center till my apartment door. This included a nice 6 hour transit in India which I think they should revamp their system allow transit passengers to roam in the departure hall where all the lounges and shops are while we wait for our tickets to be processed.

Greetings from Bangladesh!

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Mark

It’s currently day two now here at Bangladesh and although I really wanted to write a blog post whilst I was in the airport yesterday, the internet connection at LCCT was horrendous. Anyway its the same here in Bangladesh as well, I hardly get any internet connection so it will be brief posts and updates.

Anyhow, the experience here is a real eye opener! I have never seen so many mosquitoes before in my life. My first encounter with the swarm (yes, thats how many there were) was at the airport. I could literally feel them flying onto me and hitting me whilst I was walking about. Same goes for the place I was staying as well and my left hand alone had more than 10 bites. No worries, we bought (we meaning Andrew and I) a mosquito repellant as well as a diffuser to run whilst we are sleeping. The repellant was excellent, Mortein to the rescue! I sprayed the room earlier and I already see 13 dead mosquitoes lying on the floor.

So much for those bloodsuckers!

Anyhow, the shoot is gonna start soon so I better best prepare myself

Travels and Supercars

Posted on November 15, 2010 by Mark

After a nice relaxing weekend two weeks ago, I was hammered with a long and busy week. Firstly I attended a two day seminar at the Renaissance Hotel where I checked in there on Wednesday night till Friday then followed with a quick flight up north to Langkawi with the Stories team for a wedding shoot on Saturday.

It was the first time I stayed at the Renaissance Hotel here in KL. I’ve shot there a couple of times and have seen the rooms there but my stay there throughout the two nights was a pleasant one. I had two beds to myself in the room (until now I have no idea why the firm books those rooms) and the room was fairly large. Still they can’t compare to the rooms where I stayed in the Marriot in Putrajaya.

After the 1st day at the seminar, a group of us decided to walk over to the Asian Heritage Row (located next to Sheraton along Sultan Ismail) only to be greeted on a Thursday night, a completely empty street. A lot of the bars were being renovated and those that were open, were completely empty, lest for a few tourists and our group. Apparently everyone has decided to party at Changkat Bukit Bintang according to one of my mates.

On Friday evening, I flew off to Langkawi only to be greeted by a delayed flight but at least the delay was only an hours delay. The shoot started on Saturday morning at The Westin in Langkawi. The resort looked stunning, one of the best looking resorts in Langkawi. I shall leave the details of the wedding for another blog post

On Sunday, the sky was very clear as we were flying back to KL and I managed to take a couple of shots of the scenery with my iPhone.

Thats one of the islands around Langkawi in the photo above.

I managed to capture a shot of the Penang bridge when we flew over Penang Island and Butterworth.

After a couple of rounds of playing “Flight Control”, I noticed that we were flying over PJ and I could actually see my apartment from the plane! Wo0t!

Can you see where Sri Hartamas is in the image above?

Anyway when I arrived back, I noticed this array of supercars parked in front of Tropicana City Mall. There were a huge number of Ferrari’s, Porsches, Lotus Elites, a couple of Audi R8s and a few Lambos.

Everyone was crowding around the cars, taking photos with a couple of the models there as well as with the cars themselves.

Then something caught the eye of everyone’s attention. I was also struck with shock, everyone just turned around and started looking at a car which drove by. It was the first time for me seeing this car on the road, the license plate showed that it was totally newly registered, probably a day or two ago. The driver inside had a wide smile because his car caught the attention of all the passers by amongst all of the super cars. Heck, it even made me turn and capture it on camera.

It was the brand new Proton Inspira!!! First time seeing it on the road leh….

Cameron Highlands Trip – Day 1

Posted on March 25, 2010 by Mark

I actually had this post sitting in my draft post section in this blog for almost more than a week already and I totally forgot to post this up. Anyway about a month ago, I took a trip to Cameron Highlands. Now I haven’t been there since 1999, so it has been almost 11 years since I last been there, I totally can’t remember how it looks like.

Some images I took at a local Strawberry Farm which also had plenty of cactus for sale as well.

Then we headed to another strawberry farm with the main goal of eating strawberry and scones and we found some waffels as well.

Here is a fun fact, aside from the British army, Cameron Highlands has the 2nd most highest number of Range Rovers in the world. They even use it as taxis and shuttles to ferry tourists about.

If you do not know, vegetables are very very cheap in Cameron Highlands.

Unfortunately at this time, strawberries were not in season so they weren’t very very sweet.

Nevertheless we still managed to get some yummy strawberry themed food, such as strawberry strudels.

Strawberry juice.

And strawberry white coffee. Yes, you heard that correct. Strawberry white coffee!

We got all of that wonderful food (including the strawberry white coffee) at Strawberry Moments.

After a heavy load of food, we decided to walk about our apartment area and I found some flowers and scenery about.

The drive up to Camerons was quite a tiring one with the single lane going up and down the hill and when there is a slow driver or a truck on those lanes, it tends to get really boring and slow.

Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Mark

I am sure many of you would have heard about this fantastic landmark situated in New York, off Manhattan Island. What a lot of people might not know about is Ellis Island. When I was traveling around in that region, there were many options to choose from and I always planned that I will head back to New York again in the future.

There are a couple of ways to actually see the Statue of Liberty, you can take a helicopter tour where the Statue would be extremely small. Of course that would cost you quite a fair bit but you get to enjoy the view of New York. If money is of a concern of you, then you can also take the Staten Island Ferry which is free! Only thing is that you need a 300mm lens to get a good view of the Statue of Liberty.

The last option, which was the option I took, was that I bought a City Pass (USD$79) that allows me to go to various tourist attractions around New York at a cheaper rate. The pass provided a tour which visits the Statue of Liberty as well as Ellis Island.

Statue of Liberty

Above were some of the shots that were taken from the ferry before docking on the island. I was amongst everyone else trying to get a view of the Statue and trust me, there were plenty of people pulling out their cameras and video cameras capturing the spectacular sight of a huge statue before us.

The first thing we did after we landed on the island was to get some lunch and walk around the park enjoying the cool New York breeze. It was a tad bit cold that day (I was wearing shorts at the time!) but it was still bearable thanks to my natural insulation

There is also a museum located at the back of the Statue of Liberty but note that the City Pass does not cover the cost of going into the museum nor does it allow you to enter the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately at that time we were there, they hadn’t open the entrance or the section which allowed visitors to climb all the way to the torch of the statue.

All we could do was to admire the statue from the base. Of course besides just the statue, there is a gift shop and a restaurant which serves fish and chips.

The park was also filled with mini statues of various guys, I think they were the architects who build the statue. I think.

After debarking from Liberty Island, the ferry wouldn’t head back to Manhattan Island but it brings everyone to Ellis Island. Now you might have heard about Ellis Island from one of the popular movies, Hitch, starring Will Smith. In the show, his first date with Sara Melas (played by Eva Mendes) was at Ellis Island. So it was pretty cool to actually walk around the huge museum.

There were many tours about including live shows where actors would act out the reenactment of the people who traveled from around the world to head to New York to find a better life.

Talking about the number of immigrants, it sort of also reminded me of the old show, Gangs of New York where there were plenty of Irish immigrants in New York at that time.

So if you are in the New York area, these are one of the must go to places.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

Posted on September 9, 2009 by Mark

Alright, I am definitely responsible for a little lack of blog updates. I guess the moment I turned this into a true blue photography blog, I seem to realise that I have that amount to blog about but then again, I am the number procrastinator when it comes to processing photos and getting up on the blog let alone sending them to the printers to get them printed.

Here is a continuation from my previous post, talking about when I was visiting Chicago City which is still a fond memory in my head. We started the day with an Architecture tour in mind, the tour mainly revolved around us going up and down the river whilst listening to some lady talking about how old some buildings were and what design the architect had in mind. To be honest, when I was a kid, I always wanted to be an architect. Mainly because I wanted to design the next “Death Star” or something cooler.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

Every day had to always begin with a great breakfast and where else to have breakfast at the local bakery in the village.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

I was quite happy as I could finally try out bagels and cream cheese.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

But to be perfectly honest, it was nothing to shout about. Kinda regretted not ordering the large breakfast set which came with toast, scrambled eggs and crispy bacon. After going about on the river cruise, we decided to walk along Michigan Avenue which was crowded with shoppers.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

After spending a lot of time walking (my feet was already aching!), we decided to look for a place for lunch and since I am a fan of 1901 HotDog’s and my favourite hotdog is Chicago Beef, why not try the actual Chicago Beef Hotdogs in Chicago itself. High and low searching and using our iPhones to search for nearby restaurants, we ended up at Portillo’s.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

Where I ordered a huge chilli dog with curly fries. (Pity there wasn’t any rootbeer available)

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

Next stop for us was the Aquarium which was located all the way down south of where we were. After taking the metro line (subway), we were still quite far off from the aquarium and walking there seemed the best alternative (also the cheapest). At the same time, it gave me some opportunities to shoot a little bit of the Chicago scenery. Apparently they worship feet over there since they have plenty of monuments dedicated to it.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

Note the guy in the orange shirt above? Yes, he is on a Segway! He is part of a Segway tour group, how cool is that? Its basically a tour where you get to ride your own individual Segway around the city with a bunch of other people guided by a tour guide. Do that in Malaysia and you get run down by cars and “mat rempits“.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

I am amazed that they even have signs to state “dog friendly” areas as well.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

More random stuff which I took whilst making our way to the aquarium.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

After a long walk, we finally arrived at our destination.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

Only to be welcomed by a huge crowd and the fact that we only had 2 hours before they closed. I am so not used to seeing everything closed by 5pm!

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

The main attraction of the aquarium, other than seeing loads of sea creatures, is their collection of beluga whales.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

After the place closed up, I took even more random shots of the surrounding areas.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

I still can’t believe how large Lake Michigan is!

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

Yes it is a lake! Possibly larger than the entire land mass of Peninsula Malaysia.

By the way, the myth about cops and donuts ain’t true. I caught a couple of them eating hot dogs.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

They (the police, duh!) seem to be riding everything possible now, bicycles, horses, and motorcycles. Soon they will be riding one of these as well!

PaulBlartMallCop2 Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

Only thing is that they probably needed to put power sockets around the city to charge up their Segways.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

Funky looking bench with interesting art on it.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

Last but not least, a shot of my colleague whilst we took the metro train back to our hotel.

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

Chicago, definitely a city I would love to visit again. I think I will spend a little more time there the next time I am in Chicago for training.

Langkawi – Day 1

Posted on July 27, 2009 by Mark

* Apologies for the confusion, I am trying out a new desktop publishing tool and it seemed to have screwed up the entire post and I have lost everything! *

The one thing I really hate to do is to retype an entire blog post which I have spent quite a fair bit of time writing. It saddens me that a simple mistake or being totally oblivious to the new tool which I am trying out can cause about 30 minutes of work down the drain. Nevertheless, the post must go up! Let me try to recapture what I have written in my earlier post.

I wonder how many people out there get up on a Monday morning, feeling worn out and said to themselves,”Wow, its going to be a great week ahead!”. Most of the time I hear from my desk is that people are either feeling the Monday blues or they are updating their Facebook status about what a wonderful weekend they had recently. Personally, my weekend was the bomb!

Together with the WeddingStory team, we headed to a part of Malaysia I have not been in over 10 years, and that was the island, Langkawi. Feeling excited about Stuart & Amy’s wedding, I took the 8am flight to Langkawi on Friday and I can safely say is that, don’t fly so early in the morning. Why? Think about it, if your flight is at 8am, then you would probably need to be at the airport by 6.30am to check-in. Which means you have to leave your house at 5.30am by taxi. Hence you need to be up at 4 something in order to get ready.

And that was what happened and I have to thank Alex and Grace for hosting me and Mun Tzin the night before so that I didn’t have to take account the time needed to travel from my house to their place. Also I have to thank Mun Tzin for waking me up in the morning by rubbing her wet fingers against my face. That really didn’t give me a shock at all.

By the time we arrived in Langkawi, rented two cars, checked into the hotel, the first thing I did was sleep! Yes, sleep was the first thing in my mind and after a quick nap, whilst Alex and Mun Tzin went to pick Kee Sitt and Sharon up from the ferry dock, I felt hungry. A quick walk along the main road where our hotel was located, we found ourselves in a cosy restaurant ordering some dishes and eagerly waiting for our food to arrive

Langkawi Day 1

Kee Sitt then decided to try out Nigel’s camera while we were waiting for our food to arrive.

Langkawi Day 1

By the time the first dish arrived (fried rice in case you were wondering if this was some special Langkawi grown rice), we were all too hungry to take more photos of the rest of the food. Ok, I admitted that once I started eating, I didn’t stop until the food was gone!

Langkawi Day 1

The one thing I remembered about Langkawi was that it was a duty free island, meaning that all alcohol, chocolates and cigarettes were very cheap. It was so dirt cheap that they even served my chinese tea in a beer mug.

Langkawi Day 1

After lunch we decided to walk about and check out some of the stalls across the street from the restaurant. Apparently Alex and Nigel found a new toy, Langkawi Poken!

Langkawi Day 1

Kee Sitt loved playing with his new toy so much so that he took loads of pictures and videos with it. Can’t wait to see all of them when he is done with it.

After lunch, the team got ready and drove about 45 minutes up north of the Island to the famed Andaman resort. There we were to shoot Stuart & Amy’s beach wedding. I will leave more details about the shoot in a separate post.

Langkawi Day 1 007 Langkawi Day 1

This was the view from the bride’s room. Look how lovely the scenery is.

Langkawi Day 1

And last but not least a view of the beach side where the ceremony is to take place. The decoration and the lovely sea breeze was just amazing, makes everything feel so romantic. The wedding lasted from 4pm all the way till past midnight and it was just so much fun!

I was totally wiped out by the time we got back to the hotel which means only one thing for me. I need more exercise!

Stay tuned for day 2 of the Langkawi trip.

Bumming at the Q for a week

Posted on June 2, 2009 by Mark

Oh my goodness, the blog went silent for a week and I have to blame the lack of internet when I was in New York. Actually there was internet available at the hotel I was staying in and it was limited to only 30minutes and the Wi-Fi connection kept dropping so after I returned back on Saturday and sort of recovered from all the jet lag, I believe its time for a new blog post.

The first week I was in the states mainly involved me living in this small room as shown in the image below. As the title states, I was at the Q Center located in Chicago for a weeklong training. Getting there was no easy task, I had to endure a flight from Malaysia to Hong Kong, transit for 2 hours before travelling another 12 hours to Los Angeles. Upon arrival which was almost midnight, I stayed a night at Los Angeles because the security checks at LAX took almost 2 hours. Then early in the morning, take another flight to Chicago which I clearly missed because I was queuing up for more than an hour and missed the 1-hour before flight check-in deadline. Anyway they just put me on the next flight which was the next hour.

stcharles blog 001 Bumming at the Q for a week

Don’t sweat it, the awesome part of this was that it had free internet as well as a TV which had more than 10 HD channels. It was really awesome watching ESPN in HD! The image is so clear, you can see all the chest hair of all the basketball players when they are playing (ironically I was catching the eastern conference playoffs )

stcharles blog 002 Bumming at the Q for a week

Most of the time I would be walking to and from my training lecture and viewing these awesome scenery and although training usually lasts until quite late through the day, I am glad that the sun sets really late (like 8ish) so I still manage to catch some wonderful sun and cool temperatures.

stcharles blog 0031 Bumming at the Q for a week

The centre used to be a golf course but they managed to preserve the last hole.

stcharles blog 004 Bumming at the Q for a week

My room was located in these apartments on the right. They are quite close to the actual lecture rooms and since classes start at 8am, I had to wake up very early every morning just to catch breakfast before classes. I am utterly amazed that the Americans love to start at 8am everyday whilst where I work, usually people come in after 9am.

stcharles blog 005 Bumming at the Q for a week

Its nice to see tulips as well as we don’t get to see many of them here in Malaysia. But it was a really nice week at St. Charles in Chicago where the sun was up every day and the temperatures were still cool.

More to come when I process the photos I took while I visited Chicago city itself.

Mark Leo Dot Net

Loving all things photography, tech, gadgets, Apple and cars

Tag Archives: Travels

Back in Chicago Again

Greetings from Bangladesh!

Travels and Supercars

Cameron Highlands Trip – Day 1

Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island

Chicago the Windy City – Day 2

Langkawi – Day 1

Bumming at the Q for a week