When Google Earth Comes Handy

What would you do if you’re traveling to a big city for the weekend, and you haven’t done even the slightest research about that place all week?

And when you finally have the time to do the research, that’s 2 hours before departing, you suddenly realized that there are  quite a lot of places to cover for a short period of just 1.5 days..

In less than 2 hours, you need to decide which one to go, which one not to go…

How to go to each and everyone (public transportation, walk, get lost?)

Where are they located..

My answer : + Earth (obviously!)

Been so busy all week long that I just had the time to make a quick on before my train departs later tonight. In 10 minutes, I somehow came up with a list of so called interesting places to go. But the list is too long to cramp everything into 1.5 days. Some places which are not-so-worth going have to be removed, but I didn’t know which one.

The important thing is, they must look good on my camera.

So I looked for Earth. Searched each and every place on the list, clicked on the photos geo-tagged by others and I’ll have a feel of how the place is like.

If I like the place, I’ll look for the nearest public transportation; metro, train or trams in Earth. The thing with big cities is they’re all shown there. It’s so easy, convenient and saves me a lot of time. Saves me lots of money as well from buying Lonely Planet or Rough Guides.

I just realized that there’s actually still sometime left in the 2 hours to squeeze in a blog post!

Okay, . I’ll see you there.

October 11, 2008 | Filed Under Travels, Web | Leave a Comment 

Books Aren’t Boring Anymore

I’ve just spent the last 30 minutes and $7.95 at Audible.com.

It’s an online audio store where you can download a wide range of audios ranging from books to entertainments, comedies to premiers, Election 2008 to a digital audio subscription of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

There are a lot in store at Audible.com, depending on what you’re looking for. But only thing that caught my attention was the .

I’ve always wanted to buy when I was in the bookstores. But I ended up buying the hard copy 99% of the time.

  1. Audio books cost 2-3 times more than the hard copy, for obvious reasons. Audios products always have a higher perceived value than hard copies, and videos have an even higher perceived value than audios.
  2. I hate bringing the books whenever I travel. During one of my previous trips, I had to bring back 5 books and these itself was already 1kg. Not forgetting the space they took up in my luggage.
  3. I’m starting to get bored reading hard copy books. I need to find something new. Audios and videos are the answer. They’re much more interactive. At least I have someone talking to me or looking at me while delivering the content.

At Audible.com, I pay $7.95 monthly for the first 3 months. Each month, I’ll get one audio of my choice. Besides, I can also purchase other audios with a relatively cheaper price. Having done some quick research, I found out that purchasing the are slightly cheaper than buying the hard copy itself, after currency conversion.

Audios are convenient. I can load them into my mp3 player when I’m traveling overseas and play it on my laptop when I’m in the room. I can even play them while driving to office! (been doing that already).

October 9, 2008 | Filed Under Books, Web | 2 Comments 

Simply Beautiful

I had to make sure I had everything with me before I go.

5 batteries for camera, 2 sets of rechargable AA batteries, 16gb of storage, polariser, lenses and camera sensors cleaned, and I’m set to go.

And after 12 hours of night train (one way!), 2 hour of hiking, 100 euros spent on transportation, and this was where I got myself to over the weekend.

Konigsee

Simply beautiful isn’t it?

This place is in Berchtesgaden, a small town 3 hours train away from Munich, very near to the German-Austrian border. The main attraction of this place if of course, aka the cleanest lake in . I was hoping that there will be blue skies on that day, but for once the weather forecast was spot on. Previously, it wasn’t reliable on a few occasions so I was hoping for the opposite when it shows cloudy day.

is a damn small, dead town and everyone who’s there are only going to 3 places; , Eagle’s Nest (Hitler’s summer vacation home) and the Salt Mine near Austria. I think the majority of them came from Munich for a day trip.

There’s nothing there besides these 3. The town is as good as dead during day time. Forget about night time.

The mountains were really beautiful.

Snow mountains in the background, reflections on the lake, plenty of foreground objects but minus the blue skies! *sigh* But it was well worth the trip all the way there to enjoy the scenery. It would definitely look much better next month towards the end of autumn and the lake will freeze during winter.

Probably I should drop by again for a day or two during winter.

Here’s how Konigsee and Berchtesgaden looked like.

September 23, 2008 | Filed Under Sports, Web | Leave a Comment 

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