Nepal Day 10: Nayapul

27 Dec 2009

We again got up early in the morning, but we set off later than usual by about half an hour.  Abi had some emotional issues to settle with one of the Singaporeans girls.  And another Japanese, the one who can speak Chinese, told us of a rumour that there might be a strike at Pokhara today.  This meant there would be problems for us to find transport back to Pokhara.

As we set off, a group of 5 Korean college students (3 guys, 2 girls) plus a lady lecture also set off at around the same time.  We walked the same route to Nayapul.  But they are younger and more energetic, as we stopped to settle Abi's emotional problem, they already quietly overtook us and walked way way ahead.  By the time we stopped for our tea break, we could see none but one male student.  He didn't look very good, exhausted, and didn't seem to know the route ahead.  Resham pointed the right way for him, and he walked lonely ahead.  Afterwards, we caught up with him again.  This time, he looked very lost, and he couldn't understand English well.  With his limited English, he told us he could only speak Korean and Japanese.  For safety reasons, we asked him to join us, at least then there was a guide available to walk the correct route.  And then he could talk to Yoichi, who then translated his words to something we could understand.

By lunch, we managed to catch up with the Korean group and handed this lost student back to them.  Y and the student had a good chat along the way, and took pictures in front of their respective country's national flag for memory sake.  It is good to see the two arch rivals have something more harmonious between the younger generation.

The route to Nayapul was boring, and when we reached there at around 3pm, it was even more boring.  Indeed there was a strike, and no taxi was available to bring us back to Pokhara.  Everybody was sitting there waiting, with nothing to do.

Y was the most adventurous, he went to play with a Nepali kid.

 

 

Sure Y can be a very good father in the future :D

Everybody was just waiting and waiting for 5pm to come, which was time the strike said to be over and taxis can come to rescue of us tourists again.  We met a young lady from Hong Kong.  She said she arrived in Kathmandu when it was on strike for 3 days (so what our guide told us was true, not some scam).   No business was open for the 3 days.  She had to walk to all those places of interest in Kathmandu, and could only have her meals in the guest house.  It was terrible.

5pm finally came, and we didn't get a taxi.  Instead, Resham & Abi managed to sneak us into a mini-bus meant for the locals.  But too bad, two Caucasian ladies also sat in our bus.  That caused an uproar among the taxi drivers.  They blocked our way.  After a fierce argument, they agreed to let us go, but the driver of the mini bus must charge the two Caucasian ladies a much higher price.

We got back into Pokhara at around 7.30-8.00pm, dumped our luggage to our guest house, and then we quickly went to the nearest Chinese restaurant, the Lakeside Garden Restaurant, for our dinner.  WJ & I would give a treat to Abi, Resham & also Y.

Everybody was in very happy mode.  We finally achieved what we set out to achieve and we came back safe and sound.  Many bottles of beer were consumed.  Y, being a Japanese, was surprising poor at drinking.  Half a mug of beer down, his face was ready as red as Guan Gong.  Haha... Don't know who is Guan Gong?  Mmmh, go to learn some Chinese folklores :D

You can find a complete list of blog entries about my Nepal trip here.

Japan's Richest Man

Usually I don't really care about who is the richest man in whichever country, anyway, I know it will not be me, or any of my friends or even just acquaintance.  However, I am very keen to share with you who the richest man is in Japan for 2009.  He is Tanashi Yanai. (see this link.)

Who is Tanashi Yanai?  Why is he so special other than being the richest man in Japan?  If I ask you to guess which industry the richest person is in, what might be your answer?  For myself, I probably would say real estate, or some fancy industry such as Sony or NTT, etc.  Never did I know the richest man in Japan is in the retail industry, selling nothing but casual clothes.  The brand of clothes they sell happens to be UNIQLO (it is pronounced as yunikuro in Japanese).

Did you ever expect someone selling clothes could become the richest man of the world's 2nd largest economy?  Isn't it impressive? 

Microstock: Quick Review at Shutterstock

Ever since the beginning of 2010, the review time at Shutterstock has been very short.  In general, a batch gets reviewed in about 48 hours, now it only takes a couple of hours. 

I submit a batch at around 7 o'clock in the morning, by noon, they have been reviewed and approved.  This does not just happen once or twice, but quite consistently ever since a new year began.  At first, I thought it was the holiday season and not many people were submitting, but I noticed the statistics still shows 80,000 to 100,000 photos are being added to the Shutterstock library. 

Kudos to the Shutterstock team.  They do a very good job for us.  One complaint though, I am not getting as many downloads as I usually get for January.  Maybe their sales team should step up their efforts too?  :P

Microstock: 123RF Gets Tough

My 2010 started with a slew of rejections from 123RF.  My rejection ratio there used to be very good, rarely any rejection.  The sudden surge made me wonder whether something special had happened. 

I went into their forum to take a look.  Oh, it looks like 123RF had decided to get a lot more strict on their acceptance criteria. 

It is nothing wrong to get more strict, but the problem is they didn't really communicate that well to the submitters.  My photos were mostly rejected for 'poor lighting/composition'.  At least they should take the trouble to separate 'poor lighting' with 'poor composition'.  If my photos have 'poor composition', really I have nothing to say.  Art is subjective.  Different people may have different opinions on what is good composition, what is bad composition.  We can't really argue there.  But how about poor lighting?  It is more technical and a more objective topic. 

Another point is what do they think are good compositions?  I did get some photos accepted this year, but I don't think they are better 'composite' than those that had been rejected. 

At least they should lay out some guidelines for everybody to follow.  For example, Shutterstock tells every submitter that they don't want to have flower shots, sunset/sunrise shots, etc unless they are exceptionally good.  It helps submitters to avoid wasting time uploading unneeded photos and it also helps 123RF to reduce the work load.  It will be a win-win situation.  However, as it is now, I think photographers will just have to try it out, upload everything then wait and see what gets accepted, what gets rejected and then slowly figure out the unwritten 'rules'.  It is gonna be time-wasting, for both submitters & reviewers.

Nepal Day 9: Jhinudanda Hot Spring

26 Dec 2009

We set off at Bamboo early in the morning with high spirit.  Today, we would stay over night at Jhinudanda, where there is a hot spring.  Hot spring, hot spring, that's what I like most, man!  The expression 'hot spring' itself already made me happy and looking forward to it.

Before we could get to hot spring, we had to go back to Chomrong to collect our stuff stored there.  Wah, Chomrong will have a place forever in my memory!  There are endless flights of stairs at Chomrong.  And Chomrong is big.  We spent more than an hour walking within the boundary of it.  My gosh.  Y was like a walking machine.  I was already half way up one mountain, while Y was still way behind at the top of an opposite mountain, but in no time, he already caught up with me, and overtook me.  He walked very very fast in the front.  And that was like one way uphill.  Our guest house at Chomrong is almost the highest point.  Just imagine how exhausted I was when I got there.  Then about an hour later, the Singaporeans also came, which made our guest house full of life :D

After lunch, we descended to Jhinu.  Our guest house is a half completed guest house.  The ground floor was done, but the 1st floor was still under construction.  However, this is the most 'modern' guest house, as there is an attached bathroom in our room.  Again, we had to share a room with Y.

Highlight of the day was of course hot spring.  We had to walk for about half an hour downhill to the hot spring.  The facility there, as expected, was very rudimentary.  A shed for you to change clothes.  There was no door at all, only a curtain.

There are three pools there, two are together, while one is very far way and nobody used it.  For the two, one is hotter, while the other is cooler.  The hot pool was full of Koreans.  I was like the only Chinese there.  Then suddenly someone asked me in English whether I was from China.  I said yes, then mumbled something I didn't catch.  Then he repeated it again in English asking me whether I speak Japanese.  Do I look like someone who could speak Japanese?  Then I got to know he is a Japanese living in KL.  He also spent 3 years working in Dalian, China, and he could speak some Chinese too.  Wow, I was impressed.  And I quickly introduced him to Y.  Let the Japanese talk to themselves....Haha.....Later on, we found out that Japanese man stayed at the same guest house as we did, and right next to our room!

The hot spring was so nice.  It relaxed my sore muscles.  Muscles on my thigh were so sore that I felt immense pain whenever I touched them.  It felt so good to be immersed in the hot spring.

The Koreans were a bit crazy.  The hot spring is right next to a stream, and some of the Koreans went soaking in the ice cold stream naked!

Ok, today no photos.  Too tired to take any photos for the day and the importance of enjoying my hot spring is higher than anything else.

You can find a complete list of blog entries about my Nepal trip here.

Nepal Day 8: Annapurna Base Camp - Christmas Day

25 Dec 2009 Christmas Day

We woke up to a very cold morning.  In the middle of the night, the temperature dropped out of the measurement range of my watch, which is -10 degrees to 60 degrees.  In the morning, it was -5 degrees.  Freezing cold.  Water in my mineral water bottle was frozen and became a big piece of ice, you can use it to knock somebody out :P

Last night, Y said he wanted to get up at 5.30 this morning to catch the sunrise, and set the alarm.  The alarm rang, but there was no reaction from Y.  WJ scared me saying that some people died after a cold night.  I quickly called out Y's name and fortunately he managed to mumble something to prove he was still alive.

Outside the guest house, the entire world was covered with a thick layer of white snow.  You could see some yellowish spots just outside the corridor, must be left by those who didn't want to go to the toilet to pee :D

The weather was very good, blue blue sky.  The last time I saw such a beautiful scene was back in 2002 in Switzerland.  Wow, time flies, it has been almost a decade now.  I walked in the knee deep snow toward a high point behind the guest house.  Many people were already there admiring the sunrise.  For me, the blue sky and the white snow were a lot more attractive.

Annapurna Base Camp was our ultimate destination, so we all started to snap around with great joy. 

Yeah, we caught the sunrise!

A struggling warrior in the cold

Our group photo

This photo is to compensate for my loss of opportunity to take one yesterday when I arrived.  My very first WHITE Christmas!  And to my amazement, my watch's altitude meter actually more or less agreed with the number stated at the gate there - 4130m above sea level!

Haha...Don't you think the two of us look like two traveling monks with our walking sticks?

Before we started to descend, our Singaporean friends arrived too. Jessy also joined us for a group photo, as she walked with us from Himalaya to MBC.

It was moment of joy, moment of celebration. 

And yeah, I forgot to put some nice beautiful picture of the sun shining on the Annapurna range of mountains.

Y was struggling with his descend.  His shoes were very slippery on ice and snow.  He kept slipping.  Both Resham and Abi got very worried about him.  At the end, Abi changed shoes with him to make life a bit easier.

I hate ice on the road.  They are treacherous.  Look at me, do I look like the great venerable Xuan Zhuang (玄奘).

I couldn't remember much about the rest of the day.  For the night, we stayed at Bamboo.  The dinning hall was full with people, the Koreans, the American, the French guys, etc, etc.  Our Singaporeans are the most brave and daring.  They again walked in the dark, and got separated into two groups, as Jessy kind of injured her foot.

I had a very good night of sleep that night.  Probably I occupied a big bed, all to myself, and I didn't have to worry about my blanket to fall down to the floor.  Probably I walked down from high altitude to low altitude and my lung suddenly was full of oxygen, and I was getting high.  Who cares...

You can find a complete list of blog entries about my Nepal trip here.

Nepal Day 7: Annapurna Base Camp

24 Dec 2009  Christmas Eve

Our 7th day on the trip was Christmas Eve.  We woke up early in the morning to a cold day of 4.5 degree Celsius.  The air was so cold that our guides decided to set off half an hour later than usual, to wait for the sun to come up and temperature to rise to a more comfortable level.  In the mean time, I caught a shot of our two handsome guides as commented by Tingting.

Haha...Who is more handsome?  I will leave that to the girls to decide.  Too bad, there are no lady guides or porters.

You can tell the temperature must have gone down to almost 0 degrees as water is frozen even in the running streams along the route.  I hate ice on the trek, it makes the trek slippery and treacherous.

As we walked, the sun quietly went up and shining warmly over our head.  It gave everything on earth a beautiful look.  Fascinated by the beautiful views, Y started to aping around...

 

While I was pondering about life, at 3000m above sea level, a level where life gets very tough, and no other flora can survive except the fittest.

 

This cheap wild grass was dancing gently in the morning breeze.  This type of grass is so common, so ordinary, so unnoticed, but it is a winner over the bigger trees, more colorful, more expensive flowers.  Their survival and existence at such high altitude makes the almost barren land more lively.   

The road to MBC, Machhapuchre Base Camp, is long, but with very gentle slope.  However, it was a very difficult walk for me, I don't know why.  Probably it was the cold weather which consumed the energy in my body way too fast.  At around 10am, I was already very hungry, and starving.  Luckily WJ still had some snacks such as chocolates to help me survive till lunch at MBC. 

We arrived at MBC at around 1pm, it was about 1 hour behind schedule. 

 MBC is just one row of single story guest houses.  Our Singaporean friends stayed at MBC for the night, before their ascend to ABC tomorrow.  For us, we had our lunch at MBC, and then continued our climb to ABC.

The view at MBC is beautiful.  The world is so big, so grand.  It is more grand than any human construction ever on earth.  I couldn't help but to admire mother earth's powerfulness. 

The clouding wrapping around Machhapuchhre, don't they look like a lady's veil?  They are magnificent.  Well, but later, I would be cursing about the clouds, which brought heavy snow fall. 

We finished our lunch at 2pm.  Then the unexpected happened.  It started to snow!  It was only a few snow flakes at first, but then as we walked and walked, the snow got heavier and heavier.  I quickly put on my rain coat and the rain cover for my backpack.  Wah, it was the very first time I walked in the heavy snow at such high altitude.  WJ, Resham and Y walked fast, they were way ahead of me.  Abi was about 30m ahead of me, and our distance never seemed to be narrowed.  From MBC to ABC, it was only a 400m climb (vertically), but it took me almost 3 hours to complete. 

I was walking alone as the last person of the group.  Snow was piling up everywhere.  Wind was strong, snow flakes hitting me at my back with big noise.  My upper body was still warm, but my jeans was kind of getting a bit wet, and a bit cold.  My Columbia trekking boots, I couldn't tell whether it was my sweat or my boots also getting wet too, and it felt cold.  The sky was dark gray.  You could see nothing but snow flakes and the shadows of the mountains.  Luckily for this section of the trek, it was very gentle, and there is no cliffs nearby.  Everything is laid out flat.  I kept walking and walking.  Some Caucasian trekkers walked past me.  I turned my head back, nobody was behind me anymore.  If anything happens, I might just be buried by the snows.  So, of course I couldn't let that happen. 

Finally, I reached Annapurna Base Camp (South) at around 5pm.  I was so relieved.  The guest houses there setup a welcome 'gate' to the base camp, and everybody took photos there as evidence to their own achievements.  By the time I arrived at that gate, there was not a single soul there to help me take pictures.  And I was too exhausted to take out my camera from my backpack. 

As I passed the gate and walked towards the guest house, a Korean college student came down, and asked me about the other Koreans.  I told them I saw the two Korean boys, and two girls plus two porters at MBC.  They should be on the way up soon.  Guess what, by then the snow on the ground was already like a foot deep. 

When I reached the guest house, WJ was already there waiting for me.  He helped me clean off all that snows on my body and backpack.  Most probably I looked like a snow man when I arrived.  Then I was told we had to share a room with Y tonight, and I had to share a bed with him too.  Never mind, I think I was so smelly that I didn't want to get close to myself. 

Our room was too cold to be any sane person to stay there.  We spent our time in the dinning hall, which had a heater keeping the temperature to about 15 degrees.  Everybody stayed there for the warmth.  We had quite a big group.  There was a group of French, a few from Britain, and one guy from America.  Sounds like they are from Europe and US, right?  Hahah...right.  One British guy lives in Pataya, Thailand, one lives in Egypt, the American is a science teacher in an international school in Bangkok.  We are all from tropical countries, and not used to such cold temperatures.  

As the night fell, wind was blowing stronger and stronger outside.  The Tibetan prayer flags outside the guest house was flagging viciously.  That was no sign of the snow stopping.  It only got heavier and heavier.  The corridor was filled up a thick layer of snow, making it difficult to even go back to our room.  Going to toilet is another challenge.  The ice in the toilet was slippery and you couldn't tell where that ice was.  There was no light.  No light in the toilet, no light in our room.  Everywhere was dark, except the dinning hall. 

There was nothing that we could do up there.  Neither did we want to go to bed so early in the freezing cold.  What to do?  We had conversations to kill time.  The British guy living in Pataya spent about 3 years in Singapore also.  He could still name Holland Village, and places in Singapore.  My reaction was:  Wow, this guy must be rich, living in Holland Village.  Then the rest of the night was between me and Y.  We couldn't really 'talk' to each other, as my Japanese and his English are both just elementary at best.  Most of the time we communicated by writing Kanji's or Chinese characters.  And sometimes we don't know what each other was talking about. 

So I had my very first WHITE Christmas eve, and WHITE Christmas at 4120m above sea level.  A once in a life time kind of experience. 

You can find a complete list of blog entries about my Nepal trip here.

Zazzle Store

I was introduced to www.zazzle.com by fellow Shutterstock.com members.  What is a zazzle store?  Ok, the concept is not really new.  Basically you upload your images or designs to the website, and then design a product to sell.  The product can be a mug, a T-shirt, a poster, etc.  You can have any designs as your imagination is the limit.  Then Zazzle will deliver the product to your customer, and you get a cut for royalties.  The percentage of royalties is set by you.

I started my small little store here with some posters and post cards.  From my past experience, it is not so easy to get any sales.  There are simply way too many products available, and yours might be just buried deep in the thousands, if not hundred of thousands of products.  But today, I just got an email informing me "hey, your got a sale!" 

This poster is what has been sold.  The royalty is small in absolute terms, but hey, I am happy, no matter what, that's my very first sales, man.

You can take a look at my product below too. 


Browse other personalized gifts from Zazzle.