Tag Archives: 49

Apr 07 2019
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Daily Post, Sport

Green Gully SC: the media facilities

Saturday 6th April 2019, 3.30pm (day 2,781)

Green Gully, 6/4/19

Just because I am on the other side of the world doesn’t preclude me taking in the occasional football match. Thanks to my hosts for today, Green Gully SC (Soccer Club) for a very entertaining day at their patch of land on the outskirts of Melbourne, and well done to them for a convincing 4-0 victory that I am sure was faithfully reported on by the clutch of people huddled around this little contraption on the banking. If an event doesn’t have a media presence — did it even happen? (And I am part of this, in my own little way.)

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Apr 05 2019
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Daily Post, Interior

Aussie beer at its, er, ‘finest’

Friday 5th April 2019, 3.20pm (day 2,780)

Beer tanks, 5/4/19

There are many fine things about Australia. The beer is not one of them. Pile it high and pump it out is the usual approach, and if you find something more delicately crafted, I bet it’s come from somewhere else (probably New Zealand). Ah well. You can’t have everything in a country.

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Apr 04 2019
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Daily Post, Landscape

Welcome back to Australia

Thursday 4th April 2019, 9.15am (day 2,779)

Descent to Melbourne, 4/4/19

For four months from January 26th 2013, this blog featured a total of 97 photos taken in Australia, and that is still the second-most depicted country hereon apart from England. Norway had been catching up quantity-wise but it’s about to lose ground because as of today I’m here for 12 days until heading home on the 15th. It’s good to be back…. even if, once again, I failed completely to sleep on the overnight flight from Saigon. This picture was taken on the descent into Melbourne, but unlike the last time I took a shot from over said city, I’m staying there, so expect more of Oz’s second-largest conurbation over the next few days.

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Apr 04 2019
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger

The cameraman gets ready

Wednesday 3rd April 2019, 9.40am (day 2,778)

RMIT cameraman, 3/4/19

My last day in Vietnam — this time — but I certainly hope there will be further visits. I have had a very fine few days and want to return. The day saw me do the one bit of work I had committed to while here, a talk at the RMIT Saigon campus, and this guy was setting up to film it; I like the random arrangement of table legs behind him, they give the shot some background texture.

The M in RMIT stands for Melbourne — and that’s where I’m heading off to next. Today is the halfway point of this trip as a whole.

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Apr 02 2019
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Saigon skink

Tuesday 2nd April 2019, 5.50pm (day 2,777)

Saigon skink, 2/4/19

Wildlife has been noticeable by its absence in Vietnam, even in the Delta yesterday: all that has been seen has either been trophy poodles, or a morose looking python in a cage (which I did consider making pic of the day, I admit). But I transferred today from the very centre of the city to a more suburban part, and by the lagoon of Hồ bán nguyệt [don’t ask me how you get those diacriticals on there — I just copied-and-pasted], I spotted this lizard, a skink I assume, before it spotted me.

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Apr 01 2019
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Daily Post, Transport

In the delta

Monday 1st April 2019, 12.30pm (day 2,776)

Mekong delta, 1/4/19

I will remain in Vietnam until Wednesday night but I have to work from this point on, so today, Monday, was the last of my three-day weekend of tourism. Shipping visitors out from Saigon and into the Mekong Delta is a major industry which I was happy to buy into for a day; in case you think there is something ‘authentic’ about this shot let me observe that the four people in the front of this boat are all Europeans of various types. Nevertheless this doesn’t reduce the attractiveness of the place, with its water the colour of milky tea and a general level of peacefulness here on the northern edge of the county of Ben Tre, 90 minutes’ drive south of the big city. Yes, I like Vietnam… highly recommended.

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Mar 31 2019
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Daily Post, Transport

The local dominant lifeform

Sunday 31st March 2019, 11.30am (day 2,775)

Saigon motorbikes, 31/3/19

If you’ve been to Saigon you are surely aware that the dominant lifeform in the city is the motorcycle. There are hordes of them. They make crossing the road an act that takes definite courage and the permutations of humans and cargo that can fit on them beggars belief. I even saw one today with two people and a dog on it, I kid you not. I tried to get a shot of a horde in transit, but this one, of one of the many street-side motorcycle parks, seems also to sum up their sheer number quite well.

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Mar 30 2019
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger

War tourism

Saturday 30th March 2019, 12.20pm (day 2,774)

War tourism, 30/3/19

This blog is both commentary, and record. So there is one part of me that regrets there is such a thing as ‘war tourism’ exists — that the dreadful conflict between the two parts of Vietnam, with the interventions of the USA, that lasted for some ten years from 1964 or so should now be something that people have come to feel is merely the background for a family photo. On the other hand — I went to the War Remnants museum in Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh CIty) today; I too was a war tourist. So should I feel guilty? The place was even-handed enough, there were some fascinating things to look at (most of all, the gallery of war correspondent photographs from both Vietnamese and European/American photographers), it passed most of the day. I learned, and that’s surely what matters. But could I stand and smile for the camera in front of a death machine? That’s something else.

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Mar 29 2019
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

Nanyang Technological University campus

Friday 29th March 2019, 2.45pm (day 2,773)

NTU, Singapore, 29/3/19

Last day in Singapore before I move on once more on this spring tour of Asia. Nanyang Technological University, or NTU, becomes the latest campus to feature on the blog. It’s a pleasant green space, though with that generic feel that many campuses — and, in the end, the whole world — is starting to have. This is one of those shots that would be nicer if it were truly symmetrical, but I guess that level of symmetry happens only rarely, so perhaps I should embrace the nearness of it, its imperfections in that respect.

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Mar 29 2019
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Daily Post, Urban scene

The Singapore River and Boat Quay

Thursday 28th March 2019, 1.30pm (day 2,772)

Singapore, Boat Quay, 28/3/19

Boat Quay is that bit of Singapore that you come to if you are happy to be enticed into one of at least thirty pubs, cafes and/or restaurants that line the riverside: the corrugated iron rooves that cover the al-fresco tables are clear on this shot, taken from 33 floors up. It’s a good-looking city in fact: and far more attractive than Dubai.

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