Howth

Train to Howth

A colleague of mine, Peter, gave me some good advice to head up to Howth on the train on a nice weekend. Fortunately for the one weekend I spent in Dublin, the Sunday was a perfectly sunny day – not a cloud in sight and I thought this was the perfect time to try. There is a fairly regular train that departs every half hour that is clearly labelled Howth so it is pretty easy to get to.

From the number of people on the train, I guess I wasn’t the only person who had the idea of heading out that way to take a short stroll up the cliffs and the walking track. On the Sunday that I went, there was a tiny little farmer’s market full of stalls and treats and very popular with the locals. The other noticeably popular thing is the fish and chips stores that had significant queues (at least ten people each) stretching out onto the pavement.

The first part you stumble across is the harbour area, full of nice looking sailing boats and very clear, blue water. You can walk down the lighthouse to get a closer view of the boats and their sailing area, or head towards the cliffs where there is a walking trail around the headlands. You walk past some very cosy and picturesque houses, as well as some stunning scenery.

Bring some water on your walk as there isn’t really much out there when you get going. On a super hot (if it ever is like that) or super clear day, it’s also worth bringing some cover if you’re sensitive to the light.

Hamburg, Germany

Looking back at my posts, I neglected to post anything in April and that was probably because I was travelling between London and Hamburg for a project. It was only a short project lasting about seven weeks and in between doing three talks for a Quarterly Technology Briefing in London, Manchester and Hamburg I think I lost a bit of time.

Hamburg is a port city town and has one of the largest harbours I have ever seen. Although we never really had a warm day during this period due to Europe’s eternally long winter, we did have some sunny days and the harbour is a popular place packed with (mostly) German tourists on these days. You can do a boat trip that takes you and shows you interesting places like the massive dry-docking stations used for cruise ships, or just sailing past the massive cruise ships and the even bigger containing shipping vessels.

One of the most iconic buildings in the harbour is the unfinished Elbe Philharmonic Hall. Like Berlin’s new Brandenburg airport, this building causes controversy because it is an overrun, perceivably expensive building. It’s running three years late and, at the current time, not planned for finishing until 2015.

Being located on the harbour, Hamburg is known for its seafood, so there are many great fish restaurants to try although steer clear of most of the Japanese sushi places as the fish they catch in this area isn’t really the type for making sushi. Thinking that for a love of fish and having a taste for a certain quality I tried quite a number of sushi places but they were both rather expensive and disappointing in quality.

Speaking of food, one of the interesting things to try is the Franzbrötchen bread pictured above. Halfway between a croissant and a bread, it is a decadent pastry layered with cinnamon and sugar. It’s sort of the local version of the cinnamon roll and popular with many variants such as topped with streusel, chocolate bits or pumpkin seeds.

I had a great time in Hamburg with some new friends (Birgitta, Christian and Chris above) exploring a lot of what Hamburg has to offer. The city is significantly smaller than Berlin, and noticeably more German. The U-Bahn and S-Bahn trains still work like clockwork and it’s pretty easy to get around. People in Hamburg are also significantly taller than in other parts of Germany – to me, the average height of people seemed to clock in at around 6 feet with many people often much taller than that. It was a good place to practice my German.

The reeperbahn is the tourist ghetto of Hamburg. Feeling very much like the very seedy side to Surfers’ Paradise back in Australia, it has a huge number of bars, strip clubs and dodgy looking pubs that are frequented by stag parties and the like – none of which is really my thing.

Fortunately it’s a short walk to the increasingly hipster-like area of Sternschanze (or schanze for short) that is full of nice little cafes, restaurants and bars such as the Drei Zimmer Wohnung (3 room apartment) that is a combination of a live music venue in the basement and a comfy lounge-room like bar upstairs.

There’s even the Medienbunker that turns a former bunker into a club, popular by locals.

Some other interesting places worth checking out if you’re in town include:

  • The portugese quarter – An area just down from the river filled with latino restaurants, cafes and bars
  • Hafencity – The new harbour city. Home to new architecture and slowly building up as a community. Busy during the week but a bit dead on weekends other than for tourists
  • Winterhüde – I only visited here once to check out the Elbgold coffee roastery, but this neighbour seemed like quite a very well off area with a combination between residential bars, cafes and restaurants.
  • Alster – The two lakes that sit inside the city centre that is worth walking around. Bring a coat as it gets quite windy here

“Downgrading” to the Olympus E-PL5 camera

Since the end of last year, I upgraded away from my Canon EOS Rebel XTi in favour of Olympus’ E-PL5 camera. I posted this as a “downgrade” mainly due to its smaller size and this is a good thing indeed. I can assure you that everything else is an upgrade.

I had been following the micro four-thirds format for a long time. One of photography-obsessed friends told me in 2011 to buy the Olympus OMD EM-5 and as tempted as I was at all the rave reviews, the price range put it out of my budget.

Fortunately at the end of last year, Olympus announced the release of two new models that contained the very same inside sensors as the OMD EM-5. I read some early reviews, and decided that it worked for me. I read somewhere that when you have taken enough photos with your equipment to equate to about 5p per shot (mine turned out to about 1.7p per shot approximately) then you hit a good time to upgrade.

I got the kit lens (couldn’t buy it without it) as well as the 40-150mm R lens for a telescopic (zoom) lens. I shortly bought the Panasonic 1.7 20mm pancake lens as well given that these had some great reviews and it’s the lens that I use the most. The kit 14-42mm II R lens was decent but just not fast enough for use in dark places – particularly restaurants where I take a lot of photos for my food blog.

What I love

Using a touchscreen – People complain about missing an electronic viewfinder (or just a viewfinder) and I think it would make a great deal if I took a lot of outdoor pictures in the sun. Fortunately I can just keep taking a lot of photos and it seems to work out. Better yet, this touchscreen tilts so that you can take pictures at waist height (it’s less obvious and you can capture moments instead of people posing because you take a camera out). Flipping the touchscreen at 170 degrees (slightly more would be better) also allows for better positioning of self-portrait shots. Something I didn’t think I would use but I definitely use a lot more now that I have it.

(sneaky table height shot captures the moment above)

Taking photos is fast – I thought when I upgraded to my DSLR photos were fast. Focus is amazingly fast, and you can take a lot of photos in a short amount of time. Tracking in low-light is more dependent on the lens you’re using and it can sometimes take a while to not-focus if it is too low light (a problem for most cameras).

(taking a photo on the go during a demonstration)

It is small – I went for the micro four-thirds format instead of the competing Sony or Fuji cameras for two reasons. One is that the difference in sensor size makes negligible difference (at least to me) in the final photos. The sensor size translates directly to the lens size that both affects weight and physical dimensions. As a result, I carry my camera around almost all the time and use it to replace my normal compact digital camera I use for work photos. I also notice that my back is much better off it when carrying all lenses and the camera in a sling bag.

(compact enough to bring with me on the ski slopes in my ski jacket pocket)

Lens choice – I like the fact that I can choose between Olympus, Panasonic and now other manufacturers are making lenses for the m43 format. Longevity in technology is very much an arms race and I like the choice from a standard that means more differences in prices. Although I probably won’t buy another lens for a while, I’m comforted that there will be more choice (and probably cheaper prices) for these.

What I like

Art filters – Although I think most cameras offer this feature now, I have to admit I do like playing around with the different effects. My most favourite are probably the Pin Hole or the Soft Focus effects. There’s even an “Art Bucket” mode that applies all the filters and saves a copy of the file (although I wish I could selectively turn off which filters when into that as I never like the Key Line or Pop Art filters)

(picture above with soft focus filter)

(picture above with pin hole filter)

Customisability – Although it takes a while to traverse the manual, this camera allows you to change some (maybe) all the camera configuration. For example, I don’t really take any motion videos, so I’ve replaced the instant-record button (you have a dial mode for that anyway) to switch between auto focus and manual focus modes. One of the best customisations is to turn off the auto focus assist lamp, a bright red light that makes is super obvious you are taking photos in dark places. The trade off for me has proven to be worth it for now. There’s plenty more options you can configure and I would highly recommend reading the manual a few more times after you’ve played with it.

Battery life – Battery technology probably continues to get better. I took my camera with me for a ten day business trip to Ireland and although I wasn’t using it every day as if I was on holidays, it took probably about 1000 photos and the battery wasn’t yet complaining about getting low.

Small improvements

The dial and button combination – The dial and button combination is a little bit fiddly to play around with. I’m lucky I don’t have huge fingers but I can imagine that for some people it doesn’t work so well.

Image stabilisation – I think my previous two lens for the Canon SLR spoilt me for image stabilisation as they were rock-solid. I noticed it when I moved back to the Canon 50mm 1.8 lens. I think the IS works pretty well in the camera, but you have to be careful in darker locations where I think because it is a much smaller, I find it harder to keep the camera more steady. Fortunately the flip screen helps with this because you can lean the camera up against something and still frame your shot appropriately. I’d be keen to see how the OMD series do although not sure it’s significant enough to pay the difference.

Focus on moving things – Apparently one of the weaknesses with the micro four-thirds (or at least the way Olympus does) is that it’s less good for taking pictures of fast moving objects. Where my old camera could do pretty well even at a zoom level, I haven’t testing the camera to its limits. Once again, not a big issue for me, but could be for some of you using it.

Conclusion

I have had the camera for probably about six months. After about three months I decided it was good enough to replace the DSLR. I haven’t looked back since.

Hello Dublin, My you have changed

I have been located in a project in Dublin for the last couple of weeks. The last time I was in Dublin was in 2007 and the city has certainly moved on since then. A modern transportation system (called the Luas) is now complete and although it doesn’t comprehensively take you all over the sprawling city, it’s reasonably priced, frequent during rush hours, modern and clean.

Dublin

I tend to measure a city by the variety and quality of its restaurants. One theory I have is that a wide variety of restaurants demonstrates a certain acknowledgement of other cultures (people are willing to try food other than their own), and any natives that are actually running the restaurant only serve to add to the city’s atmosphere.

What is heavily noticeable is the large population of continental Europeans (particularly Italians and Spanish) helping boost the workforce and the culture. At the same time, you can find a (decent) burrito place, there’s Malaysian (nonya) cuisine and a fine number of gastropub and fine dining restaurants. Have no fear though because the city is still unmistakably Irish. Full of pubs. And churches. You can also easily find a few people swaying around on their feet as early as 8pm on a Friday… maybe because they started their drinking as early as 11am (spotted on a Saturday *and* Sunday).

Dublin

There’s even an explosion of small non-chain cafes. Three places do a decent flat white (3FE, CoffeeAngel and The Bald Barista) with many places serving up a decent brunch at reasonable prices. Speaking of which, it’s easy to spend a bit here, but you can also get by with reasonable prices. Many places do an early bird menu, or a two or three course offer for €20-€30. All of it very quality food.

Dublin

Other than the given with the wet weather, cold temperatures and other weather-related complaints, you can see why it’s changing and growing as a hub of business in the European Union.

One of my favourite local pubs

I’m spoilt for choices to eat and drink out in my area. I really don’t take advantage of it enough but that is probably a good thing since I eat out pretty much all the time when I’m travelling for work. One of my favourite places that is a great eating and drinking venue on a Sunday Fox and Anchor which serves beer in nice tankards, has an awesome jazz band on Sundays (shh – don’t tell anyone) and just awesome food.

I came here in the last few weeks, one to catch up with Gaz and Mike on the Easter weekend (yes, I know a long time ago)

And more recently when Mike was in town from Brooklyn.

Sidetip: It’s worth trying the scotch egg if you ever go here. One of the best ever!

Six Nations in Rome, Italy beats Ireland

For the past eight weeks, I have been working in Hamburg, Germany on a near-shored project to Geneva. As a result, I lost a bit of time commuting and haven’t found the time to really catch up on blogging.

In April, I took the yearly weekend trip to Rome to watch Italy play in the Six Nations rugby challenge. This year, they were up against the Irish, and amazingly won. I think it’s only England and Wales that they are left to beat and I’m sure it won’t be too long now.

Luca and I flew into Rome on a Friday night. Toni was supposed to come along, but ditched us along the way due to other committments. He did book our accomodation which was a nice enough bed and breakfast but was a little bit further away from town than what we really should have been. Fortunately the weather that weekend was grand – enough for a light coat in the evenings, blue sky and warm sunshine.

As these weekends tended to go, we got up for a rather lazy breakfast, walked around town for a bit with lots of great photo opportunities around The Vatican. It was particulary busy that weekend because not only had the new pope been voted in, but there was also the Rome Marathon on the Sunday when we left.

We walked around all day, heading out to the stadium. This year’s trek was much nicer in the sunshine compared to last year’s tromping around in freezing snow. We had the perfect seats as well – very close and fortunately in the sunny side of the stadium where I think I even got a little sunburned sitting there all afternoon.

We had a late dinner booked at the wonderful La Carbonara which did not disappoint. It’s the one further away from the centre and you definitely need reservations. We saw numerous people turned away.

When I booked the flights, I wasn’t quite sure where I was going to be yet, so I had an early flight back on Sunday. It was a good thing too since I needed to get home, repack before organising my things for the early flight out the next morning.

A lovely weekend all around.

Our Hotel in Funchal

We stayed at the Quintinha São João Hotel nestled just a short walk away from the old town. My sister did the research and booked a deal with one of the travel websites to get us the deal. It probably took us about a 10 minute walk to get to the old town, although the walk back was often much longer because the hotel is up a reasonably steep hill.

The room that we had was absolutely massive. It had enough space for two beds, a comfortable sitting lounge, a very large bathroom and it also came with a balcony. Free wi-fi (important for us!) was available although the signal was pretty weak from our room. They could use a repeater to get the signal stronger in all the different rooms. Fortunately it worked quite well if you’re sitting in the sitting rooms on either of the two floors, or the lounge room on the main floor that also hosts some evening happy hour drinks.

We played a number of games of pool and table tennis in their games room and they also had a reasonably sized gym that we never really took advantage of. They had both an outdoor and a covered pool but I guess the weather wasn’t warm enough for anyone to use it.

Breakfast was a great spread of lots of different things, and they even do a cooked breakfast with whatever you want as well. I stopped after our second day because there are only so many cooked breakfasts you can have. I’d certainly recommend the hotel although if you want something without a hike up big hill, you may want to look for something further downtown.

Skiing in Morzine

I didn’t get to go skiing last year and Negin was gracious enough to organise this year’s trip to Morzine, which sat pretty much on the other side of the mountain from our last trip to Les Get.

Morzine

Like last time, twelve of us shared a common chalet. I think this year’s one definitely takes the award at being the best ski accommodation of them all. I think it’s also probably set very high expectations for future events. Not only was the building very new, but the wonderful hosts from Mountain Spaces had thought of a lot.

Mountain Spaces

For example, the chalet came equipped with six walkie talkies that we could distribute amongst the group and use on the mountain. Though they didn’t work across mountain ranges, these were quite fun to use and we did use it a fair bit trying to co-ordinate when to meet up for lunch or at the end of the day.

Walkie Talkies

Chalet Le Milan Noir didn’t stop there as well. The place came equipped with a new, modern hot tub, an indoor sauna and the entrance to the lodge had boot warmers, ski hooks to hold the gear and a separate place to hang your ski jackets from the rest of your stuff.

Chalet Le Milan Noir

We were definitely spoilt with fresh cakes in the afternoon when we arrived, an amazing breakfast spread (although no nutella) of cereals, croissants, juices, fresh coffee/tea and an egg of the day not to mention an aperitif/snack before the daily three course meal ending with a cheese course and unlimited bottles of wine during dinner. The wine was actually really great as well with two choices of red and white every night.

Like last time, we had really good luck with the skiing conditions. It snowed pretty much every day resulting in a heavy, thick layer of powder – perfect to soften those black runs and make off-piste look even more appealing than the piste. The snow did have side-effects of removing a lot of the visibility but we did end up with two of the six days of skiing super fresh powder and amazingly clear snow.

Some of the highlights of the skiing part were definitely heading over to Mont Chery and heading over to Chatel. Mont Chery has only a handful of runs – mostly reds and blacks but this means that it was less busy than many of the other slopes and a great place to push yourself when covered with thick amounts of powder. Our trip to Chatel was also a fantastic day where we headed out early and came back on one of the last slopes having skiing as much as we could.

Morzine at Night

With great company and great facilities at home, we only headed into town a couple of nights but it was definitely a bigger city than what I remember Les Get being.

Raclette

A few of us had to try the raclette again (some of us had it twice during the week!) although I’m convinced that we didn’t do enough skiing to really work off all the wonderful food and drink that we indulged in for the week. But, it was a holiday after all.

Chalet Le Milan Noir

A really great week of skiing and one that I definitely won’t forget for some time.