Montpelier, France

From Plain-Jane's Travels

Montpelier made a Francophile out of me. The quality of life here is just amazing - the city is lovely (stone buildings from centuries ago, tree-lined walkable roads), the weather was gorgeous and the food was sumptious. The more I travel, the more I believe that we accept crap for food in the States. We're willing to eat mass-produced junk because it's cheap and easy - and it affects our bodies accordingly. (Not that I have a place to lecture - I eat plenty of fast food because real food takes effort. And, after years of eating Gu, Infinit and other endurance nutrition, some of my tastebuds and "protests to yuk" have died.)

From Plain-Jane's Travels

Pete's Photos

Pete's pictures from the trip are here.

Photos

My favorite photos from the trip can be found here.

Eat. Eat More. Sleep.

From Asia 2010

Our time in Tokyo felt action-packed, and we spent a lot of it eating. Everytime we saw (or smelt something tasty), we made sure to stop for a bite. This trip was a short sampling of Tokyo, but it was fun nonetheless.

My food memories:

• Ramen with pork belly. We saw this later, but we put money into a machine that printed a ticket of what we wanted. We then handed the ticket to the hostess. Of course it was tasty, it's pork belly.
• Omakase sushi. Best sushi ever. Found out that one of my favorite's, bonito, is only seasonally available, and November is the best time for it. Bonito, otoro, chu-toro, unago (salt water eel), yellow tail snapper, flounder, live clam, fresh shrimp (cooked medium rare), tomago, sea urchin. Felt like we ate all the stuff we saw diving the previous week :)
• Fresh purple potato waffle. Really good despite not sounding so.
• Some more sushi at the Tsujiki fish market. Tiny restaurant with 3 sushi chefs serving 10 people. Would have been the best sushi ever if not for the previous day. Reinforced my belief that you should just look for lines if you don't have a firm recommendation on where to go. Also, it's also pretty convenient if you're by yourself - I skipped ahead in line since there was a spot for just one person.
• Build your own udon bowl. Once again, we looked for a crowded restaurant and got a pleasant surprise. Pick your tempura and then choose which soup/size you want for the udon.
• Food from convenience stores. You can get meals that are heated up in the microwave. Not the best nutritionally, but pretty good considering it's from a 7-11 equivalent.

From Asia 2010

Other memories:

• Flaming Lips/Mew concert. Musically, I like Mew, but Flaming Lips put on a good show. Lots of balloons and confetti. Even better seeing folks in suits jamming out to the music.
• On the walk between the hotel and Shinjuku station, an eyeglass store had set out a station to clean eyeglasses. Great way to get folks to read/listen to your ads.
• Free tissue packets - hand out something useful so people take your advertisements.
• Rule abiding/demure folks. Bikes didn't seem as locked up and everyone was careful to stand on the left of escalators and walk on the right. When you put it in this context, the Flaming Lips show is more interesting culturally.
• Timely trains and lots of good signs/maps in the stations and around tourist attractions.
• Incredibly stylish folks.

From Asia 2010

It Depends...

From Asia 2010

From Asia 2010

It depends on what you make of the situation. The dive team at Wakatobi asked us to submit six of our favorite shots from the week for a presentation. Two of the six were from night dives using the S90.

My two thoughts about this:

• I'm too frazzled by night dives to use anything other than a point and shoot. I also like to use a flash light in one hand and the camera in another. The SLR (even without the housing) is just too big to do this.
• We only have one strobe for each camera, and both are on the left. Sometimes, I want to light the subject from the right. If I want the strobe far out enough, I have to go upside down. I'm not good enough a diver to balance the SLR and take the picture upside down.

From Asia 2010

Sometimes, It's Luck

From Asia 2010

Sometimes, It's the Gear

From Asia 2010

I'm a big believer in it's the user and not the gear. This is particularly true in cycling and triathlon, and often in photography. Above water, we often don't use the limits of the simple gear that we have. Unless I'm using a special lens, I couldn't tell the difference between the S90 and the SLR in daily shots. Underwater, there is a huge difference between the two. The speed and sharpness of the SLR+100mm lens makes the difference between in and out of focus.

To keep thing's interesting, I borrowed Ed's fish eye lens to mount atop the S90 housing. The mount wasn't made for this particular housing, so you'll see some vignetting. I like the effect, so I kept it where possible.

From Asia 2010

Ed, Pete's brother.

From Asia 2010

Pufferfish at a cleaning station. The cleaner fish are swimming through the mouth/gills of the puffer to remove parasites and other junk.