The Munchkin's Notebook

  View across the river Today started like usual with us getting up at 7:00 AM and getting breakfast.  The breakfast at this hotel, in my opinion, isn’t as good as the breakfast in the last hotel.  Also, the air condition in our room basically sucks, when I set to 18C I expect to be cold not lukewarm.     We started with a walking tour of Porto, thankfully it was rather cool and overcast this morning, and Porto is rather tiny if you are looking at just important buildings. The tour started with a trip across the street to the train station which is very pretty.   From there we walked about a minute over to the Avenue of Allies, then another minute over to the first church of the tour.   We then walked a little more to see the hidden house which is sandwiched between two churches, one we could go into for free and the other we would have to pay for.  From there we walked to the past of the famous bookstore Livrarie Lello, with the ...

Crossing the Bridge into Porto  Today we got up at 7:00AM, had breakfast and packed up our stuff to start the journey to Porto.  The first thing we had to do was check out of the hotel, then call an Uber to take us to the rental car place.  Just a small shout out to the staff of the hotel for being able to accommodate receiving an Amazon package for me. I was able to order a camera battery charger off amazon and have it delivered to the hotel, the staff checked the address to ensure it was correct and received the package for me. Great service in that regard.  Now back to the trip.  We picked up the rental car from AVIS around 9:30 AM.  They gave us a little Citron hatchback which is about the right size for driving around Portugal and its cities, while still handling all our luggage.   We did get the extra insurance, just for piece of mind.   From there we exited the city of Lisbon and got on their version of a freeway.   Ou...

Old Morish Castle as Seen from Penna Palace Today we got up at 7:00 AM and had breakfast downstairs, then prepped for day’s tour.  The tour company hired us a private car to drive us to Sintra to see Penna Palace.  The only way to really get to Sintra if you are tourist is if you are on a tour, have a driver, or take the train then catch a taxi to the palace.  Since we had a private car/guide, they were able to drive us up to the palace and guide us through the entrance.   We had “fast pass” tickets to the palace plus transfer tickets.  The transfer tickets let you ride the small bus up to the top of the hill where the palace is located, without making the 15-30 minute walk up the hill.  Trust me, the transfer is worth it.  Once at the actual place you make your way through the hoards of tour groups to find the entrance where they take your ticket.  Now the ticket says skip the line, but it is a lie, you still have to wait in line till your t...

View from the hilltop in the old part of the city Today we got up at 07:00AM after sleeping for about 12 hours.  I will say the bed in the hotel is comfy and is a normal king-sized bed, not that fake king-sized you sometimes get.   We had breakfast at the hotel, since it is included.  Breakfast included a buffet of bread, pastries, fresh fruit, cheeses, sliced meats, yogurt stuff, and then your choice of eggs made to order.  I had scrambled with bacon and Jim had an omelette.  The bacon was very thinned sliced and possibly a relative of prosciutto and had a hint of sage to it, tasty.  We also had a tiny Pastel de Nata (egg custard tarts), which are found everywhere in Lisbon.  To drink, we had black tea, and I had a glass of orange juice, and Jim had one of their morning breakfast drink which was green and might have had cucumber in it.   Then it was back to the room to prepare for the morning tour. Our tour guide met us at the hote...

May 18 and May 19 were basically travel days.  We arrived at Dulles airport around 1:20PM for a 5:20 PM flight.  While I pre-paid for parking in the garage so I would have a spot, I didn’t pay for an actual reserved space, so we took about 20 minutes finding an open space that wasn’t labeled reserve.   The check in process while smooth, was not up to what I would consider British Airway standard.   We were in the business class line, since that was what we were flying, and the ticketing agent for that business class ended up opening up all lines and wrangling economy passengers.  So, we were left hanging until someone noticed.  They also didn’t have our pre-check information because the online form never asked for it, so we went through regular security.  Though the regular security line was way shorter and faster than pre-check, it took us about 5-10 minutes.  From there we went to go hang out in the British Airways lounge, which does...

On April 11 th , I did a cosplay session with Kawa to test a new graphic backdrop, in the style of an ornate white wall. Kawa chose Oscar from the Rose of Versailles for this shoot which complemented the backdrop due to its palace wall feel.   For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Westcott FJ400 Strobes 2 c-stands 2 Rectangular Soft boxes 1 Bell Reflector w/ barndoors & Grid 1 Backdrop stand 1 Graphic Backdrop Sandbags Clamps Spyder color checker Laptop Teather cable 2 Gold flower stands 5 Gold flower planters Spring flowers (daffodils & tulips) Styrofoam Tiny table Silver velvet fabric Chair Fake candles The set up My goal for this shoot was to see how the ornate white wall backdrop would photograph.  I have a dark ornate wall backdrop that works well because of ho...