The X100 - Pain and Bliss

It is the latest addition to my camera bag - the Fuji X100.

Six months I had battled with the decision of whether I should spend a thousand Euros on a quirky camera. And I am still not sure. But the money is gone and so I'm making friends with this thing, this prima donna , this nuisance, this marvel. 

It lacks everything I had in my old Canon compact, the S95: reliability, functional certainty, simple operation, a zoom lens, sufficient battery life, small size, and resistance to abuse. Yet if gave me the most important thing a photographer can hope for: stunning pictures.

But the joy is conditional. You have to coax the X100 into compliance, you have to stroke it and talk gently to it, whisper a compliment at the right moment and pull its chair out. 

Just last night it drove me crazy. I sat in a restaurant with a friend and wanted to take her picture, because the light was so beautiful and she looked nice. The first picture came out completely dark. I couldn't see why. Second picture, same thing. I checked all the menus. Nothing. Third picture: starry night. The moment was gone, my friend started eating and I ordered another cocktail to wash down the disappointment. 

After the meal I looked at the camera again and saw that the shutter speed dial had accidentally moved from the automatic setting to 1/4000th of a second, the position right next to it. This could never have happened with any camera I have ever owned and it is only one of many steps in the painful learning process that comes with the X100. You literally have to unlearn many of the things you took for granted and give in to the new rules. 

Once you do, a new world opens up to you, a world that you cannot see with modern cameras. It's like records and mp3s. It's the same music, but it sounds better.

Between China and Japan - Part 1

“I’ll give you a seat in the front row with more leg room.” This was the first sentence I ever heard from the mouth of a real-life Korean person. The words were spoken by a female airline attendant at Frankfurt International Airport and not only contained cheerful news for my body, but a powerful message from the center of the Korean soul: “We don’t know who you are, but we will go out of our way to help you.”

It’s hard to describe Korea to Westerners. It’s even harder to explain why one would go to Korea, voluntarily no less.

While Korea has its place in the North American culture, most of Europe, including my German homeland, is largely oblivious to the existence of this far eastern nation. Even if people were able to find the country on a map, they most likely would have no idea about its culture. In fact, they would be hard pressed to imagine what Korean people looked like or what currency they used.

When making arrangements for my flight to Seoul, I began researching online to see if German travel companies offered any package deals I might benefit from. I found offers for Thailand, Vietnam and China. Korea, however, was nowhere to be found. Finding a travel guide in a bookstore proved equally impossible.

As disappointing as this was, it was also a good sign, because it meant that I was very unlikely to encounter large groups of German all-inclusive tourist or any establishments catering to their needs. 

I booked a ticket with Asiana, a Korean airline, and decided to begin my trip in the capital city of Seoul. It made sense at the time to start with the biggest city and that hunch proved correct.

The flight from Frankfurt to Seoul was by far the quietest and most relaxed air travel experience I have ever had, certainly after 9/11. The Korean cabin crew’s attitude can only be described as restrained and respectful. No barking orders, no “You need to buckle up, Sir!” There was not even a safety briefing, or if there was one it was so unobtrusive as to be invisible. In short, I was left in peace.

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Sleepless in Korea

It's 5.30 in the morning and I'm sitting in bed, my back propped up against a wall with a pillow wedged in between for comfort.

I've been in Korea for a week now, but the jet lag is taking its time to subside.

The bed I'm sitting in belongs to a small guesthouse in Gyeongju, a town in the southeast of the country. Gyeongju is one of the oldest cities in Korea and known for its cultural treasures, temples and tombs.

For me coming here is more of a break from Seoul, the place I spend most of my time at in Korea. I love Seoul, yet the big city hustle can take its toll and at some point you just need to get out for a while. The other reason is the family that owns the guesthouse. It's really their private home and they provide some of the rooms for people to stay in, so it all has a very personal touch to it. Sometimes they even make dinner for everyone.

I like these people for their warmth and readiness to accept complete strangers into their house. And there are quite a few now, about 6 or 7 Korean girls and a guy from France who lived in Korea for a few years and now returned for a nostalgia trip. I love those trips, too.

The Mallorca Chronicles

This is a story about my trip to Mallorca, last February. I haven't had a chance to publish it yet, but here it is now. Enjoy!

The German winter of 2010 had been early, cold and unbelievably snowy. In fact, no one could remember ever having seen so much snow in my area. City streets were flanked by ploughed-up banks of snow so high you couldn’t see over top of them. Every now and then these banks would be interrupted by comically car-shaped hills, containing someone’s Volkswagen or BMW. People could be seen digging holes where license plates would be, in an effort to make sure that excavating the rest of the vehicle was time worth spending. Suffice it to say, the Germans were challenged that year and rather unimpressed by the effects of global warming.

By February 2011, the snow had all but melted and temperatures had settled in that strangely uncomfortable range just around the freezing point. While that’s rather mild for February, it is decidedly too cold for me. Two months in the white hell had eaten at my coping skills and my stiff upper lip had chapped. It was time to make an escape.

There aren’t too many options for really warm weather in Europe at this time of year, unless you want to spend five hours on a plane flying to the Canary Islands, where it’s always warm. But then, being located off the West coast of Morocco, the Canaries don’t really qualify as part of Europe, in my view.

Southern mainland Spain is always a possibility, of course, and I did contemplate it. With daytime temperatures safely above 15 degrees Celsius, it certainly qualified. However, there is a particular place in Spain that I had heard countless reports of, but never visited myself: the island of Mallorca.

I am not a mainstream person by any means. If everyone goes crazy about something, I will reliably pass. So, places like Mallorca usually don’t hold much interest for me. But the prospect of a short two-hour flight and a favorable weather forecast changed my mind. I was willing to give it a whirl, started my research and picked a small town on the island’s southwest coast called Paguera.

Unbelievably, 350 Euros (about $450) bought me a full week of accommodation at a 3-star hotel, including breakfast, roundtrip airfare and bus transfer from and to the airport. I have no idea who benefitted from this deal, other than me, but apparently someone did.

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