Mincho's Adventures

I have changed my life seriously by going to do a PhD in the Middle East. This blog is some sort of a travel guid and a block note of the things that I have encountered on my way there.

[minchokavaldzhiev]

To the steps of the desert caravans by Mincho Kavaldzhiev (Storehouse)

by Mincho Kavaldzhiev

I have moved my blog, so I am going to post only link here from now on. Please consider following me on the other platform.

Cheers

[minchokavaldzhiev]

La plage diving spot in Saudi Arabia. One weekend spend with some amazing friends. Pictures courtesy of Arpys!

story will follow shortly.

[minchokavaldzhiev]

HONG KONG (Asia 1)

Hello Dear Reader,

I have arrived in Asia for the first time of my life two days ago(25 Sept. 2014)  and I have to say that so far i am enjoying it. So this first blog post series about my experience in the Mainland China and Hong Kong.

I was traveling with the economy option from Jeddah Saudi arabia through Dubai, Tailand and finally to arrive at Hong Kong. Before starting about my experience here, I have to quote my friend Greg, who encouraged me to be more open minded : " Have an open mind my friend we all do things differently, If we all did things one way, we would not be individuals". Thank you bro for the valuable lesson! I couldn't stop thinking about it every time when I have to make a judgement about something that I have experience here in Asia. Anyway, lets start talking business as the location require.

I arrived at the airport, where I confront myself with everything new, and especially the language barrier. My friend from KAUST who was suppose to be there, arrived with two hours delay and I stayed without almost a charge on my iPod to send him a message and without a way of communication. We met at the MUJI TO GO place in the airport and we took from there in the depths of Hong Kong.

We took the high speed train between the airport and the center of the town and i loved it. As soon as we went on the surface in Hong Kong, I was hit by the LED light from all the panels that were indicating small shops and services. That really reminded me about the movies and this was my first impression ever from Hong Kong, that its a city like from a movie!!!

The dynamism of this place is just incredible, knowing that most of the business is done on the street directly. 

I was suppose to meet a reseller that night from DJI company selling drones and gimbal for my DSLR. The problem was that we need a place to do that business with him. Our "hotel" room was really like a prison, only 9 m2 room for two people and their luggage is really not enough. We couldn't meet him at the hotel so we have to think about something else. The first idea was the coffee place, but the coffee places in Hong Kong are so narrow small coffee places and that's why everybody stays on the street. 

The guy came to us to our small place in the middle of nowhere in Hong Kong and we started to walk in the city with a giant box that looked like designed for weapons. We couldn't find anything after 30 min of walking so in the middle of the night (10pm) , we decided to go to the park and do the showing off the product. We opened the box, people start to gather around us and to wonder what is it. At that moment i really felt like i was in a drug dealing situation, since it was my first 2 hours in Hong Kong and I already dealing with some guy wanted to resell me stuff. It was just a crazy experience. The guy said us that for a hongkongese, they prefer to finish something in one minute instead of two, so any place is good for business.

I won't tell you how difficult we have dealt with buying from him cause he didn't accept credit and only cash or paypal, and we were out of battery and internet to make any transaction over the internet, so it was a real adventure who finished good, because in the end we went back to our hotel with the product. The weather in Hong Kong this time of the year was super hot, I was so surprised by this cause we are in the October basically in two days.

Anyway, the night of hong kong is crazy, a lot of young people everywhere eating food. I bough as well the new iPhone 6+ for my vacation in Asia cause come on, electronics place is here so it will be crime to go to china and not buy some electronic products. Since it was not from the official store but from some small reseller that have preordered a huge quantities of the iPhone, it was a funny experience as well. We went to his shop, and the first thing that stroke me was his hat with the writing : Sorry I am fresh. 

This was a the second drug dealer smuggler experience that I have. I though again about the words of my friend Greg, and that make me calm and accept the world as it is. 

So let me resume : Arrived at Hong Kong around 20h at the night of 25 of September. On 1am in the morning of 26th of September I already spend 4000$ and ate some good chinese food. It was just crazy especially for me who doesn't do shopping so much.

The night was calm and warm as most of the night in hong Kong are. The people are really nice and there is some sense of order, specially in the moving stairs on the exits of the metro's. I really loved the spirit of the city that everything is moving fast and its so technological from all point of view low and high end hardware was everywhere.

I took a small walk near the bay area where i took some shots of night hong kong building that you can see on the pictures and I also met Bruce Li !!! One of my childhood character drams for the first time represented in statue. I couldn't hold myself and pose with him. The allay of the stars in Hong Kong combines celebrities like Jet li and others very well know chinese famous artists.

Alright this is a bit long blog post, but I will post soon some pictures from Shezhen cause now I am there, and left outside the normal world without Facebook, Google and other stuff that are blocked by the great firewall of China!!!

Cheers,

Mincho

[minchokavaldzhiev]

International Coastal Cleanup

Every year on the 20th of September, people around the world gather to do what the other people don't. Cleanup the coastal reef that we all enjoy seeing in pictures and videos and specially the places where we most likely go to our vacations.

To learn more about the even from the organisers you can click here.

One of my friends Alex, took the initiative to organise us for that goal here in SAUDI ARABIA, where the pollution is .......let's be honest, just everywhere. The coast line is no exception, where millions of animals are facing extinction because of eating plastic. Mhm yeah, Plastic unfortunately it's not so fantastic, for them, as for us.

So, we rented a car and went to the nearest coast which is the one to Rabigh. We spend 45 minutes to fill all of our bags of trash and to cover an area of a little bit more than 10000 m2 (107,63.91 ft2 , 15M inch^2 , 2,4710537 Acres, 0.0038610214 miles2), choose your unit.

I have found out objects from sandals to automobile tires, millions of cups, bottles, chips and cans. What really impressed me is that nature is actually fighting this pollution by dissolving everything into tiny particles. Unfortunately in this process, all the bio diversity is gone, due to high pollution.

We have adopted a little friend of ours on the way too. The small geko loved the hat of Sabrina and he stayed there. The little bugger was so afraid to go anywhere so he was not moving and probably didn't know what do to while we are playing around.

Our friend Dhafer prepared the saudi coffee to celebrate our efforts and we all peacefully  finished the day by going back to Rabigh and take some food from the local shop ( which i have to give them credit here was super good! ).

If you want to join, please let us know, we are accepting participants in this event.

I had an awesome day and I would like to thank to : Alex, Tünde, Rio, Sabrina and Dhafer, to be amazing people and to bring me with them on that adventure.

Next blogpost will be probably somewhere from China -)

Cheers,

Mincho

[minchokavaldzhiev]

TAIF TRIP

It was one of these hot days here in Saudi Arabia where you think that its a good day to go and take a small trip to the closest mountains which is almost 4 hours drive.

This happened to me back in the days in August, but since I was frequently busy organising things and doing research, but this post is not about that.

Taif are the mountains located in the south east part of Mecca. While going to that place we have been escorted by 4 SUV and 3 police cars with the religious police and the normal Saudi police. I won't hide from you guys that I felt like a hot chick that day.

We stopped by a museum of arabian culture and history and I took some pictures of old things that they have inside. Special interest was the old camera which is no more in operation, but who have the patience to stay for 10 minutes to have his picture taken, while the exposure is going on and on.

Interesting enough were the small perfume bottles and as well the soft drink that nobody use anymore, by the simple reason that plastic is fantastic -).

We took a lunch in a restaurant, which was situated on the top of mountain where they have a cable car lift to a water park which we only passed over, because it was only for men. Should I put men in parentheses since most of them were boys. Yes, you heard me only boys, no women there. May be they were but on some hidden from the eyes of everyone place, segregation over and over again, I am getting quiet used to it by now.

We stopped by a beautiful place,but so polluted with plastic bags all over the place. I want to address myself to Saudi people : Dear Saudi, you really should care more about your nature. Even if it seems deserty, you shouldn't pull out your garbage all over the place, it just makes you look bad in the eyes of the foreigners and the rest of the world. 

So yeah, we have the chance to ride some camels, I didn't try because it was not my gig, but most of the friends with whom I was there, they gladly accepted to do that, because hey its saudi arabia.

That's it, party people, I am signing out.

Cheers,

Mincho

[minchokavaldzhiev]

Hello Dear reader,

It has been almost a century, since my last blogpost here, because things has been spinning super fast for me the last couple of weeks.

In this blogpost, I wanted to share with you some of experiences in the old part of Jeddah. 

First and foremost, I have to give credit to our guide, who was super kind to show us the old part and to share with us the stories, that I am going to tell you here.

I have to admit that until now, Jeddah was not one of my favourite places to photograph, but the old town showed me some really cool buildings and mainly that this town is with rich culture. You have to imagine that this town was created 3000 years ago and still exist and expanding. In the old part of the city there are many excavations sites, as mosques and other cultural places which have been discovered recently. The mosque that I photographed in the last picture is 1500 years old. Most of the constructions materials here are directly taken from the read sea, which means corals. It turns out that the coral material is perfect for this part of the planet since its abundant, super light and good isolator. Since there is no wood in this part of the planet, except of coarse the palm threes, may of the ships which has been arrived here, have been deconstruct in order to make houses. Jeddah is until now the main road for a lot of people doing pilgrimage to Mecca, with its big harbour,which used less today in the era of the airplanes.

Such a megapolis in the last century was a good prey for many colonisers including the spanish one. But they couldn't succeed in colonising the city since all the water system has been conserved and sealed inside the city and the soldiers died mainly from running out of water. Yeah, take that spanish invaders!!!

Many of the windows here are properly sealed with wood, which is a typical for way of building in the hot countries. The same aspects you can find in the south of France, where the temperatures are similar.

There are many interesting shops in the old part, which are selling incredible stuff that you can not find anywhere. You can find as well tailors, making traditional abayas and gutras, as well peanuts shops and all kind of other food.

I have visited one of the oldest houses in jeddah, which is now a museum and we went on the top of it to listen to the night prayer. I have to admit that even for none muslim, the night prayer is quiet an amazing experience from this location. You can hear the Hamam singing from all around you and if you close your eyes is quiet an enchanting music. I asked one of my friends to translate me what is he singing in arabic and he told me that in the prayer they say : " Let us all to be guided in the right path, no matter if we are christians, or muslims, or buddist", and I found that quite cool.

Alright, I hope you enjoyed the post, I am going to make another one from my trip to Taif mountains very soon.

Have a nice and beautiful day dear reader!!!

Cheers,

Mincho

[minchokavaldzhiev]

Water Bubbles

Yesterday I started to do something that I have never done before in my life, and yes you guessed it, that was diving.

I posted basically these pictures for you to laugh at me with this hat, you should thank me to bring you 10 sec of health because of that.Normally, I do not wear hats because of this guffy head that they make me look, not that I don't have the same look without the hat, but thats another topic.

Anyhow, I am going to make my first open water dive this saturday and I feel a bit enthusiastic about it, since I had never dive into the red sea so far, and its a pity since its too close for me here. I really expect to see some amazing corals since I don't have any experience with such things in my life.

So adventures awaits me but stay tuned because in the late september I am going to China for two weeks and I will be posting a lot from there. After China there is two USA trips that awaits me but I am still waiting for the my USA visa and this is taking ridiculously long time. I feel really excited about all of these.

Best,

Mincho K. 

[minchokavaldzhiev]

Tea Time

Hello Dear Reader,

I took a small vacation back in France to shoot some weddings that you can see in my portfolio (the link above) and to spend my time with these beautiful girls (Delphine and Elodie). So before you judge me that I was not putting much content here I have to say that this will change in the future, so stay tuned.

I have visited several places like Lyon, Grenoble and Beaurières and every time it was amazing experience. Every now and then we took a tea break with french pastries of coarse, sharing memorable stories about my life in Saudi Arabia.

If I have to say one phrase about my vacation in France it will be that the French people know how to cook and may be thats why they are so picky, because they are always seeking of these perfection of smells and tastes that they know.

I came to the conclusion that people don't know so much about the culture and how the people live here, they only hear news about Isralians and Palestinians getting killed every day, but Saudi Arabia is still the wild wild west for most of the people.

Well, my Saudi friends will be happy to hear that I will be willing to change this common opinion at least upon my friends.

Alright, see you in the next post.

Mincho K.

[minchokavaldzhiev]

The Sexy Science #6

Hello, hello dear reader! I hope you are doing ok, because I am doing great!

First of all, Happy Ramadan to all my Saudi Friends and their families! 

This shoot is a part of my series "The Sexy Science" that I have started on my old portfolio blog page.

You have to understand that, In the place where I am living, the girls are literally coming and going, and it is the case with this beautiful model as well. So If I am not ready to photograph them, then I will definitely miss some good opportunity to have nice pictures and nice time.

But this girl is more than a model, she is a friend, she is a scientist working on how the CO2 is impacting the ocean and the whole global warming, designing computer models in order to collect data from around the world and to crunch it into beautiful pictures showing the influence of that warming effect on our oceans! Thats said, I am really impressed with her!

I am as well preparing a small video of the shoot that will come in the up comings weeks. I can't wait to put my hands on it, but first I have to do some diving in the red sea this week before my flight to France.

I will keep you posted as always -).

Cheers,

Mincho

[minchokavaldzhiev]

I really enjoyed reading about your trips, i think you should visit Qatar, its much more fun than saudi arabia and i'm sure you will love it

Thanks for the tip. I will definitely do that!

[minchokavaldzhiev]

Bill Gates

Dear Blog reader,

Thank you that you have time to read all of this words that I am writing for you everyday.

Somedays are passing so interesting here in this place. For example from this morning, I have problems with leaking AC in my apartment, with some VISA applications to go outside of Saudi Arabia and so many other stuff. I was so excited and angry in the same time from my situation. Then I went to work and in even get worst, by some fines that I have to pay to not respecting some delays. And then suddenly my buddy in the photo call me and tell me to go immediately to building 3 and take my go pro with me. 

I couldn't even ask him what it is about. So I was walking to there calmly and still thinking about the AC and the VISA issues. Approaching the building the security guy told me to not take the elevator because it was jammed. I was thinking, how is it possible that a security here will keep an elevator that it is jammed? Doesn't make any sense.

After I went on the 3th floor, I noticed that everyone was there and wanted to photograph something inside the lab. I asked my friend what was happening and he told me that Bill Gates is here. 

Then immediately i switched the Go pro on. Infact since my day is so lucky from the morning, the battery was down! 

Just GREAT!

Anyhow, I had a glimpse of Bill Gates and seeing him in person greeting everyone in the place was so nice. Unfortunately no question were addressed to him, neither we had the opportunity to take pictures.

As mysterious this country is . everything about his visit stayed in secret. I couldn't even ask where he will be after this building. So not cool!

Today it was a tremendous day. One of the biggest figures in the computer world, that I was following for a long time was 2 meters from me.

JUST WOW!

My Fuji X100s , make the day even cooler by taking a clear shot of him.

Have a nice and warm day all of you!

Cheers,

Mincho K.

[minchokavaldzhiev]

POWER

Electricity here is a big thing. Most of it comes from burning oil, and not even refined oil. From the ecological point of view this sucks, the power grids in Saudi Arabia as a new developing country are not at all optimised in terms of consumption and efficiency.

This place has a huge potential for solar green energy, I would love to see something like Transcendent movie happening here, where Johnny Depp is deploying his self heeling solar panels across the desert. The sun is literally going out everyday from 6 am to 7 pm, considering the dust that can affect the efficiency of decent solar panel, this is time window is enough to power most of the cities here.

Also from ecological point of view, this place needs to improve. The guy who will come here and start a refurbishing and recycling factory here will be covered in gold, since the locals using the desert to dump their trash.

However I am positive about the future of this country and its development. I am pretty sure that Saoudi Arabia will surpass most of the countries in terms of green energy development and economical growth when the petroleum is no longer the dictating currency, because here the potential of developement is huge!

[minchokavaldzhiev]

Art

Everyone is right now hooked on the Game of Thrones series. I seriously don't watch it, since its a never ending story with a lot sex and violence and I don't know what. Normally a movie of one and half hour is enough for me to appreciate such a thing. The illustrations that you see are the fruit of the hard work of Mike Wrobel ,so please go and follow his tumblr page : moshi-kun.tumblr.com! 

Next week I am finally starting research and I can't be more excited about it!

So do you watch game of thrones? Who is your favourite character and why?

[minchokavaldzhiev]

The Spot

Hello Dear Reader,

I have to say that, I was extremely excited from my discovery this week. I found my new shoot place, where I will probably have my next editorial shoot with a beautiful Chinese model, so stay tune in. I photographed some couple of selfies -) ,in order to share just a tiny sneak peak of it.

Icona Pop with " Ready for the weekend " and " I love it " was in my ears while I was watching the sunset and made this place even more special.

I wanted to show you as well a Paintball game organised for us, but the photos on such locations were strictly prohibited. As far the game was, I have to say that with my height I got several head shots, but oh well what I can do?

Next two weeks I will pretty busy with some academic stuff and also starting a reportage video for graduate affaires. Anyhow, see you around

Have a sunny and lovely weekend everyone!

MK

[minchokavaldzhiev]

Yanbu!

Hello Dear Reader!

I had the chance to make a small trip to Yanbu, which is a city located at around 240km from the place I live in Saudi arabia or in other words its a 2h30 minute drive in one way. 

On my way there I was surrounded by the typical landscape characterising the country sand sand and more sand, but I found some cool stuff like an oil refinery. So we decided to go and take some pictures during the night because it was awesome as you may see from the pictures.

At some point our GPS was showing speed and locations that were not at all exact, so we were forced to stop the car, and start googling. I can't imagine what the people were doing before to get location on such places.

What I really like in Saudi Arabia is the oil service. In Europe you have to go outside of your car, tank the car yourself, go to a little cabin where you hang your card to a person that you don't know and you pay, or if you are really lucky you pay directly on the machine. Here the things are a little bit different. People use to have a service, where a person is in charge of the tanking of the car (most of the time indian) and after he finish the job, we pay him in cash (always), and he has a whole stack of money in his hand like a boss to give us the change. I like it!

The crazy thing about this country is that you can never expect what the people are doing on the street. Road regulations? No way, people are crossing the roads whenever they want, from where it is possible. May be I am exaggerating a little bit, but I got really scared seeing people on the road most of the time. The part of the problem is the lack of sidewalk, the other part is the lack of habits. But this is ok I guess.

Saudi Arabia is in heavy development. Constructions sides are everywhere, hiring people from the Philippins and India in order to build everywhere in the desert and working in the oil refineries.

Oh yeah, about the oil refineries, I found them very beautiful places to photographe, very futuristic but the life span on this places can not be longer than 60 years. The smell is so bad, that going to make you vomit. Perhaps you adapt  after certain period of time, but for a first time visit such place it was harsh for me.

Anyhow, we were completely lost in Yanbu around 7pm and our GPS was very helpful as always so we arrived at the wrong airport. Apperantly they have build two airport and abandon one of them due to location reasons. 

We went inside of the abandon airport with hope to find anyone to get to the new one, but no luck at all. Fortunately the girl that we have to pick up give us the GPS co-ordinates of the new airport so we have entered this in the machine and we were there in less than 15 min.

Everything went smoothly, we tanked the car on our way because our Chevrolet consumed 30 litters in 240km, but we payed something like 9$ for the oil -) We loved this country because of that! You can not beat the price of the oil.

And thats it, I hope you enjoyed this little trip. 

Stay safe -) 

Mincho

[minchokavaldzhiev]

Local food

Hello Dear Reader,

Tonight was the night where we went in the very tradition restaurant far away from touristic places in Jeddah and we had a local food just like the locals. 

This action involves sitting on the ground, eating wit hands (I asked for spoons) and drinking soft drinks (surprise, surprise). I could not photographe the restaurant and the outside, but it was really hidden. I did not expect to find a restaurant there between two shops selling cellular phone parts.

When we were claiming the stairs( and yes the restaurant was on the first floor), I had the impression that I am going to disco club. The stairs were illuminated with pink, velvet and blue neons, the only thing that was missing was the techno music.

Once we were up, there were a guy sitting behind a big desk with a cash machine in front of him waiting for us to place an order. The menu was only in arabic so we were fortunate to have an arabic friend with us to translate us. Next, we placed our order, we payed and we were installed in some sort of cabinet where you can sit on the ground with sofas kind of style on a carpet. 

We were served in less than 10 minutes, I was amazed by this because that for me was super fast!

Forgive me to not tell you the names of the dishes that I ate but I simply could not memorise them. I only remember the desert " Omali" . I have to admit I had a great time, great food, great friends there. I loved it.

Cheers,

Mincho

[minchokavaldzhiev]

Dear Reader,

The "Subways" once sang that :  "they don't need money to have a good time, forget worries and do what they like".

Well, even from the different context I kinda relate to that with my life in the Kingdom. Right now outside of my isolated paradise island reigns a deadly virus, that some think came from the camels, other from the bad hygiene, but the true is that no body knows how to cure it. The ministry of health, send me a message today to remind me to wash my hands regularly before to eat something and also after going to the double "o". Even the youtube videos now here in the Kingdom, they have some ads from the gouvernement itself.

So SORRY Subways, but I can not forget my worries, that probably I will get contaminated and the people I care about as well. They called it MERS or the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.

Anyhow, lets talk about something else, something that relates somehow to the picture of this post and this is the weather.

It started to be so hot and humide that my body don't want to do research anymore. I wake up super tired and without motivation to go to work, because I have to face the 10 minutes of walking in the heat. And most of you will say : - Oh come on, he is exaggerating! 

Believe me, I am not the kinda person that will so lazy to walk 10 minutes to go to my working place. In fact, I am going to gym everyday and I am playing basketball twice per week, so I am in a pretty good shape. But the heat seriously is not cool. 

And this heat is affecting my mood, my motivation for work, everything related to progress in my professional life. So I am applying the motto of the picture very frequently these days. 

Help me, by telling me how can I fight the heat in Saudi Arabia?