Tag Archives: Hustai

Experiences Sights & Sounds

Updated Gallery with Hustai pictures

I’ll have 2 sets of pictures from my trip to Mongolia – one from the trip to Hustai National Park and some from around the city of Ulaanbaatar.  First up are the pictures from Hustai, below is a sample, and clicking HERE will take you to the full gallery.

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The trip to Hustai is not one I recommend for people who get carsick easily.  I’ve been on rollercoasters that bounced less than we did on the drive from Ulaanbaatar!  Thankfully I have a (relatively) strong stomach and I had a fun time bouncing all over the place. 😛

After arriving at Hustai, we opted to stay at the more distant lodging (about 11km away from the main entrance area).  I think it was a great idea since we were able to get a much better “feel” of just how expansive and beautiful the park was.  We also got more peace and quiet since there were quite a few tourists at the main area.  I stayed in a little ger on my own and I had the best/most peaceful sleep I’ve had in a long time (as opposed to the rest of my family who chose to stay in a more western-type cabin, and were kept away all night be the creaking and banging of the doors!).

The only thing that bugged me (pun intended) about Hustai was the overwhelming amount of insects.  We didn’t bring any insect repellent (not sure if that would have helped though) and were just bombarded with midges and gnats flying around, literally in clouds around us.  The only time we had any respite from them was during the early morning and late evening/night.

Despite the bugs, it was a great trip.  Mongolian nature is really amazing; sometimes a bit stark, and I can’t even begin to imagine how frigid it must get in the dead of winter, but it’s beautiful in many ways nonetheless.

Experiences Sights & Sounds

Messing around in Photoshop

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’d been to visit my family in Mongolia last month.  It was great to spend time with them and catch up (though I did come down with a stomach bug of some sort while I was there), and while we didn’t go out too much, I had a very relaxing time.  I’ll write a bit more about what we did in a later post.

One of the things I did while I was there was mess around with my youngest brother’s camera, a Nikon D40.  It was the first time I’d ever really used a DSLR and… I can’t see myself ever being content with a regular point and shoot any more.  I’m actually looking around now to see what’s available in the DSLR market, including the used/refurbished stores, but more on that later.  I personally took probably over 500-600 pictures over a period of 2-3 days (days that we went out), and though they’re not all post-worthy, I felt some were interesting enough to put up.

I’ve never been a hardcore Photoshop user, I’ve just dabbled with it in uni for an “elements of webdesign” course I once took, and for batch resizing.  But tonight, I thought I’d see what I could do to “spruce” up a few of my pictures – and I have to say I had fun with that too!  It’s amazing how one can make colors pop out and seem more vibrant.  I know that digital manipulation is no replacement for quality photography, but used in conjunction, I now feel that certainly has its benefits.  Below is what I came up with in the course of 2 hours (the one of the lavender mountain range took me almost an hour as I was figuring out what I could do with PS)

Post edit: I’ve updated the Hustai pictures and put them in a gallery HERE.

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Hustai National Park (Mongolia)

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