From my past travels : The Post Office of City of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
Wishing you all ” A Happy New Year of Peace, Health, Wealth and Abundance in 2018 to you and your family “.
The Post Office of City of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
The Post Office of City of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
The Post Office of City of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
The Post Office of City of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
The Post Office of City of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
The Post Office of City of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
Photo 101
Day Twelve: Architecture & Monochrome ~ The Thai Wat in Vietnam
This is a Thai Wat or Buddhist Temple in Vietnam near Ho Chi Minh City.
This is a Thai Wat or Buddhist Temple in Vietnam near Ho Chi Minh City in monochrome. I had the opportunity of taking the photograph but did not actually centralize the framing properly. We were given less than an hour to take photographs here as we were travelling quite a distance to another town.
This is another colour version of a Thai Wat or Buddhist Temple in Vietnam near Ho Chi Minh City.
This is another colour version of a Thai Wat or Buddhist Temple in Vietnam near Ho Chi Minh City. I had the opportunity of taking the photograph but did not actually align the framing properly. We were given less than an hour to take photographs here as we were travelling quite a distance to another town. Hopefully, I shall get another chance in future to shoot this uniquely designed Thai Buddhist Temple slowly and not in a rush.
SP Lim
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Photo 101
Day Twelve: Architecture & Monochrome
From geometric patterns on skyscrapers to the ironwork on historical buildings, there are many opportunities to capture the beauty and complexity of architecture.
Consider this intricate, organic “doorway” of La Pedrera, a famous building by architect Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona, Spain:
Photo – not included
Perhaps there’s a grand spiral stairwell at your favorite museum. A stunning Art Deco movie theater in your town. Or a futuristic micro-house on your block. How will you interpret this theme?
Today’s Tip: As we explored yesterday, color is a powerful element in photography. But let’s not forget black and white, or monochrome, which can be very dramatic! Black, white, gray, and shades in between interact in the frame in dynamic ways.
When we talk about monochrome in photography, we’re referring to images developed or executed in black and white or in varying tones of only one color.
Train your eye to look for architectural elements that translate in black and white: sharp lines and patterns, defined shapes, large surface areas, and a mix of very light and very dark colors. Compare the color and monochrome versions of today’s shot:
The lines, shapes, and surfaces within the frame come alive in both versions in different ways.
If you’ve never gone monochrome, many devices let you switch to black and white shooting mode right in the camera. Or, shoot in color and convert your images to black and white (or grayscale) after in Photoshop or a free image editor like PicMonkey, GIMP, or Pixlr.
Cheers,
Josh R. and the WordPress.com Team
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The Thai Buddhist Temple in Vietnam
This is a Thai Wat or Buddhist Temple in Vietnam near Ho Chi Minh City in monochrome. I had the opportunity of taking the photograph but did not actually centralize the framing properly. We were given less than an hour to take photographs here as we were travelling quite a distance to another town.
SP Lim
SP Lim
The metropolitan area, which consists of the Ho Chi Minh City metropolitan area, Thủ Dầu Một, Dĩ An, Biên Hòa and surrounding towns, is populated by more than 9 million people, making it the most populous metropolitan area[3] in Vietnam. The city’s population is expected to grow to 13.9 million in 2025.
The Ho Chi Minh City Metropolitan Area, a metropolitan area covering most parts of the Southeast region plus Tiền Giang Province and Long An Province under planning, will have an area of 30,000 square kilometres (12,000 sq mi) with a population of 20 million inhabitants by 2020. According to the Mercer Human Resource Consulting, Economist Intelligence Unit and ECA International, Ho Chi Minh City is ranked 132 on the list of world’s most expensive cities for expatriate employees.
Inserted by SP Lim from Wikipedia
From Wikipedia:-
Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica (Vietnamese: Vương cung thánh đường Đức Bà Sài Gòn or Nhà thờ Đức Bà Sài Gòn, French: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Saïgon), officially Basilica of Our Lady of The Immaculate Conception (Vietnamese: Vương cung thánh đường Chính tòa Đức Mẹ Vô nhiễm Nguyên tội) is a cathedral located in the downtown of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Established by French colonists, the cathedral was constructed between 1863 and 1880. It has two bell towers, reaching a height of 58 meters (190 feet).
Following the French conquest of Cochinchina and Saigon, the Roman Catholic Church established a community and religious services for French colonialists. The first church was built on today’s Ngo Duc Ke Street. There had been a Vietnamese pagoda, which had been abandoned during the war. Bishop Lefevre decided to make this pagoda a church.
The last church was too small. Thus, in 1863, Admiral Bonard decided to build a wooden church on the bank of Charner canal (Kinh Lớn). Lefevre put the first stone for construction of the church on 28 March 1863. The construction was completed two years later and was called “Saigon Church”. When the wooden church was damaged by termites, all church services were held in the guest-chamber of the French Governor’s Palace. This palace would later be turned into a seminary until the Notre-Dame Cathedral was completed.
After the design competition, bids were accepted for construction. Again, J. Bourard was the successful bidder and became supervisor of constructions.
Originally, there were three proposed sites for construction:
On the site of the former test school (today, this is at the corner of Le Duan Boulevard and Hai Ba Trung Street).
At Kinh Lon (today it is Nguyễn Huệ Boulevard)
At the present site where the cathedral is situated.
All building materials were imported from France. The outside wall of the cathedral was built with bricks from Marseille. Although the contractor did not use coated concrete, these bricks have retained their bright red color until today.
On 7 October 1877, Bishop Isidore Colombert laid the first stone in an inaugural ceremony. The construction of the cathedral took three years. On Easter Day, 11 April 1880, a blessing ceremony and ceremony of completion were solemnly organized in presence of the Governor of Cochinchina Charles Le Myre de Vilers. One can see the granite plate inside the main entry gate commemorating the start and completion dates and designer. The total cost was 2,500,000 French francs (at that time price). At the beginning, the cathedral was called State Cathedral due to the source of the construction funds.
In 1895, two bell towers were added to the cathedral, each 57.6 m high with six bronze bells with the total weight of 28.85 metric tonnes. The crosses were installed on the top of each tower of 3.5 m high, 2 m wide, 600 kg in weight. The total height of the cathedral to the top of the Cross is 60.5 m.
In the flower garden in front of the cathedral, there was a bronze statue of Pigneau de Behaine (also called Bishop of Adran) leading Prince Cảnh, the son of Emperor Gia Long by his right hand. The statue was made in France. In 1945, the statue was removed, but the foundation remains.
In 1959, Bishop Joseph Pham Van Thien, whose jurisdiction included Saigon parish, attended the Marian Congress held in Vatican and ordered a statue of Our Lady of Peace made with granite in Rome. When the statue arrived in Saigon on 16 February 1959, Bishop Pham Van Thien held a ceremony to install the statue on the empty base and presented the title of “Regina Pacis”. It was the same bishop who wrote the prayers “Notre-Dame bless the peace to Vietnam”. The next day, Cardinal Aganianian came from Rome to chair the closing ceremony of the Marian Congress and solemnly chaired the ceremony for the statue, thus the cathedral was then-on called Notre-Dame Cathedral.
The statue’s tears
During October 2005, the statue was reported to have shed tears, attracting thousands of people and forcing authorities to stop traffic around the Cathedral. However, the top clergy of the Catholic Church in Vietnam couldn’t confirm that the Virgin Mary statue in front of a cathedral had shed tears, which nevertheless failed to disperse the crowd flocking to the statue days after the incident. The reported ‘tear’ flowed down the right cheek of the face of the statue.
Inserted by SP Lim
Actually the Grand Post Office (my personal description) is known as Saigon Central Post Office. It is more of a tourist site than a Post Office in primary function nowadays. We can see so many foreign tourists at this building taking photographs. At two wings of this Central Post Office are located two souvenir shops. There were also Vietnamese souvenir vendors outside the building. I decided to buy extra souvenirs as giveaways from a handicapped male vendor and to my surprise, it was so much reasonably priced than inside the building! The interior of the Post Office was amazing arch-shaped steel structures and in the middle of the front wall facing the main doors, a portrait of Mr. Ho Chi Minh staring down on the bee-hive of activities within the Post Office.
From Wikipedia:-
Saigon Central Post Office (Vietnamese: Bưu điện Trung tâm Sài Gòn, French: Poste centrale de Saïgon) is a post office in the downtown Ho Chi Minh City, near Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica, the city’s cathedral. The building was constructed when Vietnam was part of French Indochina in the early 20th century. It has a neoclassical architectural style. The architecture of the post office is due to the plans of Auguste Henri Vildieu and his assistant Alfred Foulhoux. The authorship of this building is often attributed to Gustave Eiffel, which is wrong. Only the steel structure was designed by Gustave Eiffel. Auguste Henri Villedieu was the French architectural adjutant in Hanoi while that city was an administrative center for the French colony of Indochina. Today, the building is a tourist attraction.
Inside the Saigon Central Post office of special note are two painted maps that were created just after the post office was first built, the first one located on the left side of the building is a map of Southern Vietnam and Cambodia titled ‘Lignes telegraphiques du Sud Vietnam et Cambodge 1892′ which translates to ‘Telegraphic lines of Southern Vietnam and Cambodia 1892” The second map of greater Saigon is titled ‘Saigon et ses environs 1892′ translating to ‘Sai Gon and its environment 1892′
It was constructed between 1886-1891.
From Vietnam Travel City article:-
SEPTEMBER 10, 2012 BY BEN HOFFMAN
The Saigon Central Post Office (Bưu điện thành phố Hồ Chí Minh) is located in District 1 of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) directly across the road from Saigon’s Notre dame cathedral and within walking distance from other recommended District 1 attractions such as Ben Thanh Market, Reunification Place and the War Remnants Museum
Saigon Central Post Office was designed and constructed by the famous French architect Gustave Eiffel (yes of Eiffel tower and Statue of Liberty fame) construction of this great Gothic architectural styled building began in 1886 and was completed in 1891
Entering the Post office you are faced with a large portrait of Ho Chi Minh and along the side wall there are there are old French colonial maps the first of which titled ‘Lignes telegraphiques du Sud Vietnam et Cambodge 1936′ translating to ‘Telegraphic lines of Southern Vietnam and Cambodia 1892. And the second is titled ‘Saigon et ses environs 1892′ Translating to ‘Sai Gon and its environment 1892′
If you are interested in sending a postcard the centre counter has plenty of postcard packs at fairly good prices, after you have purchased and filled in just head to one of the first few maned counters on the left side of the building to purchase a postage stamp.
Getting to Saigon Central Post Office
Saigon Central Post Office is located at 2 Công xã Paris, Bến Nghé, Quận 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and is walking distance from all district 1 hotels, also if you don’t fell like the walk hop onto any of the following buses leaving from Ben Thanh Bus Interchange. All of these buses will take you past the door of the Saigon Central Post Office as well as Notre-Dame Cathedral 3,18,19,26,42,50,52
Saigon Central Post Office is open from 8:00 am until 5:00 pm every day and entry is free
SP Lim
From Wikipedia:-
Buôn Ma Thuột (formerly Lac Giao) or sometimes Buon Ma Thuot or Ban Mê Thuột, is the capital city of Đắk Lắk Province, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Its population is approximately 300,000. The city is the largest in Vietnam’s Central Highlands region, and is famous as the regional “capital of coffee”.
Buôn Ma Thuột is served by Buon Ma Thuot Airport.
Location
The city locates at 12.6667° N, 108.0500° E, right at the heart of the central highland of Viet Nam, 1300 km from Ha Noi, 500 km from Da Nang, and 350 km from Ho Chi Minh City. Lying on a fairly flat highland, at an average height of 536m (1608 ft) above the sea, Buon Ma Thuot has a vital role in Viet Nam’s national security and defense system. Buon Ma Thuot is the capital of Dak Lak Province and also the biggest city in Central Highlands (Tay Nguyen).
SP Lim
SP Lim
SP Lim
S. P.'s Space of 6 T's - Tastes, Theatre, Thoughts, Time, Travels, and Treatments ...... 