Saturday Snapshot – Costa Rica
The rain forests of tiny Central American country Costa Rica are some of the most lush and biologically diverse in the world. From brightly coloured tree frogs to a variety of species of monkeys, Costa Rica is the place to visit for any nature-lover. If the forests aren’t your thing, head to the award-winning beaches for some fun in the sun.
Costa Rica has been high on my list of must-visit places for a long while but may have to wait until I head back to North America for good.
Photo credit: Armando Maynez
Street Art Series – Sydney, Australia
As it’s been a while since our last post on Los Angeles street art, I figured it was time to explore the different street art that can be found nearly halfway around the world from the west coast of the United States, Sydney, Australia. The largest city in Australia and an immigration centre for people from around the world, the diversity in Sydney means its also a hotbed of culture and art. Here’s a look at how this mix of people can result in interesting and fun street art!
This homage to 1980’s video games is my favourite one. I’d love to have Pac Man up on my wall!
Photo credit: bliksem tobey
This red old-model car and its floating hearts paints a pretty scene.
Photo credit: Ben Cumming
In appreciation of American civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., this mural seems appropriate for such a multicultural city.
Photo credit: treslola
1930s cartoon favourite Felix the Cat looks right at home in the country that reportedly inspired his creation. I like the little characters below him too!
Photo credit: RoboticButtocks
Now this one is not only a really good use of existing space but it also really creeps me out. Scary!
Photo credit: M i x y
In a fitting nod to the neighbouring sea, this colourful example declares “Bikini Zone” ahead.
Photo credit: mirvettium
This weird but wonderful piece shows a jack-o-lantern-headed man talking with an apple head. Though I’ve got no idea what it’s supposed to symbolise, I just love it. Any guesses on what they’re saying to each other? Leave your ideas in the comments section!
Photo credit: Orin Zebest
That’s all the street art for now but stay tuned for more soon. Feel free to leave ideas of cities that you’d like to see featured next!
Exploring Destinations through Photography
It started with Prague but then quickly spread to other cities, each one outdoing the one before. Massive and detailed to a seemingly impossible level, the new trend in travel photography is the huge gigapixel photos that have been constructed for a handful of well-known cities around the globe. A super high-definition image, gigapixel photographs are the result of taking hundreds of still photos in a very short period of time and stitching them together to create a detailed panorama of a place.
I absolutely love these photos and the level of detail that they allow the viewer to experience from their home computer. I’ve enjoyed virtually strolling the streets of Paris and trying to spot my old haunts and stomping grounds there, and I’ve taken a look into the lives of people living in central Budapest by zooming in on neighbourhoods and building in that photo. Though nothing can compare with visiting a new city in person, these images offer a great substitute for travel daydreamers like myself!
At the rate that technology improves and changes, it seems as though each of these photos is better and bigger than its predecessor and I cannot wait to see what other types of images might be in store for us in the future!
Here are the links to the best of the best of these photos for you to explore and enjoy. See if you can spot places you’ve been before or take advantage of a break to virtually stroll the streets of these places to see what you can discover!
Photo credit: 360 cities
Photo credit: Paris 26 gigapixels
Photo credit: Gerald Donovan
Photo credit: 360 World
Colours of Travel – Blue and White
Back by popular demand, today’s post is the next in our Colours of Travel series after a few weeks of hiatus. After the last post that featured our first combination of red and blue, we’re back again with another combination – this time blue and white. Thinking of blue and white together surely conjures up images of fluffy clouds in the sky or white-capped waves on the sea, but here are a few less obvious choices of blue and white. Enjoy!
Old city against the blue sky – Peníscola, Spain
Photo credit: echiner1
Fantastically blue-eyed rabbit – Zurich, Switzerland
Photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar
A wonderfully inviting sailing scene on the seashore – Boracay beach, Philippines
Photo credit: The Wandering Angel
Bright and beautiful church painted in typical colours – Santorini, Greece
Photo credit: bongo vongo
Remote boat house – Perth, Australia
Photo credit: MΛЯK
Baby Blue Eye in the Botanic Gardens – New York, New York, United States
Photo credit: El Mariachi 94
Directional traffic sign – Barcelona, Spain
Photo credit: visualpanic
Now Hiring: Web UI Java Developer
Travelfusion, the leading travel search and content aggregation service, is seeking the best front end developers to join our rapidly expanding web development team.
You should be passionate about creating well-designed and rich/interactive web applications that are both efficient and scalable. You should be eager to learn how to not just use but evolve with new web technologies and techniques. You should be able to demonstrate applied techniques and expertise in web UI and web-based application development.
Photo credit: Travelfusion
Responsibilities
- Develop web UI functionality using Java (GWT), HTML, JavaScript and CSS from high fidelity prototypes
- Work side-by-side with JEE engineers and Web designers to develop Web 2.0 applications, using latest web technologies
- Participate in product design and architectural discussions
- Work with QA engineers to test web applications
Experience
- 3+ years of current, hands on experience in Java development
- Extensive knowledge and experience in Java, HTML, Javascript, CSS and general Web 2.0 techniques
- Experience with Spring, Hibernate, XML, RPC, JSP, MySQL
- Expertise in developing efficient AJAX interfaces with in-depth knowledge of available AJAX libraries and frameworks (e.g. jQuery, GWT, etc.)
- Strong analytical skills
- Outstanding team player and positive attitude
- Tenacious and driven when tackling tough technical issues
- Strong customer service attitude and eagerness to solve problems
- Solid design skills
- Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field
Additional experience (these are not a must)
- Hands on software architecture experience
- Experience with Model-View-Presenter pattern
- GUI design experience
- Application-tuning and database-tuning experience
- Experience deploying applications on Apache Tomcat and Glassfish
- Experience with clustered web applications
- Unix experience
- Experience working in an agile or XP environment
Salary: competitive + benefits
Location: London (N1), UK
For immediate consideration, please contact: hr@travelfusion.com (with an attached resume and detailed cover letter on why you are the suitable for the job – having read the criteria carefully!)
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