Video: A Time-Lapse Tour Of Shanghai

by Adam Hodge on


Rob Whitworth’s time-lapses are always a cut above. His unique tracking and morphing shots draw you into a city’s routine and accurately sketch its character. His panning and zooming give the sensation of flying around a city and dropping in on its denizens for a look around at ground level before taking to the air again.

He’s applied his time-lapse talent to other Asian cities before, notably Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Hoi An, Vietnam, but this is his first video from China. Shanghai makes for a particularly apropos canvas. Its rapid development in the past few decades has draped a curtain of skyscrapers and high-rise apartment towers on a frame of traditional longtang alleys and lanes.

A cursory look at Shanghai would show the snarled motorways and brightly lit commercial towers of Pudong. However, Whitworth takes care to contrast the city’s frenetic development with its more human character: a flower vendor navigating traffic, her cart piled high with bouquets and potted plants; Shanghainese preparing and munching on the city’s famous dumplings; and even a brief flyby of the city’s fledgling Moganshan art district.

Photo Of The Day: Petronas Towers Reflection

by Adam Hodge on

It’s tough to take a bad photo of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. As it turns out, even when you’re not aiming your camera at the towers you can still get a great shot of them, as Flickr user BaboMike demonstrates in this long exposure of a reflecting pond near their base. The polish of the twin towers’ Islamic-inspired futurism is apparent from any viewpoint in the city, but in the pond they’re given a grittier, almost Gotham-like mood. If you’d like to see your great shots on Photo of the Day, share them with us in Gadling’s Flickr pool.

Olympic Bid Holds Tournament On 7 Continents Over 7 Days

by Adam Hodge on

Traveling to seven continents in seven days is grueling enough. Throw in a daily match against a former professional squash player and that makes for some pretty exhausting travel.

Two former pro squash players, Peter Nicol and Tim Garner, are in the midst of a week-long, 40,000-mile world tour in an effort to get squash into the 2020 summer Olympics. Their whirlwind competition ends in New York City this Saturday after successive matches in cities on each of the other continents: London, Cairo, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Santiago and the Falkland Islands.

Wait… the Falkland Islands? That’s not quite Antarctica Geographically; it’s South America. And politically, well, it’s still in Europe. Perhaps they are going by the ecozone or floristic kingdom definition of Antarctica? Perhaps.

This type of trip flies in the face of all the principles espoused by slow travel, but it’s an impressive feat all the same. It still kind of blows my mind that we can access every edge of the planet in but a week (at least nominally or floristic kingdom-ly).

For those wondering, they’re currently tied at two games a piece. The ultimate winner is likely to be the one who doesn’t collapse from jet lag in New York.

[Photo credit: SummitVoice1]

Video Of The Day: Amazing Kuala Lumpur Time Lapse

by Libby Zay on

Once a small Chinese tin-mining village, Kuala Lumpur has grown to be the largest city in Malaysia, a metropolis of around 6.5 million people. The transformation took only about 150 years, and today visitors will find an ultra-modern city with dazzling lights, cloud-reaching skyscrapers, a state-of-the-art monorail, bustling shopping centers and more.

Architectural photographer Rob Whitworth set out to capture the essence of this lively city. It wasn’t easy: the video above was filmed over 5 months, in which he put in 400 hours of solid work. It took four cameras, 40 shoots, 640 gigabytes of data and 19,997 photographs.

“My time lapse explores how the city changes from day to night highlighting how spaces dramatically alter during the course of a few hours,” Whitworth said. Watch the transformation he captured above.

Party On A Private Plane With AirAsiaX’s New Facebook Campaign

by McLean Robbins on

One lucky fan of AirAsiaX’s Facebook page will win the trip of a lifetime – a private plane ride from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur on an Airbus A330 for themselves and 302 of their Facebook friends, plus three nights of free accommodations.

The contest is being held in celebration of the airline’s new Sydney to Kuala Lumpur route, which launched earlier this month. The trip will take place November 2-5.

“Our bold move is part of our social media promotion drive offering our awesome guests a little X-citement, while testing our social media strength and influence. We believe that the idea will also lift our brand further in Australia and the surrounding region,” said AirAsia X CEO Azran Osman-Rani (pictured below).

To enter, fans can use a specially designed app to “fill the plane” (manually or automatically).

What we really wonder – do most people have enough Facebook friends to fill a plane? And do you really want to fly with all of those people? And which 11 friends will you choose to join you in first class?

Just one little side note – amenities on the plane, like booze and food, aren’t included.