Category: Contest

You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts.  Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.

A reader writes:

Ok, this was hard. I’ve given up after looking for over two hours today. I can’t see any clues, but of course, someone will immediately recognize the middle round tower as being a medieval keep that only <fill in country> has. I think the view is somewhere in Eastern Europe. I searched Estonia, Poland, Latvia and the Czech Republic. Nada. East of London is my guess.

Another writes:

Well, I’m completely stumped. I’ve tried to work out what that white tower is – minaret, lighthouse, water tower – and failed. I’ll go with Sarola, India, solely as that city is on a river of about the right size, and hope that this is one of those rare weeks it’s decided by proximity.

Another:

This one is much harder than last week!  Shah Alam, Malaysia?  That’s a slightly educated guess based on the extremely unlikely chance that those two fuzzy buildings way in the background are the KL tower and the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur.  Shah Alam has a lot of rivers and bridges, and it is far enough from the city to make the large towers seem not so big, so that is the guess.  If this guess is on the wrong continent, I will not be surprised.

On a completely separate note, I did not mean to be a sore loser last week.  I am madly in love with the VFYW contest, and I appreciate the weekend distraction. Please don’t ever take it away.  I may go through withdrawals.

Another:

I’ll guess Dagupan City, Philippines and hope for proximity.  It seems that the most important areas of knowledge to guess these contests (absent known landmarks) are 1) a knowledge of roof lines;  2) a knowledge of boat types; and 3) a knowledge of satellite dishes.

Another:

That cargo boat places this in southeast Asia or China. I scoured Laos, mainly because it’s smaller than China, so the search was possible at all, without success. That river’s too small to be the Mekong or Yangtze, but I figure it’s a tributary to one or the other of those, or any of about a trillion other minor waterways. A Vietnamese co-worker tells me he escaped Vietnam as a child, crouched down with his family, in one of these sorts of cargo boats. The water level’s low, which could be tidal, but I think it’s more likely the result of the drought they’ve been having around Wuhan, Hubei, China.

So that’s my pick, even though I scoured the surrounding area for that bridge, and came up empty. The cement levee cylinders didn’t help, but there are many cement factories around Wuhan. I take heart that it’s unlikely any Dish readers had their honeymoon here.

Correct on China. Another:

The river is fairly wide, with no flood protection on the banks, this rules out a few provinces with flooding problems. The man in shorts shows that the weather is quite warm already. Therefore, my guess is Hubei Province in China.

Another:

I’m pretty sure this is just north of Wuchang, in Hubei Province, China. Although Google street view doesn’t work there, I can at least focus on the exact area the window looks out on, and since the river is in front, and the window behind – it’s pretty obvious where the shot was taken. See here for an aerial view.

Another:

My guess is the Jialing Hotel in Yan’an, Shaanxi province, China. The river and boats look like China and there is a distinctive pagoda sitting across the river. Short answer is that Google maps suggests that there’s a hotel across and down the river from a small hill and pagoda in Yan’an, with a bridge splitting the two. And I’d guess that we’re on the fourth floor. While I’ve never been to Yan’an and can’t be certain, I’d like to think the Dish’s sense of humor would enjoy basing the weekly contest on the home of Chinese Communism, a bastion of atheism, on the day of the “rapture.” Of course, if I do get it right, it might make me wonder if some sort of cosmic shift didn’t happen after all …

Heh. Another nails the correct Chinese city:

Bridges can be pretty distinctive. The construction of the one in the photo is similar to that used in the Luoxi  Bridge in Guangzhou, a somewhat famous bridge.  A search for similar bridges uncovered the bridge in Yuanling, Hunan, China over the Yuanshui River, completed in 1991. It looks like the photo was taken north of the bridge facing south.

It seems the photo was taken from a window, perhaps from the fourth floor,  at the Golden Phoenix Hotel Yuanling (at least that is how Google translates the hotel name) at Chenzhou East Street No. 2. There appears to be an identical power line support pole as that in the photo next to this hotel. A photo from another window in that hotel has a similar view.

I do not have any software to manipulate photos except for Paint. I am attaching a few photos of the area along with a couple of the hotel.

The second of three readers to correctly guess Yuanling:

The window is in Yuanling, Huaihua, Hunan Province, PR China, on Chenzhou East St., near where it turns to the north, ???? Hotel (“Good Home”) indicated in the photo above. Here‘s the bridge (yuanshui) and here‘s the pagoda (??? or “Singing Phoenix Tower”).

The third correct guesser didn’t send any images, but he was the only one of the three to have correctly guessed a difficult window in the past without winning. He writes:

Dr. Frankenstein, you might be pleased to know that you are not the only game in town this week.  My daughter and new husband are playing View From Their Honeymoon and sending us mystery shots of their location.  But they didn’t account for the skills of the gang of VFYW veterans arrayed against them and we knocked them off pretty quickly.  It didn’t hurt that they happend to choose a place in the French West Indies, our stomping grounds from last week.

This week’s photo is of the Yuanling Yuanshui Bridge in Yuanling, Hunan, China.  I think it was taken from The People’s Hospital of Yuanling, 6th floor, last patient room to the east, closest to the river, and facing south southeast.

Update: The above reader sent an image at the last minute:

We have yet to hear back from the submitter of the photo as to the exact vantage point of the photo, so we will update the results when we do. Update: Our submitter responds:

Sorry for the delay in my correspondence, I just returned to the East Coast from China at ~4am this morning after traveling over 30 hours, and promptly collapsed. I just checked the site and I am amazed at the accuracy of the winners, as there is a tie. Both readers who sent images of the hotel in Yuanling were correct (there could be a thread on the exact meaning alone of the hotel’s name, believe me, as there was a discussion at the time). I’m also pretty sure that both of them circled the correct room (though there are still some cob webs in my head). Congrats to the winners! And thanks again for using my pic, made my whole month!

This is the first contest in which we’ll have to award the prize to two contestants, as there isn’t a clear way to break the tie.

(Archive)

One final email, from a reader who guesses “Miri, Malaysia, near the Baram River bridge” and seems to be vying for a Poseur Alert a la Colbert:

What is often unremarked about the phallic symbol in the tradition of the window view is that it so rarely comes in commensurate context. If it doesn’t quite announce itself, its retinue – street signs, pavements, garbage bins – whisper its name like starstruck little girls. This week, that changes. This week, Your Window offers a masterpiece of content and composition – a glistening white tower, yes, but one subservient to the vaginal null spaces under the subtly tapered deck of a segmental precast concrete bridge. And framing it all, the brutal masterstroke of the segmented window itself: four openings in bold homage to the bridge bents, topped by a defiant mullion to parallel the timid tower on the distant verdant hill. A stark Modrianesque repetition of verticals and horizontals, structure and space, that resembles nothing so much as a middle digit protruding from a fist. The sexual affront is even accompanied by a visual pun — the impotent sail-less “junk” puttering feebly by. And yet, this vulgar gesture is both insult and invitation, as it hints at the experience of actually crossing that bridge, and being gestured at by the shaft on the approaching shore.

No, these are not the sinister, shadowy nether regions of Di Chirico’s arcades, for through these six lights we see it all: the muddy river, the cloudless sky, the earthy flow of time, and boundless sunlit space. Your Window reveals the bridge and tower, even as the water reflects to us the invisible truth of the sky. Our helplessness has never been clearer. Your Window asks, Where am I? And our search, like the view itself, brings into relief the cosmic joke of our existence, the juxtaposition of sex and laughter, of river and sky, of teasing and screwing, of fooling around and fooling around. In this brilliant view, the divisive taunt and the inclusive joke become one.

We must ask, finally: Are you fucking kidding me? And Your Window replies: Yes, both.

You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts.  Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.

A reader writes:

Let me get this straight. The reader with a guest cottage overlooking Gustavia Harbor is pissed she didn’t win a $30 book? Geez.

Another writes:

Exhibit A for “Thank God you don’t allow comments on your site”.

I think those of us who make serious, time-consuming attempts at the “hard” VFYWs completely understand your deference to prior correct guessers.  I saw this week’s window and thought: Why bother with such an easy window that surely everyone will guess correctly?  I’ll wait for next week’s photo of a nondescript shack, on nondescript dirt, beside a nondescript shrub.

Thanks for the awesome and free content for the last ten years.  You keep the $30 book!

Another:

I understand why you choose winners the way you do, but I will say this:  awarding books only to people who have written in over and over makes it seem like only the “in-crowd” can win.  If a first-time guesser effectively cannot win, that lowers the incentive to start guessing at all.

Another:

I don’t concern myself too much with winning (or whining), but rather enjoy the challenge of the hunt.  As a mathematician and therefore perpetual geek, the challenge of identification, triangulation and precision (followed by rank speculation, most of the time) is great fun.  On the other hand, my wife prefers to play on gut feeling, leaving the Google searches and such to me.

If I had one critique, is that I’d love to have more information about the solution.  For instance, what window did it end up being?  What room number?  Sometimes, this information is not provided in the Tuesday posts, and as a personal challenge, I like to see how close I got to the “answer”.  Then again, that information may not always be available, which is understandable.  Regardless, kudos on providing one of my favorite online activities.

Another:

Personally, I don’t have the interest or the patience to track down a window from somewhere in the world. I also don’t have the interest or patience to scroll down through all the entrants emails that either didn’t get it right or maybe did, but didn’t win. I wish the contest would just end with only the winning email. I’d read that. And be interested in that.

As for the whiners who didn’t get their free book, they should buy one, or two, and share.

Many readers are writing in with sour grapes over not being awarded the window book yesterday. One common misunderstanding:

It’s hard enough taking the crushing blow of spending futile hours finding a window, and I don’t even mind not being picked as a winner – but seeing another reader credited as the only one who correctly guessed the hotel was too much for me to take!

As we indicated in the results, more than 200 readers correctly guessed Gustavia Harbor, and about a quarter those 200 mentioned Hotel Gustav.  But only one of those 50 or so correctly guessed a difficult view in the past.  We define “difficult” views as those in which only 10 or fewer readers correctly guess the specific location; if a reader is among those 10 or fewer, we flag his or her email address with a “Correct Guesser” label to reference for future contests.  This process, while frustrating for many readers, is the fairest way to break ties and reward those who are consistently the most accurate.  We simply don’t have the funds to award a free $30 book to every reader who correctly guesses a location (this week’s tab alone would have been over $5000). To avoid this issue, we could simply publish only exceptionally difficult views, but that would alienate scores of casual participants.  We try to maintain a mix of difficult, medium, and easy views for the Dish’s large and diverse readership.

One particularly disgruntled reader – the one who lives near Hotel Gustav and linked to its webcam – writes:

I can see how you might award the other contestant a book had we BOTH correctly answered. BUT to disregard and overlook my entry to give your other reader the opportunity to be a winner because he has been so close so many times? Seriously? Sounds like progressive kindergarten to me. I am sure if your “winner” knew that he actually lost, he would be humiliated by your generosity.

My invitation to come down for a visit no longer stands.  And if you think the view from the Hotel Carl Gustaf is beautiful, you should have seen the view from the window of our guest cottage …

A reader writes:

Wherever it is, I want to go to there.

Another writes:

St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands? I believe this is where my family used to live in Charlotte Amalie. I can’t pinpoint a window, but I think I have the right location. My dad moved here as I left for college to run the local Lutheran Church, which I believe is the oldest in the Western Hemisphere. Our house would have been half a mile to the right of this picture (right next to the Governor’s mansion).

Another:

First time player. Is it Waterfront Drive, Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands? I just finished organizing my pics from my USVI trip. Great place. Apparenty Road Town holds one of the largest hedge funds in the world. Not a bad place to hang out, though I prefer Jost van Dyke.

Another:

It’s Cannes, France … and I’m sure I’m the fiftieth (if not the thousandth) email you’ve received so far with that answer.  The festival started earlier this week, so this one was easy.

Another:

Simpson Bay Lagoon, St. Martin is the answer.  Only two minutes of Google.  No special stories.  Please mail me the book ASAP, need it for wifey’s birthday.  Thanks.

Another:

Alright, I give up! I am probably off on this guess, but hell, I’ve been sitting in my pajamas searching Google Maps for Caribbean marinas for the last two hours. I’m hungry, have work to do, and on top of that it’s a grey dreary day outside – which is not making all these Google image searches of beautiful bays any easier. I may be way off, but it’s time to guess and hope for the best: Rodney Bay Marina, St. Lucia – specifically the view from Palm Haven Hotel. Google Maps view here:

The water that continues to the left in the map would have to be hidden from view in your window shot – plus that extended jetty can’t have been there or can’t be visible in the photo. Which means I’m probably wrong. But like I said – stuff to do, Sullivan!

Another:

Easiest view ever: Looking northwest over Gustavia Harbor in St. Barts.

I assume the prize will go to someone who can pinpoint the villa or hotel room from which this picture was taken. Or, you could disappoint all the overachievers and just give the prize to me, a longtime Dish reader who’s writing in for the first time. Keep some hope alive for the slackers among us.

Another:

OK that was too easy. That’s a very well known harbor in the Caribbean. I have sailed there twice. Probably the most beautiful Island in the entire Caribbean. If you ever get a chance to go there I highly recommend it. If you really want to feel inadequate, go during New Years or during the St. Barts Bucket yacht race. I was there during the Bucket back in March. I was in good company; Roman Abroamovich was in town. Well at least his yacht Eclipse was:

It made our 45′ rental look like a tender. Oh how the other half lives.

Another:

Having struggled so much with previous VFYWs and never coming too close to the answer, I’d stopped looking for the contest each Saturday. However, this time I took one look and recognized Gustavia Harbour in St. Bart’s right away. Not going to go all contractor and slide-rule-y to figure out the exact window, but definitely would be one of those nice villas just up the mountain from Rue des Normands. I’ve attached a photo I took looking into the town from the harbour entrance:

What a beautiful place – there’s a reason so many ultra-rich French go there for the winters. Head down that road to the south-west and you’ll quickly come to Shell Beach, great fine white sand, a very nice Brazillian restaurant co-owned by Yannick Noah and probably the only beach I’ve ever been on where all the women choosing to go topless apparently just came here from the Parisien fashion runways. As I was just a poor schlub on day trip from St. Maarten, I was advised to go to the local burger joint Le Select to avoid the huge tabs you’d run up at the fancier restaurants. And it was much cheaper there, only 16 Euros ($22) for a burger.

Another:

This is a great time of year to be in St Barth’s.  There are few tourists, so you don’t need to fend off the mega-rich to get into the chic restaurants and clubs.  My first visit to the island was this time of year, seven years ago, with my then boyfriend, now husband. We couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful week.

Another:

I hear that the nightlife is hot, but I have only been there in the company of my family with small children in tow, so I wouldn’t really know.  We enjoyed the beautiful beaches and snorkelling in the small marine preserve that can be seen in the background of your photo.  A favorite memory of this island is watching a slim, middle-aged chain-smoking Frenchwoman getting her exercise by striding through waist-deep water while chatting away on her cellphone.  She marched back and forth in front of us for a good half hour, topless, incredibly tanned, and smoking all the while.  Perfect.

Another sends an aerial view of the port:

Another:

I’m not technically savvy enough to send you shots from Google Earth with nice little red arrows showing the spot and direction that the shot was taken. Also, I’ve only ever responded to the contest once before, so my chances of winning are miniscule. Therefore, I’ll just inundate you with fun little anecdotes about the island and our visits in the hope of at least getting a mention in this week’s posting:

-The trip where we kept having uncomfortable run-ins with the “elderly gentleman” and his much younger (and clearly paid) male companion who was upset because on the flight down my frequent flyer status trumped his and I was able to upgrade my partner into first class, leaving his “friend” to stew in coach. He was not happy and let the gentleman know it right there in the boarding gate and on the whole flight to Sint Maarten and the puddle jumper to St. Barth’s. We saw them at beaches, bars, restaurants, boutiques, we couldn’t get away from them on that trip (it really is a small island).

-Visible in the picture is the tiny cute steeple of the island’s Anglican Episcopal Church built in 1855, which is now a pretty cushy little posting for various retired priests who come in on rotation.

-Also visible running up the right hand side of the photo is the Rue de la Republique, which houses most of the town’s toniest boutiques, bars and restaurants. It was in the Polo/RL boutique off this street that I once literally bumped into Claudia Schiffer. To be clear, with my 250 lb bulky frame when I say bumped into her, I mean I sent her sprawling onto a table display of blouses and swimwear!

Another:

In a previous life, I was a Mormon missionary. Most missionaries end up in places like Tulsa, or Mexico City, or Temple Square in Salt Lake. I went to the West Indies Mission, French Speaking, and spent two years in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and St. Martin. We weren’t allowed to swim in the ocean or anything else that was very fun, but we could take day trips on our day off – our “p day”, for preparation day. On one of these days we took the ferry from St. Martin to St. Barts and rented a buggy, driving all over the tiny island. This photo is Gustavia Harbor, from behind Gustavia Church, where there is a tract of small houses on the Rue des Normands (Norman and Breton fishermen from France settled on all the French-owned islands, especially the Iles des Saintes). It’s named Gustavia because St. Barts used to be the only Swedish colony in the Caribbean, before being handed over the the French.

And yes, it was a fantastic place to go on my mission. Though the world converted me, instead of me converting the world, thanks for the reminder!

Another:

In researching the place, I learned that the town, Gustavia, was named for King Gustav III of Sweden, as St. Barts was Swedish for a few decades before the Napoleonic wars, after which Sweden gave it back to France.  I didn’t know Sweden ever had a Caribbean colony.  Wikipedia gives us the picture below of Gustav, for whom Gustavia is named, and tells us that “[f]or the consummation of [Gustav’s] marriage, the king [his father] requested the assistance of Adolf Munck, reportedly because of anatomical problems both spouses possessed.”  The mind boggles on so many levels.

I’ve never been there, but the place looks like paradise. The good news is it’s off season and apparently they’re having a sale. I could have a modest one bedroom suite from this Saturday to the following Sunday for only € 4,317 (about $6,090). And the round trip air fare starts at $1,316. Something to think about.

Another:

I have actually been to Gustavia, many years ago, on a day trip from St. Martin.  The airport in St. Bart’s has a very scary approach, with a big white cross on the hill, where there have been some fatal crashes, but the island itself is delightful, and very French, with fine dining.

Another:

My wife and some friends had dinner there the night before Hurricane Lenny hit and marooned us at our Hotel in Flamands on the water for over a week.  While it was an adventure at first, without power and toilets it quickly became something else.  Of course it went to a Cat 5 so that was also … let’s say interesting.  On a brighter note, they ended up opening up the wine cellar, literally. Sipping Clos de Vougeot with your sandwich rations did take the sting out it!

Another:

I knew this one from the moment I saw it! Gustavia Harbor is one of the most beautiful and iconic ports on Earth, especially at Christmastime when the world’s most magnificent yachts will anchor  here. Attached the exact same view taken a few moments ago. My husband and I and three kids – aged 6, 4 and 9 months – moved to St. Barths in January. We dont often make it to the Gustav Hotel, but we called the babysitter and made a special trip tonight, just so I could win a book.

Here‘s a link to the hotel’s live web cam. I assume it’s located on the roof, and so the view here is from an elevation slightly higher than the one from the restaurant. Come visit!

Another sends a view of the hotel:

Another:

I’ve been following the VFYW contest for weeks, often spending several maddening hours trying to figure it out. This time I got it in 30 seconds. I googled “hilly Carribean Island”.  St Barts popped up first, so I checked it out. A map of the island revealed an inlet on the coastline that seemed promising, with the town of “Gustavia” nestled in there. When I clicked on a Gustavia link, a photo popped up that was nearly identical to the contest photo.

Now if it was this easy for me, it probably was for hundreds of others as well. How are you going to break this massive tie?

It was tricky. This week’s contest was perhaps our easiest yet, based on the hundreds of people who correctly guessed Gustavia Harbor. Among those readers were about a half-dozen who correctly guessed difficult windows in the past but narrowly lost. But only one of those readers got the right hotel:

After a great deal of frustration with last week’s contest (I looked at the Google Maps satellite view of the actual location but didn’t think it was the right place!), I found this week’s window with much greater ease. The picture practically screamed “Carribbean,” and a search for “Carribbean port red roof” eventually brought up a picture with immediately recognizable profile of the headland in the background of the VFYW picture. The location from which it was taken appears to be from one of the villas of the Hotel Carl Gustaf, just above of the Rue des Normands. This looks to be a pretty swank place, from which I gather that Dish readers include the well-heeled.

So far I’ve correctly guessed for Madrid, Paris, and Minot. I’m also the photographer of the VFYW picture of Pont-a-Mousson, France from April of last year.

Congrats!  The prize is on its way.

(Archive)

You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts.  Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.

A reader writes:

Amazing how many AIAs there are out there.  The only one that really scares me is “Arizonans in Action.”  (We have seen enough of that, thank you.)  But I must be on the wrong track because somehow I don’t see ocean going vessels anchored off the coast near Tucson.  For no particular reason, I am going with Veracruz.

Another writes:

The architecture suggests Iberian colonial Africa.  The oil tankers suggest that we are most likely describing Equatorial Guinea or Angola, which likely means that the “AIA” on the building at right could be the Angolan Industrial Association on Rua Fernando Cladiera in Luanda. Photo appears to have been taken from two blocks north of there which would be a building on Rua … oh, hell I don’t have time to waste on any more wild hunches, since I can’t win without an engaging story and have no entertaining connections other than a former student from Luanda who was on a Sonangol scholarship and once shared some photos of her hometown. Time to return to real life.

Another:

Port town, clay tile roofs, the building with the letters AIA, which is some type of Asian insurance company, and the tightly clustered houses.  Feels like Viet Nam, but which city? I’m going with my hometown, Nha Trang, a beautiful seaside city full of charm.  Best part of growing up there?  The school was minutes from the beach.  There was no such thing as recess, but that didn’t stop us kids from taking a swim any chance we get.  Good times, good times.

Another:

The picture was taken in Malad East, a suburb north of Mumbai. I googled AIA buildings and scanned the images. Two of them popped up on junk URL squatters, so I ran Whois searched to get the addresses if the URL owners. I didn’t get addresses but did get names, one of whom has a Facebook profile and a bunch of Indian-looking friends with Indian-sounding names. I then googled images for AIA India, and quickly found contact information on AIA.com. I don’t have the skills to triangulate the location of the building from which the shot was taken, but Google and I got the town down in about six minutes. I won’t win, but I had fun.

Another:

I hate this fucking contest.

I am addicted to it and wait for Saturday and Tuesday 1PM.  I always hope and pray that the picture is not familiar to me in any way possible, so that I can get back to my mundane chores.  But once in a while, the buildings and scene are familiar.  And then I spend hours and hours and HOURS hunting for the exact location.  It’s a ridiculous search, brought on by pure hubris, hoping that I can match all those well traveled and/or tech-savvy folks who come up with the stunningly accurate locations.

India.  Mumbai.  Indira docks in the background.  A view taken from the Bombay stock exchange building perhaps.

How is this consequential in any way, shape or form?!  I am HOURS behind schedule.  I will have nothing to show for it, except intense regret that I wasted so much time.  I will probably not be on the right continent.  Who cares.  This is the LAST time I will spend time on it.  (ha ha! Ya right.)

Another:

This looks like Johor Baharu, Malaysia looking over the Singapore Strait.  I lived in Singapore for six years and my husband’s family is there, so we still make an annual visit to that part of the world and are always taken by seeing the ocean going vessels offshore.

Another:

Georgetown, Malaysia is my guess based on the location of the water, the AIA sign and the mixture of architecture.  I am off for a great Saturday visit with friends I have not seen in years, so I am not going to fall into my usual VFYW mania of flickr searches and obscure googling.  I have gotten a few in the past, but I have been on quite the cold streak recently.  Here is to hoping I’m back on track!

On the right track, but this reader has the correct Malaysian city:

This view is of Melaka (or Malacca Town) in the state of the same name in Malaysia, looking roughly south-southwest out to the Strait of Malacca from an upper floor of the Putra Specialist Hospital. The roofs are what got me; I was lucky enough to live nearby once. Oh, the food!

Another:

I’m an American living in Singapore, and this photo has the look and feel of Malaysia.  I thought either Melaka or Penang. I think I can see the Flor de la Mar (replica of the Portuguese ship which sank in the waters off Melaka).  So I’ll go with Melaka.

As I think the real genius of VFYW is the perspectives it gives on different geographies, I’ll give an insight into living in the region.  Melaka is about a 3.5 hour drive from Singapore and I believe about 2/3 hours south of Kuala Lumpur.  It is a common tourist spot as an old port town with interesting Portuguese and British colonial history.  Its quite common to travel back and forth from Singapore to Malaysia.  At one time I was driving up into southern Malaysia (about a 45 min drive + some time at immigration) to play golf every weekend.  When I went back to the US for Christmas in 2001, I got pulled aside and was asked why I have so many passport stamps for Malaysia, a Muslim country.  Going every weekend to play golf must have seemed like an odd answer, but eventually I was let go and luckily avoided a cavity search.

Another:

Having spent an absurd amount of hours triangulating things from people’s tourist snaps of the Maritime Museum, the Chinese quarter, the peculiar curved building in white, the absence of the ferris wheel, I finally realized that the AIA corporation’s website actually just spelled Melaka a different way than my previous google searches. Attached is a screenshot pinpointing the AIA building; a google search revealed the Renaissance Melaka Hotel‘s distinctive building-gills and palm tree-topped roof (attached).

Close, but the photo wasn’t taken from the Renaissance, as many readers guessed. Another:

This week’s VFYW was way too easy … taken from either the Putra Specialist Hospital or the Bayview Hotel in Jalan Bendahara, 75100 Melaka, Malaysia, looking SW toward the Straits of Malacca.

One reader went with Bayview:

After panning around Penang for an hour proved hopeless, I turned my eyes on Melaka (where I had visited in 2008) and was shocked when after five minutes of searching, the four courtyards with the tiled roofs came up! The white building in the left of the picture is the Northwest corner of the Renaissance Melaka Hotel service wing (with a pool on top that the potted palms on the roof overlook).

Now from where is the photo actually taken? That’s a little harder, as the obvious location is taken up by a parking lot. Either the Google Maps view is out of date and a building has since been constructed there to provide the window for the view, OR the picture is taken with a telephoto lens from the Bayview Hotel Melaka OR the Putra Specialist Hospital, both located one block away on Jalan Bendahara. Since the poster is more likely a tourist, I’m betting on the Bayview Hotel, on a lower floor (6th, perhaps). I have attached a screen shot that has the location and the direction of the view of the photo.

Another guessed the hospital:

This one was a particularly challenging contest, but through a few key clues I was able to solve it! On the billboard on the right-hand side of the photo I was able to make out the word “anda,”  which is an Indonesian or Malay word for “you” or “your.” This whittled down my prospect list to either Indonesia or Malaysia. Another clue was the oil barges as this photo was obviously taken at a city with an oil port. I was very close to going with Jakarta (and wanted to since I am Dutch-Indonesian), given its location on the sea and the “old city” style roofs in its Dutch quarters.

However, I needed more confirmation. I searched and searched and searched for that AIA office in Jakarta, but could not find it. I decided to do a quick google search of AIA locations near the sea in the Indonesia/Malaysia region, and found many AIAs to be in Malaysia. One particular AIA branch stuck out to me in my search. It was situated in the city of Melaka, which is located on the Malacca Strait, where many pirates are known to wreck havoc on passing ships. Wanting to give city a chance, I saw the distinctive quadruple rectangle-orange-roof building on the google maps, matching the roof on the bottom part of the photo and in close proximity to the AIA building.

The photo was taken behind the Renaissance Hotel (the white building on the very left), facing out towards the “old town” section of the city and the Malacca Strait. In the contest photo towards the water, you can notice a bridge, which actually spans a canal entering in from the strait (photo attached). I believe the photo was taken from a hospital – just like last week’s! – that lies behind the hotel.

So close, but not the hospital. Another reader nails the right building:

This had a familiar look from my childhood years in Singapore, so I was immediately thinking of that part of the world. AIA, among many other things, turns out to be the American International Assurance company, which operates throughout southeast Asia. The billboard outside the AIA building looked to be in Malay or Indonesian (does it really say something about blood sugar level??), so we are looking for a busy port in Indonesia or Malaysia – not enough skyscrapers to be Singapore. Looked around Penang for a while without finding a match, but then I matched up the white building in the left middle distance with this one in Melaka (or Malacca). From there it was just a matter of lining up buildings to get the viewpoint. The building cutting off the view on the left is part of the Renaissance Hotel, so this was taken from the Majestic Hotel, looking about SSW towards the Melaka river and the sea:

A few readers correctly guessed the Majestic, but only the following one guessed the exact floor of the hotel:

This has to have been the hardest of these I’ve done, let alone gotten. Starting with that AIA building (they serve primarily South-East Asia), I was able to narrow my search down to about 100 cities which had an AIA office and were near the coast. Korea didn’t have palm trees, and Vietnam never looked quite right (it was too densely populated, I think). Seeing that bridge over the river at Melaka, followed by the tall-ship once I googled some pictures, convinced me I was in the right place, finally.

As for the window itself. The white building to the left of the frame is the Hotel Renaissance Melaka, and we’re looking at the top couple stories of its nine-or-ten floor base, and we’re looking from nearly directly north. The buildings immediately across the street from the Renaissance don’t seem to be nearly tall enough to give that sort of view (although I can’t tell! Google maps has failed me here!). The one that is most likely seems to be part of the Hotel Majestic, a part which so new that it doesn’t appear on google maps, but can be seen here.  I’d guess on the 8th floor. The address is 188 Jalan Bunga Raya, Melaka.

After having got Paris and Barcelona on the basis of spotting details I recognised, I think I’ve got this one through repetitive hard work. At least, I hope I have.

You have!  A window view book is on its way.

(Archive)

You have until noon on Tuesday to guess it. City and/or state first, then country. Please put the location in the subject heading, along with any description within the email. If no one guesses the exact location, proximity counts.  Be sure to email entries to VFYWcontest@gmail.com. Winner gets a free The View From Your Window book. Have at it.

A reader writes:

I enjoy reading through the winners of the VFYW contests.  I saw this one, glanced at the picture and thought to myself that it's too bad I never recognize a location. Then I read the winner and realize it was in the town where I grew up, from the hospital where I was born (and where my mom worked), showing the Main Medical building that I've been in.

Sigh. Fortunately I wasn't tasked with finding bin Laden.