Category: View From Your Window

A reader writes:

Tropical setting, looks like either a church or temple spire in the background. Identical buildings with corrugated tin roofs suggest military or some other kind of organized housing for some kind privileged or protected class of worker. Moss on the roofs suggests year-round humid conditions. Large buildings distance are widely dispersed, so it's a large and/or sprawling city, but we're probably not seeing the main part of town. It's very green, which it makes me think of south India, so I'm going with Ernakulam, Kerala.

Another:

It killed me to read that last week's contest turned out to be Sierra Vista; I was on the right track (looking up general aviation airports in Arizona) but got distracted by my job and never followed through.  This week, the landscape, vegetation, and buildings in the foreground immediately reminded me of Hoi An, Vietnam, one of my favorite places in the world. However, there are no skyscrapers in Hoi An. Looking at skyline pictures of nearby Da Nang … well, I can't quite nail it for sure, but it seems plausible. So I will say Da Nang, knowing that someone will win with a hotel room number anyway.

Another:

Compared to last week, this one was super-easy.  This is obviously Hoboken, looking east from the Frank Sinatra Soccer Field in the direction of the Hudson, toward NYC. It appears that things have grown back quickly and lushly after the damage from Hurricane Sandy. Thanks as always for an interesting challenge!

And interesting entries. Another:

Last time I went with my gut instinct, I actually got the town right, so, to continue with my "wild guesses are okay, spending my Saturday on this is not" rule: Panama City.

Another:

What seems to be a golden Buddhist stupa/pagoda/wat (not too sure what the distinction is between them), along with the foliage, indicates south-east Asia. The skyscrapers make Bangkok or Yangon likely, although the houses in the foreground remind me of Phnom Penh. So without being too specific, I'll go with Phnom Penh, let's say 15km or so south-west of downtown.

Almost had it. Another pins down the right city:

This was a tough one. I initially narrowed it down to Thailand, Laos or Cambodia, thinking the gold statue was a Buddhist Wat or Stupa. But the more I looked at it, I realized it was a Buddhist gold pagoda. It didn't take long to determine that these types of pagodas are far more common throughout Myanmar (Burma).

Now after much study, I think I was able to identify the Yangon Traders Hotel and a couple of the other high to mid-rise buildings far away in the background. The orientation led me to the area to search in Google Earth. I was finally able to narrow down the location of the photographer to be either the Yangon International Hotel at No. 330 Ahlone Road or The Summit Parkview Hotel at 350 Ahlone Road, Dagon Township, Rangoon, Burma. For my final answer, I am going with the Summit Parkview Hotel, Room 342.

Correct hotel as well. Another sends an aerial diagram:

Another:

I guess like a lot of your readers, it seems like every weekend, after the kid has gone to sleep and the wife's watching Downton Abbey, I settle down to try and guess the location of the VFYW contest. 90% of the time I spend a few hours frantically searching through Google for topography, flora, fauna and cloud formations that match up to those in the photo. In the end, I'll narrow it down, confident that I've got the right city but just can't find the right street, only to discover on Tuesday that the window in question is actually several continents away from my painstaking deduction.

But once a year on average, I think I do better. In January this year, I got the right street in Budapest and spent the rest of the day with such a grin on my face that my wife thought I might be having an affair. 

Anyway, my guess is that this week's view was from one of the windows at the Summit Parkview Hotel in Rangoon, Burma. (I prefer to call it Rangoon because I think I read somewhere that it was the military government that changed its name to Yangon for political reasons, and they're not very nice people.) My reasoning was as follows:

The landscape is flat as a pancake and obviously tropical (there's a palm tree in the foreground). That made me think it was somewhere in South Asia, probably the Ganges delta, so first I googled the Kolkata skyline, but there were too many tall buildings. Then I tried Dhaka, but again the same thing. Given the dilapidated nature of the buildings, it seemed less likely to be anywhere else in India, so I thought I'd check out Rangoon. One of the photos on Google had buildings that looked remarkably similar to the two high-rise buildings in the centre left of the photo. That made me think that the spire in the foreground was actually a pagoda and not a church as I had first assumed. I then found a map of Rangoon on Google, found the two tall buildings and the pagoda in the foreground and then triangulated the position of the window (actually I just looked for a hotel in the general vicinity, luckily found a swimming pool next to a big building and found it was called the Summit Parkview Hotel). Then I googled the hotel and found a picture that was taken from the hotel roof:

So there you go; it's the Summit Parkview Hotel, 350 Ahlone Road, Dagon Township I've no idea as to the actual window. I'm sure many of your more enterprising, energetic and intelligent readers will provide that answer, but those people are likely to get it right every second week. I would humbly suggest you award the prize to me as this would send a positive message to the millions of your readers, average Joes and Janes who, like me, will only get it right once in a blue moon, and who, in these tough economic times, need something to look forward to every weekend, while their partner is watching the TV and the kids and pets have gone to sleep.

Excellent pitch, but there several average Joes and Janes this week who submitted slightly more precise entries. Another reader sends a different angle from the Summit Parkview roof:

Another nails the right floor:

The palm trees suggested we were in the tropics (okay, they can indicate California, too, but that golden pagoda at center screen says not this time). So it's most likely Burma. I plugged away a bit in Google maps on Sunday, trying to check out the neighborhoods near every pagoda in Yangon, but the place is awash with them, and with no Streetview, little time and less faith in my guess, I gave it up pretty quickly.

But on Monday: a second wind, another try, and bingo! Just a bit north of the second pagoda, there were what had to be those yellow houses in the foreground and the narrow lane between them, leading up to what I was hoping to find: an international hotel. It's the Summit Parkview Hotel, apparently a serviceable if not overly charming business-oriented hotel, whose web site offers the address 350 Ahlone Road, Dagon Township, Rangoon, Burma:

If I had to guess, I'd say, fifth floor, fifth room from the end of the east wing. Either that or we're looking out of the north wing of the Louvre overlooking the Jardin des Tuileries catching a bit of La Defense but somehow missing the Eiffel Tower off-screen to the left. But I'm betting Burma.

According to photo's submitter, it was indeed taken from the 5th floor. Of the readers this week who guessed that floor and haven't already won a book, only one has correctly answered a difficult city in the past without breaking the tie ("difficult" is defined as cities that are only correctly guessed by 10 or fewer readers). So that reader wins with the following entry:

The photo screams Southeast Asia. Where was the tricky part. After some searching, I narrowed it down to Yangon, Myanmar, based on the blue glass building in the distance on the left. At first I thought the photo was taken at Yangon University where President Obama (perhaps submitted by the POTUS himself?!) visited last month based on the campus like setting. The buildings didn't match though. After more looking around, the photo was taken further south in town. The pagoda in the middle is the Eain Taw Yar Pagoda. The photo was taken at the Summit Parkview Hotel, 350 Ahlone Road, Dagon Township, Yangon, Myanmar, facing south. I'll guess 5th floor, room 512.

Congrats, we'll get a book prize out to you shortly. Another reader notices something:

Less than a year into America's new relationship with the country and I'm beginning to think that half the Dish's readership has already taken a trip to Yangon, Myanmar (Burma). I say so because this week's view was taken only one mile to the northwest of, and looks in the same direction as, the one featured in Contest #118 on September 1st:

That contest took me nearly the whole weekend to get; this one went a mite faster. The picture itself was taken from roughly the 5th floor of the Summit Parkview Hotel looking south, southeast towards the river.

One more reader:

In reference to Sunday's "Munich, Germany, 10.50 am" VFYW – wow, I have that one exactly.  (I realize that this is not a contest picture and this wins me absolutely no points.  Bear with me while I rant, please.)

That is taken from the GHotel in Baaderstrasse, and shows the lovely (but COLD – keep your overcoat on) Sankt Maximilian church. My wife and little 9-month-old and I were just a few weeks ago. It was our first visit to my parents, who retired overseas and are now too old to travel much. Lovely place.  

The church itself is noteworthy for its activist pastor. When first we walked by, they were rigging up a gigantic red ribbon on the main entrance for World AIDS Day. The Mass we attended also was the occasion for inaugurating a photo exhibit of a day in the life of three HIV+ men. The hotel and street and church are on the edge of the neighborhood called the Glockenbach, a longtime focal point of Munich's gay culture, now rapidly gentrifying.

That photo was like a jolt of electricity – I instantly recalled both the church experience and the visit, watching my parents hold their granddaughter for the first time.  Thank you so much for this quirky little feature.

(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 particularly great batch of entries this week. A reader writes:

Okay, I’ll go out on a limb here: it’s an airport.

Another:

I spent WAY too much time on Google Maps trying to find the right control tower and couldn’t do it. The terrain and vehicles scream North America, specifically the Mountain West. Initially I thought Montana, but couldn’t find a matching airport. The closest one I found was in New Mexico: Four Corners Regional Airport. The next closest was in California, but I forget which it was. We’ll call Four Corners Regional my official (but wrong) guess. I’m looking forward to seeing where it actually is. Canada, maybe?

Another:

Area 51? Desolate airbase in the middle of nowhere with ’60s military construction plus one suspiciously tall pine tree in an obviously arid region. Scrub-covered mountains in the distance remind me of growing up in the southwest. Actual location: Classified.  

Another:

The key is the single juniper tree growing in the background. I undertook an exhaustive search for a Juniper Airport. And voila! – an airport in Juniper, New Brunswick, Canada. That there are mountains in the background of your photo, and that it shows no thick impenetrable forests surrounding the airport, is rather perplexing. As is the tower, where there isn’t really one at Juniper. But I’m absolutely positive the tree is the key, and I refuse to be thrown off track by a few minor inconsistencies.

Now then, if you could gift-wrap the book, that would be perfect. Thanks in advance.

Heh. Another:

The Supermax penitentiary in Florence, Colorado? I think I drove past this place once on vacation and thought it was ironic that such as dreadful place be placed in the middle of such a pretty area. Then again, it was desolate and I guess the point was if someone was going to bust out of a place like this they weren’t going to get very far. Anyways, I am probably off. I also assume the picture is taken from an admin building, which when you think about probably rules this place out. I mean, would they really let people take pictures of a prison from the inside looking out? Oh well, guessing is free.

Another Florence guesser:

I can’t wait to see the meticulous diagram of what window this was taken out of by some enterprising fellow who insists that he and his wife stayed there for a weekend in that precise cell block just last summer.

Another reader:

I’ve never written in before, and consider myself a proud lurker, even though I’ve been reading the Dish for years and often felt the itch of recognition on the weekly VFYW. But here I must succumb: Is this the airport in Moron, Mongolia? I took a transit through there in 1999 en route to Lake Khovsgal, in the north of the county. I’m sure my gut, which has no ability to or interest in Google-mapping, is probably way off. I’m sure it’s somewhere else in China, Chile, or Nevada. But I hereby stake my claim. Is there a term for a Dish reader who finally, after years, goes from lurking to emailing?

We call them Dishheads. Another:

I’m listening to my daughter’s orchestra rehearsal so I can’t conveniently confirm with my iPhone, but based on the appearance of those foothills and the wheat fields, I do believe that’s from the Fort Collins – specifically Loveland Airport, looking west-northwest. Wish there was more snow in those mountains.

Sent from my iPhone

Another:

My completely uneducated guess: Elko, Nevada. I can’t wait to see who the runner-up is after James Fallows identifies this county airport and perhaps explains how a passenger jet once landed there by mistake!

We looked for Jim lurking in the in-tray, but no luck, so Dish readers still have a chance of winning. Another:

OK, an airport. And a tree that often appears in Mediterranean climates. Not much to go on for a VFYW novice like me. My husband said “Africa” as soon as he saw it. As my sister is a scientist who specializes in the effects of urbanization on water in Mediterranean climates, I actually knew that South Africa has such a climate.

OK, so it’s part of northern Africa, but I need to narrow my options or I’ll be doing this all night. I found a helpful website that listed towns in South Africa to which you’d need to charter a flight. That sounded about right, given that this doesn’t look like, ahem, one of your major airports. (No offense – I just spend too way too much time flying out of Newark.)

I chose Oudtshoorn first because I couldn’t find images of any of these little airports … so it could be any – or none – for all I know. And second, because it just sounds great. Oudtshoorn. I don’t even care if I win – I’d just like to see The Dish mention Oudtshoorn. Oudtshoorn.

Another:

This looks like the airport outside of Nicosia, Cyprus, abandoned after the 1974 war and now a part of the Buffer Zone. Of course I’ve never actually been there, given that it’s in the Buffer Zone, but the mountains in the background look so much like the Kyrenia Mountains of North Cyprus that it seems worth a guess.

Another:

Just an immediate impression: the control tower made me think of the old Alameda Naval Air Station in Alameda, CA. I live in Oakland and was there recently at the St. George Distillery for a tour and a tasting of their spirits. They make Hanger One vodka, among other wonderful products. The Naval Air Station property is at the western end of Alameda island and looks out over San Francisco Bay to the city. Our tour was at 5pm, just as the sun was setting. After that we were ready for the tasting and stood at the lovely bar and looked out toward the lights of the city as we sipped their wonderful offerings.

Another:

Creech AFB, Henderson, Nevada? Topical given the recent highlighted interest in drone attacks.  Creech is where many of the UAVs over AFG/PAK are controlled from.

Another:

Obviously an airfield of some kind, and the color scheme – desert khaki – is one that the US Air Force uses just about everywhere. Also, the partially-enclosed hangar is not something you often see at a civilian airport, and there’s generally too much orderliness to not be a military airfield. After looking at Air Force bases in the southwestern US, I have to rule those out because the control tower in the photo is too short to match that of Holloman AFB, Davis-Mothan AFB, Altus AFB, Vance AFB, Creech AFB, and five or six other candidates.  

The aircraft itself is a bit odd in that if this is a military installation, the Air Force does not keep many twin-engine propeller aircraft in its inventory. Apparently that aircraft is the MC-12, and an AF.mil fact sheet reports we have only 40 in the inventory. News reports announced that the MC-12 recently did service at Kandahar, and that airfield received a new control tower not too long ago. Google Earth imagery is two years old, so perhaps that’s not of much use. The topography is consistent with Kandahar.

Final guess: the view is from a building adjacent to the old military air traffic control tower at Kandahar. 

Another:

This is the Inyokern airport in Inyokern, California. The view is to the northwest, facing the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Beyond the airfield to the distant north, hidden behind the sign board, is Mt. Whitney. Out of view to the east is the Naval Air Weapons Station at China Lake. I’d better get this right, because (1) I set a scene in one of my novels at the Inyokern airport, (2) for two years I kept a USGS map of the area on my wall, and (3) my in-laws live a few miles down the road.

Thanks for running this contest. It’s always a highlight of my week.

Another:

This week’s contest is harder than I first thought. It seemed doable by brute force – how many towered airports are so near mountains? But now after long fruitless searching, I realize that the control tower may be inactive, making the sheer number of possibilities daunting. The closest I’ve found is Lewiston, Idaho, so I’ll go with it, hoping to be maybe in the same state at least.

Another nails the right state and airport:

Sierra Vista Municipal-Libby AAF Airport, Sierra Vista, Arizona. This looks like a view out of Base Operations from a window left of the central walkway from the flight ramp. We are looking past the control tower across the Ramada Ramp.

About a half-dozen readers correctly answered Libby. Another:

Sierra Vista Municipal Airport, Arizona? Oh please oh please oh please. The SV airport is about 30 miles from my home in Bisbee (a liberal oasis in a conservative desert). Rather than spend hours on the computer, I decided to drive over and confirm my suspicions. (Okay, okay, I confess that I secretly hoped to meet the submitting Dish reader too.) I’ve submitted guesses before – never even close – but I think I’ve got this one. This is the closest I could get, with a telephoto lens:

As you can see, it’s not a bustling airport.

Another:

OK, I’m a pilot so this one attracted my attention more than usual. I have the FAA charts and looked at all the towered airports in the West. Only one came close, Sierra Vista:

Another:

This is one for the aviation geeks for sure.  While I would certainly count myself as one, I would not have been able to have figured this out without the assistance of one of the all-time greatest aviation geeks, my friend David at Aeromechanical Solutions. 

This looks very American Southwest.  The first real clue is the aircraft under the sun shade – it’s a Beechcraft King Air of some sort.  The big black tip tanks and black nose give it away as an RC-12, which is a variant used by the Army for surveillance.  So, we’re looking for an Army Airfield in the Southwest that would operate surveillance aircraft.  Probably something close to the border with Mexico.  Wikipedia gives us a nice list of AAFs in the US.

The first one that caught my eye was Laguna Army Airfield, but that does not have a control tower.  The very next one is Libby Army Airfield at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.  This one does indeed have a control tower.  Not only that, right in front of the control tower are some sun shades, and on Google Earth there is clearly an RC-12 sitting right out in front of one!  The control tower is white and six-sided, just like the one in the photo, and there is a courtyard with what looks like hedges next to it.  Bingo.  The photo looks to be taken from the first floor.  In the lower right corner there is a tiny bit of plant sticking up – I’m guessing that’s a tiny bit of the foliage seen near the building in Google Earth.  The shadow also backs up this idea – it jogs in to follow the roofline.  So I would place the window somewhere along the section of the building in the attached screen shot:

None of the Libby entrants have answered a difficult window in the past without winning, so to break the tie this week, we counted the number of contests each of them have participated in. The following reader wins with seven:

The Google satellite shot shows a tree that’s no longer there. This was obviously an airport, but I’m a General Aviation pilot so I knew the tower wasn’t the size or type you see at large fields.  I looked all over the Southwest US for airfields big enough to have a control tower (Class C or D) but not too large given the size of the tower in the photo.  Libby AAF looked pretty close, but I had my doubts, mostly because of that missing tree.   

I found a couple of training videos on the airport website showing planes landing there, but the tower was never close enough in the videos to see details that would verify it.  Then I saw another video of an F-16 landing and if I paused at just the right moment I could see the tower a little more clearly, but could also see the open-walled hangars.  That gave me more hope. I hoped I find some kind of brochure or picture set on the website and that led me to this pdf. That was the Holy Grail for this VFYW because it showed the tower (and light pole with three lights) up close and from a slightly different angle.  It even shows an aicraft of the same type (RC12 Huron) in the hangar (3rd photo).

The photographer must be either military or a civilian contractor to have access to that VFYW. Fort Huachuca is the US Army’s test and training center for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

(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:

A flat roof, so no snow. No fallen leaves, so we must be in evergreen country – Seattle? Distant mountains – the Cascades? View looks north of northeast, I'd guess from the satellite dishes. No ferries, container ships, navy or cruise ships, but lots of facilities for leisure sailing. OK, a few mins on Google Earth should pin down this one …  [Some considerable time later… ] I'm going to be tactically vague and say Puget Sound.

Another:

My gut reaction when I saw this week's contest was somewhere in the Puget Sound region.  The populated hillsides surrounding the water, the mix of evergreen and deciduous trees, the Interceptor parking patrol vehicle, the color of the recycling bin, mix of house colors and middle class car types all spoke Northwest to me.  With only a bit of time to search, the best I could come up with is Port Orchard, with its several recreational vessel piers filled with sailboats.

Another:

A "no search" guess here: it’s got to be somewhere on the west coast of North America, although if the cars were going the other way I would have liked it to be some place like the Bay of Islands in New Zealand or a bay on the Southeast Australian Coast.  Just too many boats here.  With no time to ponder satellite maps, I’ll guess Victoria to cover the amount of hillside development (more than in the US’s San Juan Islands). And it goes without saying that I’d rather be there than here; three weeks of snow and temperatures around zero make me a very cranky Alaskan …

Another:

I'm sure this is Dunedin, New Zealand, somewhere between Ravensbourne and the city, looking across at the port hills (Shiel Hill/Highcliff on Google Maps). Buggered if I can be more accurate than that – and I've spent about an hour of my Sunday morning trawling Dunedin's street views.

Another:

The town is really beautiful – I really don't have any idea where it is.  All I know is that it looks like the town from The Goonies, which according to the Internet is Astoria, Oregon.  Probably not correct, but a good childhood memory all the same!

Another:

I can't figure out quite where this is, but everything about it – the sailboats in the harbor, the other side of the bay so close, the twin piers – screams Monterey to me. I think it's in the neighborhoods up the hill from the water, behind the International School, though the exact address – Franklin Street? Jefferson? – eludes me.

Another nails it:

Wow, to know the feeling of setting down the google map man right where you think the VFYW is and have the exact scene unfold in front of your eyes is quite the thrill.

Back when I lived by the Bay, I went to beautiful Sausalito, passing by that low brown building and marveling at the gorgeous bay scenery with the numerous sail boats lying in wait many, many times. I am sure the sender at 520somethingorother Johnson St. appreciates just how good they have it. I couldn't for the life of me find away to get around a branch obscuring the address, but please find attached the requisite screen grab with window outline and street view:

Close to 300 readers got Sausalito, California. Another:

After seeing your VFYW shots week after week for as long as you've been doing this, I can't believe I immediately knew this one!  And anyone in the San Francisco bay area should figure it out pretty quickly.  (But maybe I'm the first?) The hills, the water, it's obvious:  it's Sausalito, CA. Specifically, I'm guessing the address is 520 Johnson Drive, looking out the big picture window to the north with the lovely view of Richardson Bay and the Tiburon/Belvedere hills in the background:

Obviously taken in the summer or early fall, judging by the golden color of the hills.  I'm so psyched that I got it!

Another:

One of the prettiest towns on the West coast.  Lived there for years, loved every second of it.  Sushi Ran is a two blocks from here and is one of the best sushi spots in the US.

Another:

The barren hills initially had me thinking Arizona, but the size of the marina and the steep street in the foreground led me back to California. This week's view shows an inlet of San Francisco Harbor, Richardson Bay, as seen from Sausalito. The bay itself is a fairly important ecological sanctuary, and the Audubon Society is responsible for its' protection and day-to-day management. Overhead view attached:

Another:

Less than a mile away is the US Army Corps of Engineers' Bay Model, a truly unique 1/1000 scale model of the entire San Francisco bay. This thing is enormous: almost three acres. Until computers became powerful enough, it was used to simulate tides and currents in the bay, for instance to determine the impact of oil spills. It's oddly mesmerizing, and I highly recommend a visit if you're in the area.

The piers on the left side of the photo used to be a major Liberty ship building area. By the end of the war, they had 70,000 workers cranking out a ship every 13 days. You can't see them very well, but there's also a bunch of cool boat houses docked towards the middle and right of the photo, including what has got to be one of the weirdest floating things ever (see attached photo – yes, that's actually a boat):

Another:

I was lucky enough to have an uncle with a small sail boat berthed in the marina on the right side of the image. This was back in the late '60s and early '70s when there were still piles of rotting wooden ferry boats – common along the waterfront back then.  Oh, and most of the hills in the distance were sparsely populated. Yes, nice memories of Sausalito.

Another:

This is from the glassed-in porch of 48 Glen Drive, Sausalito, California, looking out over the red-leafed plum trees at the Belvedere portion of the Tiburon peninsula. We live in town and have walked our greyhound past there more times than I can count! I'm pretty sure that the folks who live there own Eyeitalia, an Italian import and gifts shop, at 43 Princess Street in Sausalito. They also have a Dalmatian who likes ear scratches. We don't know these folks personally, but Sausalito's a small town, especially for dog owners. Hi, neighbors!

I ran over today to take a couple of pictures: one looking at the house from the street, and one of the street view, with my poorly-focused smartphone showing the VFYW contest pic. The photo was taken from one of the east-facing panes, facing down the hill in the house photo:

Funnily enough, you featured our own VFYW almost exactly a year ago.

Another:

I have lived here since 1965, except for a couple of years in Manhattan.  Perhaps Sausalito thought of as a tourist town, but that is true only for Bridgeway,  the "main drag."  It is a very settled community:  we could have a 1967 Sausalito Nursery School car pool reunion if so inclined.   We all care for one another. But we have the Welcome Mat out at all times for visitors from other countries and from elsewhere in the U.S. of A.  I am a member of the Sausalito Volunteers in Public Safety – "The VIPS" - we work closely with the Sausalito Police Department –  and it is a unique pleasure to meet and individually welcome people from all over the world on every public occasion.

I sailed competitively for many years in the Knarr fleet. The opportunity to sail on San Francisco Bay is beyond price. If you don't find an opportunity to do that, the Golden Gate Ferry to San Francisco will at least give you an interval out on the water, "away from it all."

And yes, we live with extra supplies and a "Plan B" because we are close to the San Andreas fault. There are small earthquakes all the time.  As for "The Big One" – the geologic stratification of Sausalito is interesting, with advantages to living "up the hill."

To select the winner among the hundreds of correct entries this week, we turned to a reader who has gotten several difficult window views in the past without ever breaking the tie, including a few recent close-calls:

As a resident of the Bay area, I instantly recognized this as a view from the East side of Marin County over Richardson Bay to Tiburon. However, even if I hadn't known where it was taken from, this shot is unique amongst the puzzles I've worked on in that, based on obvious features of the image and geography, it could literally have only been this one place. Here is why:

1) It's unambiguously California. The overall appearance of the hills, water and car strongly suggest it. But the definite tell is the campaign sign in the foreground for California Proposition 37 – the hotly contested GMO labeling bill:

2) It's a view looking east based on the direction of the south pointing satellite dishes.

3) The water in the foreground is protected – not open bay or sea. 

With those three things, it has to be Marin. There is no other place in California with an east view of mountains over a protected body of water in a reasonably populated area. So then we're left with figuring out the exact location. It's Sausalito. The green awning identifies the street as Johnson St., and the house is clearly 48 Glen Dr.

(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:

Based on the type and amount of erosion on those very green mountains in the background, I’d guess Hawaii. I’m also guessing Oahu because of the development in the foreground. This is truly a gut reaction; because the picture makes me homesick, I think it’s Hawaii. Go Bows!

Another:

When I enlarge the photo, the characters on the binder just on our side of the window are still illegible; however, their spacing makes me think of an east Asian script. The flags in the foreground and on top of the tower appear to be Malaysian. Maybe the Taiwanese flag, but I think I see bits of white under the red, which would probably mean Malaysia's flag (the one that looks like a rip-off of ours but is actually apparently a rip-off of the British East India Company's flag – thanks, Internet!). Beyond that, I got nothing. Johor, Malaysia?

Another:

The outskirts of Taipei, Taiwan? That's a complete guess, as I haven't been there.  But the geography seems to fit Taiwan better than Haiti, Samoa, or Liechtenstein, which are also countries that have a flag with blue and red borders and something white in the middle, as the flag in the center of the photo seems to have.

Another:

The flags in the middle and on top of the building suggest either Myanmar, Samoa, or Taiwan.  My first thought was that someone in the diplomatic corps sent you this from Myanmar's new capital of Napyidaw. But it appears to be on the same giant delta that cuts through most of Myanmar. Taiwan, on the other hand, is covered with hills like this, including most of Taipei.  After a couple hours on Google Maps, I can't pinpoint the location, but I'm sure it's somewhere in Taiwan.  I'll go with Xizhi the hills northeast of Taipei:

Another:

My first hunch: a resource rich country, probably in the tropics, a city with verdant volcanic mountains very close by. I tried Google Images for Caracas, and the mountains looked very similar to your View. Could that be a Venezuelan (or Taiwan?) flag just left and below the center of the picture? And maybe one at the top of the nearest tower? The design of the towers has a Miesian influence, albeit softened by curves, which suggests a place with more affection for Western aesthetic values than say China or Taiwan. I'll go with Caracas.

Another:

I would swear that this view is from a window in the country of my birth, Costa Rica. I would even venture to say it is somewhere in the area of Escazu, because of all the construction. The mountains, the lushness, the colors: they all speak to my childhood. Now watch me be wrong and they'll take away my passport!

Another:

This week's contest is killing me.  

The picture screams inter-mountain western United States, from the high terrain, low foliage, western urban buildings (minus any garish billboards).  If it's the northern hemisphere, I am pretty sure this is facing east or southeast.  The building in the middle screams college theater building, or some such.  I have been through ever major (and minor) metro area in the western US that has controlled access highways running hard against a south facing slope with a large mountain in the background (low angle Google Earth wandering), and come up completely empty.  My best bets were the Salt Lake City area and the far north western parts of the LA valley, but nothing comes close.  I even tried some southern hemisphere locations, but none of the foliage makes sense to me.

I'm stumped, and it's killing me because there are plenty of markers in this picture that should make it solvable by someone who does not have personal knowledge.

Another:

Not much to go by but I'm assuming that is Chile's flag on the pole. From there, my quick review leads me to Concepcion. Let's say near where Avenida Jorge Alessandri Rodriguez intersects Ruta 154, the Paicavi. How'd I do?

Right country. Another gets the right city:

Finally one I can answer. That's Santiago, Chile, taken from the World Trade Center looking due north to the U.S. Embassy (the beige, rectangular building in the center of the image) and the Cerro Manquehue mountain, which I used to climb. The dark building on the right is an office tower known as Torre de la Industria. The under-construction towers on the right are called Parque Titanium – due to be completed in 2014.

Another sends a Google Earth image of the area:

Another reader:

Santiago is at the foot of the Andes.  Flying into Santiago from the East is very dramatic, with your plane almost touching the mountaintops.  Thanks to the copper trade, the capital city has experienced an explosion of construction – of course, all earthquake resistant.

Another:

The mountain in the background is too low to be in the main ranges of the Andes. Flying around on Google Earth reveals it to be Cerro Manquehe.

Another:

I visited Santiago once in September of 2005, at that time none of these office buildings would have existed yet. It was the beginning of an economic boom and they had just completed the Costanera Norte, a private toll highway built partially underground beneath the Mapocho River in some areas, that ushered the wealthy residents of the Las Condes suburbs to their downtown offices. At that time there was strong opposition from Las Condes residents against extending the Red Line of the Santiago Metro further east into their neighborhood, evidence of the enormous wealth/class gap as you cross the capital.

This view is facing north from a 6th floor window in the Edificio Costanera in the "new" business district of El Golf (see picture):

The reader with the most accurate guess:

The foliage had me thinking South America immediately, and the red and blue flag quickly ruled out Brazil or Argentina, but it was the combination of mountains and skyscrapers which led me to Santiago, Chile. More specifically, this week's view looks almost due north towards the U.S. Embassy from Santiago's Torre de la Costanera on the Avenida Andres Bello. The nearly complete towers on the left are part of the Parque Titanium development, one of many such projects in Santiago's booming "Sanhattan" district. Finding the exact floor the picture was taken from was more tricky.

My best guess is the 8th floor offices of a Chilean law firm, Bofill Mir & Alvarez Jana, but it might also be the local offices of PricewaterhouseCoopers below. A marked picture of the likely window is attached:

The 8th floor is correct. However, that reader has won a book already, so we will give this week's prize to a previous correct guesser who hasn't won yet and who got closest to the 8th floor:

Back in August, in Contest #115 you published a picture from Pablo Neruda's house on the Chilean coast in Valparaíso.  I was really disappointed that I didn't figure it out because just six weeks earlier I had toured his house in Santiago.  But this Chilean view I know.

The campus in the center of the image is the US Embassy.  The Torre Titanium la Portada, the second tallest building in Chile, is actually directly across the street from the Embassy but it is blocked in the VFYW image by the Torre La Industria which is the building in the immediate right foreground.  The two curved buildings on the left are in Parque Titanium.  Not surprisingly I suppose, the district we are in is referred to as Sanhattan – Santiago's Manhattan.   This week's photo was taken from the Torre de la Costanera which is located at 2711 Avenue Andres Bello.  If the tie breaker is the floor then I'll guess we are on the 6th as shown in this photo:

By the way, my daughter and I are undertaking a project we call Seven Tall Beauties.  It is our quest to climb the stairs of the tallest building on each continent.  We had previously climbed buildings in Chicago, Melbourne, Johannesburg and this past June we were in Santiago to climb to the top of the Gran Torre Costanera – the tallest building in South America.  It is just two blocks south of where this week's VFYW was taken from.   I've attached my photo from the top of the tower:

Details from the submitter:

The picture was taken from the 8th floor of an office building called Torre Costanera on Av. Andrés Bello 2711, in the Las Condes sector of Santiago, Chile. Looking north east. Extra points if someone mentions "Sanhattan" as some call this part of town due to the number of high rise office buildings. I took the shot because often Santiago had a significant amount of of but the on days after it rains, it's a beautiful place – especially in spring.

Update from a reader:

I have sympathy for this week's winner. I am the person who submitted the picture for contest #115 of Valparaiso, but I actually live in Santiago and I had no idea about this week's. Chile didn't even cross my mind. In my defense I never go to that part of town; I live on the west side with the commoners. But goes to show living in the same city as the picture doesn't necessary help!

Thanks for the contest. I recently turned my mom on to your site as she just got highspeed internet access for the first time. She was here in Chile visiting me this past week and I caught her checking it several times.

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