.5 of us

"Look up, everyone!" Clockwise from left: SF, _pdra, Aryen, SY and Gin.

These are the people whom I've been hanging out with over the past fortnight, since my return to Melbourne..

The 5 people consist of the siblings - SF, SY and Gin, + Aryen (SY's girlfriend) and _pdra (myself)..

Doh.. You know what, I don't know what to say about these people.. But here are some vocabularies to describe them:
- Clean
- Nice
- Happy
- Fun-loving
- Hilarious
- Helpful

.

With Gin now back in Malaysia+Singapore, there's just 4 of us left.. Gin's absence has made the house very quiet (and somewhat a little serious than before)... :\

And so we're left with Aryen now - the fun-loving chick who always make us laugh without fail!

Hmmmm... I'm the kind of person who prefers having a house to just me and my other half... But I wouldn't mind living with these 4 other people again - that is, if we have a much bigger place and sufficient private space for everyone. :):):)

:)

.un-expectation

One sentence: I am attending graduate school this coming July!!!*

Oooh yeah, I feel that I should share this piece of news with everyone before the excitement goes away... ^^

I know I should include a photo in here, but I'll do that later because I am half asleep.. And your most likely response would be, "In that case, why don't you go to bed?" I say, "No, it's 2:05am and I suddenly have this idea for a project that I want to add into my portfolio for the grad school application."

So yeah, I need to input these great potential ideas into my visual diary before I forget them.

***

And I think I'm pretty much done with my brain storming. I will continue again when inspiration comes in, which will probably take place at around 1.43am tomorrow.

Later y'all.


* That is, if everything goes well.

.switching roles

Men in Kitchen.

Dinner tonight involved the two couples, SY + Aryen, and SF + _pdra (me). We all agreed to have home-cooked roti prata, an Indian style fried pastry, usually served with fish curry.

I did help out a little by preparing the [instant] curry sauce.. And did a little bit of frying too, until SF kindly asked me to take a rest while he and his older brother took over the cooking.

Aryen and myself strongly agreed that it's great to put these guys in the kitchen for a bit.. Umm, but SF has always been the main cook among the two of us (we are currently in a de facto relationship) so I guess today doesn't make much of a difference for him... :]

Last but not least, I would like to thank the boys for such a great dinner. Cheers guys!

.the real happy meal

お好み焼き.

When 5 people get together to have dinner.

.cultural night

Sushi for Dinner.

I was still feeling a little crummy the day after I arrived back in Melbourne.. And was craving for sushi. I'd always crave for Japanese food (particularly sushi rolls) when I'm not being my best.....

So I made an announcement to everyone that I will be making sushi the following night, which is Tuesday.

Inari sushi.

Californian rolls with Salmon, avocado and cucumber.

Nigiri with sashimi salmon.

And I we did. The five of us, SF, SY, Aryen, Gin and myself contributed to the sushi-making process that night. It was actually quite fun having so many people cook dinner together, and it felt like we were celebrating "Japanese Day" or something, with everyone trying to come up with one or two Japanese words and phrases while cooking and dining.

Nigiri with unagi (eel) and sashimi salmon.

After dinner, we continued to sit around the dining table for some good chatting session and also enjoyed some green tea. I have a feeling that I'm going to make them all (particularly the new comers Aryen and SY) addicted to tea. :D

Dinner has not been this warm for a while. And I'd like to thank all of them for making it such a great one!

.a place to reflect

Top to Bottom: Late-afternoon, Evening and Night at Eureka Skydeck 88.

Desperate to get out of the house for some great photo walk, I've decided to drop by the Skydeck 88 at Eureka Towers in Southbank after dinner yesterday.

This is my second trip up to the observatory.. Nevertheless, I was just as amazed and fascinated by the breath taking view of Melbourne.

I was up at the Skydeck at at around 6.30pm and stayed all the way till closing hour.. And almost didn't want to leave! The main reason I left 20 minutes before the closing hour was because I knew SF was worried about me being alone out there by myself.

Anyways, I really like it up there.. If money wasn't an issue at all I would be more than happy to make my way up daily!

So if you plan to visit Melbourne soon, add Eureka Skydeck 88 to your list of places-to-visit! I'd highly recommend going up at around late-afternoon till closing hour. Trust me, you won't regret this. And I dare you to try out the Edge! Check out www.eureka88.com.au for more details.

.the huge leap

The huge leap - Canon Digital EOS 5D Mark II

It's finally here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'd like to thank SF for ordering + picking this up from the shop for me, and LX for hand carrying it back from Melbourne to Johor for me (tax refund purposes).

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so excited... So excited that I don't even know what to say now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

--

Am looking forward to staring a new chapter of photography with this new camera.. And there's no turning back - I'm going to train myself to become a professional photographer.

Here's the very first photo that I've taken with the 5DmII.

.the lunar celebration

Pixels in the Air.

Mom's Special Day

Initially, I was about to submit Pixels in the Air into the 2009:A Year in Pictures pool*.. And that was before we had the cake.

Then, I decided to take some good photos when my mom sat in front of the cake. I reckon Mom's Special Day is much more significant than the bokeh (1st image) one and hence, decided to post it up in 2009YIP.

It was fun.. And seeing everyone's laughter makes me really happy.. :) I hope that there will always be joy in this house!

お母さん、誕生日おめでとう! Happy birthday Mom!

* Check out my 2009YIP set here!

.seriously messed up

Seriously Messed up.

So far, this has gotta be the coolest please-clean-up-my-room tag I've seen in hotels!

And I'm seriously messed up too. At the moment.

Hmm..

.neverending trouble

I'm in a Bit of Trouble...

First of all, I'm in desperate need of extra luggage space. I'll be taking off for Melbourne this weekend and have decided to start packing a little early to see if everything fits (and that these bags don't go over the 20kg limit).

Now I'm not sure if I should get my friend (currently holidaying in Melbourne) to go through the tax refund process for me and pass the item to me before I head back - A$300 is quite a bit of money! :\

Such a huge dilemma.

I have turned down the chance to use my Krisflyer points to upgrade to Business class - because that means taking an overnight flight. Considering the fact that I've been taking overnight flights back to Melbourne the past few times, I decided I've had enough and will just go ahead with the morning flight. You'll get what I mean if you've gone through the painfully long arrival proceedures at the Melbourne Airport in the morning.

Alright, I shall get back to packing. Talk later!

.summer-ing

Flip-Flops (High Dynamic Range Image).

C'est été. Nous devrions aller à la plage. It's summer. We should go to the beach.

--

I'll be hanging around on the plane in exactly 7 days time, getting ready to land at Melbourne Tullamarine International Airport.. And I can't wait to be back!!!

--

Let's hope the temperature over in Victoria will stop rising in the next week..... Because there's no air-conditioning unit in our apartment. -_-;

.i wanna smile

Model: J. Wang (my 7 year old cousin)

I wanna smile but I can't do it.

Will you make me smile?

.h-b-w

HBW?

H-B-W stands for Happy Bokeh Wednesday. It is umm... a weekly event, to celebrate how lovely and fun bokeh is. And why Wednesdays? Why not any other days? I don't know. H-B-W probably sounds better than any other combinations. Let's have a look - Monday - Sunday.

H-B-M
H-B-T
H-B-W
H-B-T
H-B-F
H-B-S
H-B-S

Yeah, so H-B-W is best among all the other combinations.

Some of you might ask - what's a bokeh?

Bokeh (ボケ) is the Japanese word for "blurred". In other words, it is a photography technique usually done with prime lenses with wide aperture values. The photo above is one example of bokeh, where the background appears out of focus and that only a specific subject/area in the photograph is sharp.

So ummm.. Let's celebrate H-B-W y'all!!! w00t!

Click here for more of my bokeh/DoF/50mm prime lens shots.

.funny shit

Ready to Attack.

Hmm.. I'll type up something funny when I come up with ideas.

.shanghai yay!

Huangpu River & Beyond (high dynamic range image).

We had a family meeting on one of those weekly Sunday dinner sessions a few weeks ago and were deciding between Shanghai and Taipei for our rare family vacation.

I strongly voted for Taipei; sister I wanted both Shanghai and Taipei; sister S strongly wanted to go to Shanghai; and while my parents and brother were neutral about both destinations.

...

In the end, some of them changed their minds (¬.¬') and here's the final vote result:

Shanghai: 5 votes
Taipei: 1 vote

And I gave in reluctantly.

----------------------------------------------

But everything turned out great - we had good accommodation, good food, good jokes, good everything during the trip.

I'd love to visit Shanghai again someday and would definitely save up enough to stay in JIA Shanghai, a really posh boutique hotel located in the heart of Shanghai city.

Also, I'll buy more souvenirs when I get to go next time.

And I'll stock up on Onitsuka shoes there!

And and and and and.. I'll eat more Xiǎolóngbāo's (小籠包). Yummy!

..

Okay. The end. I'm still a little exhausted so pardon me for yet another abrupt end to this entry. Yeah.

.needs rest again

Contrast.

I am fully aware that the title of the photo above does not go well with what I am about to type.. But this is the only zen-ish photo I can find for now. And most importantly, I like it.

Yes... Let's continue on before I fall asleep on my keyboard.

I have just returned from a family trip to Shanghai and am totally *goes off and search a good word from the thesaurus* wiped out.

I'm serious guys, I've been carrying 2 DSLR camera bodies (with 2x 630 grams lens attached) around for the past 5 days and my shoulder is aching badly now. In the mean time, I will be doing quite a bit of photo updates on Flickr, so do check back often!

Oh yea, speaking of Flickr, I'm feeling pretty bad for not checking out my friends' & contacts' photos in the past... Couple.. Months.. Especially since I returned from Melbourne 1.5 month ago.. :( I'm really sorry guys, I'll get back to it when I'm well-rested and fresh again! Promise! :)

AND NOW I REALLY NEED SOME SLEEP. umm.. I am aware of the abrupt ending to this post but I... ZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.