Category Archives: Photography

A Road Trip To Valencia

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The Beautiful Peñíscola

“You always like to do it the hard way” – I get that a lot from the people around me.  I have no idea how the hard way always find its way to me.  But I think, rewards are earned, not being handed over.

For the record, I don’t seek out the hard way.  I would prefer to take a train from one city to another, and then take an excursion trip like what we did in Montserrat.  But Cynthia wanted to experience what a road trip would be like in Spain.  And so, we rented a car in Barcelona, passing the beautiful coastal towns of Tarragona and Peñíscola, before reaching Valencia.

As usual, below are the options you may wish to read more about our road trip.

  • A photo collection for day 4 of our trip to Spain (38 photos with captions)
  • A journal written in details on what we did and more (approx 2,000 words)
  • A highlight of the photos below (8 photos – and for Facebook readers, please view the original post)

Talking about the hard way, I have not eaten since I woke up.  Eight hours I have spent on this entry.  Time to have a real good meal before watching the F1 broadcast at eight!

To read the rest of the travel blog entries, please follow this tag.

Into the Mountain Montserrat

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Montserrat

If you open the Sunday edition of our local paper The Strait Times, you shall see a write up on Spain with a picture on a location exactly the same as my entry last week.  What a coincidence.

Ever since I have started writing this Sunday series on our trip to Spain, there are two questions often asked.  (1) Why takes so long to process the photos?  (2) How come you are not inside the album?

To be honest, selecting the photos and processing them is easy.  They are more or less as they are except the few artistic spins to make them unique.  It is looking through my handwritten notes and the materials we have collected in order to (a) write a journal of the day, (b) put in a proper caption for each photo (and try to make the story gels), and (c) write a blog entry – that takes time.  I also try not to repeat the contents for these different channels because there may be readers who read (a), (b), and (c).  But I enjoy doing that.  As in why I am not inside the album.  Well, Cynthia has been taking my pictures as we toured.  And I may share them towards the end of this series.  Also, towards the end of the trip, I suddenly remember I have brought along a tripod.  So you will see more of ‘our’ photos later.

As usual, below are the options you may wish to read more about our day 3 journey – a visit to a monastery in Montserrat and more.

  • A photo collection for day 3 of our trip to Spain (35 photos with captions)
  • A journal written in details on what we did and more (approx 1,000 words)
  • A highlight of the photos below (8 photos – and for Facebook readers, please view the original post)

Enjoy!

To read the rest of the travel blog entries, please follow this tag.

Second Day Is All About Gaudí

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Sagrada Familia in Year 2009

It is hard to imagine someone who has passed away more than 80 years ago have left behind such a legacy that – to me – so ahead of his or even our time.  Gaudí stands as one of the most original architects and his signature design of curvature inspired by nature’s creation can be seen in and around Barcelona.  And on day two, Cynthia and I have spent much time at the Church Sagrada Família that is still under construction as well as the apartment Casa Milá “La Pedrera” (World Heritage Site) – both by Gaudí.  Below are the options you may wish to read more about our day 2 journey.

  • A photo collection for day 2 of our trip to Spain (78 photos with captions)
  • A journal written in details on what we did and more (approx 1,500 words)
  • A highlight of the photos below (12 photos – and for Facebook readers, please view the original post)

This batch of photos and write-ups took me longer than anticipated.  Probably because of the contents as well as the number of photos taken on that day.  For next entry, I will try to stick to my Sunday publication date.  Sorry for the delay!

To read the rest of the travel blog entries, please follow this tag.

My Dog and My Family, One Day at a Park

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My Dog and His Dog Tak Tak

I wonder if any of you remember precisely what you did during the New Year Day, or on that day, what has gone into your mind.  I didn’t.  As I processed my digital mountain worth of photo backlog, the timestamp of this particular photo collection tells me that on New Year Day, my family took our lovely dog to the park.  Ma joined late, it was a cold day, and there were moments when our beautiful white dog drew attention from the fellow park visitors, unintended attention from the dogs bigger than him, smaller than him.  Pa doesn’t like our dog to get bullied by other dogs, I get it.  To the extend of over-protectively keeping our dog inside the house most of the time, I don’t get it.  But then again, I don’t keep a pet, have no clue on what it’s like, and in the rare moment, during our stay in Hong Kong for my sister’s wedding, this is a photo album of my dog and my family, one day at a park.

I understand not everyone likes to go through others’ family photo albums.  And so, I have extracted 12 photos to share at the bottom of this blog entry.  For our family and friends and readers who are more or less in touch with my family life, I have added a new high resolution photo album (59 photos) to my online collection for sharing.  Inside, you will get to see a lot of pictures of our dog, my parents, my sister Lora and her husband Benny, and Cynthia and I.  I have included mostly spontaneous shots, may not necessary be the best shot for my subjects.  Nevertheless, I know how they look at their best, at their not-so-best.  I treasure those moments that I tend to forget more.

My dog’s name is Tak Tak.  The direct Chinese translation of his name would sound strange.  So I would say, he is named after the can-do attitude.  Tak Tak is an amazing dog.  So clever in so many ways, he is a gift from Heaven for my parents who are living thousands of miles away from my sister and I in Singapore.  When he was still a puppy, before my sister’s emigration, Tak Tak had an accident, at my home in Hong Kong, and broke a leg.  The operation would cost more than getting a new dog.  It was a hard decision to make because we have a humble family income, Pa has long retired.  My family has decided to go through the pain and the expense of an operation.  Deep inside, although I don’t know Tak Tak that well, I am sure he knows that he is loved by those around him.  And I can understand the tears in his eyes whenever my parents leave home for an overseas holiday.

Photos of Taman Safari Taken During Our Trip to Bandung, Indonesia

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An Owl at Taman Safari, Indonesia

I agree with Haruki Murakami: The older we get, the busier we become.  Maybe as I acquire wisdom and experience, more opportunities open up; maybe time is taking a chip off my efficiency, slowly but surely.  It is a good and a bad problem at the same time.  I enjoy writing pieces that are more personal.  But my life is not that exciting on a day-to-day basis.  And some pieces take time for a common theme to evolve.  So, in between, I fill my writing diary with my thoughts on the things that I consume, like music, books, movies, and etc; things that I am passionate in.  Reviews of these sorts usually generate a decent amount of web traffic but lack the readers’ interaction in the form of comments.  Google thinks that both are important measures for relevancy.  To me, I just wish to keep practicing my writing skill regardless of the topics of my choice, as often as I can.  Either outcome is a nice-to-have but certainly not something to-die-for.

I still have tons of photos sitting inside my computer waiting to be selected and processed.  To be honest, it doesn’t take long to compile and publish one photo album.  It is just tedious and I always seem to have something better to do.  I love Bandung and so does Cynthia (her birth town).  And because of the recent infrastructure upgrades – a new highway connecting with the capital as well as the availability of more direct flights into the city – Bandung has suddenly become an attractive tourist spot.  If you do visit Bandung one day, you should not miss the Taman Safari as one of your daily excursions.  Into the valley of the tea plantations, you literally drive into the Safari Park and are up close and personal with the animals.  If someone was crazy enough to get off the car and stroke the roaming tigers and lions, no one would care.

OK.  Someone may care.  Inside the confined area of the most ferocious animals on earth (beside us, humans, of course), there are guards watching over the visitors and the animals making sure that both us and them behave.  There was a big sign asking us not to wind down the window.  As I opened a tiny gap sticking my long camera lens out of the passenger seat window, I felt the guards intensively staring at me from their jeep.  And as these ferocious animals moved towards our car, everyone inside the car would scream and I would quickly retreat and wind up the window.  Everyone would laugh and the cycle continued.

Follow the link below if you wish to view a complete set of photos (50 in total) including my offbeat comments for each photo.  I don’t run the Animal Planet cable channel here so do excuse me if I can’t get the names of the animals correct.  Hope you enjoy viewing it as much as I risk my life making it.

CLICK HERE to view the complete photo album with captions (50 photos in high resolution)

Below is a sampler of my Taman Safari photo album (10 in total).

PS. Photos taken on December 13, 2008.

Related Tag: Bandung December 2008 Trip