Date: 29 Nov 2009
Venue: somewhere in Ma On Shan
Finally I couldn’t wait to try my beautiful new lens.
Here is 2 snapshots:
It really is nice... the depth of the picture! So nice! I felt supreme!
And this... :D An over-exposed picture of a big tree truck! I need to stand at least 1m far from my shooting subjects! So not used to it!
There is an exhibition of Rinko Kiwauchi in Shiga, the very famous contemporary art photographer from Japan.
Her works are all very light, all emerged in a slight of sadness yet you couldn’t help feeling peaceful. Feelings are hard to catch but that’s what she does.
Details of the Exhibition - Touch the World
Interview of Rinko Kiwauchi (in English)
http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/kawauchi.html
I’d like to see more from her.
Date: 15 Nov 2009
Venue: Man Yee Highland Reservoir
The wind brushed my cheeks, I was tremulous from my bones and walking just like a penguin - at least in my imagination.
It was cloudy plus windy on 15 Nov, started getting cold. Joyce and I joined a local tour organized by Sporthouse to Man Yee Highland Reservoir, well, actually originally Yan was my companion, but she had a class to attend… therefore, I got Joyce :D My crazy Joyce! Anna, who initiated it joined the tour with some of her favourite friends, such was our Group Tour!
Grandeur! It’s the east dam. Super windy and cold - will get back only in summer again, haha, at least when it’d be sunny!!
The Landmark
The famous hexagonal volcanic columns! If only those volcanic rocks could talk, we’d learn all about the earth. The history of our beautiful planet. How it grew like it is today. The tour guide was a young experienced woman, she definitely knows her stuff! She also got books to show us! :D She said Hongkong was just a baby if our planet was a mother, Hongkong is so young, geographically speaking.
Basically everywhere you looked was a scene. Every rock has its story to share, every stone has a personality. The grass, the trees, the rocks and the sea. I was thrilled, by everything. Even the air thrilled my nostrils. Haha!
Shame was that I didn’t take many pictures because I forgot to recharge my camera! Good thing was, I did my very best to let myself be photographed - there were so many shots of me in Anna and Joyce’s cameras! HAHA! Hell yeah I am so beautiful!
This is the famous landmark of Man Yee Reservoir!
Here is a brief introduction about how it was formed:
“Hot volcanic lithogenous mass cooled down gradually when it was exposed to the air. Eventually it contracted into hexagonal rock columns. At this stage, the column was still in a semi-plastic state. As the lava below continued to gush up, it generated a vertical upward thrust and corresponding horizontal shear force.”
Wasn’t it marvelous and amazing?
Our group didn’t follow our guide because we decided to check out the cave not so far away.
I wished I had paid more attention in my Geography classes! Now I understand the true meaning of education (this is the definition of “education” from Devil’s Dictionary: that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding). There are so many things I want to know and so many I don’t know still!
Joyce, was using her boyfriend’s Canon DSLR; Anna, who enjoys taking pictures more than I do, also got a super pro Canon camera. Looking at my Nikon D40… I couldn’t help but feeling small!
Here are some pictures by Anna (as Joyce never sends me back her pictures taken):
Her lens is so much better than mine - wider angel. I really need a better lens. That’s the Christmas present I am getting myself - yes, I am spoiling me :)
The dam was very impressive. The Reservoir itself is just too huge to hike in one day. Anyway, I liked all of Anna’s friends, they were so nice, warm and funny - just like my dear Anna.
Here, I give you your dearest… and most beautiful Joey Leung :D
May be I am a people-person…?!
Weirdos
Last but not the least… there were some weirdos that we bumped into…
Graduates taking pictures on a hill of rocks - please pay close attention to their shoes. Thank you… and worse…
A couple taking their wedding pictures amongst those… barracks! Check out the guy who was holding the reflector board, it was the groom.
Praise to wonderful and adventurous Hongkies! :p
Afterwards we still went to a mining site which wasn’t so fun because it was drizzling. Cold and rain. Nevertheless I had a great day and loads of fun!
Special thanks to Joyce, who dumped her boyfriend for the day and accompanied me to the beautiful Reservoir!
Date: 8 Nov 2009
Venue: Yim Tin Tsai Village, Sai Kung
A touch of coolness announcing the arrival of the winter. Being a Hongkonger, I still am so amazed at how dramatic the weather is here: last weekend the sun was shining above my head, boiling my black shiny hair; the next day the temperature dropped 10 degrees and I found myself wearing a sweater to work. After a week of sunshine, finally it’s time for winter.
Last week I had a little trip with my colleague-friend, Kimmy, to a small island in Sai Kung, it was some unknown island years ago - I didn’t even know it exist - but today it is a hot hide-away spot. It is called Yim Tin Tsai Village.
Next to the Sai Kung pier, there are quite some stalls selling boat tickets to different islands, take a look around, you’d notice this little stall with all the posters and newspaper clippings of Yim Tin Tsai. A return trip costs only HK$35.
Sai Kung is not far from where I live, it’s always been my favourite district. You get to see the sea, the boats, the mountains, the islands, BBQ spots, great seafood restaurants… it has basically everything, oh and green curry :)
Off we go to the treasure island!
It was a 10-minute voyage. There was a local tour on the boat with us, they had fliers of Yim Tin Tsai! I peeked and saw one of the pages introducing the history of the village… ah, how I wish I had a copy. I listened to Kimmy, forgetting not to give her some proper response. It was very pleasant, being on a boat, enjoying the sunshine, feeling the breeze… making it hard for me to concentrate. I want to live under the beautiful sunshine every day!
Da da! Here we were! The small but nice hidden village, far from the city noises and pollution. One day I will buy a house in Sai Kung!
The first thing we saw: a deteriorated house. The front door was looking sharp still, I went inside the house on my own as Kimmy was too scared (:p). It was a very old-fashioned house, everything was broken but it fascinated me somehow. The sunlight shone through the broken roof, it was cool inside, I was very much at ease, wondering why would Kimmy be scared…
The next thing - I saw a group of primary students, they were in school uniforms and chirping like birds, lively and kicking. I can’t remember I was ever so enthusiastic about any school trips. Since I had forgotten my bottle of water, I went into a furnished store - full of visitors, so loud and crowded.
This was what made the village so famous. The villagers made their living by trading salt… hm, I don’t have anything else to add :p
Being adventurous, I “ventured” to take pictures of the very fast-moving crabs!! They were so ugly, so colourful, so small yet so incredibly quick!
We walked, walked, talked, talked and definitely enjoyed everything else.
It was the first time I hiked with Kimmy. The experience wasn’t like the ones I had with Po and Yan, but still, it was amiable :D
There was a new (well it surely looked like it) church en route, we didn’t go inside because of the mass, we heard people singing. When we were walking pass those empty houses, my imagination ran wild and we quickened our paces whenever there was a house, haha. Girls, we are so sweet!
Here is a picture of beautiful Kimmy Wong! She’s amazing, cheerful and smiling all the time!
Unfortunately we didn’t stay long… I’d have loved to stay longer to explore this island, it was small but we didn’t really walk around it all. Next time then!
The last picture of the day :) Crazily busy Hongkies, take some time off to see how beautiful this place you’re living in!
Back to the Sai Kung pier, it was all very romantic: the sun was setting and thousands of people dream-walking. 3 young guys drawing with water colours drew my attention immediately, wah, they were amazing! I want to be able to draw as well… soon I will check out the drawing classes!
Venue: Dragon’s Back, Sau Kei Wan, Hong Kong
Date: 17 Oct, Saturday
It was a beautiful place, the Dragon’s Back, in Sau Kei Wan. We quickly made up our minds to go for a hike on the sunny Saturday.
By 3:30pm we reached the mouth of the Dragon. To our surprise, we finished it at around 7pm! Less than 3.5 hours! The suggested time was 3 and a half hour, haha, we were above average! Well but then we had a piano concert to catch at 7:30pm so we had no choice but to.. run a bit.
It really is a beautiful trail, worth recommending!
I have, obviously, collaged my pictures :D Probably better this way :) The view was really nice. Almost as nice as the view from Foggy Mountain, but just almost.
Here is a collection of plants and even a butterfly I saw on the walk. There were quite some butterflies and they were all flying around! One of them was purple! It was always flapping its wings that I couldn’t capture it with my camera. There are so many things to see and learn in the nature!
This… I definitely will try one day. When we were taking a break, there was a man talked to us, telling us about… publishing a book. How interesting.
In that 3.5 hours walk, we still had time for fun :D
Last but not the least, this is a project that I’m working on. A collection of the Posts on the trail. I will be collecting them from now on :) It’s nice to take pictures of them, I mean, if we would get lost then… we could just call the police and tell them where we’d be at and they’d send a helicopter to save us! How convenient! How grand!
Isn’t it wonderful to live in a modern world?
It was a rainy day, yesterday, gosh, it was raining for a handful days, got me so annoyed.
Then. I went to movie with my brother. We picked Surrogates. A disappointment. Snack was my favourite Ikea hot dog!
Anyway, got the Ikea 2010 catalogue, but, where are my friends?!
I’d love to have a super-oversized book shelf!
Venue: Islands round Mekong River and Saigon
Date: 17 Aug evening to 19 Aug 2009
After our beautiful days in Mui Ne, we headed back to Saigon, by bus. This time, no more Germans. Saigon probably isn’t all that attractive for tourists, hm, not for us for sure!
It was fairly easy for us to find our way to the travel-agencies’-street in Saigon, we nearly walked there every day! To find food, to check flights, to check daily trips. So we booked our trip to Cu Chi for 18 Aug. So everything was settled and we had our dinner in one of the “Tai Pai Dong” - it wasn’t very Vietnamese I suppose. The local beer was nice and cheap. Spring rolls were not bad. Well, don’t forget we’re always food-craving… so Po and Yan in the end got us some mid-night snacks. (Oh yeah, Vietnamese are really good at playing featherballs! Many guys play!)
Anyway… here comes the best part. We arrived at the travel agency at 8.35am on 18 Aug for the daily trip to Cu Chi, just as Po told us to… surprise, the bus was already off! The bus to Cu Chi left at 8.15am, Po got the time wrong!!! Yan and I wanted to kill her literally, I thought we would have to spend a boring day in Saigon… however, the bus to Mekong River was still there so immediately we paid extra money and joined this other day tour to Meking River! What a twist of fate. So… boys and girls, never say never :)
First time ever to join a local tour. There was a Belgian couple sat in front of us, and we kept saying “ik ben mooi” which means “I am beautiful” in Dutch (our Belgian friend, Kristof, taught us. OK, we made him teaching us). Well, either they didn’t understand or they simply chose to ignore us. I guess the French newspaper the guy was reading explained it all.
Right in front of the Mekong River. Do you know that it’s the 7th longest river in Asia? Neither did I. The figure doesn’t mean anything to me, however long this river is has nothing to do with me, I wasn’t going to travel all along it… The yellow colour of the river made me wonder how Yellow River (Huang He) was like. Oh wait. I was at Yellow River once, when I was in Zhengzhou! Oh well. I wasn’t thinking then :p
This is a map of the boat trip. We haven’t been to all islands, we’ve only been to 5 of them.
:D Did you see that he was staring at me? Does it make you wonder how that hammock didn’t fell? Obvious it was one of the questions that I asked myself quite frequently when I was in Vietnam. We probably couldn’t make any use of the hammocks here in Hong Kong.
My beautiful friends and I were finally on a speedmotor boat. :) Very nice picture :D
Wah. Can anyone explain to me why a cargo ship like this couldn’t sink?
Another poster picture? If only the colours were more vivid…
As you can probably imagine from the picture on the left that the Vietnamese probably are leading a not-so-easy life. The view was rather nice though.
I never say we aren’t silly! We were really lively as you can see :) I think we were very cute :D
While our tour guide (who was really nice, he taught us so many Vietnamese and was always very funny!) was telling us the process in making the famous rice paper (middle picture), we went off to take pictures of the marvelous VIETNAMESE BANANAS! Did they impress you like they impressed me?
Then we had lunch… before we had lunch, we took a couple of pictures and one of them was really really funny… being so generous, I’m really willing to share with you, in hope of brightening up your day. So here it is:
Hahahaha, I looked so stupid! And a very convincing Vietnamese too (not that they looked stupid, but with my hat and my skin colour and everything else you see fit!)!
Yan and I got our Vietnamese hats there (very cheap!), Po got her red Vietnamese cap at the pier and we befriended an Italian model, Angela.
We were on the boat again to another island and our hats proved to be really useful… look at pregnant Po :) We were exploring the beautiful jungle, it felt like sailing through Amazon (not that I know how that would feel like, but that was how I imagined it to be).
It was cloudy that day, lucky it didn’t rain though :)
On this other island, we drank some genuine (!!!) honey tea. There was a guy took the hive out, we had to show our bravery of course :D We also rode the cart with the horse (isn’t she pretty with a big flower on her head?) pulling. The picture on the right… shows you Yan, her “horse like teeth” and the cute horse!
I personally think that was a very cruel act… I hope, my dearest readers, that none of you are working in SPCA… if you do… please note that it wasn’t our fault!
Those are bricks! I wonder why are they using bricks like this!
We also enjoyed some very exotic Vietnamese fruit and music :) There were some singers singing in Vietnamese, we couldn’t understand a word. They were probably singing love or war songs. The Belgian couple gave us information on the famous and traditional water puppets show! We also forgot about it!
Brave Yan, screaming Po and wanting-to-escape Joey! I still remember the terrible texture on the snake’s skin! Ugh! Horrifying!
We went to another island again after the snake-episode… The tour guide asked Yan and I to do Titanic, haha, we did, but the picture taken by him wasn’t as good as I’d want!
The coconuts island. They make fresh coconut candies :D
All were very tired by the end of the day… It was a very nice (and cheap) day trip to be honest :) I liked it :D
On the bus back to Saigon. The traffic was soooooo unbelievable! Impressive!
We bought our tickets to the water puppets show right after we got off the bus. Before going to the show, we still wanted to get our friends some souvenirs but we couldn’t find any! It was so crazy! All those shops were closed and the markets too! Well, at least we had a lot of fun asking people for directions and got super cheap coconuts again!
This is the water puppets show. If you ever go to Vietnam, you should watch one of these. It’s one-kind-one! Hahaha, means it’s one of the kind :) I was just showing off my Singlish :p
Venue: Vietnam International Airport
Time: 4:09 am in the morning on 19 Aug 2009
Can you believe how many people were there already at 4am in the morning? Vietnamese, you are all very diligent!
Believe it or not, this was how I looked like, a walking-dead-Vietnamese-looking Joey Leung :) The officer at the Custom kept talking to me in Vietnamese… I could barely open my eyes but still I managed to utter “I don’t understand”, haha.
Anyway, this is the end of our Vietnam trip. We did have great fun. It was the last trip we went on together before Po left to Germany. Bye bye Vietnam, we will be back, someday.
