Darth Vader Toaster!

What about starting your day with a small dose of the power of the Dark Side?

$54.99 at the Star Wars Shop

Tai Pei

I use to keep a few frozen meals at work for dinner when I need to stay late. I got a couple of these frozen food from Market Basket with 2 for $4. Fried rice with chicken for one and shrimp for the other. I had the chicken tonight, and it turns out surprisingly good for frozen food. And it is authentic Chinese.

On Cranes Beach

Jaspard and Lisa

Trees stripped

I am always fascinated by the forms of tree branches when the leaves are gone. But I have never got satisfactory pictures with my digital cameras. In a not-so-cold pre-winter evening (still freezing temperatures) I shot with Kodak UltraMax 400 I got from CVS using my Nikon FM2. The photofinishing lab at a local CVS is surprisingly good at tuning evening colors!

The way back

A short flight from Newark to Boston, after the usual long haul from Hong Kong.

13 Sai Lau Street

We used to live on the third floor of 13 Sai Lau Street, Tsuen Wan. In 1998 a few city blocks were collected by the government for re-development. We had to move with compensation.

I went on a nostaglia trip of Tsuen Wan with Sue and ran into San Tung Uk museum. I hung out there a few times after school when it was still a ruin. It had be reconstructed and turned into a museum that try to reproduce the traditional Hakka walled village. Inside there is a small exhibit showing the development of Tsuen Wan as a town in the past couple centuries.

There is a picture taken from the roof of my old home in 1997. I can still remember the 7-11 my mom used to buy ice-shake at the corner of the picture. I am surprised I didn't have the idea to take a picture myself at that time.

The whole area had been torn down and is now a modern shopping mall + residential high-rises.

Lee Cheong Ivory Arts Fty.

A couple of weeks ago we went to Gold Coast and took pictures with a bunch of friends. We ran into a stall selling ivory sculptures. The old man saw my manual camera and told me he took his sculpture pictures with a film camera too. Then he showed us his sculptures using mammoth task and ivory, and patiently explained to us the composition of different sculptures, with full knowledge that we are not buying. A small piece of his ivory sculpture costs HK$3000!! He has a webpage for his sculptures here.

Nam San Wai revisited

It was a very good day. Beautiful weather, good company, terrific food and a peaceful night.

LIFE and Google

Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.
http://images.google.com/hosted/life

Dowager Empress of China Tzu Hsi (1835-1908).
Location: China
Date taken: 1903

Bike ride in Tuen Mun

Bike Trip to Bak Nei

Po Lin Monastary

Pentax MX 50 mm, f8.0; Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400

Local food in HK - 2

Noodles, Causeway Bay

Little Fat Lamb Hotpot, Mongkok

A stall for preserved fruits, Shatin

Stuffed fishie pancakes, Causeway Bay

Hong Kong Disneyland

Nikon FM2 50 mm; Fujifilm Provia 400X cross-processed

Ave of Stars

Nikon FM2, 50 mm; Fujifilm Xtra 400

Local food in HK - 1

Foreground: spare ribs; Background: frogs and mushroom. Four Season Hotpot Rice. Arthur St., Yau Ma Tei

Fried oysters with duck eggs, Four Season Hotpot Rice

Chicken Hotpot, Taiwai

Coffee and toast, Mei Do Cafe, Temple St.

Nai Chung at low tide

Nai Chung, Shatin
Nikon FM2, 50 mm; Ilford Delta 3200 Professional

President Obama!

Barack Obama won the white house with a landslide victory!

Senses has defected ignorance and arrogance. American is still the most civilized society of the world.

I am glad that I live in a time when so many histories are made.


p.s. The biggest landslide victory of Barack Obama lies in Washington D.C., the very capital of the country: 94% of the vote went to Obama. McCain only got 4% of the vote.

The magic of cross-processing

I always think that digital photos record the fact but film photos capture the memory.

I met a friend who plays around with cross-processing - process slide film with the negative film procedure. That is plain magic.

Now I bring my FM2 along loaded with a roll of color slide or black & white all the time.

The Central Footbridge
Nikon FM2, 50 mm, F8, 1/15 sec. Fujifilm Provia 400X

Shatin Racecourse
Nikon FM2, 50 mm, F11, 1/2000 sec. Konica Centuria 200

CX460 to Taipei, boarding
Nikon FM2, 50 mm F8, 1/60 sec, Fujifilm Provia 400X