I came home a few days ago, my dear Allison excitedly ran out and greeted me at the door, proudly showed me her alphabet crown. Her pre-school awards the paper crown when a kid learns the letters and their sounds. Yeah!

I was very happy and proud of my little munch-kin. And as a reward for a job well done, I made her a promise of getting her a toy of her choice.

Wow…

While channel surfing last nite, I caught an episode of a new series on PBS called Travels To The Edge with Art Wolfe.

The 13-part series shares the most majestic places in the world with the viewers through Wolfe’s camera lenses. But it’s not just a travel or wild-life program with video of harsh deserts, imposing mountains or lush rain forests. Wolfe actually talks about photography: equipment and techniques!

Tonite, the episode follows Wolfe to The Altiplano in Bolivia where he photographs the giant cacti and the largest salt flat in the world. It was a HD broadcast on KQED and it was breath-taking. HD is the perfect format for this type of series, and I’ll definitely be following the rest of the series.

The episode was simply awe-inspiring for a shutterbug and a hack like me!

This site offers a collection of images that the author thinks changed the world. Most of pictures depicted are fairly horrifying– images that make you ponder humanity itself. There are many other collections with same claim. Collections like this share something in common: vivid depiction of human tragedy. These particular are heart-breaking for me since several of the collection are from the tragedy of the Vietnam war.

Wars really suck!

We visited the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park this past Saturday. I’ve been meaning to pay it a visit when it reopened a few years ago after undergoing years of renovation. It’s basically a giant green house of rare plants and flowers. The place is actually smaller than I imagined but the collections were amazing nevertheless. The orchids and the lotuses in particular were just spectacular.

Best of all, it was a fabulous photo opp. for me, as I don’t get to take many floral shots. A lot of the visitors there were photographers, some lugging very impressive equipments. I’m very happy with some of the photos I managed to take.

Suzanne and I been talking about taking a cruise for a while now; finally we spent this past spring break visiting Caribbean on Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas. We were first-time cruisers– so everyone was excited, especially the kids. For the parents, it was our second time visiting the Caribbean, but first time for western Caribbean.

On our second morning, we docked at the island of Cozumel. Katelyn went on a submarine ride with her cousin Malia while Suzanne & I took Allison to downtown for a bit sight-seeing and shopping. I had originally booked an excursion hiking to the Mayan ruins at Tulum, but canceled the last minute to spend time with Suzanne & Allison instead. It would have been a good trip with lots of photo ops. Oh well, next time…

In Grand Cayman, we visited Stingray City– a famous sandbar in the middle of the ocean where stingrays congregate. The excursion was over-booked and so we were first sent to a beach with beach chairs packed like sardines. I took the opportunity to test my new water-proof case for Suzanne’s camera. An hour late, we finally boarded the boat. The boat ride to the sandbar was enjoyable, the water was aqua and just beautiful. No doubt that Grand Cayman is the playground for the rich– huge spectacular mansions dotted along its shorelines as far as the eyes can see.

Many boats already anchored there by the time we arrived. The water was waist-deep at the sandbar. We were given chunks of squid to feed the stingrays. While putting on my snorkel one huge ray swam up and rubbed my legs– I was startled but that was really cool. Suzanne was also at first a bit nervous at their “friendliness.” It was real neat to see all these rays all around us and be able to touch them. The coolest thing was feeding the rays, as they swim over your hand and their mouths sucking away the squid from your hand like a vacuum. No wonder the guide asks us not to stick our thumbs our while feeding!

I tried taking pictures and videos of the rays under water but let’s just say my first stab at imitating Cousteau wasn’t a success– among the excitement and all the action, I managed a total of 1 decent underwater photo. The videos were crude but still pretty neat. All in all, it was a very cool experience. It would’ve been even better had it’d not been so crowded.

Next, we visited Dunn’s River Falls and its cascading waterfalls. It’s apparently a very popular tourist attraction in Jamaica. A local guide would take a group climbing the water falls. The climb wasn’t very treacherous but enough danger to make it exciting. It was overly crowded but Suzanne & I had fun anyway. There were lines like Disneyland.

The last port was Labadee, Haiti where we spent the entire day with the kids on the beach. The place was secluded and very pretty. Because it was private property it lacks the tourist traps and commercialism. I really enjoyed my time there.

The dining on the cruise was great. We enjoyed the service of our friendly Indian waiter named Freddy. But by the 5th day I had enough of fine dining– would’ve happily traded my steak or lobster for a bowl of pho. I guess there’s only so much of fine food a simpleton like me can take!

There were plenty of activities on the ship.The kids naturally enjoyed the pools the most. Suzanne & I tried wall climbing. I participated in a volleyball tournament– our team placed 2nd. There was a surf machine that makes artificial waves, but I never braved the crowds to use it. The whole family tried ice-skating. We were depleted most nights after a day of fun activities.

One nice thing about cruising is minimal planning: either for food or activities. It’s all inclusive. Each night, we look forward to a nice sit-down dinner and a show afterward. I even got to try some new food like parfaits. It’s not as good as Donkey made it out to be (there’s a scene in Shrek where Donkey says “parfaits gotta be the tastiest thing on the whole damn planet“). The nightly variety entertainment was top notch Vegas-quality– I enjoyed everyone I saw. I was surprised at the quality production the cruise line was putting up.

With food and entertainment factored in, cruising can be reasonable in terms of cost. Another big plus is the activities for kids, basically free childcare while the grown-ups go on their excursions. I think cruises attract those who’s looking for doing most activities, visiting as many visited places, being most entertained and eating as much fine food, within a span of time. In essence: it’s all about efficiency. You can’t really beat that if that’s what you’re looking for in a trip.

The downsides to cruising, I find? First and foremost, it’s the crowds. For me, it’s hardly relaxing when I keep running into people wherever I go. Lines everywhere. Second: minimal local interactions. You’re constantly hit with tourist traps when you leave the ships. I must admit that I’m the low key back-country type of guy when it comes to vacationing. I don’t particularly enjoy overly-commercialized places. I rather chill out in a quiet place. I find our last trip to north shore of Hawaii a tad more relaxing.

All in all though, everybody had a great time. I wished I had more camera time. I failed to find enough free time to take my camera through the paces whenever I vacation with the kids. They just keep me too busy. I didn’t get up early enough to capture the sunrise as I intended– not even once. On the other hand I got tons of family photos of the wife and kids which is just fine with me.

Here are some of the photos.

We dressed the girls in their traditional Chinese outfits and took them to the lunar New Year parade in downtown San Jose this past weekend. It was the girls’ first time watching a parade. Despite the cold & gray morning, the girls seemed to enjoy it. The lions & dragons came up right next to the girls! Katelyn & Allison even got to pet a few of them.

There were a lot of photographers there, some of them pro’s wielding very impressive equipment around. I definitely felt inadequate. But here are some of my snapshots. Interestingly, I encountered more Nikon than Canon users…

Katelyn had a little party at The Little Gym to celebrate her 5^th birthday, this past weekend. The kids had a blast doing kiddie gymnastic activities. Katelyn definitely seemed to enjoy the extra attention. Even Allison, who’s normally a bit shy, participated in all activities whole-heartedly. Here some snapshots from the party.

I was happy celebrating Katelyn’s birthday. She’s making great strides this year- constantly surprises & impresses me with things she learns and does. She likes to sing, loves to color and teaches me the names of all sorts of dinosaurs (most of them I really didn’t even know)! She’s getting more inquisitive and can be thoughtful at times. She’s always very active and plays rough sometime. I see a bit of tomboy-ness in her. She can write words phonetically and do simple math. Not as crazy about Dora as last few years, but definitely still way into Disney princesses. Still likes pink but shuns Barbie because she knows I don’t like her getting into Barbie. Still a picky eater, but she’s at least trying new things; she even eats brocolie now. Her best friend is her cousin Malia, who she loves sleeping over with. She’s starting to help out little bit around the house- her biggest responsibilities being setting up the table at dinner time and feeding the fishes. Her face is usually the 1^st thing I see when I come home from work, she’d run to be the first to open the door for me.

But the best thing I saw in Katelyn this year is the little glimpses of her trying on the role a big sister: helping, encouraging and protecting Allison at certain times. I simply cannot be any prouder when I see that…

Unbelievable to me that Katelyn turned 5. At the same time, it seems forever that she’s part of our lives though. I can barely remember the bk era- before Katelyn.

Happy birthday kiddo…

Our kids had a blast of a weekend, full of birthday parties. We took them to our friend Sandra & Brad’s party for their daughter Emily. Being My Little Pony themed, the kids got to wear cowgirl hats and ride a beautilful pony. Even Allison braved the crowd and took her ride without her parents’ help. Then on Sunday, the kids attended their cousin Malia’s birthday party when they were entertained by a magician.

Suzanne & I had fun just watching them and we also got to hang out with some of our friends. I also got to shoot a lot of pictures. Shooting kids on sugar high constantly running around is always challenging. And tiring… But the shutter bug in me had fun nevertheless!

We spend this past labor day weekend houseboating with a bunch of family/friends at New Melones Lake. It was our first time houseboating. We spend the weekend eating, drinking, hot-tubbing, fishing, swimming and jet-skiing. The best part was sleeping under the open sky filled with stars and the beautiful moon. Surprisingly, I didn’t snap many pictures. Guess I was too busy having fun…

One funny incident involved my horrible navigation skill. One the morning, after we picked up the rest of the passengers. When we head out, I figured to hug the shorelines and go straight, figuring it’s a simple matter getting back the marina. Anyhow, we had various different people skippering the boat throughout the day and somehow we circled back and saw the same marina we departed from earlier in the day. Well, silly me. I figured that was a second marina. The next morning, when we head back to pick up the waverunner & refuel, I told Doc’s brother who was skippering the boat that morning to ignore the 1st marina and look for the 2nd marina. Needless to say, we wasted an hour or two wandering aimlessly. We had to stop and ask other boaters about this 2nd phantom marina! Of course, they thought we were out of our mind and told us that there’s only 1 marina on the lake. Normally, I’m pretty good with directions, but boy did I feel silly that morning.

Here are some of the shots from the trips…

After a week of placing ads on Craigslist, I sold my Canon 30D yesterday. While I got a really good price for it, I was sorry to see it go.

I bought the camera in April as an upgrade from my XT (350D). By the time I was about to put up ads for the XT, Canon started to offer rebates for them and its trading value immediately plummets on craigslist. So much so that I finally decided to sell the 30D instead and go back to my old but trusty XT for now. Rebates from Canon are usually sure signs of new models coming…

After a 3 months “trial” period, I find that the minor improvements of the 30D over the XT don’t warrant the big price delta. The two main thing I will miss not having the 30D: the bigger LCD & the nifty quick-control dial.

Suzanne & I went to attend a free jazz concert last evening. Santana Row is offering a summer long series of jazz concerts. We were talking about hitting a jazz club for some time…

Parking was pretty much a nightmare, particularly since we got there rather late. The open court was crowded with a mix people lawn chairs in the graass and those dining at outdoor tables, all enjoying the music and the nice cool weather. The band featured was “A Touch of Brass”; I thought they were okay. I lugged my camera with a long tele-lense and was happy to get the opportunity to roam around & take some pictures. I probably would’ve enjoyed the band more had we gotten better seats & I stayed put in one place.

We left early to grab dinner with the Tieu’s before calling the nite. Get back just in time for the kids’ bedtime. All in all, it was a great way to spend a summer evening…

Check out safari photos from Nick Brandt– breath-taking & very surreal…

This National Geographic photo is called Larger Than Life. It took me awhile to make heads & tails of the photograph. It’s disorienting isn’t it?

I won’t spoil it, so I’ll leave it to you to figure why it’s unique…

Update: here’s the link to a bigger version of the shot.

Last month, we took the kids down to LA for a spring break visit.

While Suzanne was paying a visit to her friend Ly and her newly born baby, I spent some time with the kids and their cousins. We had a little easter egg hunt in my sister’s backyard. The kids had fun looking for the left-over eggs that Suzanne had prepared for her class. The older kids were too fast for Allison as they were darting back and forth grabbing the hidden eggs. Not wanting her to miss out on the fun, I resorted to lead Allison to one of the hidden eggs. She happily grabbed one and put it in her ducky basket. Didn’t take long for her to realize that the other kids got more eggs than her, so she complained to me: “I have only 1 egg Daddy, I don’t even have two eggs!” I bursted out laughing and explained to her that there weren’t any eggs left.

On another day, we took the kids to Getty Center. My friend Allen recently showed us some pictures of his visit to the place. The museum recently opened after years of renovation; it sits on top of the hill next to UCLA campus and provides an expansive and awesome view of LA and the pacific ocean. Just the view itself was worth the trip. We didn’t get much of a chance to check out the art collections, as the kids quickly got rowdy. When Katelyn fell into the water fountain, we packed up and headed straight home. What a nightmare!

The highlight of the trip was a day visit to Disneyland which has become sort of an annual spring break mecca for us last few years. Suzanne got all the kids each a hat; Katelyn picked her own hat and wouldn’t take it off the entire day! As usual, everyone liked “It’s A Small World” and of course the Dumbo ride. The highlight for Katelyn was posing with Minnie Mouse who was her favorite Disney character. After catching the Disney parade in the afternoon, the adults and the small kids were exhausted and ready to call it quit. I decided to stay with Katelyn and my nephew Andre.

With only three of us left, we were whizzing from ride to ride the rest of the day. Andre was a great sport— the oldest kid and had to stick with the girly and kiddie rides all day.  So to make it up to him, I took him & Katelyn to a Buzz Lightyear ride, after which Andre proclaimed “that was an awesome ride! It’s all worth it!” The two cousins even braved the “Haunted Mansion”! After a late dinner of hot dogs and pretzels, we caught the fireworks. Katelyn loved it when Tinkerbell flew back and forth high above the castle. We didn’t leave the park until 10PM. Katelyn was a trooper as she walked all day long on her own two feet. I was totally exhausted when all was said & done!

Here’s some of the pictures from the trip.

We basically had very atypical California weather the last 2 months here in the bay area. But this past weekend was just simply gorgeous and so we took off to beach with the kids. After a lunch at the Santa Cruz Marina, we hit the sands & the surf. The girls spent hours playing on the beach. A great day for the family.

I lugged my camera bag out to the beach and quickly learned that was a mistake. Sands and lenses don’t play well together. I didn’t dare to change the lenses twice with the sand blowing everywhere. Here’re some of the shots…

Last Thursday, Suzanne had to hold teacher conferences at her school. So I quit work early and came home to take care the kids. It was a gorgeous evening, so we grabbed some food and headed to the park. We sat down on a field of grass and happily chowed down Baja Fresh burritos. Afterward the girls & I ran barefoot on the grass in the park, chasing ducks and each other… The girls had so much fun that they didn’t even nag me about taking them to the playground, like they usually do.

I brought along my big zoom lens and snapped a bunch of close-up shots. Of all that I took that evening, the one pictured here on the right stood out to me. A little sepia treatment and it’s become one of my personal favorite shot of the girls! I simply can’t help but smile when everytime I look at it.

We went to the Getty Museum when we were visiting LA 2 weeks ago; it was an utter disaster. Museums are generally inappropriate for young kids. But undeterred, we decided at another go at visiting a museum, this time without the kids. We drop Katelyn & Allison at my aunt’s place and spent last saturday in San Francisco.

The sun had burned through the morning overcast, revealing a beautiful day ahead of us. Our first destination: The Embarcadero. Mr. Sunshine added the bounce in our steps as we eagerly walked through the market place. Like us, there were many few people out lugging nice cameras & taking advantage of the nice weather.

We called ahead and made a reservation for a late lunch at Slanted Door, one of those restaurants serving Vietnamese fusion cuisine. We had a great lunch of perfectly grilled halibut, manila clams with bacon bits, celophane noodles, and delicious egglant in coconut sauce. I had a refreshing cocktail called Summer in Danube too. All very yummy! It was of those enjoyable fine dining we no longer get to experience all too often these days.

We then hit the Legion of Honor; well, we tried anyway since unfortunately the place closed for the day by the time we got there. Yet another failed attempt at visiting a museum! Suzanne basically blamed me for spending too much time taking pictures. But, we at least did spent some time hanging outside of the Palace and Lincoln park. I was taking more pictures of course…

We then drove across the Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito, our first time back since we attended our friend Katie’s wedding there a few years back. We grabbed a cup of coffee and an ice-cream cone and strolled through the quaint downtown, window shopping (well it was really Suzanne since I don’t window shop). We saw this street performer making seemingly impossible stacks of big rocks by the water. Pretty novel way to make a buck!

I missed snapping sunset pictures as I originally planned, but we drove up to one of the hills anyway and staked out a place to take some pictures of the Golden Gate bridge. This time I blamed Suzanne for taking too much time checking out the boutiques. We waited and it got windy and really cold. Finally, dusk came and the skyline was dark enough for long exposure shots. I knew the wind and my cheapo $15 flimsy tripod in particular wasn’t going to get me sharp photos. I got a few okay shots, I will have to go back one of these less-windy days and try my luck again with a better tripod. It was pretty exciting for me as it was my first time trying my hands at long exposures.

We originally planned to dine at Ti Couz, but it was yet another plan foiled thanks to my spending too much time photographing… So, we headed straight to the Punch Line for a 10pm show. Greg Proops headlined and he basically “killed.” We found him to be hilarious on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and he didn’t disappoint. The odd thing was there was a party that left the show because I guess they were offended by Greg’s materials. I don’t know why people easily-offended go to these comedy shows. Greg kept referring to them as the Donner party the rest of the show after they left. Pretty funny…

We didn’t get home until 1am. I can’t remember the last time we were out that late together. All in all, it was an enjoyable day playing local tourists– good change of pace doing adult stuffs without the kids. Plus, I was happy to shoot some photos. I got my chance to really try out my new Canon 30D. Suzanne was again my reluctant model for the day and was patiently accomodating to the shutter bug in me. Thanks babe!

All in all, it was a great day out in the city.

Here are a few of the shots posted.

I spend this past Final Four weekend with a few buddies in Vegas. Planned this months ago without knowing UCLA would do well in the tournament. So the fact that they made to Final Four was just sweet, especially some of my buddies were my room-mates back in the UCLA days.

I expected that most people would root for UCLA since LA is only 4 hours away from Vegas. But it turned out there were more LSU fans; I guess folks were going for the favorites. I spent Saturday afternoon watching the 2 semi-final games with Jake & Vince. Most of us bet on UCLA and won!

I lugged my camera equipment around Saturday and managed some decent shots along the strip. The highlight was the night shots. I don’t normally get to shoot outdoor after dark. Plus, I got to try out my new monopod with the night shots. It’s definitely less of a pain than lugging a tripod. The combination of monopod & an image stabilization lens, I was able to shoot to 1/15 exposures using natural light. Cool…

I also managed to snap shots of a guy proposing to his girl in front of the fountains @ Belagio. I thought about offering to email them the pics. But decided not to, figuring that they would either be very grateful for capturing the moment or chew me off for “invading” their private moment. Sometimes, it’s just better to capture a moment with a memory, and not have proofs…

A few weeks ago, Suzanne & I got a rare chance of spending a weekend without the kids. Along with Wati, we headed to Yosemite Saturday morning and spent the afternoon snowboarding at Badger Pass. It was Suzanne’s first time on the snowboard; it was my first time in probably close to 10 years. We had fun but Suzanne’s knees were black & blue by the end of the day.

After spending the night with Wati’s friends at Bass Lake and we drove into Yosemite Valley Sunday morning. We had never seen it in the winter time. This winter hadn’t been generous as the last in terms of snow, so it wasn’t as a winter wonderland I’d imagine. But it was still absolutely gorgeous nevertheless. Snow covered Half Dome was breath-taking. Suzanne reluctantly agreed to play the role of my model as we spent the morning driving around the valley snapping pictures. Unfortunately, there was a heavy overcast that day so everything was very grey, wasn’t best condition for long nature shots…

Too bad the entrances to the campgrounds were closed too, I’d love to hike up to Mirror lake and take shots. I wanted to retake some of the pictures taken last summer when I didn’t have a wide angle lens. Oh well, there’ll always be next time. We stopped by the village store and grabbed some souvenirs for the kids and hurried home– guilt had started to weigh on us…

It was a fun and relaxing weekend… Here are some shots from the trip.