Birdie

I was taking a walk at the Auckland Domain the other day and out of no where a few of these birds plunged from the sky and gathered on the grass started looking for food.  Their colours were so bright and eye catching.  I did a quick lens swap, pulled out my 70-300mm and started following them. I can tell you 70-300mm may sound like a very long lens, but it was still too short for catching Parakeets like these.  Even with my crop factor of 1.5.  They were shy. I had to get low onto the ground and moved inch by inch commando style to get closer.   This was the closest i got to one of them.

Pukekos are easier to get close to.  They tend to be less shy.  There is a wetland across the road from where i stay.  I see Pukekos feeding there everyday.

Auckland Christmas 2011

It is that time of the year again. It is Christmas. We don't get white christmas in this part of the world. We get a warm summer instead, well....if the rain clouds stay away anyway.  The weather on Christmas day has been good this year. Not overly warm but enough sun to keep everyone happy.

I was "lucky" enough to be on call for my department over the christmas weekend. Bummer!  I could not leave town.  I had to stay close to the hospital at all time, in case my on call phone goes off.

There was really not much happening in Auckland. Half the Auckland population left town to join their family elsewhere.  The shops were close. The only restaurants that were open were Asian restaurants.  The streets were exceptionally quiet.  I had a fairly quiet Christmas this year.  As for my on call duty, I only got called once over the weekend for something really trivial, easily sorted.  Lucky.

On Christmas eve, I took a walk down Auckland's famous Franklin road in the trendy suburb of Ponsonby.  Every year the houses and shops on that road will put up all sorts of fancy christmas lights to transform Franklin road into Ponsonby's very own Disneyland.  The few nights leading up to Christmas, Franklin road will be packed with cars trying to get a glimpse at the magical lights.  Me and my friend  Luke decided to go on foot rather than getting stuck in traffic.  Besides, holding a DSLR in one hand while driving won't go down too well anyway. I liked what they have done with the street. The lights were not overdone. They were simple but nice.

Apart from the lack of snow on the street and the absence of Mr Snowman at our doors on Christmas day, there is a sight that is unique to New Zealand....our very own NZ Xmas tree. We call it Pohutukawa tree.  Pohutukawas are hardy coastal plant, shrub-like when young but can grow up to 15 meters tall with time.  Every December when the weather warms up, the tree blooms with crimson red crown shaped flowers. It is quite a magnificent sight.

Innocent eyes

Another baby photoshoot. Compared to  the last one this is a much more casual and short one.  A minishoot if you like.  Thank you Victor for the opportunity.

There is something about the eyes of babies.  You can almost see what they are thinking. You can sense the fascination the baby is feeling. Through their eyes, they are trying to tell you how excited they are to be part of this whole new world.

Kampung (Village)

This is the second part to the blog on my recent trip to Malaysia.  Apart from my visit to Singapore (See previous blog post), i have also spent a few days in Johor Bahru, my wife's hometown.  Johor Bahru forms the border between peninsular Malaysia and Singapore.  Other than that it is just another increasingly crowded city with the usual hustle and bustle as well as the industrial growth related environmental pollution.  Certainly not that interesting in terms of photography opportunity.  To photograph something interesting, i had to go beyond the fringe of the city.  While i was in Johor Bahru, i stayed with my in laws, who are asian cuisine foodies. Yell out the name of any random asian dish that pops into your head, they will tell you which cafe to go to get it.  Knowing that I love seafood, my father in law (who has apparently gone by the English name Peter during his younger days) decided to drive us to a very small fishing village called Sungai Ringgit.  Sungai means "river" in Malay.  This place boasts fresh seafood at extra economical prices.

The beginning of lunch service. Crowd started to build up.

With seafood that cheap, even people from Singapore cross the border and come here just for the food. 

And that is not limited to the rich and mighty with Porsches.

Spicy chilli crabs.

Half a lobster each, lightly steamed in chinese wine and ginger.

Chinese oyster omelette. Classic.

Pickled mango for dessert?

Or perhaps get a haircut after lunch?

We were all very happy with the food.  On our way back to the city, we pulled over at this little fishing village and i took a few shots there.

On another day, we went to another small town about an hour away from the city of Johor Bahru, Pontian.  Again, there was a river running through the town.  I found a few fishing boats at the river bank.  It was just past sunset and the light was fading fast.  I wanted to keep my aperture smaller to get most of my objects in focus. With little available light and no tripod, i had to bump the ISO up a bit. Not ideal but i had no choice.  I think i would have got a much nicer photo had i arrive at the scene 20 minutes earlier.

Singapore

At long last it was time for my long overdue annual leave.  I spent 3 of the 14 days in Singapore at a Pathology conference.  Singapore is a very small country, a city state of 581km2.  Despite having limited land, Singapore is a country that has been managed very efficiently since its separation from Malaysia in 1965 and has very quickly become one of the so called "Four asian tigers", alongside with South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.  The population is around 5 million, of which only three million are Singaporean. The rest are all foreigners (mostly Malaysians) whose expertise Singapore sees as valuable. In fact, land in Singapore is getting so scarce that they have been running land reclamation, bumping the country's land area to more than 700KM2.

I stayed at a four star hotel called Grand Park Orchard, and yes you have guessed it, it was on Orchard road, one of the busiest streets in Singapore.  The hotel was smack bang in the middle of all action, with two MRT (train) stations within walking distance, i was very happy with the location of the hotel.  The staff members were polite and helpful and the room was modern and clean. Even the bar tender who made me my CC & dry was super friendly.

In Singapore, you can see coexistence of sky scrapers and mature trees and lots of rubbish bins and recycle bins.  Singapore government has very strict rules when it comes to littering with very heavy fines.  Chewing gums are banned in the country.

I found a few swings on Orchard road. I thought that was an interesting concept.

Check out the 7-Eleven at the roadside.

Don't think for a second the weather is always warm and dry......

Like Malaysia, Singapore too is a shopping heaven.  All the labels you want.

Not to forget the yummy Asian food. The dumplings in the next photo were totally awesome.  Thin soft dumpling skin with moist mince pork filling.  Is that yum or what?

After dinner, we took a walk to Marina Bay to look at the magnificent Marina Bay sands hotel.

I found this very interesting water feature. Some call it vortex. My cheeky cousin called it flushing toilet.

Louis Vuitton boutique at the bay.

A clever Water-light show at the bay where images were projected onto a water-mist screen.

The national university hospital looked very new and it was huge.

I had a nice time. Thank you Singapore.