Europe Trip

Yes, finally the dream came true. I did go to Europe for my vacation and my route is from Geneve (switzerland), Divonne les Bain (France), Milan (Italy), Venice (Italy), Pisa (Italy), Florence (Italy), Rome (Italy) and then back to Zermatt (Switzerland). Last but not least we did go to Amsterdam for few hours during our transit via Amsterdam.

It was a lovely trip and sweet journey with my GF there.

Geneva
We touched down at Amsterdam after 13 hours flight from KLIA, though it was an exhausting flight. We still feel excited for the trip as this is our very 1st time to visit Europe. We quickly took our 2nd flight to Geneve, Switzerland. We still have another ~6hrs to do our sight-seeing in Geneve. The main landmark was the man made fountain (Jet d'Eau) in the Lake Geneva. It is the largest fountain with the water being shot up to 140m.

Geneva also famous for their watches and also the WHO organization and also the red cross association there. I did not have much chance to visit their museum especially I really wished to check out the Pattek Philippe Musee and the red cross musee. But at least, I still managed to go to the largest musee in geneva called Musée d'art et d'histoire which is entrance free. And yes, you are right, this is due to the weak side of our RM that made me to decide to go to this museum.

I also visited a church called St. Pierre Cathedral which has a unique green at the top of the church which I found that is special.

For more photos, click this link.

















Divonne Les Bain

I think this place is less famous than the rest of the places I did visit in this trip. This place was a remote place famous with an artificial lake which is quite big. It situated at the border of the France and Switzerland. Actually, I felt that it is nearer to Switzerland as it is just about 15 minutes drive from Geneva airport. The main reason that I visited this small town was due to my GF was having her training over here for 3 days. And yes again, I will need to stay at her hotel in order to save money and so call to accompany her.

I found this lovely town was small but it was a good for rest and relax. A lot of residents over will have their morning jog, bicycling or skating around the lake. In the evening, you can find another gang of youngster to play skate board and other sports on the field.

More of the photos, click this link.

Taiping Charcoal Factory day trip

It so happened during the CNY, my uncle and family came and paid us a visit in Ipoh. Thereafter, he brought us to the factory of charcoal in nearby Taiping. The exact location, I am not so sure as my mission was just to drive following his car and he is following the GPS :P
This factory is one of the favorite of Ipoh photog to go there for photo shooting. Ok, let's enjoy the photos.

Testing with new lens 17-50 F2.8 Tamron

Recently bought a new toys again. It is Tamron 17-50 with fix aperture F2.8 without VC.
I chose this lens is due to the price is reasonable and with a fix aperture F2.8. Bokeh and yes, I did love bokeh alot especially for portrait and can bring out the object from the blur blur background. Overall it is a very good lens but yet to test out more. I found several pros and cons as below:
Pros
1)F2.8 that can give you good bokeh and also easier to use in low light condition
2)@17mm it seems not that distorted as for the 17-85mm canon lens
3)The distance of able to be focused (macro) is much shorter than any canon lens
4)The lens is build with 7 blade aperture. It turned the bokeh in a round round light as compare to pentagon for the 50mm F1.8
5)The lens diameter is 67mm and can be share filter with my 17-85mm lens, so I am gonna invest on a CPL filter soon

Cons
1)@21-22mm something went wrong during my recent(1st tryout).The group picture seems got a little bit of distortion
2)The lens zoom is different direction as for the canon lens, not use to it...
3)The AF is acceptable but the AF motor is much noisy as compare to USM
4)The zoom ring is very tight as compare to canon lens

1st attempt :P and more to be upcoming....

Krabi Getaway

It's already 2010 and this is my 1st vacation trip of the year to boost up the whole year. I had uploaded some of the preview photos. I am quite busy recently on work and gathering. All the photos were edited using adobe lightroom and I found it was user friendly and showed superb result.

The power of photoshop

Recently just taking up the initiative to learn the photoshop CS4 after looking forward to learn for so long. I found that it is quite tough to master the things especially when there are too many things to learn and try out. After playing around for a while and also watching some videos from the website. I found that the post process (PP) of the photos is also very important in certain way to enhance the presentation of the photos. Most importantly is the AWB is not that intelligent as compare to our eyes, by using our eyes we can set the temperature of the photo a.k.a white balance (WB) in more appropriate. Below are the 1st production of my PP. I kind of love them also.. :D

Check out the before and after effect

Hainan Trip

Sorry guys... been a lazy bum lately...
I was so lazy to upload the photos as too many to check...
Finally come out with a super compressed photos..
Some of my favorite and meaningful photos to me...

The crocodile meats being sell in the seafood stall =.=""

Wan lu yuan (万绿园）Just a normal park

Our Gen 2 sold as lotus over there

The beach side of 假日海滩

亚龙湾（Ya long wan beach) one of the famous beach in hai nan, quite near to sanya（三亚）the beach famous cause of the Ms Universe few years back

南海观音(Nan hai guan yin) The guan yin of Nan Hai

Short term assignment to Hai Nan(China)

After wishing and praying so hard, finally I got my first STA(short term assignment) to China. Initially I was being assigned to Guang Zhou, however I only stayed there for 2 days then being reassigned to Hai Kou(海口） of Hai Nan（海南） Island. Working over there was a good experience, it is a good chance to polish up my mandarin(普通话，白话）. Below were some of the special terms and things I would like to share:

1. There is no receipt in China. They call it fa piao (发票） =.="

2. The taxi here will non stop horn their horn, don't freak out!!

3. In China they said wa kao(哇靠） while Taiwanese said wa sai(哇塞) and Bolehlander is the best and longest wa lao eh (哇老eh)

4. Chinese people like to say sha(啥）rather than shen me (什么）
Example: 关你啥事？！

5. Facebook, Youtube, blogspot, flcker all being banned in China to avoid internet spamming of their political riots(xin jiang lately and xi zang last time)

6. They were using the same discount as in HK drama. (一折=90%discount,二折=80%discount and so on...

7. They call the waiters/waitresses as fu wu yuan (服务员), DON'T call them xiao jie (小姐），this is the terms no good for them. Else you can opt to call them xiao mei(小妹） if you are old enough :p

8. They also like to use the word da(打）a lot.
Example: 打车、打的 (get a taxi)

9. They called buses in different way-gong jiao che(公交车）for big buses touring in the city, da ba(大巴）for the coach kind of buses.


Ok... This is the short update after so long... More photos and about this trip upcoming... stay tuned...