CNY Festivities & Goodies

I've skipped a few CNY and having this opportunity with family and friends in my hometown this year was awesome. There were gatherings to attend, food to relish and drinks to down. Memories to reminisc, for sure. Photos speak a thousand words and here they are.


It is the best CNY I have had in many years. Miss home, friends & those laughters!

Keong Hee Huat Chye to all

Chinese New Year is one of the biggest celebration for, urm, Chinese descendents. It's like Christmas to the Westerners but it's celebrated over 15 days, 16 if to include the eve. It's all about relishing food.

The eve of CNY is a pivotal tradition whereby preferrably all family members are gathered together for a reunion dinner. In the olden days where my grandparents were still around, a big cook up with plenty of big pots of dishes were prepared. In the last few years, our family members are gathered in a hotel for reunion dinner. The homecooked and atmosphere are sorely missed but at least my family is still very much tightly woven.

Hope the Rabbit year brings joys and successes to all and sundry.

Keong Hee Huat Chye (Hokkien dialect for Gong Xi Fa Chai)!!

Back and Finally A New Post

After a 5-month hiatus, I've finally squeezed myself out of a little bit of juice to update it with some photos taken over the past few months. With Twitter, I've been lazy, and very good at it! ^_^

Speaking of which, I have yet to even look at the photos taken in the recent trip to Shandong, China (of which Qingdao is part of). Not that I have taken a lot of images but I have been bogged down with some issues including those involving my apartment's wall that was damaged from burst pipe from the unit above back in July 2009.

Anyway, here are some wedding shots taken during my "absence".
And here's the latest one done in late Nov.

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Why so serious?
And...here...we...go.
You need an ace in the hole.
Why do we fall? So we can pick ourselves up again.
Night is at its darkest just before dawn. I promise you, dawn is coming.
I like this job - I love it.
You either die a hero or live long enough to be a villain.
You can't rely on anyone these days, you gotta do everything yourself, don't we?

The quotes sound familiar? Well, they are from The Dark Knight and have been going through my mind the entire day and the past few days. Who said movies are bad for you? Some of them are motivating while the others are just trying to get me going.

What makes a great manager?

Someone who pulls his/her own weight for the team and contributes constructively.
Someone who motivates instead of demoralises.
Someone who stands up for his/her team instead of pinning others' faults (including his) on one person or two.
Someone who says what he/she meant rather than twisting the words as he/she pleases.
Someone who under-promises and over-delivers with the consultation of the team.

I think I can be that great manager, but I know who can't be even just being good.

Those are the things that have led to me not living my resolutions for 2010.

To change the world, we must first change ourselves - Gandhi

Simplicity version 2: Simplify to Amplify

I've been playing with my camera in full manual mode with an old manual AI 35mm f/1.4 lens. It's great to come back to the basics once in a while and it's so very fulfilling. About 20 years ago during CNY, I remember being handed a film SLR to play with for the very first time. "Turn this til the view is clear then click this button". I got it back then.

Simplify to Amplify is another inspiration that I just thought of. It's not like it's a whole new series but more of a sub-series to Simplicity is Beauty.

What triggered this idea was me reminiscing the moments I had with my late friend. There were plenty of banters between us in topics like auto v manual, pc v mac, nikon v leica and the likes. I miss those stuffs and it's only been a few weeks. Foek On is definitely the inspiration for this.

Now off to bed and hopefully this won't keep me awake...

Simplicity Continues

As noted in my previous Simplicity post, I've neglected this ongoing personal project of mine for reasons like fatigueness and frustrations. In many ways, capturing these images energises me as well as relaxes my mind.

Today, I decided to just venture out around my humble abode with this intended purpose. So, here they are.

Sometimes, there are clarity and calmness within messiness.