BYJ and cameras

Hello..I have been recuperating these couple of days and contemplating or in other words got distracted. Most bloggers probably feel the same way sometimes. A distraction brings normality and perhaps clears the mind in the end.

I can't believe I have to use three computers just to get this post done. I'm saying this to remind myself to be more organized. The only issue is I have files from the other computers and one mighty memory stick has to carry them all and get shoved here and there for access. I can't trust one computer just in case it get corrupted..soo back to the agenda for today. I finally received my new camera and I'm surprised how small it is compared to my EOS.

The love for these 'little' things as most of you have known started with BYJ. I could say that even if he ventures to other interests that I couldn't follow, photography remains my favorite.Thanks to him. If we look back at his earlier photos with various cameras you probably noticed he also have his favorites and up to know has been using them anywhere he goes.

This one seem to be a Nikon but he also used Canon during his last visit in Japan.

And with his ever faithful Hasselblad which was with him in all his journey around Korea for the making of his book. Hasselblad H3DII-50 weighs 2290 grams which makes it pretty heavy. And so is the price as this one is worth around £15,000.

Below is with the hottest film camera. The Leica M7-stylish, fast, reliable and considered as the Ferrari of all cameras for the fastest shutter speed and fetching around £2000.00.

only settle for the best.

Thanks Makishi for the photo.

a new member

A new member arrived today and thanks to Alex for tolerating my interest. I was looking for a camera to bring with me for holiday. So instead of buying a box standard point and shoot camera I searched for some extra functions and the Panasonic FZ7 ticked the boxes or shall I say I hope it did . I will still use the Canon for outdoors but for daily use I would be carrying the Lumix.

The features are:
-12x optical zoom Leica DC Vario-Elmarit lens
-Advanced Mega Optical Image Stabilizer
-more compact form which is easy to carry around.
-6 megapixels CCD
-joystick allowing easier manual control on focusing.
-2.5" LCD monitor allows various styles of playback and remains bright even in low-light conditions.

You probably think there are 10 megapixel camera these days but I am not too concern about this either since my Canon is only 3 megapixels but gave much better photos and provided precise and quicker performance for being a DSLR. It's the heart of the camera that matters which includes the sensor and the lens used. With the Lumix, I trust the Leica.

lunch at the George

I've only been to the George Hotel Bar and Resturant twice so far. It is a quintessential restaurant here in Britain. We stopped here for lunch as I didn't fancy Indian or Italian which were the few choices.

An English style Fish and Chips.

While looking at the wine list, I noticed Santa Carolina. The story behind this wine is a Baesis sent me a photo of BYJ before and I was looking for that wine shown in the picture. I couldn't find it then. The one in the list isn't red so I looked on the SC website. Finally, I found some photos similar which was the Santa Carolina Merlot. Voila!! Another wine to try.

This is the photo of the wine and you could read about it here or read about Santa Carolina here.

good old 'bucks

Hi there! It's midweek which seem to move very slow. We had to get the car checked today for its yearly MOT. I don't know if you have this in your country but here, cars are checked each year to make sure they are safe in the road and still in good working condition. Any defects or troubles are spotted which would cause it to fail the test and further services would be recomended. The car passed its MOT though.

While waiting we walked around town and headed to our local Starbucks outlet. We were the first customers which was good because we got the chance to look for more comfortable space. The 'bucks here is not really big but gets really crowded the rest of the day. I did enjoy listening to the latin mix which was playing in the background.

While having the coffee I managed to snap some photos of the place. I like this set of canvasses which I think you could create yourself and hung it in your dining area..mmhhh that's an idea.

This woman sounded American and perhaps knew about the business. She was saying about something but I thought it's just funny and too early for complaints.

These are just some of the things they sell. I was looking at the mugs as I used to buy them for my folks. Anyhow, it was still a good Caramel Macchiato; not too sweet-just right. ;-)

Flowers for you

Every summer, Judy's garden becomes a sanctuary of all things colorful. Her roses bloom so lovely and bees go mad and so are the birds enjoying every bit of seed they could find.

And my first photo of a robin. I hope when I get the other camera, I could zoom in better.

scenes from the weekend..

Despite 'pig' flu (got sooo fed up with it's original name), it has been a very good weekend. The champagne was drinkable, the garden looked more of an oriental setting, just discovered that a new found friend likes Chagall, listening to classical music while typing this is very relaxing, Lewis Hamilton won the Hungarian Grand Prix plus we were greeted by a BYJ photo taken from what seem to be a CF shooting. So it's pretty good, don't you think?

It's amazing how a photo like this is so significant in Baeland. Thanks Style/BYJ Gallery for sharing.

very sinful but lovely day..

Like I said earlier I decided to go out by myself since Alex was at work. Sometimes I enjoy looking around alone because I don't rush and could go anywhere I wanted to without thinking of another person. I did some shopping before the shops start to display the autumn collection plus the summer sales are on going so it's actually the right time.

I don't go out often but I didn't think of cafe/bar hopping today. I thought when I arrived at the mall I would stop at John Lewis' restaurant called a 'Place to Eat'. I like their place because it's clean and cozy plus you'd see different class of people .Compared to the one in London I prefer the latter as it overlooks Chelsea and Kensington .

So I opted for the traditional English cream tea although I didn't order tea but a capuccino. It includes scones, jam and clotted cream. The scones were absolutely soft and tasty. I was also reading the August edition of Glamour and sometimes just watched the world around go by..

I met up with Alex at the Le Petit Four. I was still full so I just ordered a drink. Nothing so French about this place in my opinion as they serve mostly coffee, sandwiches and light snacks.

While in the Le Petit we saw an advert of a Japanese Noodle Bar. Since I fancied something different earlier we thought we'd go for it. I'm glad we did because I like the place.

I ordered Ga Noung Xa, Meat Gyoza and Edon combo..actually it didn't stop there cause while I'm typing this I'm munching a blue cheese and drinking a glass of Freixenet 2007 Vintage..I know, hard work tomorrow...must work hard.

The highlight of this day for me is getting another pinky ring because I lost my other one. Alex got me a Tudor ring with inscriptions from Shakespeare's sonnet. I think it's sweet ;-).

'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate'

slow weekend

I woke up early today as usual to get Alex's things ready for work and I felt absolutely knackered. Normally, I'm a morning person therefore once I'm up, I would be out. But today is probably an exception like some days.
It's going to be a lovely day and I thought I'd go out for some fresh air and see what's going on in town. I also looked at my conservatory and said to myself 'I could do with reading some more of this book.' I am currently reading Candace Bushnell's 'One Fifth Avenue' which I find very witty and funny. It's not actually a comedy book but the plot is quite amusing.

Would it be nice to just sit down and read this book like what BYJ is doing in the photo? At the moment I'm thinking of a hammock and just sleep there.. better get a hammock then.

Then I thought shall we go out and eat a lovely dinner..now that would be nice. Hope you have a good weekend too.

what's yours is not mine...

I happened to read the post from Liezle's blog regarding the new laws which are about to be implemented by the Korean government against copyright infringement. If you want to read more just click here to visit her site.

As what I have understood the scope ranges from uploading videos to and from You Tube, downloads of dramas, music, even song lyrics and basically anything which doesn't really belong to you.

Here in England certain sites will not allow you to upload videos containing famous songs to sites such as Facebook which to me is so dubious since they allow you to upload videos from You Tube directly. Another thing is printing photographs. I had this photo of us taken in studio in the Philippines and I'd like it reproduced for personal use but the Kodak company won't do it since it was an original photo taken by a professional photographer. When it comes to music I noticed a massive clamped down on the Playlist.com song downloads. I also found out that they were actually sued by major music companies in America which I think is not a big surprise at all.

To sum it all, if I have to keep this site going you probably won't see any downloads at all from You Tube and other sites since 'we are not really allowed to'. In other words get your own material like most paparazzi do. Now wait a minute, if I bought the original and upload it here would that still be an infringement?? your guess is as good as mine.

re- Iwayama Lacquer Art Museum

source: IBC Iwate News
date: 21 July 2009
posted in Quilt by tomato99

Morioka City’s Iwayama Lacquer Art Museum is to open again on 1 August after eight months of closure.
Before it’s opening, today,
curator Mr. Jun Yong Bok revealed contents of new museum,
which will include Korean actor Bae Yong Joon’s and his own new works.

Morioka City’s Iwayama Lacquer Art Museum has been closed since last December and it has been preparing for it’s re-open.
Today, before it’s open on 1st of next month, curator Mr. Jun Yong Bok had a press conference.
Iwayama Lacquer Art Museum became a topic of news, from end of February to March, popular actor Bae Yong Joon-san was secretly visiting and studied lacquer art.

Mr. Jun revealed that Bae Yong Joon-san will become honorary curator. And one of his art work out his 20 practiced works will be displayed at the museum.

JYB: There is a long history and tradition in both Korea and Japan,
Bae Yong Joon will walk the way of lacquer art with me.

Museum will display about 100 art works including
Mr. Jun Yong Bok’s 20 new works.
The museum will be opened to the public from 10am on 1 August 2009.

repost- Epitome of Hallyu

original in korean: e-daily 2009/07/20
translated into japanese: 雪のオンニ / JOB
chinese trans-in-brief: snowkin / loveyongjoon
english trans-in-brief: happiebb / bb's blog

Bae Yong Joon is the Epitome of Hallyu

Who is the most famous Hallyu star in Japan?
We interviewed over 100 Japanese reporters and journalists who have interviewed many Hallyu stars such as Lee Junki, Song Seung Hun and others.

The verdict, still, Yonsama Bae Yong Joon came in tops with an overwhelming win.
The majority of the Japanese media said that they'd ranked Bae Yong Joon as first due to the his extraordinary charisma.

The deputy head from Sanspo's Usami Cultural Editing department said, "It is difficult to describe Bae Yong Joon with words. He has a certain presence, an aura that is unique only to him."
He also said, "Bae Yong Joon also appears to understand the Japanese fans very well."
According to Usami, the other Hallyu stars often appear in paid events and activities in Japan.

On the contrary, Bae Yong Joon manages to strike an appropriate balance in this aspect, and this is something that is significantly different from the other Korean stars.
In particular, when Bae Yong Joon visits Japan, his first and foremost consideration is always his fans. His value system and thinking is that that the fans will always come first, and not the monetary aspect of things. His way of thinking is being conveyed directly to the fans, and thus he is able to gain the fans' trust, and he earns credibility.

Also, it feels as though Bae Yong Joon does not visit Japan very often; but whenever the fans need him, he will appear and show up at their sides.
It will be very difficult for another Hallyu star to emerge who can surpass Bae Yong Joon, not within a short period of time anyway.

Whenever Hallyu stars visit Japan, they will hold concerts and fan meetings, this is practically all that they do. But if they only remain active at such a level and with only such activities, it is very difficult to surpass Bae Yong Joon who has already scaled to the top of the Hallyu peak.
The Japanese media also brought up other Hallyu stars after mentioning the Hallyu Superstar, Bae Yong Joon. They had mentioned DBSK, Lee Byung Hun, Ryu Shi Won, Song Seung Hun, etc.

But here, the gap between Bae Yong Joon's status and those Hallyu stars who rank number 2 or 3 is huge. This is something that the Japanese media agreed unanimously.

In fact, a small fraction of the media even took the extreme view of, "If without Yonsama, there will be no Hallyu in Japan."

I couldn't agree more.. He had influence many people from all walks of life may it be the Japanese family or the entire Southeast Asia. Even those who have moved to Europe, the Far East, Down Under or the America have known BYJ . He's one of a kind but very, very special. I wish he will continue setting great examples amongst us and remain humble and caring towards others.. Many thanks for the translation.

Cafe Miel.

I am glad to hear that Bae Yong Joon is NOT in seclusion..It's funny how a story like this could cause a tidal wave of speculations..The photo shown in Bae blogs of him in Cafe Miel showed that he's not going anywhere. He definitely listened and I'm grateful for that. To find out more about this cafe please click here.

Photo from Seunghee's blog/BYJ Gallery by Style.

Here are some of the photos I found on the web. Photo credit as labeled. Looks like a very cozy place.

The small garden with Birch trees is also eye catching and don't ask me why there's a cartoon character in there. Although if you go to the website you'll find that the cafe is inspired by Alice in Wonderland. So that would probably explains its presence.

I like how the shapes were incorporated in the interior. The curve panels are so chic. And these chairs just look simple but stylish. The overproportioned cushions gave them a cozy effect.

sky at night

It was 9:00 pm and I was ready to go to bed. I went upstairs in my pyjamas and the rain started to pour heavily again. I looked out from the bedroom window and noticed the sunset. I haven't seen any decent sunsets since spring and I thought that this one looked good.

Although not feeling hundred percent and been tired after a long day at work, I picked my camera and put my rain coat on. I thought to myself, Alex would be here in 5 minutes so I started walking in the rain to meet him on the road.

When he saw me in my pyjamas, he wasn't amused at all. He said 'What's going on?' I didn't say anything but just pointed at the sky above us. He told me that he was hoping I saw it too as it was so noticeable on the way amidst the rain. So we drove down to the spot where I always take these pictures and I still managed to get some shots.

My camera was set to ISO 400 because of low light. In this photo you could see the mist coming down from the distance which I think if you are watching this in person is fascinating.

This one was taken from the bedroom window and you could see the top of the garages on the foreground.

So you probably think I'm mad doing this sort of things but hey, it doesn't come everyday and I'm one of those who just couldn't resist.

fighting!!

I'm glad I felt a bit better towards the afternoon. I felt so comfortable in bed that I didn't want to come down. All I could hear all day was the thunderstorm. The lightning was so terrible that the bedside lamp was flickering. It sounded like a horror film but no, thank goodness.

Anyhow, to beat the blues away plenty of vitamin C and BYJ mv's.. Alex bought me some fruits which would do him good as well, cause he's not feeling too great either. .yup share and share alike. Bless his heart.

I could do with a Joon bear which is apparently out already.. It's the Style Joon Bear 2009. I asked hubby to buy me this one and all I got was a pretty smile..cheeky.

Thanks to Makishi for sharing the picture.

Since we all knew about the news of YJ's seclusion and that he would focus on the last stages of his book until the event in September, we would likely not hear anything from him. Oppsss!.. no messages on his birthday?tsk, tsk,tsk.For the detail of the news please click here.

I feel that he is in so much pressure and I only pray that he will get through it. Wherever he is part of me is glad that we were made aware although it sounds worrying. I'm sure he doesn't want us to worry. Anyway what is a month compared to the many months we waited..Keep fighting Yong Joon!

So feeling the blues, I thought I'd make this little MV for you. You probably noticed how his eyes could drown your sorrows. Have a lovely weekend.

Music by Coldplay-Fix You

shades of blue

Hello! I think the sudden change in weather didn't help many people at all. It must have affected me because I don't feel very clever today. So to cheer me up a little bit I'd like to share my blossoming Hydrangea which I planted last year for YJ's birthday.

It has grown well and doubled its height. I just have to keep watering it as it doesn't get as much rain because of the location.

..and bed rest for me.

You're the Man!

I think the word for this week in Baeland is 'MAN'. Yes, our man-BYJ. I have been looking at old videos from other sis if some of you have noticed already. And you would probably say I am missing him and perhaps you are right. After reading Ladymoon's translation of the interview in Thailand Cosmo July edition I was left pondering on the words of BYJ. It's funny how articles like this one gives such a valuable insight to what he thinks, feels and foresees. We rarely see him and despite the event in September we don't really get interviews here and there 'as yet'. So the anticipation grows and the excitement becomes intense.

I'm not going to re post everything but will cite the lines which struck me and what I think of them.

'Don't be nervous'. These are strong words but take time to practice. We sometimes get worried on what's going to happen, how will things turn and what the future holds for us. It's not easy to be relaxed and calm. It's harder when you have a business, a career, an image, a life to run but the confidence to utter this line is so empowering and positive. Only when you know your through strength that you are able to control your actions. I suppose all these years he has come to understand himself fully and remains positive in every way he can. That's the only way to be.

'I just prefer eating vegetables.' BYJ has changed his lifestyle and for the good. Being conscientious is not easy. I don't think I could be a fully pledge vegan but being on a healthy diet I couldn't remember the last time I had steak but what I'm saying is we all have preferences.

Everyday we encounter situations where we have to make decisions. Such example was when I went fishing. When I learned that I had to throw the fish back after catching them I realized how cruel fishing in this country is as a hobby.I vow not to fish again. That was just my idea. Why not leave the fish alone rather than catching them again and again.

BYJ has enjoyed eating vegetables and perhaps less meats these days. In my case I should eat healthily and have more greens .

'It's time that we should care for the environment.' He has always been concern about nature and I feel that because of the book and his travels he has seen nature's beauty that he hasn't seen before which gave him the stronger urge to protect mother nature.

In our own little homes we could help too. Recycling, choosing economical car, walking, travelling less and planting more greens are some of the things we could practice. It's not easy but well worth considering.

BYJ have obviously matured in his views of the world and what he would like to share.. He's the best person to set a good example- an example that he himself has to live and uphold.

For the full translations please visit TWSSG and BTF site. Thanks to Ladymoon for the translation.

Crafts Galore MV

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit at the craft show and apart from looking at the displays they were some fun games for the kids too. Well, I'm youngish at heart ;-) so I bet on the Ferret racing. I think you could get a Teddy Bear if your ferret wins. Btw No harm was done on this cute little creatures and they are loved and looked after, ok?

I should have choosen the third one. Mine was the one in the far end which seem to be not able to find it's way.

Alex said even a sat nav won't help this one..yup that's my ferret hehehe.

For the rest of the photos I thought I'd create a little Mv for it. Enjoy.