Prima

It has been a funny day today. I kept waking up just before the alarm clock went off about three times and finally decided I'd get up and order this book. I suspect it's the anticipation that kept me up this much. That's BYJ effect huh!

Anyhow I'd like to share this Italian restaurant in town which my friend and I visited after a stressful day. It's a cozy place but would have been better if there wasn't someone serenading when we just wanted to relax. There's only so much I could take and I would prefer a relaxing ambience instead.
Prima is a bar restaurant and it isn't big either. I'd say it has a capacity of less than a hundred. My friend preferred this over the New York style restaurant Alex and I go to but we didn't expect the Italian would be there. Don't get me wrong he had a lovely voice.

I really like the big vases they had in the window and the glass lanterns.

My friend liked these bottles in the windowsill. Some spices and olive oils I suppose.


I kept looking at these hanging candle holders opposite me. I think they were sweet.

This is an English summer drink Pimms and fruits which is a staple drink in Southern England including Wimbledon and other formal gatherings.

The size of this Vesuvio pizza made me think of all the children in Africa or just somewhere not eating a lot.. It's a shame really how much food is offered in this part of the world when there are those eating so little.

Anyhow, it's not a bad restaurant. I would perhaps come back when it's not too busy.

'Trip Following the Beauty of Korea'

Source: Nikkan Sports /Tomato 99-Quilt
August 4, 2009

BYJ will make appearance at Jingu- Gaien Hanabi (fireworks sponsored by Nikkan Sports) which is scheduled on nights August 6.

The title of the book which BYJ has been writing is fixed to '"Trip Following the Beauty of Korea". He is going to talk about his feelings for the book in relation to its sales from Nikan Sports from September 28. The video was recorded in Seoul. He seem relaxed and talked for a minute and smiled.

This book is not just an ordinary book to introduce sightseeing points but to introduce Korea further.

For about one year he experienced and searched about 40 spots such as temples and traditional culture points related to write the book.

From noon August 5, shopping sites of Nikkan Sports.com and BOFi will start accepting orders of the book.

Thanks Del for sharing and Makiko/ Daum BYJ Gallery for sharing the scanned article.

mad about sunsets

You must have heard of storm chasers, right?? How about sunsets chasers?? My husband and I believe that we belong to this group. We cant' just sit down and have dinner after a long day at work and just admire the sunset happening at the back of our house. So this is what happened this evening.

Scene 1: Drove back from work and I thought 'oh, that's a pretty one.' Got out of the car and ran to get my camera. This time I used the Lumix to test its performance and got this.

F5.6 1/50 ISO100

Scene 2. Drove back home and Alex thought he fancied pizza. When we arrived at the take away place we thought we'd go for Chinese. Default setting I call this.

F4.0 1/100 ISO80

Scene 3. Had Chinese and been looking out the conservatory and noticed the changing hues in the sky. Finished with my meal and saw the sky turning purple. Alex said, we'll come back tomorrow at a later time. Then I said, 'sunsets aren't the same everyday you know.' He shrugged but I insisted we have to get this one.
F5.6 1/80 ISO 100
Scene4. Drove back to the spot and guess what? I took the memory card off the camera. Just then we both realized the camera hasn't got a memory built in. Bummer!!! For what it's worth...

F5.6 1/100 ISO 100

Scene 5. We drove back home and I tried taking photos from the bathroom window and because this is a small camera I had some issues with shakes..grrrr.. I got so caught up dangling myself over the bathroom window that I slipped and bruised my shin. Ouch!!!!

F5.6 1/1.3 ISO 100
Scene 6. These are what I've got for you today. ;-) I hope they are good enough.

F 5.6 1/1.3 ISO 100

No photoshop used in these photos just normal cropping.

cute little creatures

I went out with my friend yesterday to see her new house. She will be moving later so I was helping out as much as I can. While waiting for the paperwork to get sorted, I was inspecting my new camera and really pleased on how handy it was. I took a photo in the garden and tried out the macro setting.

This was a zoom in photo of an admiral butterfly which I saw on the way while walking the dog. I was surprised by the zooming capacity considering the butterfly was about five meters away. There was hardly any noise.

I'll see if I could try it on taking photos of birds..

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.