November 2010 ~ Pieces of Me

Nov 28, 2010

Hermanus, the Whale Town (4 July 2010)

sunset on the way back to Cape Town

Hermanus, a small cozy town, just 3 hours drive from Cape Town is famous as the whale town. You can actually spot the whales from the shore flipping their tails and spitting water in the air. We decided to drive down to Hermanus during our 5 days stay in Cape Town while enroute to Gansbaai sending Adri for her shark cage diving. Me and May decided not to go as it was slightly costly for us as we had spend quite a fortune for this South Africa trip.

As Adri needs to be at the shark cage diving centre for the second session, we can take some leisure time to drive down to the southern part of the Cape Peninsula. On the way from Gansbaai to Hermanus, we saw the most amazing cloud blanket over the mountains. We stopped by Hermanus for the whale watching and managed to catch some amazing pizza for lunch (it's a three layer pizza).

cloud blanket over the mountains

Hermanus, the whale town

they are everywhere

Table Mountain from far

the town area

reflection

I love my tee

especially the back part

We waited a while for the whales and the whale crier actually existed. He blew the horn and attracted some whale to the shore. Just cant describe the feeling of watching the whale flipping its tail!

whale crier

the flipping of the tail

there are people actually shouting for the whale to flip its tail

Nov 27, 2010

Colours of Autumn in Benmore Botanic Garden

floor of autumn leaves

I always love the autumn colours with her bright yellow, red and orange colours. The temperature will be just nice for a stroll in the park during autumn to admire the colours of nature. Somehow, autumn always give me a feeling of romantic and laid back feeling. And it is always one season that I love most while many Malaysians would argue that they would like to experience winter the most.

A day trip to the Benmore Botanic Garden located near Dunoon and Loch Eck when I was studying in Scotland, had deepened my love for autumn. Mother nature works her best during this time of the year and awarded plenty of photograhy opportunities.

spotted a lone bench at the garden

one of the castle inside the garden

Nov 20, 2010

All about Lighting

How do you define a good photo? Super blue sky? Razor sharp image? A soft bokeh? Capturing the best moment?

Sometimes when the lighting, the colour of the subject or the background are not too good, it's usually then that I will take the shot in monochrome. Somehow, black and white photos give me a feeling of nostalgic, old but classic. And guess what, the best shot that I took while I was holidaying in HK was a monochrome shot of the Buddha's face in Lantau Island.

The shot above is taken using my new lens 15-85mm, a superb sharp lens though with the limited focal length. For anyone looking for good bargains, check out Foto Selangor at Kompleks Pertama near to Sogo. Ask for Uncle Johnny and start bargaining for price and goodies!

Nov 15, 2010

Isle of Skye

My favourite. Mount Quiraing

There must be a solid reason why I keep raving about Scotland and how beautiful the place is. In my opinion, if you are planning for a visit to the UK for some countryside scenary, put Scotland as the main priority. And if there's only one place you can go for scenary, go to Isle of Skye, the island is stunningly beautiful and almost a ripped off from the movie Lord of the Rings. I remembered a friend once told me that she almost cried when she saw Scotland. And also because of what she say, I applied to do my masters at Edinburgh Uni the last time.

If you are travelling alone, there's plenty of backpackers tour that one can follow. I took a 3 day tour with Mac Backpackers around the Scottish countryside which includes the famous Loch Ness for the Nessie monster. We had a very funny Scottish tour guide which half of the time I did not understand what he said and he told us many stories and history of Scotland.