Sakura

Very random updates. 

I m too lazy to write or post any photos currently as it's only 2 days away from my long awaited holiday to the land of Lord of the Rings. Yup, I am actually flying off the New Zealand on my birthday, so that is considered my best birthday gift for myself. Just dread the long transit hours in Melbourne though. Gotta camp at the airport for 6 hours in the wee hours of the morning. Looks like I need to 'borrow' pillows and blankets from the plane. 

Anyway I have booked for a trip to Kyoto next April to see the Sakura. This is something I have been dreaming since the last time I stumbled into a blog which was spammed with millions of Sakura photos. It's weird that this trip was booked within less than half and hour of discussion with the hubs and he actually agree to go! Wow! And settled all the accommodation in Osaka and Kyoto as well. Just a lil sad that I am not able to get a decent ryokan with decent price even for a night. Well, the sakura that matters the most!

PHD for a day

Digging through my albums for photobook and manage to find these. I think I have not posted them on my blog before.

So there, I was a PHD graduate for a day..'Dr.' Wong.

 

The Monkey Temple, Kathmandu

The eye

Or otherwise known as Swayambunath.

I only found out the name of the temple when I was busy doing my photobook for my Nepal trip. All I can recalled from the trip was that the temple is on top of a hill and full of monkeys, hence the other name as Monkey Temple. I am not going to dwell much on the history and stuff like that as wikipedia is available.
As we followed a tour, I have no idea how to get there as well, just that it's highly recommended as the scenary up the hill is gorgeous. Practically, you can see the whole of Kathmandu from the top.

And not forgetting the bad monkeys which chase us around and fighting for food. Locals do not need to pay to get in but the tourists are charged a small fee.

I always wanted to try taking this motion type of photo

Check the view from the top

Prayers flag everywhere

My Favourite Market

Is located in Barcelona.

Seriously I can't stop looking at the fruits, candies and the ever so colourful stuff sold here.

And we stumbled upon this by accident while walking along La Rambla.

Abu Simbel, Egypt

Why I love Abu Simbel more than the Pyramids?
Abu Simbel is more exotic and it's been a place I wanted to see and go after watching the relocation of the temple due to the construction of the Aswan dam in National Geographic. It's more exotic because of the I had to sit through 4 hours of jeep accompany by military convoy from Cairo to Nubia coupled with waking up at 2am to do so. Very much exotic. Compare that to the Pyramid which is right in the middle of Cairo town. Not exotic.

What so special about Abu Simbel?
It's the temple constructed during of Ramsess the Great. It's also one of the location of filming for Mummy II, the gateway to the place where Imhotep challenge the Scorpian King. Ok..can't believe I am using movies to depict how great the place is.

Why you don't see much of my Egypt write up here?
Egypt trip is one of the trip that I got conned left, right, up and down. Non-stop cheating and even by my own tour guide. It's slightly better after we got away from Cairo and met with some really nice Indian siblings on the cruise. But it was nightmare when we tried to get from Egypt to Jordan via sea.

Temple of the Great Ramses

Small temple of Nefertari

Upclose of the four statues in front of the temple

the missing head and upper body

Portrait Shooting at Sekinchan

Truthfully speaking, I was quite nervous when a friend of mine asked me whether I can shoot some portraits for her sister and brother in law. I had never done this so called 'engagement' shots before and was quite stress that I would not be able to deliver the best photos for them. And the fact that I had not actually touched my camera for quite some time!

The couple choose to have their shooting at Sekinchan, the paddy fields located at Kuala Selangor. As I had been to the place before, mentally I was trying to search for some good scenery for the shooting. After the shooting, we continued to shoot some balloon shots at a park near my condo. Never knew such beautiful place existed right in front of my condo.

These are some photos from my first engagement/ portrait photography and I hope the couple is happy with the photos. As my photoshop skills are still quite sucky, so most of the photos straight out from the camera with very minimal editing.  My photography is back but with a major sunburn from the outing!

Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

I believe the building itself worth a blogpost. I won't go on explaining the history and stuff about it but all I can say that, the building was constructed since 1882 and still under construction up until today, masterpiece by Antoni Gaudi.  Although my trip to Barcelona was 4 years ago, this building remained the most memorable one, as it was expensive to get in and I can just stare at the interior and exterior of the building all day and night.

If anyone tells you that it's not worth paying the euros to get in, ignore him/her. Pay the money, get into the queue and get in. Go back at night and see the night view.

Silent Blogger again!

Sigh, in a blink of eye, a month had passed since I last blogged. Again, I had fallen into the silent blogger trap. Not that I have nothing to blog, but I just could not find the time and energy to do it. The past few weeks were spend doing photobooks for two of my trips, Tibet and Bhutan and another one for my brother's wedding guest book. It was last weekend and I was majorly involved in the preparation of the wedding from decoration to running around like mad woman trying to solve problems, haha. Now that it's over, and trips to look forward in the next few months, maybe I can find my blogging mojo back again.

How to Deal with Altitude Sickness

I won't say I am the expert on this but having been to 3 places with high altitude, I would say I am quite exposed to the experience of altitude sickness. Altitude sickness is usually associated with effect of high altitude on the human bodies. It usually hits when you are above 2,400 metres above sea level. Out of the 3 experience I had with high altitude, 2 of which I suffered from minor altitude sickness, one in Peru and another time in Tibet. Funny thing is I was not hit with the symptom when I first arrived at the high altitude in Arequipa, Peru, and when I arrived in Lhasa via flight from Kathmandu. It was only after a few days when I was ascending to the higher parts of Peru and Tibet, that I experience the symptom and it disappeared as fast as it came, within a few hours.

The usual symptoms of altitude sickness are headaches, shortness of breath, dizzinesses, nausea, insomnia and fatigue. The only symptom I had was headaches and quite bad according to my headaches dictionary.  One of my friend suffered from insomnia while in Lhasa.

So, how do I usually cope with these symptoms? I sleep and by I mean really a lot. The whole journey from Nazca Line to Arequipa, I was sleeping. Only woke up when the bus stopped for toilet break, lunck break and photo break. Other than that, Adri and me slept the whole journey up, thus earning us the nickname, sleeping queen!

I also drank lots of water as it is vital to keep hydrated to ensure that our blood is not too thick and able to carry more oxygen and hemoglobin, at least that is my theory. 

But the most important rule is to get enough rest and acclimatized to the high altitude. Do not run, or walk furiously during the first few days in the high altitude. There are medicine to be taken if you want to avoid the sickness but I would not recommend it as it is better to have your body acclimatized themselves. Oh, in Peru, they will usually chew on colca leaves or drink lots of colca tea. Not sure whether it works 100% but it does help in reducing the effect.

Barkhor street @ Lhasa Tibet

After we have arrived in Lhasa, we were transported to our hotel to rest for the day as it is vital to acclimatise to the high altitude. Will blog something on how to deal with altitude sickness later on (at least that's what I do usually).

We spend the rest of the day loitering around our hotel and the next day headed straight to Barkhor street, one of the major street in Lhasa where most of the temples and tourist spots are located, or in this case, where Jokhang temple located.

Barkhor street had us gawking at the cheap souvenirs and many other stuff that the Chinese can think of. We of course opted for a Tibetan meal since we had a true blue Tibetan who refused to speak Mandarin eventhough he is well versed. I think he is kind of glad that we request the tour be in  English and we glad we opted for a Tibetan guide as we had tonnes of fun along the journey, from his stupid jokes with poker face to us misunderstanding his explanation.

Eventhough it was early in the morning, the street is already packed with tourists and locals. I can't help but notice most of the Tibetans dressed in black and grey.