Dream Home

I was reading about this blogger's entry about her dream home, something she had been planning and dreamt of, for the past few years. Reading her thoughts and looking through her photos brought back good 'ol memories of my own dream home, not my current home but my condo that I bought few years back.

I still remember the first moment I set my eyes on my condo, I fall in love. I could already envision how the fully furnished place would turn out to be. When I paid for the deposit, I was nervous but excited at the same time. Finally, I can moved into a place I called home and not renting rooms anymore. Yes, I have been renting rooms for the last 5-6 years while working hard to save the money to get my first home.

Eventhough I was tired from searching and researching for contractors, designers, ploughing through ID magazines and websites, I was nevertheless happy. Happy that I can decorate my own home, happy I can make decisions on what colour to paint, what furniture to buy, what electronics to get and etc. The end result, my home turned out exactly how I visioned it to be, white and grey minimalist with a tinge of colour in the bedrooms, gigantic wardrobe to fit all my clothes, the bar at the dry kitchen that I always wanted and most important a huge conceal shoe cabinet to fit all my shoes.

Sadly, I only spend a year there before I had to moved out. Still go back once in while to search the feel of my dream home. Could never let myself to rent it out or sell it,  how can I ever sell my dream home. I had moved a new home and a new life. Many people will tell me that I am lucky to move to a landed property but many things/decisions in my new home are beyond my control or things that I hated are there. Sadly, I could never feel the new home as my dream home.

Patan, Kathmandu

During the last Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan trip, we spend three days in Kathmandu as we need 3 days to do our visa for the Tibet trip. On the second day we spend in Patan, a town nearby Kathmandu where it has a huge Durbar square and museum for visit. Patan is also one of the UNESCO World Heritage.


I remember we spend quite some time here as the guide probably thought that we were very interested in the history and the carvings. No doubt, it is great and astounding to see such stunning buildings, but try seeing them so much in a day.

Nevertheless, I love the carvings and how the people here chilled out during their free time. People come here for prayers most of the times as there are a few temples surrounding the Durbar Square. In case anyone confuse what Durbar means, it means market. So yeap, technically we were visiting a market and I don't even like going to market in Malaysia, haha.

Durbar square

during our visit, they have another festival going on

People chilling out

The square

Carvings

check out the carvings

People watching

view of Patan Square from across the road

THE Shoe

Why blog about my wedding shoe and not the dress?

For those who know me well, they will know I am a shoe person.

And I have search months for the perfect pair and even have some other shoes as backup until I saw this at Christy Ng.

Framing

This is one of the favourite word from my boss in audit but in photography, it's also one of the most important elements. It's interchangeable with composing but what I mean here it's incorporating frames into your picture. I was reading through some photography articles from Flipboard and was inspired to by this article;  "Using Framing in Photography" to blog my experience in using frames to compose my photos. It is not something technical like controlling shuttle speed or aperture value but using a different perspective to highlight your photo. And it's not literally using frame as frame but some parts of building/window as shown in the photos taken  in Istanbul, Sintra, Machu Picchu and Greece respectively.

By incorporating a frame as part of the composition of a picture, it somehow highlights the focus of the picture. If not why do so many photobooths in wedding provide photoframe as part of the props. Dont' believe me, here's are some of the photos I
googled.

Guests were having fun with the frame (photo credits to takebetterphotosnow.com)

 

The frame adds a unique touch to the otherwise 'normal' wedding photo (photo credit to Carrie Wildes photography)

However, I admit some of the difficulties in photographing a subject within a frame is that I tend to focus on the 'frame' rather the subject when I am using auto focus. Hence, the best way to avoid this is to use manual focus.

6 Things to Do in Scotland

1. Try Haggis, a traditional Scottish food only available in Scotland and not other parts of the UK.

Haggis (photo credit to dinnerdiary.org)

2. Watch a Royal Military Tatoo performance. Sadly, this remains one of things I did not manage to do last time as I miss my flight back to Edinburgh from Budapest and thus missed out one of the best show in town. It is usually held in August towards the end of the summer.

Military Tatoo held in front of the Edinburgh castle every August  
(photo credit to phamiegow.com)

3. Ask a men in skirt a.k.a kilts what he wear underneath. I once ask that question to my Highland tour guide and you don't want to know the answer, haha.


4. Listen to Scottish music from the bagpipes. One of the place to spot man in kilts with his bagpipe is along The Royal Mile in Edinburgh.



5. Tour the Highlands; Isle of Skye, go Nessie spotting in Loch Ness, and to the end of the Scottish Isle and feel yourself inmmense in the Highlander movie! I can never describe the experience here as I still think Scottish Highlands are still THE Best place I ever been and Edinburgh, the best place I ever been. I think I am a bit bias but I had the best time of my life over there.

Feel like a highlander here

6. Visit a castle. I literally castle hopping every weekend. Highly recommend Edinburgh castle and Linlithgow castle for the history of Queen Mary of Scots.

Try watching Brave and Stardust and you will know what I mean.

Sunset @ Uluwatu, Bali

Since I am on the blogger page, might as well, do another update, a short one.

When I told people that I am going to Bali for my honeymoon, everyone told me the sunset over there is gorgeous especially at Tanah Lot. After going both sunset viewing in Tanah Lot and Uluwatu, I still prefer the latter. Probably, when I was there, the weather was better and the sun was up and shinning brightly.

Lack of Updates

I think these titles are the most frequent titles I have been using lately, haha. I realised I haven't been blogging for quite some time. Most of my time has been consumed with housework, work, cooking and candy crushing. I couldn't believe I am saying this but this game is really addictive! Been playing it day and night and currently in level 103 and the maximum level is 300+. Oh my gosh, it will take me forever to finish playing it. Must not let myself to be addicted to it. Guess for now, the most updates are my food photos in Instagram. I don't really upload food photos here if you guys realised as I am not a good food photographer, haha. So I have been maximising the usage of my S3 with instagramming my experimental home cook food! In case anyone interested, you can search me in Instagram. I am using the ID wjingyi30.

Seriously need to stop candy crushing and back to blogging.