Table Mountain, Cape Town

I realised I have tonnes and tonnes of travel stories that I have yet to blog and with the current wedding preparations, my blogging time has been significantly decreased. Been hitting the gym almost everyday after work and every weekend is booked until almost the week before wedding. Even my spa has been postpone for numerous times until I have lost count! And very excited for this weekend as I will be going to choose my pre wedding photos and judging from the photos uploaded by my photographer, I think I will have a tough time narrowing to just 50 photos.


Anyway, enough of wedding stuff. This is suppose to be a travelogue long due as this trip was back in 2010 (it's already 2 years).

Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa is definitely one of the must visits when you are in this continent.   What I love about this landmark is that, you can view Table Mountain from far and it's so name due to the physical appearance of the flat landscape of the mountain which resembles a table. We were lucky as the days before, it was raining quite heavily and one of the people we bump into in Johannesburg during the football match told us, he could not see much from the top of the mountain when he was there few days ago.

To get up to the mountain, you can choose to hike or lazy people like us, we choose to take the cable car. One special thing about the cable car is that it is revolving allowing everyone to get the best view of the mountain and Cape Town which ascending and descending the mountain. You can buy the tickets online through this website or risk getting there and queue in a long line. We choose to take the risk and manage to get there in the early morning before the crowd and truckload of tourists start pouring in. The rates can be check from the same website as well.

 

check out the long queue

Cape Peninsula, South Africa

view of Cape of Good Hope

catching my own reflection

Cape of Good Hope is also known as the most southern tip of the African continent. We drove from Cape Town to the Cape Peninsula stopping along Simon's town for the colourful dressing rooms, Boulder's beach for the cute penguin and lastly the Cape Point for the sunset. The whole drive from Cape Town to Cape of Good Hope was about 3 hours. It was said here, one could see the most mesmerizing sunset on earth as it was considered one of the most beautiful places on earth!

Cape of Good Hope is the divider between the Indian and Atlantic ocean. To get into the cape, we paid some entrance fees for the park as well as fee for the car. By the time we reached there, it was late afternoon and we had to rush between Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope. The scenary up the light house is amazing and one can view the Cape of Good Hope from here. One need to leave the park before it's close or you will be fined for lateness.

map of the Cape

chilling out or more like pretending to be model


the lighthouse


stunning view of Table Mountain
(which looks like those ancient Chinese paintings)







standing at the most south western point of the African continent






love the colour of the sky here

I managed to shoot some stunning sunset view from the Cape and the classic shot with the ostrich in it.

Adri and May, my models


sunset view with the ostrich silhoutte




sun finally set in

Potrait or Landscape

View from Oia, Santorini Greece

A very cliche shot of Machu Picchu if shot using landscape view

I think this is the common question to all when you are framing a shot. Naturally, potrait shot works well with people or when you wanna do a close up of a person. Landscape shot is usually for the scenary or wide angle shot. BUT, then rules are meant to be broken. For me, I love to take potrait view for scenary shots especially those with a small but distance subject that I wanted to make a contrast against the sky. It somehow potray a more dramatic, more focus and definitely more drastic view than the rather mundane landscape view.

However, the most important thing is, experiment and snap the shots both in landscape and potrait view. Afterall, it's the digital age. You dont incur extra cost for snapping away.....

Garden inside the Wong Tai Sin temple
A potrait shot focus on the traditional pavillion against the modern backdrop



Cape Peninsula at South Africa
A potrait view highlight the waves and the colours of the sky



Robben Island @Cape Town
I had the same shot in landscape view. A potrait shot focus on rocks and birds

Bo Kaap @ Cape Town

Bo Kaap is a famous Malay quarter in the city of Cape Town. It is famous for the bright colourful house. Here one can find for Malay halal food. Last day in Cape Town, we decided to use this opportunity to take many shots in front of the colourful houses before heading to the airport.

view of the Table Mountain from Bo Kaap




so colourful






May as my model again


trying to be Spidey

Cape Town (1-5 July 2010)

Cape Town, the mother city of South Africa truly live up to her name. There are no definite words to describe how gorgeous she is. There are mountains, sea and plenty to do in this place. We flew in to Cape Town from Durban and decided to stay here for 5 days. We rented a car to drive around and we booked our stay at Gemini Guest House. Service was not bad for the first few days but we need to pay by cash. The place was a mini studio with kitchen, bathroom and bedroom in one.

Initially we had booked our boat ride to Robben Island at 9am but we couldnt wake up on time as no one actually set the alarm. So in the end we took the afternoon boat and decided to walk around Cape Town. The first sight we saw was the Table Mountain view. We were practically speechless. It was a beautiful weather as the sky is clear and blue. We heard from another friend that the weather was been quite crap a few days before.

our hotel room

stunning view from the waterfront


giant coke


May became my model




besides vuvuzela, these hats are popular during the World Cup

We took a slow stroll along the V&A waterfront and took the opportunity to take some pictures. Adri went to search for her shark cage diving while May and me took the time to snap photos of each other before the tourist crowd started. We killed the time with shopping in the FIFA shops for some tees and souvenirs. It was quite a crowd in Cape Town as everyone was down here for the big match between two giants, Argentina and Germany which later one we too manage to score tickets to the match.

walking towards the FIFA shop

inside the FIFA shop

The giant Jabulani in the centre of the V&A waterfront.
Notice the word Argentina and Germany is on the ball.
Later on only I realised that for each match, there will be a different Jabulani with the names of the team.