Falcon Maltese

The super yacht, Falcon Maltese, is simply the dream of any yacht/sailboat lover. It is one of the largest privately owned sailing yachts in the world at 88m. It's beyond anyone's imagination of any craftsmanship. It comes with a price tag of 300 million USD. My friend said you can buy a portion of midlevel in HK. I should mark it down on my wish list. 

first prints from photocrafters

These are couple of my first images from the darkroom. These photos took me hours to get it right and I feel I have accomplished a lot by producing these images. Of course... this is just the beginning! Simon asked us to shoot something black and something white. I went to the pier and took the Princess Cruise. And here it goes.

The second image I took on the day before I head into the class. It is a good subject because it trains me on how to bring out the details from the shadows. 

This is the contact print. Although it is a bit like lightroom the software. But when I can actually hold on to this contact print, I feel I actually own this images rather than having them on the screen. Maybe it is just me. 

A positive marriage

記得你那天跟我說婚姻到後面就只有兩個字－堅持。我那時後說我不認同，你還生我的氣呢！其實我告訴你哦，我覺得“堅持”後面意味著辛苦的，難過的，撐不下去的負面感覺。就好像健身要堅持，減肥要堅持，都是些不想做但是必須去做的所以才能夠擁有的東西。一段婚姻，是兩個人因為緣份而聚在一起。你沒聽過嗎？萬年修得共枕眠！萬年耶！如果都那麼難得了，更應該要好好的，開開心心的一起成長，努力共創未來。所以阿！我覺得一段婚姻應該是正面的，是從來沒有想過但是卻發生了所以才要互相珍惜的。婚姻應該是開心的，好玩的。我想你從來不會聽過要“堅持”的去開心，或是“堅持”的去玩吧？

所以如果有人說婚姻最重要的兩個字是堅持的話，你要看清楚哦！看看他的婚姻是否是圓滿的，還是是破碎的。然後在看看自己的，問問自己，到底有甚麼好堅持的哦！=)

Photos taken

Had a chance to take photos in Tony's upper deck. The session took about 2 hours. Shot it with a G10 canon. Picture quality is not the best, but we like the pictures. Well, I prove my point, you don't really need a good cam to take good picture. =)

P.S. you just need a good model. Ha... 

huh? guns? Hell YAH!

Was in Manila attending a friends wedding, and my friend is kind enough to pull his connection and host us in a shooting range just within busy city of Manila. This is really dope. I have fired revolvers and other small piece before with blanks. But this time... I am lucky to play around all these heavy stuff. Dope!

Lazer beam unit attach under the hand gun. Just like the movie. dang~
The freaking M16 is awesome!!! Balance, accurate and freaking solid. 
GOD! shutgun is my all time favorite. It's blast after blast. I feel how Arnold feel like just that I can't reload like him!
My friend is crazy, he has all the toys I have dreamed of. Uzzi, MP5, M16, shutgun... He has like 3 M16 with different modification! Sweetah...
This is an ultimate experience I had with guns. Booya!

Trip to Persimmon Kingdom - Jinhae

To complete one of my sourcing goal, it was my mission to visit the production area for Korean Persimmon. I took a plane to Seoul and transit to Pusan. The next morning, I visited the pack house in Jinhae, which is about 2 hours drive from Pusan.

Buckets of persimmons are being packed. The operation is a rather small one, they only have 5 ladies packing the fruits, plus another 5 for boxing, QC, and stuffing. All these fruits are for me and the fruits are being checked randomly with my presence. 
Since the season just started, we are only loading 1 x 20ft. And this is the truck waiting outside. 

Later, we went to the growing area. It was my first time to see persimmons on trees. It was quite cute because the hill has persimmons growing everywhere. It is pretty hard to tell on this picture because it is too small. But literally, there were orange dots everywhere on this hill. 

It is a joke that I have never really eaten persimmons in my life considering I have been in fruit business for 10 years. LOL... Since I am in the land of persimmon, the fruit taste fantastic. It taste like a blend of apples and pears with sweet honey taste. The host kept on feeding me persimmons, and I think I have like 4 big ones in the entire afternoon. 
This is Mr. Kim, my exporter. He is the same age as my dad and is my dad's old friend. This trip was valuable for both of us because it was his first time to visit the pack house in years, and my first time. We also met people from the government export department as well as the chairman of growers association. It was a eye opener for me to see how Korean conduct business. Everyone was very formal, warm and polite. I had a great time here in Jinhae!

SWFC - Shanghai World Finance Center

I have been in Shanghai several times, but only for short meetings. This time, I had a chance to tour the city a bit. 

Of course, SWFC is the place one can't miss. As one of the world top city, Shanghai has a world class sky scraper - SWFC. This building is 492m and has over 101 floors. 
The entrance is -10m underground.

When you go in, there is a SWFC model with cute Japanese comic looking models hanging around. It has the same touch of the Japan Roppongi hill landmark, which I visited few years back. The tour guide then explained that the project architect & engineer is the same as the Roppongi hill. No wonder the resemblance. 

Submerge into the dark, the elevator sits in a dark room with huge LED display on the ceiling. The numbers shows elevator's altitude at by meters. 

I think Taipei 101 is still the tallest... 
There are see through glasses at the floor, so you can have a partial bird view of Pudong traffic. 
This is the 101 floor. I love how they utilize the reflecting materials. Makes the place looks very spacy. 
Somehow, Pudong night scape reminds me of Madison Square park in NYC. 

I am quite impressed with how Shanghai has developed. Pudong is still under construction for the world EXPO. It will be interesting to see the change 5 years down the road.