It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas.....

Everywhere you go....... 

Or so the song says and if you live in Canada, it has for a while. 

I can remember, not so fondly,  putting up my store's Christmas promotion dressed in my Halloween costume and I was never surprised to see Costco bringing Christmas items out in September. Christmases in North America are over commercialized and in your face from Nov 1st onwards. While I am sure there are a few people who love it, for most of us, myself included, it gets to be a bit much. Working in the retail industry made it that much worse. Looking at Christmas displays was one thing, but the ever present carols repeated in endless loops as the background to your working day, were on an entirely different level.  By the time the holiday actually arrived I felt that if I heard Little Drummer Boy one more time I would find that drum stick and shove it up Santa's you know what. Obviously other people feel the same way too since I read a week or so ago, that Shoppers Drug Mart has agreed to not start playing their Christmas music so early. Add to that the exhaustion of dealing with the crowds, long hours and the inevitable customer service issues, it was hard to enjoy the holiday. 

I find in Hong Kong Christmas is much saner. Christmas is a public holiday, but the majority of the population are not christians nor do they celebrate Christmas. As a result Christmas is not so obvious. Starting in November the stores slowly bring out Christmas merchandise, but I can not recall seeing a Christmas commercial on TV nor are there carols playing on the radio. Stores don't go all out with crazy Christmas sales promotions and my mailbox is not weighted down with 10lbs of paper that is all flyers, mixed with the inevitable bills. In fact today was the first day that I really realized we are in the Christmas season. While in the washroom of all places, at Elements mall in Kowloon, I noticed that the music ever so softly playing was Christmas music. When I walked out I listend carefully and sure enough, the carols were playing in mall itself. I then noticed the decorations and soon stumbled on to the big Christmas display. 

I am not sure what the Alice in Wonderland type tree and mushrooms have to do with Christmas and they obviously won't be doing Santa Photos (another nightmare from Christmases past), but given that I am a minority here, I appreciate what is out there and enjoy it all the more. 

Ikea Does Have Everything!

Remember a while a go I told you about my quest for a rolling pin? I have no idea why I never thought to look in Ikea for the rolling pin, since they have everything. Well, my latest trip to Ikea proves it. They do have everything! 

Hong Kong has very liberal liquor laws and since moving here I have become used to seeing alcohol everywhere. There are specific booze and wine shops such as Watson's Wine but the only restrictions on the sale of alcohol is on who can buy it. Technically you have to be over 18 to purchase booze, but I haven't been able to put it to the test. I am well past the stage of my life when I needed to bring ID to purchase alcohol. So because of the lack of any restrictions you will find all sorts of alcohol in the grocery store. And seeing cans of beer or bottles of Smirnoff Ice next to the bottles of water and iced tea in 7-11 is common. Heck, compared to some designer waters, beer is a much better value, if not cheaper! But now you can pick up some booze along with your Besta storage unit and MJOD beer glasses! Meatballs anyone? 

*editors note: Ikea does NOT have everything. They do not have frames for 8x10 photos! 

Pink City

I retuned home just before sunset today and was busy putting stuff away when I suddenly noticed the light in the flat looked odd. When I looked up and out my windows I noticed everything had turned pink! I quickly grabbed my new little camera, threw open some windows and grabbed a few shots before the light changed. I have never seen the light like this before. It must have been just the right combination of conditions to create it. It was fairly clear today, but with some haze, there is a typhoon east of us that has given us some winds and clouds and sun was setting. All of them for a few brief minutes combined to give us this:

It lasted a couple of minutes only and it was beautiful! Honestly, this is the real colors. I have not done a thing with the photos and having witnessed it, I can assure you it is not some strange colour cast created in the camera. 

It is too bad the sun sets over the mountains behind me as it must have been quite a sight. I imagine the people that live in Pok Fu Lam must have had an amazing sight! I hope a few of them managed to see it. 

Toys

I know I have been fairly quiet lately. Honestly after the typhoon, not much has been going on. It has been a quiet summer here and I really haven't done much, plus I am quite sure you don't want to hear about grocery shopping or trips to the dentist. While it has been nice after a while you begin to realize that you haven't really accomplished anything. Being an expat *cough* Tai Tai *snort* with few demands on my time it would be easy to let it become the norm; but with school back in and line ups returning to the grocery store and ATM, I figured now is a good time to break the apathy. I need to get inspired again and what better way to break the apathy than by dealing with what frustrates you.

It really all started with this:

And this:

And finally this:

I am sure you are wondering where this is going, so here goes.  I was in Causeway Bay with some friends on a night photography shoot.  It was a nice night. There was just a slight breeze that kept it from being stifling and there was very little pollution, so it was a nice clear night. I really wanted to get some shots of the crowds crossing Hennessy Road, and I wanted to use a slow shutter speed to show the motion. The first one doesn't look too bad, but the tram is not moving, yet it is not very sharp. In the second one, not only is it not sharp, but I couldn't get a level horizon line if my life depended on it and in the last one, see those jaggies in the light streaks? Frustrating! It is even more frustrating because I was using a tripod and it let me down. 

Strangely enough, all my years in photography I have never had a decent tripod. And that night, it showed. You see I knew they wouldn't turn out like I hoped. I could see my camera moving despite the tripod. Sure it wasn't a lot, but as far as vibrations go, a little goes a long way towards ruining a photo. 

It was a wake up call for me. How can I treat myself seriously as a photographer, yet try to get by on a cheap tripod? Especially since I love night shooting! After all it is not just the camera that makes the pictures, it is the whole package (body, lens, filters...etc) coming together to produce the photographers vision. One piece fails and everything goes to pot. So I started researching tripods and this is the result: 

Cut me some slack here. This was taken with an iPhone. 

It is a Manfrotto 055CXPRO4 with a 322RC2 head (I know who will be googling that...Tad, Jen, Alex...)  and I love it. Fully extended it is taller than me! Also it is carbon fibre, so it has all the stability without the weight.

Then while looking for the tripod, I thought of another photographic dilemma. My camera itself. No I did not go and replace my body with a brand new Canon 5D Mark 3. That would only make the problem worse (and my wallet much, much lighter). You see most of the time, I just don't want to lug my camera around! Sure, I have a compact, but I find it boring and uninspiring. While looking at tripods I also looked at small cameras. The new 4/3 and mirror less systems are nice and small, they still require you to have lenses. And while they may not weigh much, they do add bulk. Then I saw the new Canon G1X and it got me thinking...There are cameras out there that will give me the manual controls and RAW shooting ability that I sometimes want, in small packages. So off I went to do more research and this is the result:

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX7, in sparkling white (I am a girl after all!) 

I have only had it since this afternoon but I am happy so far. 

 And while my cats have had enough of me following them around with it, The Grinch doesn't care.

Or does he......

Vicente

Last night we had an unexpected visitor named Vicente. Vicente was a tropical storm that was hovering out at sea and it was predicted to make land fall well west of Hong Kong. The weather forecast was for some squally showers and a bit of wind, not nice, but not bad. Vicente has other plans though, and it decided to prove that Mother Nature is unpredictable. It hovered out at sea for a while, gathering strength, then changing course and visiting Hong Kong for a spell. Maybe it had a craving for Dim Sum or Egg Tarts, I don't know but by 6pm a Signal 8 was issued and it was getting noisy, but we were comfy and dry in our flat so we watched a movie. Next thing we knew it was a Signal 9 and the winds were loud and the rain was heavy. Then sometime around midnight - 1am a Signal 10 was issued. Signal 10 is the highest and is rarely issued. In the past 65 years there has only been 13 Signal 10's issued, the last in 1999! A Signal 10 means you are in for it. And boy where we! Vicente had now been upgraded from a tropical storm to a Severe Typhoon (aka, Severe Hurricane). The winds were howling and the windows rattling. They were also leaking profusely by this time. Buckets and towels were deployed and just when we thought we found all the leaks, we found a few more. Mr. Grey Cat tried to patch a few spots with Sugru, but it didn't do much. It was just too wet and the wind just forced water through every gap it could. And so started our night, we would try to sleep for a bit then one of us would get up, empty buckets and change towels, throwing the wet ones in the dryer, only to do it all over again. I was wondering to myself why we didn't change the windows when we renovated the flat. Not that it is a guarantee against leaks, but I am sure there would have been less. Interestingly we did not loose power or internet so I did manage a very late night Skype chat with a friend in New Jersey! Finally at about 5 am the winds lessened and we fell asleep. I awoke grateful that the only clean up I have to do is a few loads of laundry and that most importantly everyone I care about is safe. 

Sugru, the silicone wonder! 

Towel in deployment. 

This is where most of the leaks were. Not the window that you see, but the
 ones just above it out of the frame.
They are above the bay and so were dripping onto the window seat.
 But even if we hadn't emptied the buckets a few times we still
 would have been fine. 

More towels. 

While my windows leaked, I am grateful they did not break, unlike these
unfortunate people.
 Looking down from my flat I could see
that we were not the only ones with leaks, many people had towels and
 buckets in their windows. 

The Kindness of Strangers

I always enjoy my outings with my fellow AWA Shutterbugs. They are all wonderful women and we have a fun time together taking photos and exploring different parts of Hong Kong. Each trip out is its own unique experience and after each I take something with me, whether it is new ideas or photo techniques, a bit of cultural knowledge or just the lingering pleasure of time well spent. Today though we had an extra treat.

It started normally enough. I planned an outing to Peng Chau. It is a small island with lots of character and I thought it would be a fun place to practice shooting the alphabet. There are new buildings, old buildings, ruined buildings, temples (several hundred years old!) and if you go far enough there is a trail that takes you up to the highest point on the island which has wonderful views of Lantau, Kowloon and HK island. It also passes an old limekiln, which is one of the first industries on the island. Evidence shows that lime production was likely started around 618AD! However the kiln is much newer and was abandoned in the 1950’s. In short Peng Chau is a fun place to take photos, but today, we had a little extra character to the outing.

This week there is a Chinese Opera being performed on the island. Chinese operas are quite fascinating. In 2009 the Cantonese opera was listed as one of UNESCO’s ‘Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity’. I have been to a Chinese opera before, and to be quite honest, and even though they are interesting, it is something that I can only take in very small amounts, so I was pleased that while we were there the opera was not being performed. Since the venue was (we thought) empty, we decided to go take a look around and see if we could find letters to photograph. Soon we were joined by a couple of men, who were working on the stage. They started to talk to us and ask us questions about what we were doing. I should point out that I have taken Cantonese lessons but so far about the only thing I can do is count and say a couple of very basic phrases so we had no idea what they were trying to tell us. At first we thought they didn’t want us to take photos, but when we were on our way out, we were told (via hand signals) to come back. Next thing we knew we were ushered back stage and they started showing us around!

It became even more fun when they started bringing out the props and letting us try on some (hat & sword). Soon they figured out what kinds of photos we were taking and started helping us find letters! He then saw that one of the actresses came into the stage and brought her out to talk to us. She was very pleasant and spoke English quite well. Apparently she is the lead actress for the afternoon performance and the third lead for the evening performance. She then invited us to stay for the afternoon show. It was still a few hours away and we still had plenty of island to explore, but it was certainly one of the days highlights.  

During the rest of our wanders we ran into several other locals who treated us with warm smiles. As we wandered we would run into a couple of them several times always to have a smile, wave and pantomime picture taking. All the while giving us the impression that they were happy to have us there and glad we were enjoying their home. 

People are often complaining about how rude people are these days and that nobody seems to care about others anymore. Certainly big cities have a “numbing” effect on people as we rush about our daily lives. But today on a tiny island on the doorstep of one of the world’s biggest cities, people still have time for a smile and to show kindness to strangers. 

Good Life

"Got this Feeling that you Can't Fight

Like this city is on Fire Tonight

This could really be a Good Life"

   -One Republic