ABC Wednesday: E is for Excursion in Victoria Harbor

We went to Hong Kong on Friday, February 6.  There were two reasons for the trip.  One is to attend the wedding of Grace's niece.  She already had a formal wedding in LA, but came back to Hong Kong, her birth place, to have a wedding banquet for all her relatives and friends.  For a very long time, the ceremony of the wedding banquet is more important than the formal registration to the local magistrate.  Thus a man can be charged for marrying twice, simply because he has a wedding banquet with another women other than his wife.  It has happened quite often to Taiwan merchants doing business in China.

The second reason for the visit is to visit Grace's parents in Hong Kong.  They have been living in Hong Kong for over 20 years to be closeby to their youngest daughter, who married to Hong Kong.  Chinese New Year was February, 5 this year.  It is the Chinese tradition that married daughter should go back to visit her parents' home on the second day of the New Year.

The newly wed invited us and many of her friends to have an excursion in the Victoria Harbor.  We had fantastic view of the Hong Kong cityscape on the boat.  But the real highlight is to see the Hong Kong Chinese New Year firework.

We have never seen fireworks from the boat before.  As you can imagine, there were a lot of boats on the water, from giant cruise ships, smaller yachts to typical Hong Kong junks.

The added advantage of viewing the fireworks from the water was that we also had a fantastic view of the reflection of the fireworks from the water.

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ABC Wednesday: D is for Door

This Door opens to a cave carved into the mountain.  It is on the roadside where we stopped for overlooking the Tuscany Town of Sorano, which we have shown in our previous post.

Here is the detail of this very old, but colorful Door.

How an old stone wall, steel-barred window and an old door in an old Tuscany town, such as Sorano can be so beautiful.

Here is the detail of the Door.

Not everything is old in Sorano.  The arch of this Door way to a local restaurant is real stone.  The stones on the right hand side of the picture is painted.  They probably ran out of the money during the restoration.

Here is the detail of the stone Door of the restaurant.

This photograph of a very colorful garden door was taken by Grace outside the lakeside town of Marta, Italy.

Who said we have to travel half of the world in order to take photographs of some colorful old door?  This door is not too far from our condo.  It is the door of some old houses that have not been taken away during the road expansion project.  The letters on the left hand-side mean No. 22.

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ABC Wednesday: C is for China

This Wednesday is Chinese New Year Eve, So Grace and I are saying Happy New Year to everybody.  We were in China last October and was in time for the Shanghai World Expo.  Even in September, the weather was too hot for us.  We only visited the Expo in the late afternoon and evening.  This is the China Pavilion.  There were so many people, we did not even attempt to get in.  Same thing were true for most Country's pavilion.

But at night, most pavilions were lighted up and looked probably better than at day time.  To the right of the China pavilion is a huge rabbit lantern.  The coming Chinese New Year is the year of rabbit.

Right next to the China Pavilion is Taiwan Pavilion which was a giant cube with a giant ball in the center.  The images on the ball are flying lanterns for good luck .  After China Pavilion, it is one of the next most popular one.

This one is for Korea.  We have not anticipated to do so many night photography.  Although both Grace's DX 18-200 VR and mine 24-300 with VR can do a descent job.  But we sure hope that we had our prime large aperture lenses with us.  Anyhow we did have some good fun.  So follow us and let us have a tour of the Shanghai World Expo as we saw it.

Qatar Pavilion

Sweden on the left and Iceland on the right, do you see the full moon?

Ireland

A special Pavilion, I think it was made by Germany and the whole structure as the big beams that you can see from this photo were made of bamboo.  

The folded "paper cut-out panel" inside of the Poland Pavilion.

Russian Pavilion

Serbia Pavilion

Luxemburg, the "Gelle Fra" (Golden Lady", the most important national symbol of Luxembourg, traveled outside of the country for the first time.

Spain Pavilion was completely made of hand-weaved wicker.

Angola Pavilion

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Skywatch Friday: Okinawa sunset

When we arrived at the Hotel during the first day of our trip to Okinawa, we saw this amazing light from our room window.

Afterward, during the last day of our trip, we saw this amazing sunset when we were on the tour bus.  I quickly snapped several shots.  This one came out really good.

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ABC Wednesday: B is for Battlefield Blue

I think for most of us, the most significant meaning of Okinawa is the Battle of Okinawa.  It was a 82-day long battle just before the end of WWII in 1945. All together, Japan lost 100,000 troops and Allies suffered more than 50,000. After 1945, Okinawa was under US administration till 1972, when US returned the islands to Japanese administration.  But little has been know to us that Okinawa is an independent country for over 1000 years.  It was a tributary nation of China till it was annexed by Japan in 1870.  Countless life of island people were lost during WWII.  Even today, Japanese Emperor dares not to set foot on the island.  Neither the present emperor nor his father has formally apologized to the island people.  Shuri castle was the formal capital of Ryukyu Kingdom of Okinawa built in late 1300s.  It was completely destroyed in 1945.  It was rebuilt in 1992.  The Shureimon Gate is a symbol of Okinawa.  The writing on the gate means "A Nation with Good Manners" was given by Chinese King to Ryuku Kingdom.  I dramatize the picture a bit in memory of the Battle of Okinawa.

Here is a normal look of the gate.  We were visiting Okinawa on a company trip last December.  75% of the island is still US military base, the other 25% is under Japanese administration.  On the highway we can see the US base behind the barbed wire.  It was hard to tell which side is inside of the cage.

A lovely Okinawa girl in perfect pose inside of the Shuri castle.

The tour was well organized, we ate in several local restaurants that few tourists visited.  Here is a perfect Japanese house in one of the restaurant. Click on the photo to see the detail inside of the house and the reflection on the door.  This is my HDR image without the HDR-look.

The sky and ocean was amazingly Blue.  It was so peacefully calm, and it was hard to imagine what the marines on the landing craft thought when they first saw the same image some 55 years ago.

We also had the chance to visit an underground cave.  It is not the world grandest, but quite interesting.

Of course, we also visited the world famous Churaumi Aquarium.

The Deep Blue Kuroshio tank took us right to the botton of the ocean, with its giant whale sharks and manta rays.

The water tank is spread out over three floors.  Through the glass we could have some close encounters with many colorful tropical fish.

Here is a lionfish, the only one that I know the name.

It was not too easy to photograph them.  Both focusing and white balance were difficult.  We have to do some adjustment to the RAW images on the computer to bring out the true brilliant color.

Have I seen you in Chinese restaurants?

There is also a giant sea turtle tank.  I have seen a sea turtle in the open ocean during one of the diving trip in Hawaii.  They have so many in the tank and some look really old.

Here is a final look of the aquarium building that housed the Kuroshio tank. It is a B&W HDR image.

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ABC Wednesday: V for What a View

I (Grace) visited Sanya (三亞) at Hainan Island (海南島).  It is the southernmost city in China.  I stayed in an exclusive resort by the ocean.  The View of the sunset was magnificent.  

Can you tell what the View is in this picture?  I took this photograph in the late afternoon in Hong Kong Park which is right in the center of busy Hong Kong Island.  The shimmering color and the water reflection make the View look like a watercolor painting.

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ABC Wednesday: U is for Upside Down

We have been showing pictures of Tuscany during the last several weeks.  I thought it is about time to show some images back home in Taipei.  A week ago, I went to the Taipei Botanical Garden.  It was the first time after the trip to Italy that I had time to do some photography in Taipei.  This Intermediate Egret, Egretta intermedia was Upside Down cleaning itself in the lotus pond.

Well, to be fair, here it is right-side up.

The lotus was completely dry up in the winter.

At closer look, I could see the dried seed pod was bending over and dipped its head Upside down on the surface of the water.  The nature is so smart, the dried stem cannot bear the weight of the seed pod and bend over, the seeds in the pod then naturally fall right to the button of the pond and wait for next spring to germinate.

Grace went with me to the Taipei Botanical Garden last weekend.  She took this picture of Black-crowned Night Heron, Nycticorax nycticorax with her new Nikon D7000 and her beloved 18-200mm VR lens.  One of the first ten D7000 arrived to Taiwan last week.  Can you see the Upside down reflection of the bird.

Here is a proper look of the bird with its amazing bloodshot eye.  We even took HD movie of the bird with the D7000...., not much different from the still picture.  It hardly moved.

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