Downtime At Bacolod

During my stay there, I maximized the time staying at home. Yes, I'm not there often and I enjoy the lazy days there. That's not to say that I just stayed at home though. Apart from that I've gone to a few interesting places with dad and my brother. Here are some of it...

December Italian Afternoon

My first post for the year, is about last year. Wait, what? Well it's something that fans of Italian delicacy would appreciate I think. It was a lovely December afternoon. Okay not really. It was raining and I was becoming sick. We were looking for a certain archery place but failed in that endeavor, along with the rain spoiling the day. It's not too bad, though. It still didn't stop us from having a good time over some Italian goodies.

Show And Tell: What's In The Bag?

Show and tell time. I suppose I can consider this my personal gear review as well. Today I'm gonna share what's in the little bag that I lug around when I go out to take pictures.

What's in the bag?

The bag isn't that big, but I can actually carry more stuff in it when I go to take pictures. It's an advantage of using the Micro Four Thirds format over APS-C, which most people have.

Gotta Catch Them All

It was early August. the worldwide phenomenon of a mobile game known as Pokémon Go has just been released in the Philippines. The Pokémon franchise has proven to be immensely influential. This comes as no surprise that a lot of people anticipated and clamored for the game. Back in the old days video games meant people staying indoors. Mobile gaming change that. And for the first time, at a global scale, people stepped out of their houses and went outdoors- because a game tells them to- I find that kind of amazing.

I had a chance to catch a glimpse of this one night, and here are the sights from that time.

Monochrome Terminal

"Monochrome" and "Terminal" paints a different picture that comes to mind to IT folks. It reminds us of green/gray text on black computer screens from days of old. It's also rather similar to Photography. Before pictures came in color, a lot were in monochrome (black and white commonly, but it also came in sepia, among others). The difference is, though, monochrome persisted.

Monochrome has always been a fascination of mine. In this age of overwhelming bleeding edge technology where newer technologies lead to more vibrant colors, I tend to step back every now and then to regress to basic black and white, and all of the two hundred fifty-four shades in between that my camera can muster. Though I imagine it'll be much fewer shades than that due to the mixing I do for contrast.

I had the chance to play with it when we traveled to Hong Kong. I had the time and luxury to experiment so I rendered some images in monochrome. More of the tones and textures here...

The Colors Of Hong Kong International Airport

Hong Kong International Airport is a marvel of engineering. It is among the most amazing man-made structures I've seen both in scale and in elegance. The whole airport is practically a small city in scale and I pretty much tired myself out exploring just the passenger accessible areas in Terminal 1 departure. 

More sights of this monumental marvel in here...

Going Home - Taxi Ride To the Airport

Time surely is fleeting when you're having fun. While not everyone may agree considering that we didn't exactly go to the usual tourist attractions, I still think it was awesome that we got to see a piece of Hong Kong. Just like that it was time to go home. We checked out at the hotel and grabbed a ride to the airport.

Short but sweet, here are some sights we saw along the way...

Strolling To Harbour City - Through The Subway

Second day in Hong Kong. Yesterday we had a long hot day, and today was no different. What is different though, is we know better now. Today we had the whole day to ourselves.

We're off to a long stroll today. Lots of sights to see, coffee to drink, food to eat, pictures to take... Did I mention food?

Afternoon Hong Kong Tour 2 - Lights In The Sky

This is a continuation of our tour that started here.

After a few turns on the Observation Wheel, we hopped on a bus to be showed around places in Hong Kong.

Just being in Hong Kong give a look and feel of being in the Asian Movies. It's as every bit awesome as it was in the films.

A portion of this story was updated as it happened on Instagram, but a lot of the sights can also be found here. Captions can be found on the Flickr page if you're interested to read them. Just click on the image and you'll be redirected there.

Afternoon Hong Kong Tour 1 - Fresh Off The Boat

This is a continuation of the previous entry.

Hong Kong is amazing. After lunch and shopping, we had a chance to take some rest. At four in the afternoon we got ready and went on to an adventure I'd not forget- An afternoon tour of Hong Kong. 

With Hong Kong being a vast place though, we picked the least stressful tour. We didn't want to spend the afternoon running a marathon playing catch up with time and the tour guide.

A portion of this story was updated as it happened on Instagram, but a lot of the sights can also be found here. Captions can be found on the Flickr page if you're interested to read them. Just click on the image and you'll be redirected there.

Hello Hong Kong

Every once in a long while, I get the chance to travel. This year, I won a trip for two to Hong Kong. I reckoned it's a good idea to spend some time with dad traveling. Coincidentally, my auntie also won a ticket. However, she didn't have the the availability at the time, so she gave it to my uncle instead. That's how it happened.

Here's what we've seen during our stay there, among other things. 

A portion of this story was updated as it happened on Instagram, but a lot of the sights can also be found here. Captions can be found on the Flickr page if you're interested to read them. Just click on the image and you'll be redirected there.

Delectable Gratifcation And Where To Find Them

There are days when you just want to go on a food trip. No, not go to some buffet and gorge down on the goodies, but I mean just go places and give the taste buds a treat. I may not regularly have days like those, but in between the chores and errands, opportunity sometimes presents itself allowing me to do just that. Here's a collection of the dining stuff I've stumbled across every now and then, here and there...

There's an adage that goes, "Take a picture, it'll last longer." This holds true to some of the memorable ones.  These are a few of the sights I've seen from places I've been in. I won't have much commentary in the captions here - Imagine that I'd be too busy eating. Yes, this post is about shameless food p0rn, and clues where to find them!

Rainy Day Roadtrip

It was a weekend, I had plans to attend a birthday celebration. Attending a birthday in Tagaytay was potentially jeopardized by inclement weather, but by some fortune, the weather seems to have cleared up enough for me to go there. Going there was relatively uneventful (Which for me, means not too many things went awry), but the view was breathtaking, even surreal as it was in a different weather condition.

This one's taken from the place. I've never been here while it was heavily raining. I think it's really surreal. I stayed mostly indoors, but I still had a really good view.

2014 Back To Reality Via Taiwan - Revisited

A revisit to that time when I partook in a journey to escape a bleak daily reality. It was when I left my old bland self, albeit temporarily. And on my way to a world that's surreal I took a stop at somewhere that is both surreal and quite strange.

I've seen wonders in Taiwan. And I didn't even have to leave the airport for it. To me it was quite a treat, and truly was beautiful!

2014 San Diego Beach - Revisited

I don't usually go to the beach... But when I do, it's in San Diego, California...

2012 San Mateo, CA - Revisited

Back in 2012, I was given the good fortune of being assigned for training for our work in the USA. I was working in San Mateo, it's a not-so-often-heard place that I haven't heard from any Hollywood movie. It's located around 20 miles south of San Francisco. Unlike the crowded 'Frisco though, it's actually very peaceful and quiet. It is by far among the best surprises I ever had. The town is very upscale and folks are friendly. This is one of the few places that I'll definitely remember. 

I got a good chance to take evening walks and a nice camera at the time. Here are some of the pictures I've taken around town. There are a lot of parks here, this one in particular is in the residential area. 

Strolling Around BGC

Pictures from last year (2015), given different post processing treatments. These were either from weekends when I was on call, all while having bad Internet connection, or on idle weekends when I felt like taking afternoon and evening strolls. Yes, I don't really wander too far at times, but I still wander here and there. Don't be shy to say hi if you find me.

Don't forget to let the captions load. Those may take a while on slow Internet connections.

Ola Taal Vista!

It was my cousin's wedding. My family and I had the opportunity to go to Tagaytay. It's been over a year since I've gone to the place and I somewhat missed the scenic view. Driving there was a bit challenging for me and the car. Mostly for the car, traveling uphill while carrying three overweight adults and their bags. 

We arrived at the hotel the day before the wedding, with all our fancy clothes in tow. But no, this isn't about the wedding. This is about the interesting place I've found with a lovely view.

Grainy And Gritty

Maybe it's some petty fear of missing out, but despite the appeal of black and white, I still take pictures in color. Black and white, however, appeals to me enough for me to bother converting and tweaking in post.

I had the chance to have lunch with family, and had the chance to bring along my Penny mounted with this amazing yet relatively cheap bodycap lens. It's fairly ideal for going light, and for taking monochromes. I always had a soft spot for monochromes, I got to indulge in it on this set.

Burgers And Brewskies Night

It has been a stressful past few weeks for me. Work and other stuff have been piling up left and right, I hardly have fun on weekends anymore and I'm beginning to become a recluse. A college buddy of mine expressed having similar woes, and so we decided to unwind a bit over some cold drinks. It's been a while since we hung out - It's a routine overdue of another iteration. Come to think of it, I think we've been doing this for a decade already. This post will be of food. Bon apetit!