Summer Palace in Beijing

Location:

Summer Palace, Beijing
颐和园, 北京

Camera Used:

Canon EOS 400D

Date:

November 8, 2011

Posting another set of photos I haven't blogged from my BeiJing-Xi'an trip last November.

By the time we were on the 4th day of our trip, we were already getting used to the cool breeze Beijing weather was offering. We decided to visit and dedicate one whole day to the very big Summer Palace (颐和园), located at the north-west part of the capital, and have a very relaxing, leisurely walk around the park (after all, it was supposed to offer tranquility, lol).

Imagine, as a monarch, having this huge place as your summer resort and garden away from Forbidden City. There are so many hills and walks inside the compound, that you wonder if you will ever run out of names like "Hall of Benevolence and Longevity" or "The Cloud-Dispelling Hall" to name each portion of the palace - and that's even after naming all the small temples and pavilions inside the Forbidden City (must have been more than a hundred!)

The place is so huge, that by the time we reach the Temple of Buddhist Virtue in front of the lake, I was already sweating! It was the first time I was able to walk around without my jacket for more than 30 minutes - a feat I wasn't able to break anywhere else in cold Beijing.

One thing seemed clear to us when we were walking around: the Chinese' amazing attention to detail. Even the drainage holes have intricate designs and patterns that you wonder if even those small details have significant symbolism or meaning to the palace as a whole.

新加坡, 2012年01月11日。

A Three-Course Post-New Year's Day Meal

Location:

Toa Payoh Apartment, Singapore

Camera Used:

Canon EOS 400D @ 50mm

Date:

January 2, 2012

Having one last day to celebrate before getting back to the grind, we decided to have a "simple" dinner with friends at home to bid farewell to the holiday season. A few set menu revision iterations later, we ended up having this 3-course meal, to kick the lavishness up a notch:

1. Leek and Potato Soup,
2. Mushroom Risotto,
3. Chicken with Romesco Sauce, and
(dessert). Rocky Road ice cream for dessert (not photographed, lol).

Cooking is courtesy of our resident chef, Chase (lol). Since my birthday is just a few days away, we considered it to be a pre-birthday celebration as well. The food was awesome, accompanied by the fun, chill conversation with friends. Thanks to Pao, Abs, Chef Chase, and Shan for a great time.

Aperture Priority

Camera used:

Canon 400D, 50mm f/1.8

It didn’t seem right to not post anything for December, even if I was having difficulty recovering from a photo/writing funk after a laptop robbery (Curse you, thief! May the money you get from our stuff buy you your ticket to hell! – my last barb for 2011, I promise lol). Having lost most of my high res photos from China that I wasn’t able to backup, I had troubles starting my sentences to write and choosing photos to post.

Regardless, the past year was a great year for this hobby. I loved the photos I took and I really want to level up - maybe learn the business side of it, see if I could gain enough portfolios to get into it professionally. Let’s see.

So, to give myself something to look forward to, I decided to revamp my site (which I actually planned to do this December, but couldn’t find the focus I needed). Over the next few weeks I will slowly change the look and feel of this site based on what I’ve learned in CSS 3 and flexible web layouts.

I am still sorting out some of the remaining China pictures I will post. In the mean time, you can take a look at the photos I took from the December holiday celebrations with the Pinoy SG bloggers here in my flickr account (more appropriately, "Boss Alex and Ian Solo Pics" lol) - will blog it separately. And if you want to have some photo sessions, let me know. Let’s have some portraiture fun! :D

Happy New Year, everyone!

Chase and China

Subjects:

Chase Freo

Location:

Beijing & Xi'an, China
北京, 西安

Camera Used:

Canon EOS 400D

Date:

November 5-12, 2011

I'm taking a break from posting the shots I took in Beijing and Xi'an to post some of Chase's portraitures we've collected while we're exploring the place. With my only willing model (lol), we were very fortunate that the backdrop was very inspiring to direct the tone and feel for the whole set.

Chase has been living in China for almost a year now, and he talks about China very passionately. He would fondly recall some of the stories from places he visited and would share the experience with me with gusto, so it was great to have my own little taste of experiencing the country.

One of my favorite stories would be our dining experience in Muslim Quarters in Xi'an (西安). We were hungry, so we decided to go inside this small restaurant where nobody speaks English. He ordered a bowl of noodles by pointing and acting, and while we were waiting for our food, one of the waitresses gave us a bowl of bread. She was trying to tell us something in Chinese, but things got lost in translation, and we thought she was ordering us to eat the bread while waiting.

So, we did - then we realized everybody is looking at us and laughing at us. We had no idea what we're doing, and the bread was not exactly the nicest bread to eat. Finally, another waitress demonstrated that we were supposed to tear the big bread into little pieces and return it back to them so that they could add the bread chunks to the soup that we ordered. It took us almost an hour to get the final product (which turned out to be delicious). It certainly added something special to the food we were waiting to consume.

Here's some of the portraits I took while we were going around Beijing and Xi'an. This set is but a sample of his fondness to the country he now considers the best place to retire in.

新加坡, 2011年11月22日。

Climbing the Great Wall of China

Location:

Jinshanling section of the Great Wall, Luanping County
金山岭, 滦平县

Camera Used:

Canon EOS 400D

Date:

November 11, 2011

Undeniably inescapable, one of the key topics in all our world history classes would be this massive, man-made structure called the Great Wall of China (万里长城). To learn about the history of Chinese ancient civilization is to ensure that it's purpose and it's effect on our history are discussed. We learned that it was constructed starting 5th century B.C. to protect the kingdom from the nomadic groups of the north. Though later confirmed as a hoax, even if we could not see this structure from outer space, it doesn't take away it's grandeur.

You tell yourself in class that it would be a dream to be there and climb the wall. You imagine the fierce and scary nomads of the north invading the empire by trying to climb these walls (visualization & imagination made easier by the movie Mulan), and you scale how big the empire really is and how difficult it must have been to unite China as one.

Fast forward to 2011, I found myself on a 3-hour ride from Beijing to the Jinshanling (金山岭) section of the Great Wall. We chose this, instead of the Bedaling section (which is nearer to Beijing) because we wanted to see more of the ruins of the wall with an expected tough hike, but lesser people to deal with (of course, for greater photos. hehe).

On my very first step onto the wall, my jaw dropped when I saw the view. The wall elegantly follows the curves and contours of the mountains, and the farther I look, more and more towers become clearer. The vastness was amazing, and I realize the complexity of the construction must have been. We walked further one tower at a time, with the stairs slowly becoming steeper and more difficult to climb (there was a part wherein each step was 2-3 feet high, it's practically a wall and it seems almost vertical). After the 7th or 8th tower, exhaustion kicks in and we were very glad to have brought bread with us, so we chose our spot and munched while adoring the view.

I texted my mom and my best friend, saying how blessed I was to be able to see this. Not surprisingly, the signal on top of the wall was on full.

新加坡, 2011年11月17日。

Tiananmen Square

Subjects:

Those who were visiting the square

Location:

Tian'anmen Square, Beijing, People's Republic of China
天安门广场, 北京

Camera Used:

Canon EOS 400D

Date:

November 5 & 13, 2011

Having decided to visit Tian'anmen Square (天安门广场) on a weekend, we prepared ourselves for a crowded tour of BeiJing's historic landmark. I, personally, did not expect taking a photo with zero or minimal people, so I decided to take portraits of the Chinese people with their square as the backdrop as well.

As we emerged from the subway, Chairman Mao's portrait welcomed us, together with the expected crowd. We saw his portrait on our right, the tall, proud flag of China on our left, and a sample of the billion people everywhere else. It was my first real taste of the Chinese people as a nation.

I couldn't help but notice the seemingly tangible sense of nationhood everybody was exuding. Everywhere you look, you will see children waiving their flag and the rest of the generation adoring this place with pride (that's how I felt it).

During that small period of exposure to their history and culture, I was left in awe with how big this country really is. I definitely would like to see some more.

北京，2011年11月13日。