Ibyang
Ibyang

Photography

Thursday Thought Bubbles

A month ago, to my horror, I broke one of our Canon lens. It was just the 18-55mm kit lens but it was one of my favorite and trustworthy lens and one that I used mostly for blogging.

Two weeks ago, we found out that our other lens was causing our DSLRs to crash. I don’t know how or what to call it. Simply put, every time we use our 28-135mm lens to both of our DSLRs, it makes an error, making the body of the camera turn off and dysfunctional. We’ve been using the 28-135mm lens together with the 30D but since the 18-55mm broke, we used it with the 400D as well. Whenever the 30D crashes before, we thought there was a problem with the body of the camera. However, when we used the 28-135mm lens with the 400D, it crashed as well. So that’s when we discoved that there’s nothing wrong with our 30D…it is most probably the 28-13mm lens.

As if fate is playing a game on me, this all happened towards my Husband’s birthday. Since we don’t have a proper point and shoot camera, I cannot let it happen that we don’t have a good camera on his 30th birthday. And yes, as OA as I may seem, I cannot live without a DSLR these days. We still have our telephoto lens and the 50mm lens, however, having no other lens used for shoots and events, patay ang negosyo hehe. So I had to order new lens this week.


Thursday Thought Bubbles (sharing with you some of my thoughts throughout the day)

8:03am
morning tea number 1: half a slice of margherita pizza from Baker’s Delight.

8:55am
wow, too early for my package to arrive. it’s not even 9:00am.
not expecting the package til after lunch time.
they (the online store) are really good. will buy from them again.
must call husband to tell the good news.

9:01am
voila! my new baby wrapped in styrofoam wonderland.

9:49am
i wanna go home. i wanna go home. i wanna go home.
i wanna go home and play with my new toy.
i’m so excited, it’s been a loooong time since i’ve bought a new gadget.

10:00am
green tea time. cup no. 1 starts now.

11:14am
i really wanna go home. now na.
green tea cup no. 2.
must eat the other half of my margherita pizza.
need nourishment.

11:25am
email received that a former “workmate” is going back to the office after resigning for two weeks.
what the hell just happened??? freaking unbelievable.
according to the email, he deferred his resignation and will be back next week.
naloka kaming lahat kasi mega-organize kami ng going away party and gift niya
at mega-dalamhati kami tapos ngayon babalik siya. isang malaking kalokohan.
not that we don’t want him back, not that we can turn back time.
it’s just unbelievable.

1:12pm
i forgot about lunch again!
second time this week.

1:40pm
my wormate just gave me this heart-shaped stress ball.
baka sa inis ko sa trainees ko, instead of just squeezing the stress ball in my hand,
i might throw the ball at them. god help me.
don’t get me wrong, i love what i do but once in a while they really get on my nerves.

2:30pm
yay! an hour and a half before dismissal time (parang school hehe).

3:47pm
Ayoko na magtrabaho!!!!! I really just wanna go home.

3:50pm
Will go home in 10 minutes. 🙂 🙂

4:33pm
ngek! nandito pa rin ako sa office.
will really go home now.

Presenting our new baby: Canon 17-85mm IS USM Lens

I can now shoot as far as this…

and as near as this…

Photos taken from our balcony, us being on the 3rd floor of the building.

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Restaurant: Takeru Japanese Cuisine (Sydney, Australia)

Had dinner at Takeru Japanese Cuisine three weeks ago on a Thursday night. After work, I decided to hung out at Chinatown but couldn’t find any resto that I like. So the Husband suggested that we eat at Takeru, a Japanese Restaurant near Darling Harbour, which was recommended by his workmate. I wasn’t surprised when he mentioned the name. I simply told him, “I’ve eaten there before with friends while you were still in Dubai.” I planned on taking him there when he arrived here in Sydney but I guess I forgot.

Takeru Japanese Cuisine Restaurant is a small, homey and casual Japanese resto in the City. Lots of people go here after work or school. From 6:00pm onwards, the place is bustling with people, by 7:00pm you can expect to see a line that extends outside the resto. Which shows that the place is somehow popular so best to be early to avoid waiting up in queue.

On the night we had dinner, the Husband and I decided to order something different from the usual Japanese food we’ve eaten before.

We shared a plate of Kaisen Shio Yakisoba and Chicken Karaage. The Kaisen Shio Yakisoba is simply noodles with lots of seafood. The Husband devoured this and said it was good enough. It was alright for me but it tasted a bit bland.

Our second dish was the Chicken Karaage. This is deep fried chicken with a siding of rice, soup and salad. First time to try this and I’m quite satisfied. The chicken was crunchy outside but juicy and tender inside.

The best part is the generous serving of salad which i really really like.

Still in the spirit of trying something new, we ordered a scoop of Green Tea and Black Sesame Ice Cream for dessert. When it comes to taste, the ice cream really did taste like Green Tea and Black Sesame. As for liking it, it wasn’t a hit to me. Eating green tea ice cream tasted like I was eating green tea leaves and I didn’t like it. I guess for me, green tea is only meant to be drank as a hot beverage. The black sesame ice cream was more tolerable. As for the husband, he said the two ice cream were tolerable for him.

The best part of all was that UCC Coffee is available in this resto. I never noticed that they serve this coffee when I first ate here and I’m glad I did the second time around.

UCC or Ueshima Coffee Company Ltd, is a manufacturer of coffee and tea products in Japan. From manufacturing coffee, they have expanded to opening cafes in Asia and America. In the Philippines, we have several UCC Cafes already. When Chris and I worked in Makati, we used to have lunch or coffee dates in UCC Cafe Terrace in Paseo Center (Paseo de Roxas, Makati). It’s one of the cafes and coffees we miss in Manila.

Finding a restaurant that serves UCC Coffee made us very happy. Finally, nakainom na rin kami uli ng kapeng ito! 🙂 We both had iced UCC Coffee topped with Vanilla Ice Cream (I know, ice cream overload).

Takeru is the kind of restaurant that you won’t mind coming back to. Delicious food, good service, convenient location, good ambiance and reasonable prices (main dishes costs from $9.00-$16.00). As for me and the Husband, not only will we come back for the food, will also come back to have UCC Coffee.

Visited Takeru Japanese Cuisine Restaurant on 6 August 2009. Located at Shop 10, 339 Sussex Street, Sydney.

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31st Monthsary Breakfast at Cascade Cafe

Since the Husband started work last year, it was very seldom that we have breakfast dates as we both like arriving to work early so we can also go home early.

Last week, I attended training for two days in the City which fortunately coincided with our 31st monthsary on Thursday (20 August). So we grabbed the chance to have a breakfast date as a way of celebrating our special day of the month.

I initially thought we would just have coffee at Starbucks but the Husband took me to Cascade Cafe which is just located in the train station where he gets on and off. Nothing really spectacular about the Cafe, the only special thing about it is that it has this faux waterfalls.

I find it relaxing just hearing the sound of free-flowing water even if I know I’m in the CBD. I think I found another place where I can have my “Me” time.

Now, for the food….the Husband had a latte.

While I had a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice. I love it!!! The price of the OJ, on the other, made me cringe–it was AUD$5.80. Really expensive but worth it. If ever you visit Sydney, you should never leave without having a taste of our freshly-squeezed OJ.

Main event. We shared a plate of their Big Breakfast. It had 1 big sausage (sliced in half), mushrooms, bacon, 2 eggs, big tomatoes, 2 toasts and chips.

With that serving, even if we already shared, it was difficult to finish it all off and we were both so full afterwards.

Cascade Cafe is located at 15-16 Town Hall Square, Sydney.

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My Photo Featured in Erick Guerrero’s Site

Check out Erick Guerrero’s new website.

http://www.erickguerrero.com

Erick, a Filipino Photographer based in Sydney, does Portrait, Weddings, Prenups, Still Life, Food and Events Photography. He’s a professional and a joy to work with. Check out his site to find more about him and his work.

The best surprise of the day was seeing my photograph featured in his site (salamat Erick!).

Grabbed the real photo from his site…

Aliw!

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Afternoon Delight at Starbucks

The plan was just to get caramel sundae at McDonald’s but what was supposed to be just less than a 5-minute drive turned out to be more than an hour joyride that lead us to Starbucks, three suburbs away from where we live.

This Starbucks branch has a drive-thru…

During winter, I always order their Signature Hot Chocolate. The Husband ordered for the both of us and surprised me by requesting the barista to add marshmallows on top 🙂 How sweet. He knows that I love marshmallows.

Then he added a dash of chocolate powder on top before handing it over to me. 🙂

I brought along baon for our afternoon snack–Hopia Combi (queso and ube). We were supposed to really eat these had we stayed home so I brought it with me.

Other than eat, we just hung out there for a bit, enjoyed our drinks and cam whored. We were both in the mood to practice taking shots using the 50mm lens. I haven’t been using it lately as I primarily used the 18-55mm lens (that one I broke) for blogging. So now, I need to brush up my skills on the 50mm since I think I will be using this more often. Thru the use of this lens, I realized na lalo kong napa-practice ang pagtanggal ng camera shakes ko and for me, that’s one of the most important things in order to achieve a good photograph. One may know the technicalities of photography but if you are prone to camera shakes, the photos you’ve captured could be useless. I’ve had so many photos that was put to waste just because it was blurry due to camera shakes. After two years of doing photography and a lot of pang-aasar from the Husband (my best and worst critic), thank goodness, I’m improving.

Anyway, we went home with more than a hundred photographs just by hanging out for 45 minutes at Starbucks. That is quite normal for us. Pag nasa cafe kami at kung nasa mood kami, sometimes wala kaming ginawa kungdi mag-pose at mag-picture. It’s like a game to us–one becomes a photographer and the other a model. Pinagtri-tripan namin ang isa’t-isa actually hehe. For example, if I’m the one holding the camera, I’d ask the Husband poses such as “galit”, “masaya”, “excited”, “natatakot”, “gigil”, “nginig”…until the requests become weirder or funnier (“kunwari nakakita mo ang ex-girlfriend mo!”)–pa-kwelahan ng utos at pose. And we’d end up laughing our hearts out when we review our photos. While reviewing the photos, pa-kwelahan naman ng captions hehe. Kababawan ever! 🙂

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