Although I have no idea what a Tesselaar is, I went to see the Tulip Festival anyway. I also have no apparent interest in flowers, but thought this might be a good opportunity to take my DSLR for some outdoor shooting. Weather on the day was splendid - it had to be 30 degrees or so. The trip was tremendously long and tiring, and the entrance fee was expensive too.

$16 bucks for an entrance fee without any free gifts. That is a rip off just to look at some flowers, so we took back some for ourselves. Most of the pictures in this post will have no flower names whatsoever because I honestly did not bother to check.

Macro shot upon arrival.

Nice orange flower


This part of the exhibition hosts a multitude of colourful anonymous flowers









Shooting any pictures here was particularly difficult due to the amount of people waiting to shoot theirs. Among this bunch, pesky kids are the worst culprits, screwing up beautiful shots with their untimely intrusion while destroying flowers in their path. Never bring kids to a flower festival.

White tulips





In the middle of the festival garden stands a metal tree with 77 branches symbolising modernisation in a naturally green world.

THE metal tree


You can actually count the branches with 7 representing 7 days in a week. I have no idea what the other 7 is for.


A long walk down south sees the main attraction of the venue.

2km stretch of tulips





Amongst the flowers are a few statues and recycled metallic shapes for sale. This is pretty cool - It sells for AUD$6,000. Gundams would've sold for more.

Robots


lol Hi guys



Also, this arc thing is worth mentioning. It is slightly cheaper - AUD$1,800. I guess it would do as an over simplistic time machine.




Everybody loves evil bunnies and their evil drawings





Some more pics of anonymous flowers









Our lunch for the day. No, not flowers for lunch. Some irish deep fried beef stick with mayonnaise sauce.

Irish stick ftw



This would be a great trip for tulip lovers, but I got my fair share of my $16 bucks with a great day out in the sun shooting stuff.


→ Filed under: Photography

After being away on a 3 month hiatus, I shall come back with 2 random pics! Enjoy my random pics collection!

Swanston Library after the rain


Metsu... Hadouken!!


I know it's not much but I'll come back with more very soon! :)


→ Filed under: Photography

SOn is away from blogging for the month of August 09. :)

SOn is away from blogging for the month of July 09. :)

SOn is away from blogging for the month of June 09. :)

After watching MasterChef for weeks, I was inspired to be a Masterchef! As the first steps to my successful career, I tried to prepare a dish that would impress the judges. Without further adue, I would like to present my dish.

My MasterChef Masterpiece




The ingredients and recipe can be found right here! Yes, I would reveal my special ingredients now. You can find all of the ingredients in a packet of indomee. The recipe is that you mix them all together and end up with a delicious looking plate of food, MasterChef quality. You could also spread the sauce like I did, MasterChef style!

Also, I believe I have a great pallette and understanding of food. I should also get some creativity points for adding a dash of red chilli in the middle.

Well, I hope the botak, fatty, and beckham judge will like my dish and my MasterChef skillz. Hopefully I won't be in the bottom three =/


→ Filed under: Dreamy Blogging

This is how Cherudim looks like in mid-air poses; I've got rid of the action stand in this pic but will post some pics of the stand soon. Stay tuned!


→ Filed under: Gundam, Photography

Cherudim is my first gundam to escape the blue/white/red theme. Sadly, it may never unite with its fellow Gundam buddies, as it's the first gundam I have completed here in Melbourne. It's also the first to feature only long-range armament, without close-range combat weapons. Cherudim has only 2 weapons, a pair of GN Beam Pistols II and GN Sniper Rifle II. For defence, it has 9 Shield Bits, in which they can be deployed to automatically block and intercept incoming fire. In the Gundam 00 series, Cherudim acts as a back-up shooter for the team, providing ground and anti-air support fire from long-range.

In this kit, special features include a sniper scope when the red cap is pulled backwards, enabling far-range sniping. Something special about Cherudim is that there is only one yellow "antennae" on the left side of the head, creating a cyborg feel whereas other gundams are normally symmetrical in this area. A holoscreen is also provided for even further range sniping during Trans-am mode. Sadly, the holoscreen is in clear plastic, not blue as illustrated in pictures. Moveable mini stands behind the heel also allows for improved stability, which is especially needed in sniping positions.

This is my first post of Cherudim, and more will come when I finish the Shield Bit and Action stands. Trans-am mode will also only be featured in future posts.


Cherudim Gundam



Cherudim with GN Beam Pistols II guarding my desk


More pistol action





GN Sniper Rifle II




Zoom. Notice the red cap revealing the sniper scope beneath


My very own anti-air pose making use of Shield Bits





Mini-stand



Gundam 00 Season 2 was a blast, and so was this kit. I enjoyed building it; simple yet beautiful design. I initially intended to get Dynames, its predecessor in Gundam 00 Season 1, but the squarish design of the shields put me off.

When I get some more spare time, complete the stand, I shall. More sniping goodness to come then!


→ Filed under: Gundam

After much consideration, I decided to get a new pencil case and abandon my 8-year-old one which I had been using since Form 3. The baby blue colour, along with the "Smiggle" zip and cute brick characters had me sold. It's only $4.95 anyway, and all my weapons of mass destruction fit in perfectly. Sadly, I have to be careful as I've drawn a little line across it which seems impossible to clean. It also feels soft and wobbly but I like the texture of the material.

Smiggle! I think they only have this brand in Australia


The Smiggle printed zip


The three brick characters


My favourite brick guy


Personally I think Smiggle is a cheap brand, but quality wise it's not too bad. Its shops are very colourful, and shelves are normally packed with all sorts of stationery. It's very enticing from outside when you see the colours, and when you step in you feel like playing with everything there. Not to mention I also bought a round Smiggle box (only $1!) for putting all my Gundam parts like hands and the like - I'll include this in my next Gundam post.


→ Filed under: Show Off, Photography

Recently I decided to buy a dSLR to get into a whole new level in professional photography. I sourced for many days through the internet, looking through Canon, Nikon, and Sony models. Initially I did not know which one to look for, because it is a different case with Point-and-Shoot cameras. With those cameras, the higher the megapixel, the better.

I slowly learnt about entry-level, semi-pro and pro levels for dSLRs. I looked at tons of reviews on cameras such as Nikon d90 & d300, Canon 50d, and also the Sony Alpha series, mainly the α350 and α700. I also had the opportunity to get a grip on every one of these cameras, and found the α700 to be the most suitable one for me. Canon was too heavy and bulky and also did not have Image Stabilization on the body.

However, there was limited stock on the α700 as it is a fairly 'outdated' model. I was somewhat coerced to buy the α350 model due to the lack of stock. I finally decided it was the α700 or no buy. Finally, I got the α700 with the 18-250mm kit lens along with a UV filter that would protect my lens.

α700 with box


The above image is not my α700, I just took it from some random site cos it looked nice. The lens doesn't look that good though, lol. So along with the purchase of my dSLR, I am suddenly bombarded with stuff like focal length, aperture, ISO, shutter speed, white balance and all the other good stuff. I've been experimenting to take some decent pictures and am doing fine so far. Here are some of the pics from my visit to the Puffing Billy, Yarra Valley and the 49th Moomba Festival over the weekend - a very eventful weekend indeed.


The following are pictures of the Moomba WaterFest.

Fire-whip-man at the Moomba WaterFest


Yarra River view from Federation Square


Ferris Wheel - What's a festival without one?


Sky getting darker while the time for fireworks approaches


Continuous Drive Mode attempt to capture fireworks


Due to the smaller dimensions of these pictures after resizing, the quality of the photos may not be as clearly noticeable. Due to this I will upload one selected photo with minimum size reduction, which would consume a lot of my bandwidth LOL.

And that particular picture can be viewed by clicking right >here<


Next are the trips to visit the greenery of Melbourne, with the bird park as the first stop.

Birdy photo upon arrival - Close-up focus shot


My dear Ying with the cute white parrot with wide focus


Puffing Billy ride

This ride was particularly scary at the part where we crossed a bridge up on higher grounds.


Then we went on to look at the iconic wildlife Aussie has to offer.

Cute but deadly bear

As I was sick of kangaroos already, I decided to close-up on a Koala instead.

Pelican?

This was a view I particularly liked, as there was a dark brown contrast along with the lighter browns,
greenery, and water ripples.


All in all, I liked how my new α700 performed, as pictures were sharp when focus was right. There's still a lot of stuff to learn though, and I'm still slowly reading through the guidebook. I'll take more macro shots in the near future, as this is my photography preference as opposed to landscape views.


→ Filed under: Dreamy Blogging, Photograpy