two steps behind

Ever feel like when the day is gonna be over so that the night can begin? I guess everyone must have one of those moments as I have been feeling that way for weeks now. Sure work is very interesting and I do enjoy working and learning new things but there are times to work and times to relax.

Each day… is about 12 hours at work then home for another 8 hours.
The gap between work and home is really something worth looking forward to.

Not at work nor at home… that’s the place to be!

After 10 years of being away from Bangkok, there seem to be a slight improvement in traffic. So I guess, this is the signature of Bangkok? I would really hope that is not the case!

Fortunately, today we have a sky-train and subway to help reduce the traffic conditions and also a better transportation system throughout the city. This traffic has become a part of my everyday routine every since my training started. At least 2-3 hours of my day would be stuck in one of these long lines of traffic. The only way to really avoid the traffic is to avoid the rush hours which means… get to work really early in the morning and go home really late at night.

About the photo, I took this the same day that I was at the Victory Monument. This is one of the roads that lead to the round-about at the monument.

Traffic as far as the eye can see! Oh well… Just get over it!

I took this picture after hours of exploring the Santa Cruz church last weekend. It was still bright outside when I arrived that evening, as I didn’t notice much about the bridge, not until it was dark! While I was walking back to the parking, the reflection of the light on the river from the bridge caught my attention. Instead of taking the picture right away, I just sat there by the river, listening to music and relaxed!

A while later, I took a few shots of the bridge, the Memorial Bridge... but I chose to post it in black and white as I find the colors to be very distracting. With color, I tended to focus on how colorful it is… but as black and white, I get to focus on what I was really trying to capture, to remember it the way I saw it while I was there.

Life… can be easily distracted by so many things that we often ignore what it is really behind those colorful distractions. Why must we do this to ourselves? Perhaps it is easier to lie and pretend to be someone else rather than to be ourselves and to accept who we really are. Really? Seriously?

That is such irony.

Opse!!! It’s late, I better get some sleep!!! Let’s see if I can dream in black and white. ^_^

The title may have said it all about today’s story. After a 3 hours long drive from Rayong and was lost on Bangkok’s tow-way for 30 minutes and had to pay the fee more than I should just to get back on the right Tow-way, I stop on the Rama 9 bridge… the tallest bridge in Thailand. I spotted the new bridge, aka, the Mega Bridge with the light on (normally it was off!) and had stop on the Rama 9 bridge to take a few pictures.

A few minutes later a group of security showed up with an emergency car and rescue team!!! So I was greeted by them and was questioned “what am I doing?” Apparently, there were sensors that I had activated after crossing a rail guard to take photos and due to that… it sent out the team to my location on the bridge.

“Ahh he was just taking pictures, haha” an officer said to his colleague while the other were telling me that I am not allow to park on the bridge and was kindly let go with a warning

Well, I would be worried if a sensor on the bridge were activated just minutes before midnight on the bridge. I am glad to see that the officer showed up just because it shows the security measures that we have in place at the bridge for safety pre-cautions.

About the picture… I still haven’t really learned how to take care of the “burn-out” on the very bright spot while combining in HDR, yet. Any suggestions?

Hidden in plain sight! It was during a walk to Puerto Banus that I found this framing of the Sierra Blanca. Normally I would walk another way, my normal route, however this time I was walking with friends from school and that they normally walk on a different route.

There are so many possibilities in life that we often neglect due to human nature… we are creatures of HABIT, and that we tend to do things we know and feel comfortable with, hence… we can’t think outside the box *on our own*. However with a little bit help from outsider, friends and families… we are often shown the other side of life. Yet, we often don’t let other people into our lives because of our nature of habit. By letting someone into our lives, it needs courage and trust.

So, who have you let into your life recently? Where have they lead you to? Whoever it is, they are sure to be thankful for letting them into your life because it also means that you trust them. Now let us walk together to “who know where”, just keep walking – together.

That is one long bridge! To be able to hold my breath all the way from beginning to the end of the bridge was a real challenge. When I was young, my parents told me that if we make a wish while crossing a BIG river with a very long bridge then the wish will come true!

I really don’t know how true that tale is, however… after all these time, I still hold my breath and make a wish every time I cross a BIG BIG Bridge. I did the same with the Golden Gate bridge when I visited in December 2008. I don’t quite remember what did I wish for… whatever it is, I think it came true because now I am happy. And don’t we all make a wish for something or someone to make us fully and truly happy.

Try it for yourself the next time you are on a bridge… MUSH A WISH!

Because we were at the show 1 hour early, so I had the time to walk around the theater. It came to my surprise that the theater is only a blog away from the wedding banquet room that I attended 2 nights ago. However, I wasn’t able to take the picture of this bridge here that night because the angle different and I told to myself that I must come back later to capture the bridge. But that “later” came just a few nights after.

What was I waiting for? I was waiting for the Hip-Hop dance Accrorap Company: “Short stories.com”. It is part of the La Fête 2009. The show was amazing. It is part modern-contemporary art dance, hip-hop dance, story telling and musical performance with a touch of comedy.

The show was amazing in that it got my body moving, my head shaking, and my feet tapping along with the music!

*As promised,  the blog is back up with in a week! After just about 36 hours… it is alive!!! again!!! Yah!!! Things just keep happening sooner than expect. I take that as a good thing. ^_^

So, I was on the Bridge to Vancouver, Canada, and there is this arch that provides an amazing view. The view, to me, looks like a giant door that will lead somewhere UP HIGH… but in reality it is gonna drop DOWN Below into the ice cold sea.

I think I should try sky-diving and just leap!!!

I was looking for things to do while sitting in the car for hours and hours long during the trip to San Francisco last December. And that is where I found a great framing for a picture that is the frame of the back window. I must have about 20 of shots like this from different places during the trip.

It’s amazing how the view behind can be stunning versus the front view but we can’t just keep looking back all the time can we? Otherwise we would never get to our destination if I always go back there and take more pictures. Just keep going forward and when the opportunities present itself, go back.

Okie… 48 hours to presentation !!! I got to go back to work and finish it up. Gonna be one long week with classes, projects, exams, and kitchen! Bahhhhhhh….!

On Sunday, I did some studying on the school balcony… bathing in the sun for an hour or so. Then in the afternoon, the weather suddenly changed from sunny to cloudy and windy, from hot to cold and chilly. Talking about the weather here in Marbella, Spain, it is strange !!! Is it really the work of global warming but what happened was that weeks ago it was raining all week long, and then it got hot for another week, and then suddenly we had a hail storm for a day… sigh…

That is how I started looking for picturess taken during New Year’s 09 in Vancouver, Canada because the weather and the clouds resemble the day that I visited Vancouver. Above is the Panorama of Vancouver on the bridge that lead to the “Tertisland” (another photo that I took from the port, below to the left of the picture) In that picture, you would see the bridge that I am standing on to take this picture ^_^

The experience was amazing, as I am standing in between the 2 worlds, one side full of building and its dynamic energy while the other side is more of natural, nice and calm. It’s created the perfect harmony during the moment on the bridge where everything seems to be balanced out with the melody from the sky.

A long day, a really really long day… and then it just reminded me of another long day I had in San Francisco. However, it was a totally different experience and feeling, because the long day today, I just wanted to get away and go back to one of those long “relaxing” days where I had nothing to think or worry about.

Well, the day is way too exhausting, so much so that I don’t really know what to write about… all I want to do is blank out and look at the picture… the today picture. It was so beautiful, very vivid, very calm, and very very peaceful.

I hope that you guys enjoy today’s pick as much as I do. Just sit back… and relax…

Currently, I am living in Marbella, Spain. The closet beach we have here is Port Banus… as most of my friends know, I have an addiction with Beaches… Sand, Sound, Sea, Waves and Wind. But here, in Vancouver, the dock is to the far right behind the bridge. Here, it is placed in very unique in such a way that I cannot really explain. It was freezing cold at the moment I took the picture, 2 degrees Celsius, but I just really wanted to capture this moment.

I mentioned that it is very unique to me because I got the beach feeling here without the sand or waves. There were only wind and cold… but it was the peacefulness that captured me.

Looking at it further, it reminded me of my childhood when the only game I played was Tetris because those lines of buildings look exactly just like in the game. Don’t you think?