I wonder, where would this entrance lead us to? Perhaps it was to the secret hide out of “The Man With the Golden Gun”! I didn’t have the chance to find out because I wasn’t sure if I would made it out of there. Well, I actually was too busy checking out the shops on the island and also taking pictures as much as I could on this island, Phang Nga bay, Thailand, because we only had about 30 minutes for this stop.
Who would have known that googling the phrase “tying the knot” would bring so many interesting articles to read. The very first link that was provided by google was a link to a wedding photography service.
-One of the Top 10 Wedding Photographers in the World.
www.tyingtheknot.net
So, I started to wonder, what does “tying the knot” have to do with “marriage” so I again… Googled for “tying the knot meaning” and was lead to a website explaining how nowadays wedding have their customs and traditions traced all the way back to ancient Egyptians!
- Tying The Knot. This comes from the days of the Roman empire when the Bride wore a girdle that was tied in knots.
The Groom untied the knots prior to the consummation of their marriage.
www.pibweddings.com/traditionsorigins.html
What was I thinking that made me took the picture when I saw the rope tied on the boat?
I guess the message was “commitment” because when tying the rope together it meant to have one “attached” to the other, to add length, to extend, to go beyond… what one rope can do. Meanwhile, there are tension that pulling the ropes away from the knot in opposite direction, proven by Newton’s 3rd law of motion “Whenever a first body exerts a force F on a second body, the second body exerts a force −F on the first body. F and −F are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction”, therefore the only thing that will hold 2 ropes together is how strong would each rope would be able to withhold the tension that is being created with surrounding force.
The knot would never untied the itself, but the strength of the ropes is the key that hold them together… Maybe this is the reason why the phrase “tying the knot” has so many related article with wedding and marriage because it take 2 people’s commitment that the will provide a lifetime of support and cherish each other, as long as they can withhold the pressure from the surrounding and that one rope doesn’t snap before the other.
*a moment of photo taken on the rooftop of the long boat that was taking me and my family to the Nail Island, Phang Nga, Thailand.
It is surprisingly how time can pass from days to months to years. I wonder, would a lifetime be enough for people to enjoy all the amazing things out there in this little planet.
Feeling as if it was yesterday, the time that I took this photo was more than a month ago! It was so isolated, calm, and the most important is… very peaceful.
Time sure can fly! And it isn’t going to slowdown. We can only try to catch up and do our best on the little time that we have to enjoy the most out of this little blue planet.
Sitting next to a table full of “Pla Sa-Lid,” a type of fish, that when deep-fried is very crunchy and delicious. One of many traditional Thai foods which I love to eat ever since I was a kid. I am currently looking at the pile of fish on table wondering how many fish we bought from shopping at the fish market in Phra Pra Daeng, Wat Bang Narm Phung, Bangkok. Here are a quick estimate… 8 Kilo of the fish, average at about 25 fish per kilo. So that would be the sum of about 200+ fish on this table! We sure love fish!
While I was at the fish shop buying (obviously) the 8 kilo of the fish, I asked the vendor how did they catch all of these fish? The answer was fish farming. It is amazing how we can farm about everything that we, human, consume. I wonder what have happened to the lifestyle in the past where we had to go hunt in the jungle for meat or the sea for fish. Those days may have not been very easy but it was sure simple.
That was how I was reminded of the photo selected today of a group of fisherman catching fish in the sea.
In celebration of the 1 year anniversary of TwoStepsBehind… I chose this Panorama that was taken in Phang Nga Bay, Thailand. The island also known as the Nail Island. The picture was taken on Christmas of 2009; the same day that I was reunited and met many of my long lost family members. It was the family trip that I must have mentioned on previous posts.
Looking back a year to date… there are many changes in the way I process pictures, which hopefully have improved greatly. A year ago, I believed that there would be a day that I could take a nice landscape shot, a panorama of some sort… as my very first post at TwoStepsBehind, Hello Planet Earth, Welcome to Two Steps Behind!, was a panorama of the Vancouver Bridge, Canada. That belief… brought me to where I am today… with the photo which I am really proud of. To me it’s a really big step that was made of many small steps.
A year has passed and I couldn’t believe how much things have changed… or at least just me.
There was so much to learn in a year, and I can say for certain that life is…
to Live and Learn…
to keep going forward…
to give and to love unconditionally
and most important of it all…
to never lose hope.
because I do still believe strongly that, hope achieves the impossible.
In celebration of 1 year anniversary of TwoStepsBehind… I am going to make a slide show, when I have time, to see where has TwoStepsBehind has visited. I know that Apple has those cool programs, iMovie, iDvd… etc to make the globe spin from one place to the next. Let us see how would that turn out!
But first things first… I must thank you everyone for visiting this website…
First of all, my mother for making me realize that I should write a blog so that she could keep up with my where abouts.
Secondly, Qi for gifted me with “HALF” of the Canon Rebel XSI for my Bachelor of Architecture graduation present.
Thirdly, SCI_Arc for exposing me to the world of APPLE and MACBOOK PRO
Forth, Wordpress + Flickr + Facebook + iPhoto… for making it so easy to blog.
Last but not least… is Trey, the god of HDR for sharing his tutorial at www.StuckInCustoms.com which became a great inspiration for me. Thank you to all of my reader to continuing reading many if not most of my non-sense posts!
THANK YOU!!!
Cheers… on to the next and many more year to come!
Photos taken at Phang Nga Bay, Nail Island, Thailand on December 25, 2009
I was so excited when I hop on the boat only to be tormented by hour long of bounciness during the boat ride. But unlike the other whom seated in the boat as they suppose to, I was on the roof of the boat. So aside from getting dizzy, I also get sun burn!
After reading about all of my nagging, I guess it was worth it because how else would I have the opportunity to take pictures with 360 degree of clean view, no roof, no post, no beam and no water splashing.
Exactly 2 years ago, on January 11 2008 I had a thought of coming to Thailand to work.
2 years later, I am in Bangkok, Thailand working!
It is amazing how things can turn out… unexpectedly.
Below is the photo I took while I was on the roof of the boat during the trip to Nail Island in Phang Nga, Thailand. To only realize later that, I have been here before… but perhaps it was 15 years ago. Not much have change about the place, but I am certainly getting old!
15 years ago, I visited the island with my mother… as for this year I visited the island with my grand mother! Well, there was no scuba diving this time
While I was taking picture, its remind me of the song “somewhere only we know” by Keane.
Back in the junior high school, I was taught to paint a picturesque landscape. Every time that the teacher show us an example, he would start of the with the blue sky (infinity), then mountains (far), followed by a wall of dense trees (semi-medium), then a river bed that has boats here and there (medium) and finally a resting boat as the close up object.
After I saw this view… the DEJAVU feeling came rushing back to me, I had a goosebumps all over as if I have seen and been here before. Or perhaps the goosebumps came from simply having too much breakfast. Which ever the reason(s), the moment itself was very calm and relaxing. So much that… I sat there for hours simply waiting for time to pass and the boat to depart.
Less is more… a phrase that I first heard it in 2006 at SCI_Arc (Southern California Institute of Architecture) during a weekly lecture on Wednesday night. We were like, please not another cliche phrase, I guess the idea of less is more doesn’t really make sense at first in the state where everything get “super size” and that “more is better”!
Not until the class of Philosophy of Technology did I start to agree with the once thought of silly phrase, less is more. The class was offered at SCI_Arc during a summer by Marcos Sanchez, an amazing professor, that brought up the topic of hot media and cold media by Marshall McLuhan
Hot and cold mediaFor McLuhan there are two different kinds of media: hot and cold media. The hot media are those, which have a large influence on humans and its sensous perception. According to McLuhan these media even possess a “destructive strength” (for example “stone axes” see the point “the medium is the message”). The pioneer of the media ranks the writing, the phon-etic alphabet, the book, the photography and also the radio among this kind of medium. These ob-jects of communication place much data and de-tailed informations at the users disposal, which are mainly concentrate on one sense of the recipient.
It is affected by this, but remains rather passive in the behavior. The cold media have a small influence strength on humans. The reason for this is, that they offer little details and information, and are not optically delightful for humans. To use and understand these media humans must actively deal with these media. McLuhan calls the televi-sion, the telephone or the caricature as example for it. Finally we mention the fact that a medium is not only hot or cold, but must be regarded always standing in a relationship to another medium.
To my understanding, the cold media is the one that is “LESS” informative but allow for “MORE” interactivity with the media. I guess that is why I choose to do the black and white version for this photo, to allow interactive with the moment, the space and the time that the picture was taken rather than the hundreds of colors that were in the picture.
Yesterday’s photo couldn’t have been taken if I were simply just sitting in the boat along with everyone else. Everyone wants to be in their comfort zone and take pictures but I just can’t get the picture I wanted by simply sitting in the boat.
So I climbed the roof and just spent the rest of my 3 hour boat trip on the roof taking photos.
The sun was shining,
the boat… rocking,
the wave… crashing,
the wind… weaving,
I have been wanting to visit southern Thailand ever since my last visit, must have been when I was 9 years old. Back then, my mother let me use one of her compact cameras, the kind that you still have to advance the film manually and also bought me 4 rolls of 36-shots films that lasted only for a day. I took pictures of pretty much everything! But when we developed the film, half of them were either over or under exposed! Oh well… I repeated the same mistake again 2 years ago when I tried my mother’s Nikon F3 with 4 rolls but this time it only lasted for 2 hours!!! That was the last time I ever used film for photography, but I do wish that I would get to learn how to develop the film traditionally when I have the budget and the time to do so.
As for the post today it was while we were heading toward Koh Tapuu (Nail Island) about 30 minutes away from the Phang Nga’s pier. While everyone was looking to the front or the sides of the boat… I looked behind and captured this moment,
The moment where everything was left behind… There were nothing to think about except to just point my camera and shoot at everything. It was fun!
Koh Panyee, what an interesting name but what does it really mean? According to our tour guide Koh Panyee means “the Island of the Flag”. Getting interesting isn’t? What flag? We didn’t see any flag!
The story goes something like this… according our tour guide
A family from Indonesia was looking for a new beginning, a new home, a new place to start their new life. The family lead by Toh Baboo, along with 2 more families who had joined Toh Baboo on the quest. This new place they were searching for has a little requirement which is that it shall has full of fish and a place that everyone could live together. The 3 families promised to each other that once such place is found then they would raise a flag as high as possible so that the others could see and join them.
Later, Toh Baboo found the island and… to no surprise – raised the flag!
And that was how the Island got it name Koh Panyee – the Island of the Flag!
After the storm…
where the sky are clear…
The sea are calm…
… for the New Beginning
Woke up in the morning,
Turn on the computer,
Youtube… “new beginning”
and Found the song, Cafe Del Mar: New Beginning – Another Day
The song… bringsme the thought of this calm sea in San Francisco, where Hans and Heather were about to left me behind because they were starving and couldn’t wait any longer to find food!
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.
Ahh Silver Lake… a vineyard that is hidden in a mist of mountains in Pattaya, Thailand. When I was told that we were going to a Vineyard… I couldn’t believe my ears! A Vineyard??? in THAILAND??? It just doesn’t click to me! I just didn’t know that we have vineyard in Thailand, well it was a news flash to me!
In my imagination, I thought of hills full of vineyards, well it wasn’t that big. However to me, it was more of a mock-up of vineyard and European culture and climate, yet very interesting.
I guess, in the end… no matter how hard they try to make it look and feel like EUROPE, it CAN ONLY and ALWAYS will be a EUROPEAN wannaBE vineyard.
We just have to admit that… things can never simply be replace by something else and hope that it would produce the same results.
***update: finally server is up and running!!! yes!!
Today… the dreamhost server seemed to have problems, hence I couldn’t blog normally on my website. However, my alternative is… HERE! I am at flickr blogging. Haha!!!
I wouldn’t want to try too much time fixing the problem on the server as it was stated that the error was cause by the server itself, not by me. So I’ll just wait for the server to get back up and just not stress over it!
It has been awhile since I’ve gotten to just sit by the sea, watch the sunset and do nothing but just watch the SUN set! This was taken in San Diego, I don’t remember the name of the island at this location, but it is well hidden. The sunset was amazing, but I couldn’t stay outside for long because it was getting chilly and I wasn’t wearing proper clothing. C’mon I was wearing beachwear, so I wasn’t prepared for a cold night! San Diego… it’s the one place I love to go, except Santa Monica, California. San Diego has everything from beaches to mountains, zoos to amusement parks, street vendors to high luxury restaurants and … onnn and onnnnnnn.
Oh well, it a great place to visit, but to live there? I don’t know… a lot of my friend would still prefer Los Angeles over San Diego. But I just prefer somewhere calm and quiet to relax and enjoy the day.
This is Cristobal’s backyard with an amazing view to the Orgiva valley. Cristobal is Simon’s uncle who moved from Paris, France to Orgiva, Spain for the great simple lifestyle and to start his lovely family there. I was curious of why would he move from Paris, a place of many dreams, to Orgiva and small town in Spain. Understanding his reason was easy, it is true that Paris is a place of many dreams but it take everything of a man to follow ONE DREAM and MAKE it happen!
After moving to Orgiva with his wife, Isabelle and attempting to make a living… an idea came when Isabelle suggest that they could do a getaway weekend vacation package for visitors. That was how www.cuestadelalmendral.com got started.
Together, Cristobal and Isabelle have turned a dream into reality, a great simple life.
The sign that telsl us that we were on the right direction to Madrid were these BULL signs. They are everywhere along the main road to Madrid. As a Matador alumni 2002… I can’t help to stop thinking about the time while I was a Matador. Ahh yes! I was once a Matador when I was in High School, San Gabriel High School, California. The Matador was our school mascot… so I wasn’t the actual matador in the arena. Sorry to disappoint you
Life is amazing, who would have known that I would have the chance to visit and explore for months and months in Spain, the country best known for the Matador! Unfortunately, I didn’t watch the bull fight because I don’t think I can handle it!
After weeks of hearing “ahh I am going beach”, “Going to the beach now”, “the beach was nice”… and seeing photos of beaches on facebook around the world that my friends are visiting, I told myself… I am going to a beach too! Then I went online, typed “Beach, Thailand” and then found a few beaches to visit. However the closest ones are Bangsaen and Pattaya in Chonburi, which are very touristy which I am trying to avoid. So my chosen location is the province after… Rayong which is an extra hour of driving from Chonburi. There are few beaches there however, now I go to Google and start browsing the coastline of Rayong and found one big green mountain that is very isolated from the main coastline. Google image also helps in showing the image of the area. That is how I came to find… Rayong Resort!
And that is a brief story of how I found my get away spot… the next time I need to get away from the city life. The surrounding is amazing and the view is beyond my expectation!
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.
Really, I just love it anyway! Would the name of the mountain really going to change the way I feel about it?
This shot was taken during the west coast trip from Los Angeles, U.S.A. to Vancouver B.C., Canada. After being in Bangkok for the past few weeks, I started to miss the view of mountains because they are everywhere in California and Spain, while there are none in Bangkok!
I think that is a sign saying that… I should take a trip and take some more photos of Thailand’s landscape! How about that? Great idea. Right, I just had a conversation with myself. Interesting huh?
This is the result of another drive by shot while Simon was driving us to Madrid, Spain. No, he wouldn’t stop the car because he believed that if he do stop at every place I wanted to take picture, then we would never make it to Madrid. Silly but I think that he may be right.
The image is a bit blurry, yet I love it. I wonder what this building was once before, a warehouse was my wild guess. Whatever it was, it has such a nice location and view for the entire valley below and that it refuses to collapse. Just stood there, perhaps one day someone will see its true value and come back to renovate it? Well, I would if I could… renovate, recreate and fill it with joy and life as it should be the same as when it was created.
Ahh yes… today post is a bit different from the norm. After I have the picture ready to upload, I felt the urge to edit it which resulted in the black and white picture. You still have access to the original color version.
It was during the 48 hour 4 city trip with my colleagues. As we were resting from the walk… I noticed that the majority of the tourists are walking in pairs and as I keep searching for that perfect pair… left and right, I couldn’t find any.
In the end, as I looked up… straight right in front of me is this lovely couple that I only had a split second to capture it.
There, at the moment… it was so sweet that I wish to know who they are so that I can share this picture with them!
So then… I asked and believed.
Now?… Received.
Don’t know what am I talking about? Well… it’s part of “the secret”. ^_^
This photo was taken on the last evening that I would be in Marbella, Spain before I departed to Bangkok the following morning.
The day was cloudy and gloomy since the morning. However, in the evening I went out for a walk with a group of my friends one last time. I don’t want to let the weather ruin my last evening there so I just go anyway, hoping that it won’t rain!
It turned out to be a really great evening as the sun broke through the cloud a bit later after we started to walk to the port. Fortunately, I took the camera with me.
Fear… ? Fear, doesn’t really make much sense when it is the fear of something that doesn’t happen yet.
Just Do…? Do believe that everything will turn out as expect
And then…? And then anticipate of all the possible outcomes and be ready to improvise it ALL!
Sigh… why must I make a metaphor of everything that I write… SIGH… -_-’
I dont’ have much time to type much, but all I can say is that, this is the view that I will be missing. So many memories here with such little time. I have always wanted for this day to come, but when it is here, I don’t think I want it anymore. sigh… weird ha?
Just a few weeks left here at LRM, and this is the view that I will be missing… the road, the sierra blanca, the messy grass, and the memories. In the beginning, from time to time, I walk to Puerto Banus from the school just to go rest by the beach and the port then walk back to school. These past months, due to the busy schedule I only have just enough time to walk up here then walk back. Yet, with my passion, the walk is very refreshing, happy, and hopeful.
The view is going to become part of the good memories that I have at LRM, however I hope that the experiences and the feeling from this place can continue forever.
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.
Life is simple… we have the choice to choose and when we choose, we choose it… just because. Once you choose something, be committed to it. Choosing is different from making decisions because when we make a decision… it is a debate between which is better than which. Just by looking at the word “de-cide” and how often do you see this word “-cide” ? Some examples would be, pesti-cide, geno-cide, homo-cide, insecti-cide… the lists go on.
according to Wikipedia :The Englishsuffix-cide denotes an act related to killing. From Latin caedere “to cut, kill, hack (at), strike”. In its wider meaning, it may also signify the destruction or dismantling of an object or concept. When attached to a word indicating an animal or plant considered to be pestilent, the combined word is frequently used to indicate a substance used to eliminate the pest in question. E.g. Pesticide, insecticide and herbicide
Okay… so what I am trying to say is (and no one else would say it better than NIKE) “JUST DO IT”
It doesn’t matter how hard the task it, don’t think about it.
It doesn’t matter how tedious the work is, be patient.
It doesn’t matter how boring the job is, be content.
The Problem is that when we are in this mindset (un-happy mode), we think that it is “hard, tedious and boring” will cause us to be grungy, pretty much just make us “not happy” with whatever we are doing.
The solution… (a really hard concept to understand, but once you do… it is entirely different world and that everything you do… MATTER)
…is to understand that we can CHOOSE to do EVERYTHING with a different mindset (happy mode) knowing that… the end result of whatever we are doing is – happiness -.
Those thoughts came into my mind after I took this picture because just and hour before this… the entire area was dark, cloudy, windy with heavy rain. It was freezing cold and wet that I just wanted to stay inside the house. All the negative thoughts were in my head… thinking that the day was over. But then… THIS! THIS amazing moment that just totally blew my mind away.
As requested, here is a photo taken just a few minutes after arriving at Orgiva, Spain where I stayed with my friend for a night before we drove up to Madrid. The house is surrounded by mountains that which ever direction I turned to… the view would be similar to today’s pick.
I am stuffed at the moment because I just came back from brunch, eating “just” a little bit too much. But isn’t that the idea… eating Breakfast + Lunch. Because of that, my brain is lacking Oxygen, resulting in me… just staring and blanking out at the picture and in my head, just “dot dot dot” ……….
