Good morning Bangkok, it’s currently 5:45 am in Thailand. Good afternoon and good evening to everywhere else on earth.

First of all, I am so excited to hear about the news that one of my Bangkok photos was selected as part of the “35+ Most Beautiful Cityscape Photography From Around the World” Who would have thought that a photo taken while getting ready to visit Bali last year would be selected. Be sure to visit the link ” “35+ Most Beautiful Cityscape Photography From Around the World” because the blogger really put together a nice collection of cityscapes from around the world. So many places that I wish I’ll have a chance to visit in this lifetime. I’m sure that you  feel the same too.

This is the first time that I got a chance to post on the blog in a while. Boot camp is not over yet, as I still have a few months left. However, we are allowed to use computer and have internet access from time to time. Well, let’s talk about the boot camp at another time. Today, I am sharing one of the night views taken at Pattaya, from when I had a chance to visit a few weeks ago during our 10 days break from boot camp. It was the best 10 days off ever!

Pattaya, the famous night life city that is well-known around the world. And because of it’s fame, it is quite hard to find a calm and peaceful corner of the city. Normally I stay at the Holiday Inn Pattaya, but it was fully booked. So I gave “The Zign Hotel” a try which is just a few minutes away by car from Holiday Inn. The hotel provides an amazing views and a great swimming pool to float around under the nice blue sky.

Just relax…

The rest you’d just have to be there to know about it. Enjoy the views!

P.S. The panoramas were taken by PaHn. Such an amazing view isn’t it?

Hua Hin, a district 3 hours southwest of Bangkok, is a great get away place. There you will find many hidden spots for peacefulness that you won’t be able to find in Bangkok…

Really, there is not much to write about for this picture because…

all I remember was…
the peacefulness…
the happiness…
at the simplest moment.

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.

So… swoofff, off to take more pictures.

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.

Tying The Knot

-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!

Wedding Traditions & Their Origins

- 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.

Love… happens

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

A year ago…

Yippy! I see land! Yes! YESS yESS!!!

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.

If not on the roof, then where? Any suggestion?

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.