sleepless night...

i cant sleep. hmmm. lemme be an artist tonight. out of boredom, tadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh...

 

Easter Sunday across the miles...

The Holy Week has just ended. I missed the Holy Week in the Philippines when people stop working on Wednesday and resume their works on the following Monday. Filipinos normally do some sacrifices like fasting and abstinence during the Lenten Season especially during the Holy Week. On Good Friday, most of us got our own way sacrifices, do the Stations of the Cross, go to holy and sacred places like churches and chapels or what we call Bisita Iglesia, pray a lot, go to mountains, and old people read and commemorate the Passion of Christ.  I missed all these. I missed the Philippines during these holy season of the year.

An almost a week vacation feels so relaxing and its our way of freeing ourselves from all the stresses we bear inside. But since not all the countries do not have the same beliefs and cultures as Filipinos do, OFWs have to follow the beliefs of their bosses. As for the Italians, since Italy is a Catholic country, they celebrate the Holy Week but unlike the Filipinos, most of them still work until Friday and Saturday. They have their holidays on Sunday (Easter Sunday or Pasqua) and Monday (Easter Monday or Pasquetta). As for the Japanese, i don't think they celebrate these days on their calendars. So that's why they work during these days of the year.

This is our (my babe and i) first Holy Week being together yet we are miles apart. And on Easter Sunday, since the Japanese people don't celebrate this, my babe got a duty during that day. He got an early duty to the airport around 6am from where he slept on the embassy during the night of Saturday due to a late dinner schedule of the embassy's diplomats. It was a night when he impressed his bosses by speaking Hindi language during the conversation on the dinner. Hahaha. Good for you baby! Job well done. :D So instead of going home that night, he preferred staying there after work. And it was early Sunday morning when he went to the airport to pick up the Indian Ambassador's wife. He worked thru the day but found himself sometime to visit the church and attend the Holy Mass on that Easter Sunday together with ate Maria and kids and Tito Boyet's family at the St. Ignatius Church, thereafter the mass, had their late lunch at Ginza Yakiniku. He was still on call from work and had his late duty after the family's lunch. Early morning, I've got a sunflower delivered from my babe. <3

thanks babe for the wonderful flowers <3

When on that same day, I on the other hand, had my Easter Sunday trip to France. I woke up so early like around 2.30am, took my bath, prepare some sandwiches and at 4am off we went. I was excited with the trip since this is my first time to France. :)) I wish my babe was with me :( It would be more exciting if he was coming too. But then, it was so impossible being miles apart. Who knows, the next time around would be our own trip, just my babe and I. :D -- excited. hihihi.

Along the trip we were talking online until he came to church to attend the mass. A 5 hour trip was never boring since all of us were happy and excited, nobody slept along the way. I was with Joy, Beh, Tita Ludi, VA and Onin and Faruk was our tour guide and driver.

By 9am, we were already at Cannes, nice place. We first went to a chapel on top of the world where we could see the whole city down there. It was a fantastic view of the port with a bunch of yachts and boats and ships, a scene of the beach, and the view of the wonderful city. Stupendous. And so we went down there and had to shoot thousands of photos of the beautiful waterfront scenery. We stayed there for an hour. Later on, we walked along the seaside, had another bunch of photos until we reached the car. Along the way were the huge and grand hotels, Splendid, the famous and expensive Carlton Intercontinental Hotel and other fantastic architectural designs man has ever built.

Later on we went off to the city of Nice, like the name itself, the place was as nice as it was. We did another turn around the city and had taken another bunch of photos. hahaha. Each one of us got his own cam and took shots on everything worth capturing. After Nice we went off to Antibes, another town. Same routine, roam and shot and pose and shot on their rocky beaches. :)) 

Then off to Monte Carlo, Monaco. Along the way, we dropped by at McD, and we were so disappointed, their foods were tasteless, hahaha, i guess French people were on salt diet. :D But then yeah, at least we had tasted their stuff. So then off to Monte Carlo. Up up and away. The place is mountainous, on our right side were sharp cliffs while on the left were high walls of rocks and mountains. I was sitting on the right during the trip so yeah, i was able to see all the panoramic scenes down there, the view of the sea, the tall buildings and houses, ships and yachts, which seem to be miniatures and paintings. It was so wonderful and eccentric. Until we reach the place. I was like, man, this is heaven! Amazing. Grand. Marvelous. The place of the very rich people. By just looking at the buildings, all i can say was this is a place of the wealthy, the city of money and luxury! We roam around the place to get a parking and we did it for almost 15 minutes, the place was full with expensive and first class cars, and by the looks of them, they seem to have all the money in the world. hahahaha. Exaggerated, but that was true. Finally we got a slot and off to shoot the place. On the place stood the Grand Hotel de Paris, Cafe de Paris, Casino de Monte Carlo, and amidst all these was a beautiful garden, and it was like paradise. :) After a series of photoshoots, we then went off to enter the grand casino. Enormous. Inside were lots of game machines and the place was full. Every machine was occupied. So we waited for our turn. Hahaha. My first time and my first time inside a casino. We all had our tries and we lost LOL. Only Onin and Faruk won. Lucky them. :D After a series of games, we went out and got each one a cup and cone of ice cream. It was so expensive hahahahahahaha. But its all fine, a once in a lifetime experience is never bad at all. We were all tired that time so at around 6pm, we were off to Monaco. The city of Monaco is under the mountainous place of Monte Carlo. Along the way home, we dropped off to Monaco to get a shoot on the beautiful panoramic view.

The entire day was tiring yet a wonderful experience. Got home around 1130pm and was excited to see the photos on big screen LOL. Off to bed while uploading, waking up the next morning, i saw that the upload stopped and hadn't finished, so i had to reupload everything and that was it, so happy to share the photos with my babe. Tag. Tag. Tag. :D -- I LOVE YOU. Next time around, it will be our own trip to Paris, France. Dream on... :D

Happy 8th. I Love You!

Today is our eight monthsary. So i would like to greet my babe a very happy monthsary. I want you to know that i am so blessed and happy to have you in my life. I love you so much. Hugs and kisses.


xoxo,
ac

My First DSLR :)

Finally ive got a new DSLR gadget. I opted the Canon EOS 600D, an 18MP resolution cam and man, it was fantastic. hahaha. it was my first time to use such gadget and yeah, i admit, i was like drooling LOL. ok, lets not exaggerate, but since it was my first time, i was like "woahhh, what the heck are these stuffs all about." hahahaha. i tried to browse the instructions manual but some terminologies were so difficult to understand since it was in Italian language, the package did not include an English manual. hahaha. but its ok, mr google, mr youtube and mr internet is just here to help me, not to mention my babe is here to help me (hindi para asarin ako) bwahahaha. 

I still dunno the  abcs of shooting. I need to have a deep study on basic photography. I guess im gonna need a lot of time to shoot and shoot and shoot :) until i get the thing perfectly. :) 


Practice makes perfect, so yeah, lets start shooting! Anyway, my babe is gonna help me on the techniques on how to get a good photo capture. di ba babe? di ba? di ba? :D


The shooting starts now! Goooooooo. 

:D

Canon EOS 600D

Photography: our Art, our Passion...

"Photography is the art, science, and practice of creating pictures by recording radiation on a radiation-sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or electronic image sensors."

Photography nowadays is one of the best hobbies man has ever discovered. With the advancement of modern photography today, a bunch of high technological digital photo cameras and video cameras were born. Here comes Canon, Nikon, Sony, Samsung, Pentax, Lumix, Olympus and a lot more brand names hit the mark of producing the best products they could ever bring out to the market.

I have always loved photos, especially those high quality ones. I always want to go thru photography websites and it takes a lot of my time sitting back and staring and browsing thru those lovely pictures of natures, animals, beaches, weddings, people, models or anything amazing. And i wish i could shoot like them. The right angles, the right amount of light, the color, the focus, the image's position, all these and more were the details i would love to work out with. But i could never do all these with just my Canon IXUS 100 IS compact camera. :D What i need is a Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera, which have been so famous these days on this digital world we are living in.

I've been wanting to buy one last year before i went back to the Philippines. But for some reasons, i have opted not to buy since i bought my new Packard Bell Easy Note TM laptop together with my Sony DCR-SX34E handycam. And after a year, I have been wanting to buy an SLR... desperate. LOL

An Easter Sunday out of the country trip to France would be nice to be my first SLR shooting experience. So I've been planning to get one this coming Saturday. I was trying to search for something cool, affordable and a medium-end gadget for this one (for a starter like me :D). My Babe and I had tried to search the web for some good catch. Our choices: Canon EOS 550D (18MP) or Canon EOS 600 (18MP). I am still not decided which one will i get. Whoooaaaahhh! :D

It was last March 7 when my babe just got his Canon PowerShot G12, a powershot gadget with 10MP CCD sensor, an HS system, a vari-angle LCD screen and is a premium compact with an EOS-style front control dial, got its video recording capability, and not to mention its being a water proof camera. So nice, right? :D

Prior to this gadget, he has already got his professional DSLR, a Canon EOS 500D. A cool model from Canon with a 15.1MP resolution, and a lot more great features and capabilities (you may want to read a review about this EOS 500D here) 

He is a good shooter, got a bunch of photos from his SLR and yeah, i have seen lots of them posted. They were great and they were fabulous. And I am proud of him. <3

My babe and I got the same point of interest, the same intensity of passion for photography. We need a lot more studying to do to be good at it, but yeah, we will get more time for that. For the meantime, shooting more often will improve our abilities to be almost perfect shooters and photographers. :D I wish we could be together soon, go some places and experience the art of  photography in its real sense. <3

It's Hanami Time...

Behind Japan's greatest crisis from the massive earthquakes, the biggest tsunami ever happened in the country and the present nuclear radiation issues from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, the Japanese people find time to set aside their fears from these catastrophes. And one way of keeping themselves relaxed is going out to see the blooming trees of the cherry blossoms or sakura in Japanese terminology.

The blossoming begins in Okinawa in January and typically reaches Kyoto and Tokyo at the end of March or the beginning of April. It proceeds into areas at the higher altitudes and northward. Japanese pay close attention to these forecasts and turn out in large numbers at parks, shrines, and temples with family and friends to hold flower-viewing parties. Hanami festivals celebrate the beauty of the cherry blossom and for many are a chance to relax and enjoy the beautiful view.

People get out on flower viewing and stay under these wonderful ornamental blossoms picnicking, having their lunch and drinking in cheerful feasts. And with the advancement of modern photography, most people come to see and shoot amazing photos of these wonderful flowers lining along the planted areas. 

My babe has sent me some videos and wonderful photos of these cherry blossoms, lucky to have been working at the Indian Embassy where lots of sakura trees line across the area. They were indeed nice to look at, relaxing and amazing. And for the Japanese people nowadays, those were the moments of dragging the tensions and fears away from their hearts and minds.

Here are some of the videos and photos i want to share with you guys (sent by my babe - his own captures, and im proud of him <3). Just imagine we were under those trees, breathing the relaxing scent of the spring breeze together with these cherry blossoms. Happy viewing. *hmmmmm*