Archive for the ‘Fun’ Category

My church, Toowoomba City Church (TCC) held a Cultural Night at the end of May to celebrate the different cultures, nationalities, and sample some food from all corners of the world.

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It was a fun day, there were many performances such as dances from very exotic parts of the world…

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…to a solo by a Chinese Michael Jackson…

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…all the way to a marching drummer from the USA!

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Besides that, there an authentic chinese opera singer (our very own Robert) as well as some other group song presentations.

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Performances aside, a big part of the night was the awesome demonstrations that were done on stage! There was a tea ceremony demo…

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Our Chinese brother, Kevin, together with his wife, went up on stage to show the Aussies how chinese dumplings are made…

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Their English isn’t that good so auntie sister Elena went up to translate…

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Of course I can’t forget our very own pastor and host of the evening, Ps. Yew Meng:

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He patiently announced the various country reps present…can you guess where they’re from? Nationalities under the pics…

Will from China

Will from China.

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Korea.

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India.

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Finland.

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Phillipines.

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Thailand.

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Willy from Indonesia.

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Denmark.

…and finally,last but not certainly not least…

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Australia!

…and the team that made it all possible…none other than…

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ANS! (All Nations Service)!

From left: Ps. Yew Meng, Jun, Will, Wilson, Yvonne, Min, Neo, Ben, Steph, Seng Yee, Jason, Andrix, Roger, and me(behind the lens).

SINGAPORE.

February 13, 2009

Captains Log

Day 10: 22nd December 2008.

Still in Kuala Lumpur. Just arrived back from Cambo in one piece. This is where we split. Stephanie left to Kelantan, Pastor Yew Meng + family stayed in Kuala Lumpur for a while. Aaron came to the airport and we had the best 15 mins ever! Jason, Will, Patrick, Seng Yee and Andrea stayed in KL a couple days too. Ben, Edna, and myself continued onto Singapore. In the airport we met a lovely lady, Mrs Kate Cheah.

Credit Ben for taking the picture

Credit Ben for taking the picture

We later found out that Mrs. Cheah was the owner of Polar Puffs and Cakes, Singapore. She also does missionaries to prisons in Thailand. She details this in her book Sweet Memories Sweet Success.

I sat across the aisle from her as she was flying back to Singapore after her attending her son’s wedding in Malaysia. We arrived in Singapore at night and Edna had plans to meet up with her friends for their annual new year party. Just a couple of them who are best friends. I only took one photo the whole night. This is it.

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As you can probably tell it was a costume party. You can see Edna in the pink shirt...she didnt dress up coz we just got out of the plane and came straight.

No, this is NOT how they normally dress. They changed back into “normal” clothes almost right after the shot. I did enjoy myself though…particularly the bed…as we’d been sleeping on hard mattresses in Cambodia…and this particular place was a 5 star service apartment.

Day 11: 23rd December 2008

We spent the day roaming around Singapore, visiting the Merlion among other things.

I like the lines in this shot.

I like the lines in this shot.

Me and the Merlion. Credit to Ben for taking the picture.

Me and the Merlion. Credit to Ben for taking the picture.

Got these ideas from Anderson

Got these ideas from Anderson

Ben loves Singapore.

Ben loves Singapore.

this guy looked funny as he was trying to take a picture...I wonder how many of these there are of me?

Ok ok, heres a proper picture of the Merlion.

Ok ok, heres a proper picture of the Merlion.

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from the Merlion, you can see bunches of these spherical bouy-like things floating in the water...any idea what they are?

There were many cranes right opposite the lake/big pond thingie which faces the Merlion

There were many cranes right opposite the lake/big pond thingie which faces the Merlion.

Eye of Singapore...? thats what they call it in every other city!

Eye of Singapore...? thats what they call it in every other city!

That night, we decided to go to the Singapore Night Safari. Its basically an extension of the Singapore Zoo thats only open at dusk til midnight. Its an amazing experience viewing all the nocturnal animals. By the way, it really pushes your camera (whatever you have) to the limits. I was shooting at HI 1.0 (ISO3200 equiv.) on my Nikon D80 wide open on my 50mm f/1.8.

The Night Safari, Singapore.

The Night Safari, Singapore.

The otters demonstrate the importance of recycling garbage as these items can suffocate such animals and kill them.

The otters demonstrate the importance of recycling garbage as these items can suffocate such animals and kill them.

Big snake

Big snake

Tribal dance

Tribal dance

They also breath fire...

They also breath fire...

Of course there were animals too...lions...

Of course there were animals too...lions...

A babirusa. (direct translation means Pig Deer)

A babirusa. (direct translation means Pig Deer)

cant remember the name but its the largest rodents on earth.

cant remember the name but its the largest rodents on earth.

Perhaps the coolest thing is in fact the toilets. At first glance its just a normal looking toilet...beautifully designed, elegant, and posh.

Perhaps the coolest thing is in fact the toilets. At first glance its just a normal looking toilet...beautifully designed, elegant, and posh.

...but upon further inspection, you'll notice the outer wall is missing!

...but upon further inspection, you'll notice the outer wall is missing! Its actually really cool! without the flash you wouldn't notice the wall outside. This is the less packed one. At the main entrance theres a better one with fake perpetual rain that really enhances the ambience.

Even the table surfaces match the theme...

Even the table surfaces match the theme...

After roaming around the entire park we decided to relax by soaking our feet in fish infested waters. Its called Nibbles and basically you stick your feet into the water and the fishes eat away the dirt…perhaps the pictures will tell a better story…

Nibbles, Once bitten, Twice Shine.

Nibbles, Once bitten, Twice Shine.

Tickles!

Tickles!

Finally after an awesome but exhausting day we were waiting for the last bus...look at Bens black shoes...so gay right? who agrees?

Finally after an awesome but exhausting day we were waiting for the last bus...look at Bens black shoes...so gay right? who agrees?

Day 12: 24th December 2008

New Years Eve.

-and what am I doing? …travelling…travelling half way round the world to London to be exact.

Good news is I got to sit on the A380 and it is DEFINITELY WORTH THE HYPE!

Singapore Airlines SQ318 Airbus A380 Cabin

Singapore Airlines SQ318 Airbus A380 Cabin.

This is my seat. I started off with a single pillow and blanket. There were so few people on the plane that by the time I arrived I had easily 12+ pillows. This is about half way.

This is my seat. I started off with a single pillow and blanket. There were so few people on the plane that by the time I arrived I had easily 12+ pillows. This is about half way through.

I love it that they actually decorate the cabin…you can see the chrismas deco hanging on the cabin walls.

BY THE WAY!!! I noticed my pictures in all the previous post were all soft and blurry…I thought it was because of my theme but I realised I was just resizing them too small and Wordpress had to stretch the pictures…heres an example:

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Before.

Credit Ben for taking the picture

After.

…and another example…

Before

Before.

After.

After.

If you look closely the difference is actually quite obvious…another thing, I realize a photographers blog is supposed to be where they upload their “GOOD” shots where as I’m using it to upload my “CRAP SHOTS” and happy snaps with flickr still being the main showcase on the internet…so after I finish this series of posts from my summer vacation I’ll change it around and use my blog onto for good pictures. I will probably change the theme as well to suit the motive…until then, please don’t judge my skills from this blog…cheers!

“JIAREN” Ambigram Logo

January 24, 2009

Hey, just thought I’d post something I created…idea came to me while listening to a sermon (but obviously not really listening) a couple Sundays back and I started doodling on them church handout thingiemajigs…

In case some of you don’t know, an ambigram is a graphical figure that spells out one or more words not only in its form as presented, but also in another direction or orientation (definition from Wikipedia). In other words, you can turn the word upside down and it will still spell the same thing…like the ones you’ll see in that new movie “Angels and Demons”.

I tried to create an ambigram logo of my name. I got the basic design before church finished but the hard part came when it came to digitizing it. Here is the original draft:

Mr. blurrycam strikes again. Sorry the pic is straight from the iPhones crappy camera.

Mr. blurrycam strikes again. Apologies for the crap picture. Its straight from the iPhones crappy camera.

Anyway, as I was saying, the hard part is digitizing it. You see I’ve been trying to figure out how to use the pen tool found in Adobe’s Photoshop for several months…about 6 months to be exact. The beauty of the pen tool is that it exists in a vector scale format. That means that unlike pictures which you zoom in the the picture gets pixelated and becomes worse and worse, a vector formatted image can be blow up as big a possible while retaining the original clarity and sharpness.

…and now a word to all the graphic designers out there: I know what you’re thinking. Screw Illustrator. If I wanted to learnt illustrator I would…but I’m a photographer. I loooooooooooove photoshop!

So for the past few months I’ve been trying to use the pen tool but end up not going anywhere. This “project” really helped jump start me in learning the basics of the pen tool…so I can now draw custom shapes that look pretty and are vector formatted.

After 2 days (yes – 2 days!) of working on my logo I finally completed one that mildly satisfies. By 2 days I actually mean 2 nights as I was only on it from like midnight to the wee hours of morning which is sleepy time for mua. The first day I completed it and that was version 1. The next day I made it less “edgy” and more “curvy” which took about the same amount of time to make the whole thing in the first place. That was version 2. The curves no longer went with the underline and so I played around with it and I noew present to you version 2.1 of my ambigram logo:

It reads "Jiaren" this way as well as upside-down.

It reads "Jiaren" this way as well as upside-down.

…and now for the dissapointing part:

Later on I was googling ambigram and came across an ambigram creator. This intrigued me and so I threw in my name to see what would come out…much to my surprise the created ambigram which only took a couple of seconds to recreate looked SO MUCH BETTER THAN MINE!!! I was a little bit annoyed but the experience taught me a lot.

Comments and/or critique anyone? (besides the obvious need to refine it).