The many shades of sandy-silt.

Took a small trip over the Thanksgiving weekend. Weather wasn't particularly cooperative. 

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I had a much cuter picture of the dog but it unfortunately turned out blurry all over. Well, it's rare he manages to look serious instead of his usual silly self.

I didn't take too many pictures since I'm not very interested in landscapes. While the trip was nice in person, it turned out rather 'blah' on the camera. (Or maybe that's just due to my lack of skill.)

There were a few signs explaining the geological formation which were quite interesting at the time but I've since completely forgotten. 

もういちどはる

The second anniversary of this blog just passed a little while ago (as announced by my credit card statement) and I realized I haven't organized any of my Japan trip photos yet. Hopefully I'll get around to it eventually. I usually try to do a bit of post-research when I write about vacation places, so I think I've been putting it off because of that. But procrastination is really just par for the course for me.

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Anyways, I went up to the mountain this weekend hoping for some nice cherry blossoms. It turned out quite lackluster and almost not worth the effort, but I took a few shots anyways since I was already there and had my camera.

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I brought my 25 mm (50 mm full frame equivalent) prime lens, so I could only get to the low hanging branches or off-shoots on the tree. There were definitely not enough flowers on the branches to be taking landscape shots.

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I love the bokeh this lens gives but I'm not terribly good at actually taking pictures. My love for close-up shots with blurry background combined with no viewfinder (and nearsightedness) typically in very few properly focused photos from the many I take.

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I'd like to shell out for a 35 mm lens eventually (17 mm on my PEN) but I really don't take photos enough to justify it. While I can feel that the prime lens is training me to be a better photographer (as in I have to work harder for each good shot and am actually paying attention to aperture and stuff instead of just setting everything on auto) I actually quite like the kit lens that the PEN comes with. I typically take only the kit lens with me while travelling, and the prime lens when I'm out and about locally (street or food photos). 

Sushi at Shiro's

In somewhat of a Christmas Miracle, both my cousin and I were in the same town just after New Year's. Seeing that we're both foodies and gluttons, what better way to celebrate both our birthdays, the new year, Christmas and just seeing each other after such a long while.... than to have some delicious food!

First though we spent the day doing some touristy spots in Seattle. We went to the aquarium to see some cute sea critters (before we were due to eat some delicious sea critters later that night).

We ended up all ordering the sushi omakase. It was so much food! First course of white fish, then some delicious matsutake soup in a tea pot and a cold appetizer of grilled salmon belly. Then it was three more pieces of sushi, various cuts of salmon. Then delicious tuna and seared chutoro, and a slightly old fashioned nigiri where the tuna was aged and marinated a bit.

Then it was finished by a large plate of various sushi: anego, uni ikura, amaebi, geoduck, saba, cucumber and  umeboshi roll, and salmon roll. And the most impressive piece on the plate: the tamagoyaki that had the texture of a dense Castella cake. It was sweet, eggy and unbelievably delicious and unlike any tamagoyaki I ever had.

It took some real effort to finish all that food! I was full until well past the next morning. Each piece was super yummy and each piece was just the right size. Even looking at the pictures now I'm starting to drool...

Christmas in Vegas

I spent this year's Christmas and the few days before New Year's in Las Vegas with my boyfriend. It was mostly random walks through all the hotels and casinos, enjoying the winter displays. I didn't take as many photos as I would have liked, I blame it on the cold and a general end-of-year laziness.

We also took a day trip to the Grand Canyon. The bus ride wasn't too bad, driver was mildly entertaining and there was an audio guide talking about the history of the area. I mostly just slept since it left early in the morning. There was a quick stop over the "new" bridge to see the Hoover Dam.

The trip we chose was to the West side of the Grand Canyon where the Skywalk was, on Hualapai reserve land.  You are not allowed to bring anything with you onto the glass platform. Partially for safety reasons, mainly so you have to buy the photographs they take of you. They also make you put on little cloth shoe covers to avoid scratching the (already visibly scuffed) glass.

The Skywalk was cool but once I was standing on it, not as scary or impressive as my first impression. The glass did flex a little bit when some people decided to lightly jump.

Ending this post with a picture spam of all the food I ate. (Pictures vary greatly in quality depending on the lighting at the time.)

Favourite and fanciest dinner of oysters and beef wellington at Gordon Ramsey's restaurant. 

Memories of Spring

The last few days have been typical raincouver, made more dreary by the rotting, soppy mess (lovely fall foliage in a previous life, just a short month ago) on the pavements. Luckily I discovered a trove of greenery while attempting to clean up my photo folders.

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