Pack Underwear!

Rockstar and I finally made it back to Calgary after an eventful escapade from the Vancouver airport.   Saturday afternoon we boarded our flight from Vancouver to Calgary at 3pm only to end up sitting on the airplane for 7hrs, deplaning @ 10pm  and then searching for our luggage.  

Air Canada had no information for us and by 2am we were told that all the ground crew had gone home and our luggage was most likely still sitting on the plane. So we booked ourselves a hotel for the next two nights and extended out vacation – in our existing travel clothes!  PACK UNDERWEAR!  I’ve always been told to pack enough for an overnight stay but do i ever listen?  Noooooo…so i learned my lesson the hard way.  It was so good to take a nice hot shower – only to change back into my yucky travel clothes.  Shout out to Miss Joelle Chan for rescuing us in Vancouver the next day and taking us out to buy extra clothes!

 Baggage claim situation.  Back log of luggage from the numerous cancelled flights combined with the luggage from incoming flights.  We were fortunate to have our luggage waiting for us when we arrived at the Calgary airport!

The Day Before The Day After Tomorrow

24 hours before Calgary was transformed into a winter wonderland, my colleague and I broke out our cameras on  a gorgeous Saturday afternoon!  Mademoiselle P and I fueled up with a heart-attack-on-a-plate (yes, a chili dog and yam fries from Tubby Dog!!) and then headed off to Edworthy Park.  More pictures to come once I figure how to use Grenna’s Mac, but here’s a sneak-peek! 

Isn’t she a head turner?  Good-looking people make it so much easier! 

Oh the weather outside is…Smoggy!

Rockstar and I are resting in Hong Kong now – enjoying the cool and balmy weather and blinking away the gritty polution and particulates from our eyes!  He reported that Calgary should be a deep freeze now.  I can’t even imagine snow or Christmas – it seems like we’re such a world away from that winterwonderland.

Clara and I took family shots in Calgary last week as the weather was starting to dip into the deep freeze.  I’m glad we were able shoot one last time outside before the cold took over – Baby E wasn’t entirely basking in the cool December air but his winter apparel was bare none the cutest.

Check out how young, hip and pretty Leggy mom is – and how she easily gets a smile from E tossing him in the air.

Lebz gets a cool, calm, collected Baby  E whilst spinning baby in the air.  Looooove his hat!

Hovering around the trendy Kensington area in Calgary…Dad takes a picture of the family.

Baby has these amazingly hard core booties.   He has to first learn how to walk to use them to its fullest potential!

We’re working on getting Baby to smile…!

Family shot with what i think is a smile from Baby E!

And one of the lovely couple! 

Loosing batteries, will post the missing shots soon!

**Edit**

We had the privilege of shooting with the talented Mr. Calvin Sun, who spotted all the cool back lighting and got the fam posing!   Here he is in action, be sure to drop by his site, his stuff is amazing! 

Tsukiji Fish Market

Whoever decided to put Tsukiji as a tourist attraction must have been one adventurous guy.  People use to get up before the break of dawn at 3am to see fish from seemingly the entire ocean fill the market and watch as blue fin tuna were auctioned off.  The auctions are closed now to the public since they really started getting in the way, but arriving at 8am you still get to see some fishy action as we did.  The markets are sloshy, slimey and gutsy – and probably more of Rockstar’s cup of tea than mine.  None the less it was an eye opening experience and right after dodging in and out of the rows and rows of soon to be sushi menu items, we went for our sushi breakfast.  I was a bit queasy from the fishy – air but Rocstar opted to say that it was the fragrance of fresh fish which made the sushi even yummier.  Ok.  So, here’s a look:

Fish on the cutting board…

Trudging through…and trying to avoid electric trolleys that went zipping between the aisles.

And the rest of the pictures Rockstar took really are too gutsy…ew.   But a nice contrast to the fast paced market was a peaceful stroll through the Imperial Palace Gardens which we did in the afternoon.  It was refreshing:

It’s almost our last day in Tokyo. Everyday has been exciting with different sights, sounds and food.  Tomorrow we hit Harajuku and  I’m starting to feel why Gwen Stefani is so obssessed with the Japanese’s wicked style.    I contantly feel underdressed in a city so full of fashion and a little silly with a backpack on.   However I’m not willing to sacrifice function for fashion as a tourist – it’s too much work.   Unless i find a fashionably functional purse tomorrow.  =)

DisneySea

I woke up this morning around 5am.  I can blame the jetlag, but really i think i was super excited about going to Disney – I’m cheese like that.  DisneySea was wonderful.

I practically dragged Rockstar around the park, our first stop was Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Back.  I was naive and merrily peered at the funny looking insects, memerized by the light and sights s as  we whizzed around on tracks while Rockstar totally caught on that we were gradually climbing an incline.  Of course there was a ’surprise’ drop at the end – i swear it was THE most steepest drop i’ve ever experienced in my 30 years of existence.  Blindness seized me as we were ejected from within the volcano for a brief moment before plunging back into the darkness.   THAT WAS AWESOME!  I squealed to a white-faced Rockstar when we disembarked and walked away from the ride.  That was our last thrill of the day.

Still, the park was awesome!

The Arabian Night area of the park – We took Sinbad’s Story Book Journey here – it’s like a Small World type ride.  No drops!

American Frontier.  They had the same Tower of Terror of Ride here as they do at Florida’s MGM Studio.

Mediteranian Harbour.  We did the waterway cruises! The park closes at 10pm but we booked it by 6pm.  I was getting sleepy!  Rockstar remarked to me as we were waving goodbye to Mickey that going to Hong Kong Disney next week is really going to pale in comparison to what we saw today!

Tomorrow we head off to the Tsukiji Fish Market!  Tourist use to flood the market from 3am – 8am and it’s gotten increasing difficult for the market to actually do their tuna auctions with tourists getting in the way.  So now the tuna auction is closed to the public but we’re still going to wander the outer markets and have a sushi breakfast.   And see the feesh without having to wake up at an insane hour.

It’s only 10ish right now but it feels like my contacts are permantly stuck to my eyeballs which is an indication that it’s time for bed.    G’nite Tokyo!

Greetings from Tokyo!

Rockstar and I enjoyed a glorious seafood dinner last night in Hong Kong – my uncle’s treat.  We walked through a wet and super  fresh fish and seafood market, picked out menu for the evening via pointing to various tanks of exotic looking sea creatures.

Half an hour later everything was brought out to our table in the restaurant cooked in hot fragrant sauces of wine, black bean and chili paste.  it was going so well until 8pm when all i wanted to do was plant my face onto my plate of spicy clams as i was overcome by drowsiness.  Rockstar was diligent with his camera throughout dinner:

I have the walking like i’m on a boat feeling right now trying to fight off the wave of sleepiness and jet lag.  We arrived in Tokyo tonight around 6pm – we had a quick ramen dinner down the street from the hostel and now i’m trying to stay awake as long as possible.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow, we’re planning on hitting DisneySea, Tokyo!  Apparently the Japanese invested tonnes of money into this park so we’ll see what it’s like in all its theme park goodness.

So far the trip is going well as day 2 in Asia.  I did manage to lose all my make up on the plane on the way to Hong Kong so i spent Day 1 accumulating my face at the shu uemura store in Sha Tin.  I had to fill out a survey form in order to get $100 HKD knocked off my purchase and the makeup artist chastised me for filling it out wrong because i checked off the 30-39 age range.  When i told her i’m 30 – she said, WHAT?!  I don’t believe you!  Even in Asia i look little!

Ok, my eyelids are droooopy.  We’ll check in again tomorrow.  Hopefully it’ll stop raining in Tokyo by tomorrow.  I am loving my UGGS at the moment, they’re saving my life!  G’nite!

Little “E”

Yay! so i got the green light from Lbz and his lovely wife Leggy to post their family shots taken last weekend!  We headed out after church, after a flavorful Korean lunch, and after a meeting for Lbz to shoot around trendy Kensington.  Poor baby by then was awoken mid nap as we attempted to make him smile.  This kid is cute and a carbon copy of his dad – as Leggy can predict and mimic every time in near perfect Cantonese reactions from Chinese aunties who see him for the first time:  Wah!  Ho dut yee ah!  Ho chee daddy ah!!!  (Wow! So cute ah! Looks just like daddy ah!) 

This was taken after our afternoon out – Baby E was a trooper and braved the cold with us.  He had enough by the end of the hour, but was thrilled when we took him inside and had mommy blow bubbles at him.  

Will post more later – Off to bed and loading up on the Cold Fx.  Really hoping and praying i won’t be flying while my head is congested!!  G’nite!

Getting Our Christmas On!

Around the same time last year i took pictures for Clara’s godson when he was just knee high to a grasshopper – and this year when i went round to take RaRa’s Christmas pics again, it was hard to imagine how much he has grown.  He’s got so much personality!   This is one cute kid getting his Christmas on.  There were so many favorite shots that it was hard to choose – so i chose the ones which were most expressive.  Here we go!

Matchy matchy with the Christmas ball and the outfit! 

Check out his dexterity! 

This was the sweetest thing – he loved the singing penguins. 

Ok, ready for some excellent athleticism?

He launches it…

And it must have been one heckuva throw!    

Hope these shots are turning everyone into holly-dorks and into the Christmas spirit!

On a personal note, I have one mad day left tomorrow to pack up before Rockstar and I are headed to Japan for vacation.  Wooooot!   I’ll miss celebrating Christmas here with my family, but it’ll be nice to spend it in Asia with his.  I bought him a new Canon G10 and he’ll be bringing his laptop so hopefully we’ll be able to blog our adventures from Japan and Hong Kong!  

(Cla and I also did a family session last weekend we’d love to post up before i leave.  Just have to ask the fam if it’s cool with them to put them into cyberspace!)