A rainbow, a river and the rain

We went on a camping trip a week ago at Lorne, along the Great Ocean Road.  There are times when I yearn to be out of the city, at the very least be amongst the vast landscape, with scenic hills, grass and trees, and water... and Lorne has bits of these.  The 2 hour roadtrip to Lorne was as much enjoyable as being there in Lorne itself.  The weekend that we went it was expected to rain - but we went anyway.  Yes, it was drizzling most of the times, but the rain on that Friday afternoon brought out a beautiful rainbow.  And if I'm seeing this correctly, there was another rainbow there as well.

 

Despite the rain, I think all of us that went truly enjoyed being there... setting up the tents in the rain, cooked and ate in the 'undecided' weather pattern of rain and shine alternating like very five minutes, and we made sure we made the best of it all.  With hot drinks, hot food, chairs and mats, umbrellas and raincoats, card and board games, and hanging out with great companies was all that we probably needed (and also the fact that I brought a long my laptop and we ended up watching a movie in the tent while it was raining and made caramel popcorn using the electric pan!).  And with all that, I am pretty sure everyone had a one-of-a-kind camping experience.

Even our breakfast was somewhat luxurious, don't you think? :)

Serenity by the Sea

 

We are lucky to live only like a 10 minutes-drive away from the beaches of Port Phillip Bay.   I have always loved going to the beach, not to swim or sunbathe, but just to enjoy looking at the waters and leisurely walking alongside to it.  It never fails to give me that sense of calmness, and the realization that there are bigger things in life... 

 The most famous beach here is of course none other than St Kilda Beach, but once you're in the mood of exploring new places, you're bound to find somewhere new...  And so we did.  We have had this set of Go Explore! Melbourne cards, and would turn to it each time we feel the urge of going somewhere, but just don't know where to go.  With this card, we headed to a place called Black Rock Beach at Half Moon Bay, further down from St Kilda Beach and Brighton Beach.

There is a small cafe that sells coffee and fish & chippery, so that was nice to have something hot to drink and munch while we were there.  This is a view from the jetty that looks over the boathouse, bath boxes and the small cafe.

 

Coffee is my life?  Only occasionally when I feel the need for a cuppa :)

 

When we were there, the weather was not very sunny.  It was for a short while, then the clouds came so it became a bit cloudy (and started to get cold).  I remembered reading a simple photography tip that when it gets cloudy and the colours of the scenery became a bit dull, a black and white photography might work best.   I seem to believe so too, as you can play around with the exposures and contrasts to make the photos livelier, or more dramatic, although in a monotone.  These were from the "grains" mode in my Olympus PEN, no post-editing needed (great, right?).

This is one of my favourite silhouette shot.

If you're in Victoria or thinking about visiting Half Moon Bay, you can get a little bit more info about its whereabouts here.

A Cafe by the Beach

 

A while back, we visited this cafe that was located along the beach in Middle Park, called Sandbar Beach Cafe.   We have driven and walked passed by it a couple of times before.  The white architecture with large clear windows that allow you to see through the cafe right to the beach looked really nice and appealing, that we just had to give this cafe a visit.

 

And once we were in, we were not disappointed at all.  The cafe was lit with lots of natural sunlight (a reason of why a photo at this angle turned dark), and the timber interior in white and natural earth were indeed a great match for the by-the-beach concept.  I would have no problem sitting at this cafe all day long, looking out to the waters, while sipping some drinks and just relax...

We didn't spend the whole day there obviously, but I did have my glass of iced coffee and a taste of their flourless orange cake.  The best of all, visiting this cafe with my husband felt like we were on brief holiday, which was truly nice :)  Must remember to visit a cafe like this again for that vacation-feel when it's not really vacation.

Have you got a place that gives you that being-on-a-holiday feel too?

It finally feels like Autumn

Last week, it felt like winter.  It was raining and it was cold.  We all thought winter had come early to Melbourne this year.  Even the highlands have started to get snow.  This week however, it felt more like Autumn.  It wasn't so cold anymore and we got a bit of sun, Alhamdulillah.  So today, we decided to visit a park not far from where we live.  We've walked by the park once before but have never walked through it.  MashaAllah, the trees and the leaves are just beautiful.  It's definitely one of my favourite parks now.

Photos | Olympus PEN E-PL1 in Pin Hole Art Filter
Fawkner Park, Toorak

a travel-inspired notebook

I’ve finally purchased something from Handworks Nouveau Paperie.  This was a gift for a friend whom I’ve known for almost three years now throughout doing my research.  She really enjoys traveling to Europe very much (especially Paris) and she loves to draw - so I thought this would be the perfect combination (plus the fact that I just love notebooks like this).  The tag, stamped with kikki K alphabet stamp set, says “Happy Julia Day” because I thought it would be kind of nice to remember the date that we were born as our day.

p/s: Have you ever tried wishing and thanking your mom on your birthday, just because she was the one who gave birth to you?  I did sometimes, and I think it might have brought out some emotions from Mak :)

Tram Card Collection Memento

I previously posted about personalizing your wall piece using things that you might already have, like a collection of something.

Recently a friend who was about to go back to Malaysia jokingly asked us if he could buy our framed tram card collection.  We were flattered by his interest, and thought what a great idea it is to create a farewell memento of Melbourne for him and his wife!

So from the collection of our used tram cards...

We arranged them in a smaller frame...

He was very much delighted to receive the gift! 

And of course, we were also very delighted to share a part of our ordinary collection with friends :)

p/s: we have another collection coming up called "Sugar", stay tuned!

Albums for Wondergrams

Since we are entitled to 80 FREE prints EVERY MONTH for ONE YEAR from Camera House, photos have never been so tangible.  Choosing photos to print and arranging them in albums are now our monthly activity.  Last month, I printed 50 Wondergrams - a collection of my everyday photos that are mostly from iPhone (while there are some that were from my Olympus and my husband’s Nikon which have been Instagrammed or LomoLomoed).  I would have opted for matte paper, but the free prints only entitled us for the glossy prints.  Still good, as long as they are free ;)

I was thinking of crafting a square album from scratch, like one of those small albums for polaroids and instant prints.  But while looking for papers and materials in Officeworks, I found this 4R album for only AUD1.00.  Since the Wondergrams are 4x4, they’d fit just nicely, but with gaps at the top and bottom.  So I thought adding hand-written captions for each photo would be able to fill these gaps, and furthermore, become personalized notes about each photo.

Then I saw this stack graph paper for only like AUD1.50 and thought I might be able to put it into some good use.  Even if I didn’t, I haven’t used graph paper in ages, and that would be a nice change to scribble some research notes.  As it turns out, I still have an unused self-adhesive book cover at home.  And before you know it, the idea for the album came together.

Put it the photos, hand-write some notes about it, and there we have it: an album for Wondergrams :)

I wrapped the cover of the album with the graph paper and the self-adhesive book cover, so that the whole theme would be similar.

 

And whaddya know, less than AUD2.00 for a customized wondergram album!

The Joy in Crafting a Mail

That one night, I was preparing the wondergrams (wrapped in yellow) to be posted to Malaysia to Aim (we swapped photos that we took) and New York (to my sister, which by the way, has it arrived? And don’t forget to mail me some of your photos too ye).

I liked assembling the packs, as it involved stamping letters on the paper with rubber stamps, folding, gluing, and writing names and addresses on the envelopes.  And with the dim desk lamp, it felt like I was working in some kind of old toy workshop.  That was nice.

Receiving things in the mail is a lot of fun too :)

Thank you Aim for the lovely photos and gift :)

Some Bits of Vernacular Malaysia

We were back in Malaysia for 2 weeks recently.  The first week was hot (which got me sick for a week), and thankfully, the second week was a lot better with a bit of rain and clouds.  One of the highlights of our activities this time that was out of the norm was visiting my sis-in-law's family farm.  Now when I say 'farm', I'm sure an image of lush green grass, fences, vegetable patches, chicken and goats and small hut would come to mind.  Well, most of those stuff were present at the farm, except for the lush green grass which is still in the process of growing.  The farm is located on a land surrounded by oil palm plantations, so you can probably imagine the heat during mid-day.

“Pondok” (in Bahasa Malaysia) is what we call a small chalet or hut at the farm.  It actually has three rooms, kitchen and bathroom.  It’s quite nice to have something like a traditional house to visit from time to time now that even our “kampung” or family’s hometowns are mostly suburbs.

The farm is surrounded by fish ponds, where two of the brothers went in to catch some fish for my husband to grill.  Then there are some patches of lime trees, pucuk ubi, some chickens and four goats.  Going there, we brought some Durians that my husband's brother bought from Ipoh.  Malaysians love Durian, while others not familiar with it may refer to Durian as stinky or smelly fruit.  I wouldn’t describe it as stinky.  It just has a very strong, distinctive smell.  The fruit is fleshy and rich, and there’s no other fruit or food that taste like it.  What does it taste like?  It’s somewhere between sweet, a tiny bit bitter sometimes, and thick in taste.  I find it funny that in shows like Fear Factor or food travel, people would be willing to eat bugs and creepy crawlers, but would squirm at the sight of Durian!  It’s a fruit and it’s pretty good.  If you have a chance, you MUST give Durian a try!

And for the grilled fish (which was forgotten to be photographed!), we squeezed some fresh small limes or "Limau Kasturi" right off the tree.  These limes taste really good in iced tea, over noodles and on seafood.

Once in a while, it's definitely really great to be out in the farm or kampung or the more vernacular environment, don't you think?

MelbFlowerShow2011: Artificial Ornaments

 

Photos | Olympus PEN

MelbFlowerShow2011: Dreamy Gardens