Chatswood Timelapse

This time lapse video was shot from various views and at different times of the day from my apartment in Chatswood several weeks ago. I actually used Yvonne's old Canon IXUS 100 to do this. The way this video was taken is that I set the camera to take a photo every 5 seconds and then I used a program to combine these photos together into a video. I like time lapse videos because it allows you to see the movement of things which normally move quite slowly to the eye.

The first part of the video was shot during sunrise. I set the alarm to wake up before 5am to start the camera and I then went back to bed. I woke up again at 7am to switch it off. The other parts were shot during the day and the last segment was taken during sunset.



The construction scene that you see about half way through the video is where a new civic centre is being built called Chatswood Civic Place. This will hold a 1000 seat concert hall, 500 seat theatre, exhibition hall, rehearsal spaces, visual arts space and 5000 sqm library. The finished building looks like this and it is scheduled for completion in 2011.


There is actually quite of development going on in Chatswood. A nearby large shopping mall called Chatswood Chase is being re-developed and enlarged and will be completed later this year. This is what it will look like :


Right across from my apartment, a new Chatswood Transport Interchange is nearing completion. This has been going on for a while and the project has been running into delays. Hopefully they will be done soon !


I have not been able to share any new photos on Flickr for the last two weeks because my home laptop which I use for my photography has been out of action and Apple has been investigating the problem. Luckily, even though my laptop is already 2 years old and out of warranty, Apple is replacing it with a brand new laptop. I'm hoping to get the new laptop in two weeks's time.
Click to read rest of this entry.

Car Photos

Finally, here are the promised car photos. Ideally, I would have preferred to take some photos outdoors but the weather in Sydney hasn't been very good all week. So I decided to take these shots in the carpark (garage) instead.

Don't worry, it's not that dark down there. It's quite brightly lit but I've darkened it to make the car stand out a bit more. And the windows are not that dark either. I darkened them to reduce the reflections from the overhead lights in the first photo.


Here's an interior shot of the car showing the satellite navigation system and that touch screen can be used control the air-conditioning and the speakers.


Click to read rest of this entry.

This is Australia

A very cool video showcasing various sights and scenes in Australia. This video was produced to support Australia's bid to host the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup.


Click to read rest of this entry.

Chatswood Sunset

We have had some pretty nice sunsets this week in Chatswood. I wish I knew how to determine when a sunset will be colourful so that I'll have my camera ready but I took these two shots below using my point and shoot camera just as the sun was setting and casting a range of colours into the sky.


Click to read rest of this entry.

Bought a Car !

Today was a very exciting day for me. I bought my first car. :) Having lived in Sydney for the past 10 years with its excellent train system, I never needed a car. But with Yvonne upcoming move, we thought this is a good time to buy a car.

After researching online for the last few weeks, we decided that a Honda Accord Euro was the best fit in terms of balancing looks, practicality, performance and budget. A new Honda Accord Euro would have cost anywhere from $45,000 to $50,000 depending on equipment level. We then looked at near new second hand cars (up to 2 year old) and we found that there were a lot of previous generation Accords in the $30,000 to $37,000 price range. Most of these used cars had at least 40,000kms on the clock.

With the help of a friend, I found a late 2007 Honda Accord Euro Luxury with less than 10,000kms and it was fully equipped with all the technology we could possibly want in a car - satellite navigation, reversing camera, Bluetooth integration, iPod integration, 10 speaker system, you name it, the car had it. The car has loads of safety features as well, which is important. Basically, this was the top of the range Honda Accord. The asking price was $35,000. One down side to the car is that it's white which wasn't my preference but in terms of equipment level and mileage, it was very good.

So tonight I went to take a look at the car and I brought a good friend along who is much more knowledgeable about cars that I am. We both agreed that the car is in excellent condition with some minor dings and scratches. I test drove the car and it drove very nicely. The car has a large multi-information display screen which normally displays the map that the navigation system uses but you also use it to control everything else in the car - setting the speakers, the air-conditioning (there are two zones you can set, so driver and passenger can have different temperature settings). Let's say, it was very cool and I love technology !

I can also control my iPod through this screen. And when you set the gear into reverse, the screen switches to the reversing camera which is amazing ! Looking out the rear windscreen and comparing it to the camera's view, the camera makes a big difference.

Oh .. and the front seats are heated, great for those cold winter days. :) And it has a sunroof that's fully retractable and all leather interior. After the test drive, I knew that this was the car for us. It all came down to the negotiation. After some amount of negotiation, the final price was agreed to was $33,700. I am very excited to take possession of the car early next week. I will put up some photos of the car next week.

Yvonne - the car is waiting for you to drive it when you come to Sydney ! :P

Note by Yvonne: Honda Accord Euro is equivalent to an Acura TSX in the U.S.
Click to read rest of this entry.

Vivid Sydney

Sydney's winter season has just started with quite a cold snap but with it came a new winter arts and music festival called Vivid Sydney. This festival has quite a long list of events and performances but one of the most interesting of the last two weeks has been the Luminous event.

This event starts when the sun goes down each day and various landmarks and buildings in Sydney are bathed in various light displays. Luckily the weather has cleared up as the first two events of this event was disrupted by constant rain. With the nicer weather, I had the opportunity to go and take some photos of the lighting displays.



See more photos here.
Click to read rest of this entry.

Pinnacles National Monument

One weekend during my stay at San Jose recently, Yvonne and I and two of Yvonne's friends visited the Pinnacles National Monument. Pinnacles is about 1.5 hours drive, south of San Jose. We started the day with a breakfast at the nearby city of Campbell, at a restaurant called Stacks.

I forgot about how big American portions are and I decided to order the full stack of pancakes which was three pancakes instead of two for the half stack. When the pancakes arrived, I had the biggest shock of that day - each pancake was the size of a small pizza ! Though the pancakes were very yummy, it was impossible for to finish it.

From Campbell, we drove south towards the Garlic Capital, Gilroy, before turning east towards Pinnacles. We arrived at the park shortly before mid-day. We had to park our car at the visitor centre and we took a shuttle inside the park due to the limited car parking spaces inside the park.

Pinnacles is a huge national park and is the site of an ancient extinct volcano. For this trip, we decided to visit the west side of the park as it is closest to San Jose. In particular, we were keen to check out the caves. From the shuttle drop off point, we started on the Moses Spring / Rim Trail.


The trail we took was a relatively easy trail and before long (much earlier than I had expected), we arrived at the Bear Gulch Cave. This cave is quite a unique cave, and is called a "talus" cave. Such caves not formed through the erosion of rock but are effectively enclosed by fallen boulders.

GPS map of our hike :

It was quite a warm day that day but as soon as we entered the cave, the temperature dropped dramatically. We were all wearing summer clothing, not expecting it to be so cool inside the cave. But our excitement at seeing this amazing cave distracted us from any discomfort we felt from the cool temperature.

It's difficult to describe the caves, it's best to take a look at the video I posted earlier. The caves were very dark in places but in other parts, light fell through the gaps in the boulders and created a very surreal environment. We continued on the trail which took us up the mountain, inside the cave. We eventually emerged into sunlight again and we saw an amazing sight.

We arrived at the Bear Gulch Reservoir which is a large reservoir halfway up the mountain. The view here was great and we stopped her to rest and take lots of photos.

Bear Gulch Reservoir :

From the reservoir we continued to climb on the Rim Trail to the top of this section of the mountain. The rock formations on this mountain are so interesting and we stopped regularly for lots of photo opportunities. There was one particular large rock that I wanted to climb on to take photos and I had to coax Yvonne to climb up as she's a little afraid of heights. After the photo, she was the first to get off the rock !


We finished the hike a lot earlier than we have expected. We wrapped up by 2.30pm and took the opportunity to rest and have a late lunch. I thoroughly enjoyed this hike and would love to go back. One thing I forgot to mention, apparently this region is famous for tarantula spiders !! Luckily for me, we didn't see any on the day. I'm not a big fan of creepy crawlies.

See : Photos | Flickr Photos
Click to read rest of this entry.