Our Blog Has Moved

Yvonne and my blog has a new home ! This will be the last entry on this blog. All the entries on this old blog have been moved over to the new blog. After this please visit the blog at this new website address : http://blog.chris-yvonne.us

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See you over at the new blog ! We hope you will like the new design and website. :)
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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.
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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.
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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.
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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
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Garage Sale

I have accumulated quite a bit of stuff in the past 17 years in the US. I decided I needed to start getting rid of the 'lee lee kok kok' (translation: miscellaneous) stuff before my move. Originally, I thought I could bring many of my electronic items over but Chris informed me that Australia was on a 240v power (vs. 110v in the US/Taiwan).....!!!! Argh...which means, most of the electronics that do not accommodate the dual voltage had to go. I dug around my kitchen and found quite a bit of electronic items like: rice cooker, electrical hotpot, George Foreman grill, food dehydrator, juicer, etc.... Hehe, luckily, I can offload some of those to Cynthia so she could make use of it. Others would have be to sold. I also rummaged around my storage and found an assortment of things to sell as well - first gen Playstation plus dancing pads, roller blades, extra chair/stools, etc.

My friends had a block sale (their entire block of neighbors coordinated to have garage sales) this past weekend and they were nice to set up a big long table on their lawn just for my things. The garage sale was scheduled for 8am but I was told that people start coming in super early around 7:30ish to scout out the best things. I got there around 6:45am to setup and before I could properly price my items, people started dropping by and asking how much this and that was. Since this was my first garage sale, I didn't have a clue how to properly price my things but luckily my friends were there to help me out. The most expensive item I priced was $20 for the food dehydrator which no one wanted to buy. (FYI: food dehydrator is for drying out food to make things like dried fruit.) Other things ranged from 25 cents to $5. Garage sale hunters are typically there for the bargains and bargain they did! Despite all the bargain prices, I still netted $130! I was quite happy with the outcome since if I hadn't sold those things, I would have eventually had to donate it. Glad to see at least some people can feel like they got a bargain and benefit from the stuff that's been in hiding for 2+ years and I get some extra cash! :)




The stuff on the lawn are all my stuff to be sold.

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Bay Area Adventures Video

Bay Area Adventures, California from Christopher Chan

This is a compilation video of all our activities in the Bay Area over three weeks while I was there visiting Yvonne. It has a lot of yet unseen footage of Yvonne's antics (ok and mine as well). :)

If you want to watch this video in full HD quality, you should watch the video directly on the Vimeo website. This does require a fast Internet connection.

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Chatswood Rainbow

It's been raining in Sydney all this week but we finally had some sun today and this brilliant rainbow appeared. This photo was taken from my balcony looking into the heart of Chatswood.
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Pinnacles National Monument Video

Pinnacles National Monument, California from Christopher Chan.

A video of our hike through the Pinnacles National Monument with two of Yvonne's friends.

If you want to watch this video in full HD quality, you should watch the video directly on the Vimeo website. This does require a fast Internet connection.

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The Improv

Yvonne and I attended a comedy show at San Jose's The Improv theatre. It was the first comedy show that both of us have been to. The star of the show was Steve Byrne, an Irish-Korean comedian.


As we were one of the first to arrive at the theatre, we were ushered to a very good table near the front of the stage. We started off the evening with dinner which was mediocre but we weren't there for the dinner. An hour later, the show started with a couple of warm up acts which were pretty good. Steve Byrne came on for the last hour of the show and he was quite funny.

The trouble started near the end of his show. Steve decided to call for "volunteers" to join him on stage for an act. Being seated near the front of the stage, I was the first "volunteer" he picked on and summoned on the stage. Luckily for me, there were another five or six guys that he picked. Whew !!


But just as I thought my worst fears were over, I found out what he wanted us to do on stage. Dance. Steve's idea was that he wanted to start a boy band and wanted to train us up with some moves. So we have to follow along and needless to say we generally made fools of ourselves.

But he had more in store for us than dancing as a group. Once that was over, he decided that he wanted each of us to do a solo dance. I nearly fainted at this stage. I was the second last person in line to do this. But as luck would have it, the guy in front of me was a accomplished dancer and he had a pretty amazing set of moves which he confidently displayed on stage. How do I follow up with that performance ?

When it came to my turn to do the solo, I scampered forward, did my jig as quickly as I could and dashed back in line. Steve was apparently unsatisfied with my meagre performance and demanded that I re-do it. As if I wasn't embarassed enough as it was, I had to go out and do it again !!

This entire time, Yvonne was sitting in the front row enjoying my obvious embarassment on stage. Not only that, she even broke the rules of the theatre and filmed the entire segment.


I have to say it was a memorable evening but one important lesson learned is to never sit in the front row when it comes to comedy shows. Best to hide somewhere dark near the back.
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Bay Area Day Trip

On April 17, 2009, we visited the historical country estate built around 1915 called Filoli, which is renowned for its beautiful 16 acres of gardens. Filoli was also featured on tv shows like Dynasty and in some movies. The name Filoli was derived from the first two letters of the owner's credo:"“Fight for a just cause; Love your fellow man; Live a good life.”

It was a great time to visit Filoli as a wide assortment of flowers were in bloom at this time of the year. We saw colorful tulips and other flowers that I could not name. :P There was even a rose garden but roses were not scheduled to bloom until May. Chris took a lot of nice photos of flowers and portrait shots of me. :)



After Filoli, we headed up to San Francisco to Golden Gate Park where we took a leisurely walk in the park and around the lake within GG Park. We were originally planning to go to the Academy of Sciences which houses an aquarium and planetarium, but did not have time since we were scheduled to catch a baseball game that night.



On the far end of GG Park was Ocean Beach where Cynthia used to live. We ventured onto the beach to take some photos and it brought back nice memories of when I was staying with Cyn in San Francisco. :) As you can tell, we didn't want to get our pants wet or full of sand so we rolled up our pants like farmers and took a nice jump shot. As always, the wind was blustery so we quickly packed up and set off to catch the 1 hour Muni train ride into the city for the baseball game.


AT&T Park is one of the nicest ballparks I've been in. It was built in 2000 and is right next to the San Francisco Bay. It's the park where the SF Giants play and houses a big Coca Cola bottle slide and a big glove sculpture. My first ball game here was when Cynthia got free tickets from her boss who had 3rd or 4th row seats behind the Giants dugout. Chris and my seats this time weren't as close but we also had a great view, staring down first base. It was Chris' first baseball game and he quickly picked up the rules of the game and was clapping and cheering for the Giants in no time. We left around the 8th inning as we wanted to avoid the crowd. We finally got back to our car parked near Ocean Beach and drove back down to San Jose. It was a fun-filled day! :)

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Golden State Warriors vs. Houston Rockets

I am a fan of the NBA and one of the things I wanted to go and see during my recent trip to San Jose was an NBA match. Luckily the regular season was drawing to a close and we managed to get some good tickets to watch the Golden State Warriors play the Houston Rockets.



The game was played at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, near San Francisco and it was scheduled for the same night as when I arrived in San Jose - Friday, April 10th. Luckily, I arrived earlier in the day and had time to get some sleep at home before heading out to watch the game. Unfortunately, we did not know that, that same night, in another arena right next to the Oracle Arena, was a baseball game. The traffic going in that area was terrible and we were very late for the game. In the end, we decided to park somewhere and walk to the arena rather than be stuck in the jam. Even then, we missed the first quarter of the game entirely and got there in the second half of the second quarter.

Though the Warriors is the home team of the Bay Area, we weren't there to watch the Warriors as unfortunately they are quite a lowly ranked team in the league. We were there to watch the Houston Rockets and in particular, Yao Ming. But to our disappointment, Yao Ming didn't play at all, due to an injury. Even without its star centre, the Rockets had full control of the game and defeated the Warriors.

It was a great experience to be able to watch a live NBA game and we thoroughly enjoyed and it was great to see the Warriors fanbase out in force even though the Warriors weren't going to make it into the playoffs.
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Yosemite Video : Part 3

Yosemite National Park - Waterfalls & Mirror Lake from Christopher Chan.

Just when you thought you've seen the last of our Yosemite trip, here's the final part of our video series. This video features Yosemite Fall, Bridalveil Fall and Ribbon Fall.

If you want to watch this video in full HD quality, you should watch the video directly on the Vimeo website. This does require a fast Internet connection.

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Monterey Bay Aquarium Video

Monterey Bay Aquarium, California from Christopher Chan

Here is a video created by Chris of the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

If you want to watch this video in full HD quality, you should watch the video directly on the Vimeo website. This does require a fast Internet connection.

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Monterey Bay & 17-Mile Drive

It's time for a new blog post, on something other than Yosemite! :) Today's post will be on our visit to Monterey Bay & the scenic 17-mile drive in Carmel.

On April 11, the second day after Chris' arrival, we drove down to Monterey Bay, which is about 1.5 hour drive from San Jose. Our plan for the day was to visit the Monterey bay Aquarium and take photos of the sunset at The Lone Cypress along the 17-mile drive.


Photo Gallery | Chris' Monterey Photos

At the Monterey Bay Aquarium, we thoroughly enjoyed watching the sea otters, jellyfish, seahorses and penguins swimming around. I thought the most interesting thing we saw was the seahorses that looked like kelp/seaweed - they're called Sea Dragons. After our tour of the Aquarium, we treated ourselves to some yummy ice-cream at the Ghirardelli Chocolate Ice-Cream Shop where we both ordered a big scoop of ice-cream.



We then headed on over to the scenic 17-mile drive and slowly made our way along the beautiful Pacific coast-line. The 17-mile drive passes along the famous Pebble Beach golf course and large mansions. We stopped at several scenic spots to take photos and even climbed on some rocks to take photos of the waves crashing against the rocks. As you can see from the photo slideshow, the waves were not small.

GPS map of our 17 Mile drive :




We finally made it to our last stop - The Lone Cypress and set up the camera to take the beautiful shot of the famous tree at sunset. Although it was getting chillier as the sun set, we were glad we were able to witness and capture that beautiful moment together. :)


P.S. Happy Mother's Day!!! :)
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Yosemite Video : Part 2

Yosemite National Park - Yosemite Valley from Christopher Chan.

Part 2 of a series of videos shot during our recent trip to the Yosemite National Park using Yvonne's fancy digital camera that takes HD video. This part features various scenes around Yosemite Valley including El Capitan, Half Dome, Sentinel Rock and Cathedral Rocks.

If you want to watch this video in full HD quality, you should watch the video directly on the Vimeo website. This does require a fast Internet connection.

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Yosemite Weekend Part 3

On the third and last day of our weekend in Yosemite, we decided to have an early start in the Valley so that we can leave earlier and beat the exit traffic. Our kind hosts packed a nice breakfast for us to take on the road and we left our comfortable B&B inn behind and to head, once again, back in Yosemite Valley on a cold -7C morning.

We weren't planning on any strenuous hikes this morning, instead we drove around the Valley again and stopping at every possible lookout point. We've seen the valley on a cloudy day and a sunny day but yet again, the valley looked different today under different light as we were here a few hours earlier than yesterday.

One of the most amazing views, if not the best view of the entire trip, that we came across this morning was Valley View (see below). The panoramic view included the famous El Capitan (on the left) and Bridalveil Falls (on the right). Surprisingly, it wasn't at all crowded when we got there though a tour bus did show up about 15 minutes after we got there.



Very reluctantly, we left the Valley after visiting all the lookout spots and headed towards Mariposa Grove, near the entrance of the park. Mariposa Grove contains the largest grove of Giant Sequoia trees, including two of the largest sequoias in the world. We didn't spend too long there though the trees were very impressive. Strangely, many parts of the grove appear to be have been burnt out, not sure if this was a planned burning or a wildfire.


From Mariposa Grove, we said our final goodbyes to the wonderful Yosemite National Park and headed back to San Jose.
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