My adventure with Jessica and Sophia to see mangroves at 紅樹林 (Hong Shu Lin) plus yummy food and the sunset at 淡水 (Dan Shui). Yup, my photos are getting weirder and weirder.. Haha.

I’m not even sure where I was when I took these photos. Eep! Must ask Leng next time I see him online.. But nevertheless, I quite like these places!

A small collection of random (not so great) photos from our trip to 貓空 (Mao Kong). All but one of them are from inside a gondola lift.

Every morning, a bright light rose into the sky – it was the sun. It crossed the skies from East to West and beneath it, everything was warm and joyful.

It was joined during the day by the prince of the sun who watched over the day. At the end of the day, they would both sink into the sea and rest until the next day.

Then, as the moon would rise into the skies every evening, another would catch a glimpse of the prince. The princess of the moon was very different to the prince of the sun – she was calm and mysterious.

Although the princess was accompanied by the moon and the stars every night, the more she saw the sun price, the more she wanted to meet him. She became sad and lonely, so the moon decided to arrange a meeting between them.

One day, while the sun was still high in the sky, the moon rose, and along with her, came the princess. The princess was then able to meet the prince, and they sat by a lake for hours, talking and sharing stories.

Then, when it was time to leave, the two realised that they did not want to part. They spoke with the sun and the moon, asking them for advice on what to do, and they finally reached an agreement.

The prince asked the princess to stay with him forever, to marry him, and she agreed. Every day from that moment on, the moon would be present in the sky for most of the day so that the prince and the princess could be together.

Then once a month, the moon would disappear from the skies completely and would spend that night visiting the princess who now lives in a grand castle with the prince.

On the last day of May, 2010 I went for a walk to the riverside with my good friend, Jess after returning from the area near 台電大樓站 Taipower Building Station, and this is the result – 20 photos in extra obvious Sha style. Haha.

As a rule of thumb, I don’t allow myself to crop more than 1 out of every 10 photos and if I do any editing to a photo, I limit it to 10 minutes, after which, if I still don’t have the desired effect, then too bad, I save it and post it anyway. Haha. I don’t even need such conditions but still, I made them and I stick to them. No idea why.

I’ve been really enjoying my stay here, and now my time is coming to and end.. At least, for now. I’ll be returning in early September for semester two (or semester one, as it is here), but I think it will be nice to have a break in Sydney in between the two semesters anyway.

So, on to the photos now, I think. What’s with me and doing the above? Haha. The sun is a bright ball of light and well, I wanted it that way, so shush. Hmm.. Do we really need a commentary going through all these photos? Actually, yes, we do, and whether you like it or not, you’re getting it. *evil cackle*

*ahem* Anyway, the view of the river is quite nice. I think we started wandering around there at maybe 5:30 to 6pm and, as you can see, the sky is still quite bright, although with these photos we’re starting to get closer to sunset.

But not quite! Haha. As we went further along the riverside, away from the sun, the sky still looked like it was daytime. Looking at this one now, I quite like the colours. Although, my colour vision is a bit off when it comes to reds so I’m not sure if we’re seeing the same thing. Oh, what to do..

Moving on, I remember Jess looking at this scene and saying it’s surprising that this area is so close to the city. If you turn around, there are people, shops, stations, etc., everywhere, but looking at the river like this, I suppose it is a bit hard to believe. At least, where in Sydney can you be so close to the city centre and still have such wide open spaces? … Wait, don’t answer that, I know such things exist. I’m exaggerating, okay?

Oh, and this is Jess without her glasses on. =D *looks at her shoulder* She’s also carrying my bag for me. *feels a stab of guilt for letting her carry it* Anyway, she’ll be leaving not long after me but unlike me, she won’t be returning. Wahhh.. I’ll miss her.

Hmm.. I distinctly remember myself saying that this water had pee in it, followed by Jess asking how I knew. I should stop making crap up or people will stop believing me when I’m actually not making crap up.

But yeah, the roads and overpasses, etc. are always interesting here, and sometimes coloured quite nicely. Unlike the bridge from a previous post however, none of these light up with lights that change colours.

I remember this bridge from when I was up on the roof taking photos and making a mental note of visiting it later. Well, I finally got to visit and ended up taking two photos, one at the start of the sun setting and another one when it was disappearing from sight almost. I like the colours, red and blue, interesting.

The sky still looked so pretty, it was such a fine day, I couldn’t stop taking random photos because I loved the sky. Although, for once, I don’t think I deleted more than three photos from the entire outing. Haha. Wait, that means I didn’t even take more than 23 photos. *hits self on the head*

But nevertheless, *cheers*~ The sun is finally setting. The change in the colour of the sky is becoming more apparent and it’s oh so pretty. Well, to me at least.

People continued to wander about, and did I mention that Jess had lots of fun sliding down a rather large slide alongside some children. Haha. I wonder why kids like slides so much, I don’t remember if I liked them or not, but maybe I did and just grew out of it or something. Aww, I’m so fail at being a child.

Enough sulking about not being child-like enough, the lights have come on! Well, been on for a short while already, and Sha is busy stalking cyclists. How creepy. I wonder if I’ll ever stumble upon a photo of myself wandering around somewhere, or maybe you’ll find a photo of yourself here one day, minding your own business, captured in my frame. Muahahaha!

Oh, it’s the bridge again! This time the sun got really behind it but I had fun playing with it nevertheless. I like how the sky changes colour in a gradient from wherever the sun is, so I suppose that’s why I keep allowing the sun itself to be in my photos. Or I’m just a typical human and love sunsets, meh.

Like this sunset! Yay! Now buildings, please get out of the way. The grass was really nice, really nice. Did I mention I love green grass? Yellow grass is cool too. Actually, yeah. I love grass when it’s thick and plentiful. Oh, how strange all that sounds.

Although, on a slightly more random note, I’m still very much a moon/night person and would try to avoid venturing out into the sunlight around midday. I love the early mornings and the afternoons, but when the sun is at its highest, Sha is at her weakest. Am I a vampire or something..? Hehe.

Basically, if you’re going to be staying in the vicinity, this area is a really nice one to visit. It had been recommended to me by various people, some who weren’t even staying near the dorms that are nearby, so it can’t just be me, right? Haha.

01. 미 인 아 (BONAMANA)
02. 나쁜 여자 (Boom Boom)
03. 응결 (Coagulation)
04. 나란 사람 (Your Eyes)
05. My Only Girl
06. 사랑이 이렇게 (My All Is In You)
07. Shake It Up!
08. 잠들고 싶어 (In My Dream)
09. 봄날 (One Fine Spring Day)
10. 좋은 사람 (Good Person)
11. Here We Go

Jay Chou recently released his tenth album, 跨時代 and is preparing for his concert in June. The album is, in my opinion, quite good. Although the DVD that comes with the metal box edition only has two MVs, meaning if you want the rest, they’ll probably come bundled with and edition of the convert DVD.

產品名稱: 跨時代
歌手名稱: 周杰倫
推出日期: 2010-05-24
語言: 國語
製作來源地: 台灣
光碟格式: 鐳射唱片

01. 跨時代 *recommended*
02. 說了再見
03. 煙花易冷
04. 免費教學錄影帶
05. 好久不見
06. 雨下一整晚
07. 嘻哈空姐
08. 我落淚。情緒零碎
09. 愛的飛行日記
10. 自導自演
11. 超人不會飛 *recommended*

Sadly my “reviews” are getting too short. Hopefully when I get the details, I’ll return to all of them and add some more details. Haha. Sigh~

Why are they here? And why now? Hmm.. I still don’t actually like them that much, but some of them seemed interesting. Maybe because of the shape of the roads and paths below? Seeing things from a different angle than usual is always interesting, isn’t it?

But then, that in itself is interesting. Why? Because I am really afraid of such heights. Really afraid. I couldn’t stand near the edge for long before I had to run back. Looking through a lens onto the streets below didn’t help that fear much either.

I guess I didn’t do too badly for a “sneak up to the side, quickly take a photo and run back” style. Haha. How amusing I must have looked doing such things.

Nevertheless, I saw some things I didn’t notice before.. And the red bridge is by an area I still need to visit. It’s close by the dorm and apparently is a really nice area. Must remember to wander down there next time I’m wondering where to go for a walk.

There’s the dorm area itself, which I had some trouble with. Looking straight down really scared the crap out of me. No wonder I don’t have many photos.. I never stood by the side long enough to figure out how I was going to do each one.

Although I feel like I should head back up to the roof again, once at night and once in the morning, and have another go. I’m seeing some things here that I wished I had focused on and/or did differently earlier. But hey, at least I know now, right?

And finally.. Click the above photo for a 3,000 pixel wide version of my attempt at getting the south section of the city in one photo. Haha. Did I mention that I did not use a tripod? Hmm..