The annual Persied's Meteor shower was all over the news and since I didn't have to work the next day I decided to try photographing the meteors! To be completely honest I have never been a fan of night photography because 1) I don't get to sleep, 2) A dark piece of sky is required (need to go somewhere far away?), 3) It requires a lot of post-processing...

It turns out there is a nice piece of real estate called Porteau Cove (only 45 minutes from Vancouver) that is popular amongst night photographers.  When I arrived there were SO many photographers... It was tough getting a spot!

The light pollution at the bottom right is from the town of Squamish (near the Stawamus Chief!), and the Sea-to-Sky highway traffic could be seen from the bottom right as well.

This page houses my favorite pictures through my camera lens.  Even though these pictures will most likely not win any awards, they are my favorite memories (usually because they are on my Bucket List).  Most of these pictures are displayed on my wall in my own home.

Oregon Coast - Thor's Well Bucket list item #30! I stumbled upon a picture of this place on Flickr while planning my Oregon Coast road trip, and I quickly realized that I must visit this place. This was taken along the Oregon Coast at a place near Cape Perpetua. "Thor's Well" is actually a geographic "blow hole" where it is under water most of the time when the tide is high, and it is only visible when the tide is low with waves coming on-shore. When the wave comes in through the underground channel it jets out "Thor's well" like a geyser... be careful because if you are pulled into this cave you'll be coming back out in pieces with the next wave! I actually visited this place the day before this picture was taken but the weather was so windy/rainy that it was a little bit too dangerous for my taste (actually since I was traveling with my girlfriend at the time (wife now) I didn't want her to worry. Even when I took this picture the conditions were a little dicey...

Adventures of two bananas in the Capital

Last time I visited Beijing I was 4 years old and I ran off in Tiananmen Square looking for bullet holes (which led to homemade personal locating devices attached to me for the reminder of the trip... aka little bells around my wrist).  Oh yeah, I also "spoke" Chinese back then.

From my recollection Beijing was a sterile and oppressive city (possibly because my parents and I visited not too long after the infamous Tiananmen Square incident).  My memories of Beijing consisted of endless bicycle traffic with occasional motorbikes (cars and buses were few and far between); ice-sledding/tobogganing on a frozen lake (courtesy of nice Beijing locals); climbing the Badaling great wall in tears but got a “Great Wall conqueror” certificate; and my first encounter with snow.

Fast forward 20ish years my Chinese language skills remained atrocious (shameful would be another word that would describe my Mandarin), and this time I took my wife with me to hike the Great Wall of China.  My wife, a third-generation Chinese-Canadian who is fluent in English and French, turned out to be less useful in communicating with the locals than I had hoped.  So during our 5-day trip to the Capital we were essentially two bananas traveling in Beijing where everybody expected us to converse in Chinese – which led to some memorable experiences.  (banana: yellow outside, white inside)