Chloe just celebrated her 3rd birthday in Oct, instead of showing some birthday pictures, these are some of daily life pictures that I took while bringing her down to the playground every morning during the weekends.

Every morning during the weekends i try to bring her down to the playground to run around abit, becuase the moment she wakes up she walks outside to the living room sofa and lies down and want to watch tv. So I let her lie down while I wipe her face, let her warm up for half hour before brushing her teeth and bringing her down to play then buy breakfast.

Quite interesting to bring her down and interact with the rest of the kids at the playground. She always calls them "her friends" even though she is meeting them for the first time.

Leica M2 (Copyright Camerapedia)

 

Taking a break

I've bought a Harinezumi, one of those small digital lomo cameras for Chloe, intending to let her just run around and snap and see what comes out from it. Last weekend was my cousin's marriage registration (Congrat's Shumin and Micheal!) and these are what's seen through her eyes.

Well if you wonder why this site wasn't updated for sometime, it's because i went to Australia for some R&R. There are a few firsts for this trip.



It's the first time I..
Bought a camera at a duty free because my Ricoh decided to die on me when i reach the Airport
Been to Australia
Ride on Singapore Airlines Ride on the A380
Using my new luggage because my old luggage was missing one key and i refuse to go on a trip with only one luggage key
Rent a car and drove around and many more ...

 The first stop was Sydney. The place we stayed was the Pensione Hotel on George Street, quite a small boutique hotel located quite close to Chinatown. My wife opted for the petite room and this is how small our room looked. To be fair, her friend's room was larger, our room is just "petite". And the window over there looked to a air well and on the other side was another room's window, so not much of a view.
 

Since Australian shops typically closed early we set off for Paddy's market near our hotel. Paddy's Market is looks something like the Army market in Beach room, lots of small stalls but in a bigger place, they sell every thing from nuts, vegetables, clothes, souvenirs, wigs to remote control helicopters.

A lot of the stalls are run by Asians, lots of Chinese mostly since this is Chinatown, i also saw some Korean stall owners too.

 

There are quite a few wigs and hair extensions shops here at Paddy's, seems like the trend.

Next we headed to another part of Chinatown which was more Chinese. There is a night market every friday night here, i see lots of different food being sold from bak kua (Chinese BBQ meat) which was quite expensive at $4 per piece, takoyaki, pan cakes, fishballs.

Emperor Cream Puff - Lots of people queueing for this, the best way to describe it would be like fried cream puffs.

Every corner of Chinatown have these Chinese gates with different inscriptions.

Hong Kong's "yu tan" or just spicy fish balls

Tako Yaki anyone?

There are also a lot of Chinese restaurants here, things like Wanton mee, hot pot can also be found. Just don't expect Singapore prices and portions. The portions are generally big and can cost something like $10 SGD for a bowl of Wanton mee (and that is during their late night promotion).

Kuo Min Tang HQ in Australia?

Some funny incidents when Chloe is undergoing toilet training.

1
Chloe: I am going to wash backside liaoz
Me: Huh ? (Check backside, at first see nothing, then some thing long came out)
Me: Next time must give daddy more notice ah

2
Chloe: (While coloring at the dinner table) Daddy I wan to pee.
Me: ok
Chloe pees all over even before i got time to go get one

3
Chloe and Me seating on the sofa. Suddenly i felt something hot on my legs.
Me: Aiya pee on the sofa liaoz
Me: Next time must give daddy notice ah

4
Chloe sleeping with diapers on with my mum-in-law
Chloe tugs my mum-in-law, "Want shee shee"
MIL: It's ok you are wearing diapers
Chloe can't get back to sleep, flips around and turn and tries to sleep on the front.
Chloe tugs MIL again, "Want shee shee"
MIL: ok ok (takes potty and opens diapers, sees that Chloe pooed), Whao poo poo ah
Chloe nods sits on potty and pees

Apparently she don't like to pee in a dirty diaper

Copyright dpreview.com

My trusty Ricoh GX200 for the last 3 years is dead. I dropped it and the next day and part of the CCD is damage i think, all the images taken with it has some black border on the top.And worse is that i found out about it only when i reached Changi Airport about to set off on my trip to Australia,unfortunately Ricoh did not have a GX300 out (it's been like 3 years) although they do have the GR IV that is due but that's a 28mm fixed focal length lens. So i got the next best thing an Olympus XZ-1 but that is a topic for a later post. But for now a tribute to my GX200 and why i think it's one of the best designed cameras not necessary the best quality but the best designed.

Notice the black semi circle spot at the top of the lcd?

The Ricoh GX200 is one of the better designed cameras out there as  evident by how they keep the same look and feel consistent throughout the G series of cameras from the GR to the GXR.

The only really bad thing i would put it as the ISO performance , it is really quite bad, at ISO 200 noise is becoming and issue and 400 its really quite bad.

But that is the only bad thing and it's a shame that Ricoh didn't make the sensor better as compare with the Panasonic LX3 which came out after the GX200.

The other camera should learn from Ricoh in terms of the camera functionality and design. But of course I am looking at the camera from an enthusiast point of view.

Grips
This has gotta be one of the nicest grips that I have found in a compact camera. I have big hands and this camera though a bit small has rubber in the correct areas helping you to grip the camera nicely.

Wide Angle ! All 24mm of it!
It allows lots of self take shots of me and my wife. It was the perfect self take camera, lots of cameras at that time only have like 28mm or 35mm at its widest end. This one has 24mm so no only can you see you and your other half, you can also see a lot of the background too!

Self taken during our honey moon with the Ricoh, great 24mm lens

Custom functions
This is what sets it apart from other cameras of its class, there are 2 function buttons, a rock wheel that can access up to 5 custom menus, and 3 custom function settings that you can save your favourite settings. What i like about the 3 custom function settings is that no only it saves your camera settings, it also saves ur zoom settings! So you can have it set to 35mm or 50mm and it will remember it.

Notice the top left of the lcd, you can programmed those to functions that you use often.

Up to 3 custom settings can be saved, the zoom setting is also saved.

Step Zoom
You can make it zoom in steps according to traiditional focal lengths like 24mm to 28mm to 35mm to 50mm and 72mm. So you will always know what focal length you are shooting at.

The step zoom indicator is on the left of the LCD.

Auto-cap
I believe this is one of the very first camera to have an auto-cap for the lens. Nice touch although it also cost quite abit, think it was about 20-30 SGD.

Auto-cap = Never forget your lens cap !

Snap focus
Basically this is like hyper focusing, the camera presets the focus from 2.5m to infinity, great for street shooting. Heard the GRD IV has different step focus settings from 1m on-wards. And you can assigned one of the 2 custom function buttons to do this so you can just turn it on or off with a push of a button. No need for complicated menus.

Sadly its time to move on other cameras and even if Ricoh comes out with a GX300 it probably won't be on my shopping list anytime soon. Goodbye dear friend..

Casey Jingshun's Daughter

Casey and Chloe

Chloe and Wifey staring incident

Sing Kai's son, Kenneth

Pomelo time!

Fishing together