Down South of Sydney

Last weekend, i went for a drive with couple of my friends down to Wollongong, taking the scenic Lawrence Hargrave Drive, starting from Stanwell Tops.

It was a great day for a drive and i haven't been on the new "sea cliff" bridge that was built in 2005. The new bridge was built because rocks dropping down the cliff, causing too many accidents and the roads were closed in 2003.

It is well known scenic drive in the world, and it is also featured in Ferrari and Shell Fuel advertisment currently shown around the world not yet shown in Australia. If you haven't been, i recommend you go for a drive.

Luna Park - Sunset til Night

Here are some photos taken this weekend. Colorful isn't it? ^^

Sunrise and beach shots

This is a shot taken at Dee Why beach around 8:30 am after the dawn sunrise shots. There were actually few number of people swimming at the swimming pool. And few boys also out to catch some waves. Think, when the weather gets a bit warmer, i might go for a swim early in the morning as well. Morning swim with the blue blue sky and the beach view next to you, and some nice brekky afterwards. Anyone wanna join me for a swim? ^_^

This was photo taken this Saturday morning around 4:50am to take some photos of sunrise. However, due to clouds, i was not successful in taking any good sunrise shots. As you can see from the picture, the clouds were pretty low close to the sea blocking the sun rise view. But, it was quite an experience to take photos at dawn.

Opera House

Opera House - Black and White vs Color

Which one do you prefer?

Manly Jazz Festival

30 Years of hot jazz and cool surf.
29 Septebmer to 01 October 2007.

This year was 30th Manly Jazz Festival and it is held every year in September/October during the long weekend.

There are 5 stages and you can enjoy from 7 different type of Jazz musics. It starts around 11:30am to 5pm and per stage, there are about 3 performances during the day. i.e. Overall, there are 15 performances you can choose from each day, so 45 performances for the all 3 days.

I found that you would enjoy more out from it if you choose what you want to hear and stick to the style of music you prefer instead of hopping around different stages to check out different performances.

Red wine, some cheese, cosy sun, nice breeze, blue sky, beautiful beach and some Jazz. Defintely, the way to spend your weekend!!

Manly to Shelly

Introducing, my end of the town.

The photos are taken from the Manly beach on the way to the Shelly beach.

It's a beautiful track to walk so if you haven't been to this track, i recommend you come on one sunny day and go for a slow lazy walk.

One of the best place to enjoy the sun and nice view of both beaches.

If you're more active, you could probably even hire a bike or roller blade and ride it too! ^^

Mrs Macquarie Point

This week i went to Mrs Macquarie Point to take Sydney Harbour again from a different view. I've started with Blues Point, Luna Park and now Mrs Macquarie Point. Think i've taken Sydney Harbour from all directions. ^^; And i left Mrs Macquarie Point until last because, it's probably the best spot of taking Opera House and Harbour Bridge together. Unless, you want to take the shot from a Helicoptor. ^^; Well, anyways, it was taken from around 4:30 to 7:00pm. Trying to capture the sunset and the night shot of the harbour. Enjoy!!

Luna Park

Gogi bro, Dokky bro and i, we all had DSLR on our hands on this Saturday when we met at our church's bazaar. So, we've decided to goto Luna park to take some photos.

Luna Park is great place to take photos. There is so many light and so many colors around, you can just point and shot anywhere and it won't look too bad.

Because there are so many lights around, it is also good place to test different functions of your camera, and see how your camera, lense react to absorb lights and how the lights are captured.

Personally, I like the 2nd last photo best. I call it "doughnut". he he.

Mt. Colo and Windsor

Thanks to APEC, me and my friends went to Mt. Colo for horse riding. It was good short trip. Although, its only like less than an hour away from Sydney, its still far enough to give you a feeling that you went out on a short holiday.

I've been horse riding few times before so while all my other friends went horse riding, i drove around Mt. Colo to take some photos.

The weather wasn't too great so it really wasn't the best day to take photos, but neither was it a great day for horse riding.

I have always passed Windsor to go skirmish or horse riding before, but never actually stopped by to see what Windsor was like. It was a pretty cosy little town with antique buildings. Quite nice place to take photos.

For a short day trip, it wouldn't be so bad to go for a drive to Windsor, go on the ferry on the Hawksberry River and having lunch at one of cafes at Windsor. Also, coffee and Gloria Jeans at wasn't too bad either. They served coffee in mugs and cups like Starbucks.

Anyways, here are some photos from the weekend.

Campos

Thanks to my friend YJ, she introduced me to Campos coffee shop. It's in Newtown and its mean to be a real famous coffee shop. Its also number 1 voted coffee shop in eatability website. (Eatability is a website which lists all restaurants and ranks them by peoples feedback.) They say that they make more than 100 coffees an hour and they are well known for its quality of all their coffees served. It seemed pretty quite from outside but once you go in its packed. Around 80% was take away customers so if you wait for few minutes, you will find some seats.

Campos don't sell Caramel latte so i had to have a normal latte and i usually have Caramel latte so i couldn't compare it with other Caramel lattes i have tried but the latte was very smooth and had a good clean ending taste. Usually, at Starbucks or Gloria jeans, i would taste more of milk than coffee but this place, you couldn't feel that mikly taste at all...just pure smooth taste of coffee.

I even wondered if this was how a coffee should've tasted like and all the coffees i've tasted before were all just a fake! ha ha

Overall, i would strongly recommend it to anyone who have not tasted Campos coffee.

Ratings:

4.5/5 for Coffee

3/5 for atmosphere

4/5 for service

Although there isn't too much service to be asked but i was impressed by how they remembered and served our coffees when there were other dozen of people waiting for the coffees and remembered the order.

Yesterday i tried a coffee shop where they used Campos coffee beans but it was no way near the taste from the one at Newtown, so try the one at Newtown.

Ruybos

This Saturday, i tried a place called Ruybos in Newtown. It is more towards Sydney University so, its easier to find parking compared to finding one more centre of King St in Newtown as you know parking in Newtown is terrible.

They don't serve Spanish foods but the dishes are in tapas style and it all tastes great!

I tried antipasto, galantine chicken and meatball. There's also cheese in the middle of meatball so its quite tasty. Personally, i liked the chicken best. The mushroom sauce was really nice with the chicken.

I went there at lunch so there wasn't many people in the restaurant and the view outside wasn't that great but then again, you can expect a great view from Newtown. But, as you can see interior is quite nice and its a fine dinning reastaurant. I got the feeling that night atmosphere would be pretty romantic.

I would visit this restaurant when i feel like having some nice wines with some nice dishes along with it. It's a fine restaurant but its reasonably priced compared to other fine dinings.

They recommend 2 dishes per person but 1 dish is enough for one, so don't listen to the waitress with huge appetite. I would recommend you dine here with at least 4 people so that you can try more dishes.

I would give:-

Ratings
4/5 Food
3.5~4 /5 Atmosphere

4/5 Service

Sydney City - night view

These are some of the photos taken last night from Milson's Point and Mc Mahon's Point.

I know many people have taken shots from here, but i had to take my version of it.

Its something you just gotta do and test it out as a photographer.

Yesterday wasn't the most suitable weather to take photo as it sprinkled now and then, which got me and my lense wet a little and i expected the photos to turn out dull. But, it seems because of the gloomy weather and the clouds, the water turned out more darker than usual which made the lights reflect quite nicely on it.

Quite interesting also to see, how the water looks more like an ice. Imagine an ice rink like that. That would be pretty cool eh? It looks as though you could walk on it.