Buddha's Birthday Festival

I was at the Buddha's Birthday Festival around two weeks ago. Here are some fun and cute face photos.

For photos related to the event, go check out photos that I posted at NY YAD website.


Must be tasty.


Cute Angie.


Cute Joy. Hahaha~


Michee and Jasmine.


I felt intimidated by Nixon's stare.


This serie is very cute so I decided to put the 4 photos together. Love the expression on the kid. Amy isn't too bad either.

Get-together @ JC Home

We just finished moving not too long ago and Joy thought that it would be nice to invite some YAD people to our home to warm the house a bit. People started to arrive in the afternoon and we started to prepare for lunch but I started to take photos late as I was helping with the preparation as well.


Here's Michee celebrating...something, maybe Lin and Jannelle's arrival (but only Lin showed up).


Whatever it was, it sure was funny. :)


One of the 2 or 3 weird cheeses that Jean brought. My first cheese tasting. I remember 1 was tasty and 1 was not. :)


When it came dinner time, we had spring rolls, curry and some left over from lunch. People seemed to have a lot fun making their own spring rolls.


One thing that our kitchen lacked (and still lacks) are tables and chairs but I think this actually looks more like a gathering. :)


Since Joy is having a baby, people took this chance to bring some gifts for the baby. This 'device' in the photo is to be placed on the person's lap when feeding the baby but it also looks like an over-sized travel pillow, you know, the ones that people bring onto the planes.






How many people does it take to open up the battery compartment on a digital thermometer??? Too many. It took more than 4 people to finally open it. Bravo to Fanny for overcoming this arduous task. Haha~

Thanks again to everyone who came to the gathering, our home temperature reached the highest that we've seen since we moved back. You guys REALLY warmed up our home. LOL.

A Day at Central Park

Joy's cousin, Ann Wang, and her family came to visit NY for a couple of days a month ago and we accompanied them to the Central Park on a Saturday. Since there were kids involved, we just picked a spot and sat there for a couple of hours. :)


I just love the look of these two ladies.


Wang family's two boys (MuMu, the older one and BoBo, the younger one).  Kids can play with anything, including a willow tree's leaves.



Wang family's friend's daughter whispering something to MuMu.


Unfortunately, this photo can't really express what I experienced on that day.  The father was blasting music with his portable boom box walking in Central Park and the kid just held the stereo as he walks along with his dad.


In the foreground is BoBo's shoes and underwear and they are being dried in the photo.  He fell into the lake while playing with the sticks.  Fortunately, the spot he fell into was shallow so only parts of his waist and down got wet.  I saw him fell into the lake.  Originally, I thought he jumped into the lake to retrieve something but when BoBo heard me saying that, he said "No, it was an accident." :)


During mid-dinner, BoBo's eyes started to become smaller and smaller and eventually, this is what happened.  It was very interesting seeing a kid chewing while half-asleep.  :)

Yakitori Totto

Yakitori Totto is a Japanese restaurant located in mid-town Manhattan. I love some of the food from this restaurant. Unfortunately, it's price is a bit (just a little bit) on the expensive side and the place is usually packed with people that if you go there late, you'll usually have to wait for a while. The longest that we ever had to wait was close to 2.5 hours on a Friday night. As a result, this is a restaurant that we only bring people to if they are visiting NYC and we want to to let them taste some good food.

Joy's brother was visiting NY a couple of weeks ago and so we went there. Since we did not want to wait, we had Joy's brother getting there early to reserve seats.

I just love this salad. The greens are fresh. The little fishes on top are crispy and the dressing is fantastic.

Don't remember what this is but I remember it was tasty. It came on a skewer with 4 or 5 pieces, not just 1 on the plate. :)

Joy loves fried calamari. She orders them wherever she is.

This photo is blurry but I like the way it looks anyway. Grilled bacon with asparagus. Bacons are always tasty. :)

I LOVE this one as well. The sauce on top of the grilled tofu is yuzu flavored miso.

First time that we ordered this. Thought it was an egg omelette but it was tofu too. Although its texture is different from what we normally have. It was cooked with sake so I felt buzzed after we left the restaurant. Haha~

Joy's brother loves pig related stuff. He brought that pig all the way from Taiwan and this pig appears in many photos that he takes. :)

Some other restaurant we passed by on the way home. Nice reflections I think. :)

4/17/2009 - Jannelle + Lin Weddings

Lin, a tall guy whom I met in our youth group a couple years ago, asked me to photograph his wedding ceremonies on 4/17/2009 and of course I said "Yes".

What's interesting about this couple is that they had two vastly different ceremonies on that day.  One held in a Buddhist temple and one held in a church nearby where Jannelle grew up.  Different religions among families can sometimes be a problem so it's nice to see what this couple did.



The first ceremony at the temple was held in the morning.  Here are some photos that I like.

Lin's sister helping him with his traditional "tuxedo".  :)  I love the face expression of Lin's cousin? on the left side.

 

According to the shop lady, Jannelle and Lin are the first borrowing these traditional clothes so these closes are completely new.  Kudos to this couple for going with this radical route. =D

 

 

With their traditional clothes, I wanted to create an old fashioned looking photo as well.  I think Jannelle definitely has the look here but I'm not sure if I have acheived 100% of what I really wanted.

  

The traditional Chinese wedding bow.  I like how you can see the people tilting their body to the middle more and more to see or photograph this couple.

While Jannelle's parents and Lin's mom and uncle are signing official documents at the front, the couple was entertaining the crowd in the back.  I love how I can see the couple looking at each other here and the crowd looking at them...smiling.

While giving the speech, Lin's mom became very emotional and so did Lin and Jannelle.  You can't see it in this photo of course.  :)

The song they were singing is in Chinese.  Since Jannelle does not speak Chinese, she constantly looked up at Lin for support and I believe Lin was trying to teach her to sing.  Very sweet.

When I said "Be goofy", this is the result.  You need to enlarge the photo to see how cooperative Jannelle was.  Lin, you disappoint me.  :)

 

This photos is way funny.  The boy in the back is copying what the girl is doing.  =D

These are very "Lin", either expressionless or the big smile.

 

Joy said why put up this photo, no one knows what she's doing anyway.  I think people can tell (if they look carefully) but in case they can't, I'll explain here.  Joy is giving a congratulate card to Lin.  There's a pocket in his sleeves.

 

This one is quite funny as well.  The person trying to run away went up to the couple wanting to congratulate them but then instinctively said, "Happy New Year".  But can't blame her, the couple does look very Chinese New Year.  :)

Later in the afternoon, another ceremony took place.  Unlike the first, the second ceremony was very intimate.  Consisted of both side's family members only.

Having only attended a church wedding once (and that was a long long time ago) and never photographed any previously, I found myself running around the place quite a bit and missed certain shots.  Sorry, guys.

A portrait taken before Lin arrived at the church.

The bride's side preparing to enter.  As soon as the organ started playing, they enter.  I thought that the groom was supposed to have a walk-in as well but there wasn't one.

Not only does the lady plays the organ, she sings too and quite well may I say.  Can you tell I'm a total newbie at church weddings.  :)

 

 

 

After the ceremony.  Taken in the church with the light coming from the Window.  Very cool I think.  :)

And there was still plenty of sunshine outside so we went out and took some photos.  I like the following photos.

 

  

  

 

Lin and Jannelle, thanks for inviting me to be part of your weddings and being brave enough to have me photograph them too.  Hope you are happy with at least some of the photos I've taken.  =D