Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

For the first time ever, we went to One Rochester for lunch today. The food was only average, but the banana pancakes were good though. Oh, and the grilled asparagus I had with my eggs benedict, were absolutely delicious.

It was raining in the morning when we headed out and Clare was most delighted to take the brolly out with her. But since her own brolly was at my in-laws’, she was dragging this full-sized one around, which is taller than she is.

I was content to let her walk with it but then she got lazy and insisted that I carry her, AND help her hold the umbrella at the same time. No help, she is. With tall demands too!

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

I think there’s a black hole in my house. Or Clare’s just very good at hiding things now. In the past week, I’ve lost my set of the car key and one drum stick. And my house is just 100 sq m. This is so frustrating.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

I first got the BlackBerry because I had this illogical need to be online all the time, via emails and instant messaging. I used this brilliant chat program called Beejive and was willing to pay for the nominal license fee too. (Back then, there wasn’t an MSN chat program available for the BlackBerry.)

The husband also got a BlackBerry and we chatted using that mainly, instead of sending SMSes, which was a cheaper option in the long run.

When I switched to the iPhone, it was a learning process to not be contactable all the time since Beejive did not have a native version for the iPhone yet. Every other native chat program for the iPhone had a really crappy interface, was sluggish and sometime couldn’t connect properly. So I gave up.

Just last night, I questioned my need for an unlimited data plan, since most of the time I’m in a place with a wi-fi network and I just check my emails on the occasion. I hardly surf, unless it’s something I have to wiki straightaway (like what are the rules of F1, did Gracia die from getting shot in the last episode of Criminal Minds, or why is Eric Foreman from ‘That 70’s Show’ in Africa).

Was chatting with Kaizad today and I found out that Beejive has released a native application for the iPhone. Awesomeness! It’s also cheaper and is much less of a hassle to install the application on the iPhone.

The interface is very fast and sleek, and if the application logs out (since the iPhone doesn’t allow for native applications to run in the background), it will store your messages on the server and sends an email to you. I know others might have a problem with your messages being stored on an external server, but well, it’s not as if we’re transferring super sensitive information on Beejive.

In other iPhone news, Facebook has just released a 2.0 version of their iPhone app. You can now comment on status updates and tag photos, among other things.

So go to your iTunes store today and check out these lovely goodies!

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Her icky yucky second batch of medicine.

Clare’s fever spiked last night and she popped up at 3am suddenly asking for water. Shortly after, she puked twice. We had to change the sheets, clean her up twice, fed her more medicine, applied an ice-pack and hugged her to sleep.

I brought her to her pediatrician today and he says that she’s got a lung infection from her flu and cough. She was given more medicine again, which she utterly hates, but at least they seem to work better than the ones given by the GP we saw over the weekend.

She’s due for a follow up check-up on Monday and I seriously hope that she feels better soon. I was initially beating myself up for not breast-feeding her longer than the 11 months I did, and questioned how good my breast milk was when I was feeding her. She’s falling ill so often and it’s not as if she’s living in squalor or is undernourished.

But, a chat with my friend Junior last night put things into perspective (work related call that inevitably ended with talking about our kids, as it is with most parents). At least she’s running about, jumping around and is active. I ought to be worried if she’s listless. And the doctor did say that she is a young child and there are a kajillion strains of germs around. So well.

I’m forbidding visitors because I want this germ cycle to end.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

I spent the day home with Clare today. She is still running a fairly high fever, and threw up a couple of times in the morning. I wanted to stop the germ cycle once and for all, and was hoping that everything would clear up by today before she goes to my in-laws’ tomorrow again.

Looking after a sick toddler who doesn’t act so sick is awfully tiring! I had to clean up her puke and feed her her medicine (there are five types). Did some work. Made a mad dash in the morning to the supermarket to get food since staying at home today was a last minute decision. Made a mad dash home to prepare lunch. Then I had to feed her, clean her, pick up her mess in the house (because she had to play with every single toy in her collection). Then I napped her. Tried to squeeze in some time to do some more work. Prepared her dinner. Feed her. Prepared our dinner. Pack up the house again.

I am so wiped out. After dinner, I crashed on the couch while Terence helped out with the washing and the drying of the dishes. He even took Clare for a walk with the dogs so that I could crash out in peace.

All you stay at home mums who work freelance, I salute you. I can’t imagine how you do this every day. I am so thoroughly exhausted.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

For the future reality show contestant, here’s a really good article to read to prep you for your television debut. For others who wonder what goes into making a reality show, I hope this answer some of your questions. :)

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

I’m glad my first experience with an F1 race was this exciting (and even more glad that no one was seriously hurt)! Hop on over here for a detailed race report. I’m also proud to report: I didn’t fall asleep!

Much congratulations to Fernando Alonso (whose accent is so cute with the rolling ‘r’s) and team Renault.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

I know I have been a real grouch over the traffic situation resulting from this weekend’s F1 race. The expressways are clogged and I spend at least twice the amount of time I normally do on roads.

I am also not an F1 fan, never watched a race in my life till now. In this month’s issue of Her World, I finally understood some rules of the sport through a very comprehensive write-up they published. I even managed to impress the husband with my new found knowledge!

I tried watching the practice and qualifying sessions on TV but they put me to sleep soon after. It must be the endless circling of the track — it calms me down (and bores me!) like how a toy mobile calms a baby.

That being said though, I am truly proud of Singapore for hosting the world’s first ever night race. Looking at the footage and seeing some of our famous landmarks — the war memorial, the Fullerton Hotel and the new Singapore Flyer — makes me beam with pride to see those sleek cars zoom by them. Some of the shots I saw last night were really beautiful with our city skyline serving as a gorgeous backdrop.

I don’t know the history or the kind of work involved to hosting a race, but it sure looks like it’s no mean feat! The lights, the organisation, the planning… all I want to say is, well done Singapore! I wish I was there in the thick of the action, photographing it.

That being said though, I’m glad that it’s just for the weekend. The traffic congestion is really driving me up the wall!

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Clare’s been falling ill every weekend for the past month. It’s like clockwork — come Friday and she’ll be down with a fever that will last till Sunday night. And the germs have been body-hopping among all of us.

Right now, she’s got a really high fever; my throat, neck and head hurts; and Terence is on a course of antibiotics for the flu. All my exciting plans for a fun-filled weekend always get shelved and we usually spend it all in bed trying to recover.

At least I have an excuse to watch TV non-stop!

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

We bought Clare a bicycle! It’s a Specialized bike, just like her daddy’s! We actually bought it a couple of months back, but we haven’t been very regular with taking Clare down to cycle. However, she learns fast! She can now pedal, which had me screaming away from excitement last Sunday afternoon.

See that determined look on her face!

I shot these series of photos with my first SLR, Canon 10D. That precious baby saw me through a significant part of my photography ‘career’, especially my stint at the paper. It’s technology is so old now. I can only shoot one RAW photo every 20 seconds! But, I must say, it still produces fairly good results!

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Can I just say how touched I am by you guys who wrote in asking for my prints? They were snapped up within an hour of posting! I know that they’re free and who wouldn’t want free stuff right? But I’m still touched though, with the outpouring of lovely comments. (I nearly cried last night when I received my first email within 10 minutes of posting, by a very excited Sam.)

It’s also so nice to hear from blog readers who have not commented before, so do leave a note when you do come by! I wish I had more free prints to give away, but well, I hope this second promotion is still a sweet deal somewhat.

So, because I feel so loved by you guys, I want to share the love back. Dylan from Brilliant Prints, offered me a generous discount on my next five personal prints with him, in return for running this promotion on my blog. Instead of keeping it to myself, I’m going to pass on the discount to you guys!

Surf here to look at the photographs that are available for printing. Only five copies will be made of each picture, and they will be individually marked to indicate their number in the print run. Which means that the popular ‘Shadows‘ picture has only three copies left up for grabs!

The price list is here, so take 40% off it.

Email me at joan[AT]valska[DOT]com to indicate which print you want and I’ll get it sorted for you.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Taken by Dylan Vo. The size of the print I’m holding is 91cm by 61cm.

Do you remember how elated I was when I got my picture printed on canvas?

Well, since I am such a happy Brilliant Prints customer, the nice people from the company decided to offer all my blog readers a discount —

Yes! You read that right, 20% off all your orders. When you place your orders with them, just let Dylan know that you got there through my website and voila! You’ll get your discount. The pricelist can be viewed here.

At the same time, I’ll be giving away FIVE 11″ by 14″ prints FREE to anyone who wants to have my picture hanging on your wall, and have a sneak preview of the work by Brilliant Prints. Obviously, the prints are sponsored by them. :) (Thank you, thank you, Dylan!)

The prints that are up for the giveaway are the following:

[1] Buses (Reserved by Sharon)

[2] Breakfast (Reserved by Denise)

[3] Cluny la Sorbonne (Reserved by Marc)

[4] Cameras (Reserved by Yvonne)

[5] Shadows (Reserved by Sam)

Send me an email at joan[AT]valska[DOT]com and let me know which print you want. Collection method via meet-ups. First come, first served.

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So what are you guys waiting for? Get in touch with Brilliant Prints today!

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Last month, we took a weekend trip up north with my cousins, and spent two days eating non-stop in Malacca, Malaysia. Armed with walkie-talkies, we drove up in two cars, early in the morning and in heavy rain. Despite the dreary start, we actually had a really nice time and were blessed with great weather the next day.

Here are five things you can do in Malacca.

1. Eat, eat, eat
This is the most important thing to do of all. It did not matter that there were only three meals in a day. We had a checklist to go through, and I think we pretty much achieved what we set out to do.

On the way up, we stopped by this town called Yong Peng, which is about an hour from Singapore. Apparently, they’ve got a fairly famous fishball noodles stall. While the fishballs were rather nice, I wasn’t so hot about the noodles. The otak was very good though.

When we got into Malacca an hour later, we checked into our hotel Hotel Equatorial and immediately headed out for more food. We had laksa and chendol, and while I’m not a big fan of the two dishes, these ones really blew me away. Especially the chendol.

After that, we bought the obligatory pineapple tarts and white coffee powder for our family back home, and then headed for some satay. Not the best I had though, but Clare seemed to enjoy it plenty!

That’s Clare at the shop we bought pineapple tarts from. Look at that giant mosquito bite on her eye. She had so much of it on her arms and legs. I think there was a mosquito in the car when we were driving up.

For dinner, we queued up for an hour at least, in a light rain, for satay celup (which is basically food on sticks, cooked in a pot of satay sauce, like steamboat). OK, the boys queued up while the girls sat in the coffee shop opposite. The food was really good and somehow the strange combination of liver and satay sauce really went down well with me.

The next day we had chicken rice balls for breakfast. The chicken was a little tough, but the rice balls were delicious! They were so soft and basically melted in our mouth. They were also bursting with flavour. I sometimes feel like making the two hour drive up just to satisfy my occasional craving for it.

Then, we had wonton mee for brunch. Again, I was extremely satisfied.

We went for another round of chendol at another dessert place, but it wasn’t as good. After that, I was too stuffed to think of more food and we headed back to Singapore.

2. Climb St Paul’s Hill
Here’s a write up about St Paul’s Hill. We were contemplating whether we were game to climb up the hill and spent a fair bit of time milling about at the foot, where the fortress is. But we eventually climbed it and it was quite nice, to say the least.

Taken on day 2, when the sun came out to play.

3. Buy random knick-knacks

I bought one of these clogs for my fridge. I’m starting a travel collection of fridge magnets.

4. Take a ride on a colourful trishaw.
I got so beat from carrying Clare and/or the camera, so I decided to take the trishaw back and forth between Jonker Street and my hotel. It was about RM8, and definitely a much welcome reprieve after spending an afternoon walking and carrying heavy stuff.

5. Experience the red
The last time I was in Malacca, I remember it being a very red place. So many of the buildings there are red and I really found it quite nice for taking photos. These two are my favourite pictures of the trip.

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I’m so glad I made this trip with my cousins. The last time we travelled together was 14 years ago. I think we bonded a little bit more over the weekend, which is so much more than we normally do when we see each other for dinner on Sundays.

The full set of the photos can be seen here.

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Other related weekend trip posts here:

Kuala Lumpur, In A Weekend
Hong Kong, In A Weekend

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Recently, someone whose name I didn’t immediately recognise, added me on Facebook. Together with that add, he sent a mass message via Facebook, about some dive event coming up (and I don’t even dive).

So I sent him a message and asked if I knew him (and somehow forgot). His reply was:

“haha i think u know my wife…. but in order to be able to send u a msg from the project aware weekend events page i had to add u as a friend first. u can delete me now 8)”

To which I said, “You do realise that this counts as unsolicited spam, right?”

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

I haven’t been checking out cameras in a while because I’ve been oh-so-satisfied with my Canon 5D. But OMG, the new Canon 5D MkII sounds like a dream come true — silent shooting in Live View, EOS Integrated Cleaning System, HD and SD video recording (who needs a point-and-shoot now?), ISO 25 600 and and small RAW formats. You can read up about it here.

I can’t wait to check out the image quality of the photos and see how much more improved it is to the ones from the 5D. I hope they fix the mirror dropping problem though.

Last year, while shooting on set, the image through my viewfinder slowly turned black. I heard a clunking noise in my camera and when I removed the lens to investigate, the mirror fell onto the ground!

Needless to say, I FREAKED out big time. It’s a good thing I still have my 10D (although it really is a huge step down from the 5D). Canon fixed the mirror with nary a word, free of charge (and I thought they were just being nice).

When I met a bunch of photographers this year, shooting Spiderman, one of them jokingly asked me if my mirror had already fallen out. I said, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” And he replied, “So that means your camera is OK then. You should be worried if it hasn’t fallen out yet.”

I hope I can get my hands on the 5D MkII when it comes out, even if just for a day to review it or something.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Look at what’s hanging on my living room wall?!?!?

I printed this picture through Brilliant Prints, an Australian outfit that just set up shop in Singapore. I was considering including canvas prints in my photography package and decided to print one photo to see how it turned out.

I met with Dylan Vo, who manages the branch here in Singapore, and he told me that these prints can last for 75 years (my grandkids can inherit this!) and they are dust-proof and scratch-proof. Impressive, I say.

I was even more impressed when I saw the print on the wall of his gallery. I’m so glad we chose to go with a really big one because it brought out so much detail of the photo.

I was so overcome with emotions when I saw my photo and nearly teared when he was relating to me what some of the other photographers commented about it — that it is a good picture because not only does it capture your attention the first time, you just keep on going back to look at it (kind of like how I can’t seem to get enough of it either). How awesome is that, right?

I’m thinking of printing more photos to put into frames and possibly on canvas again. You guys have any favourites you think should be up? My photos can be seen on my Flickr page.

Sigh, how I wish I had my own studio space where I can have my own little gallery. Now I feel like I’ve got to renovate my entire house to match the print. :P

NB: To past clients, if you’re interested in getting canvas prints done for the stuff I shot for you, do send me an email or call and I’ll get it arranged for you.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Guess who got me to take her family photos?

Amanda invited me to take her family photos as a gift to her parents for their 30th wedding anniversary. Can you imagine that -- 30 years! That’s longer than I’ve been alive! They’ve such a gorgeous family home and Amanda has such a nice and warm family. Baby Elliot is so lucky to be part of all this!

Amanda’s parents had this pair of monkeys from the day they got married. So it holds special significance to them. This is my favourite photo of the day.

I had an awesome time at their house and it was really nice to meet Amanda in person. Thanks Amanda, for a lovely time.

More photos at www.joanleong.com.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Finally, the photos are done. Interestingly enough, I thought that I didn’t do much in London, but looking back, I did do a fair bit. I did have a lovely time on the whole. Catching the changing of the guards was quite an experience — it was so crowded and it just consisted of a bunch of men in uniform marching and playing modern day music brass band style. It was rather interesting, I must say. It would, indeed, be nice to go back again.

The full set is here, but these are some of my favourites.

Walking near the Bourough Market, under some bridge. Possibly London Bridge?

The Millenium Bridge from the window at the Tate Modern. It had just finished raining, and people were moving out of the shelters.

The first time I ever asked stranger to take a photo of me. I only dared to do so because I knew that the person would not be able to run away with my camera in the London Eye capsule! I’m a little afraid of heights, as you can tell by the expression on my face.

The one thing nice about travelling with a photographer friend, is having him take snaps of you. Unfortunately, I was not a natural subject.

Look at my giant feet, thanks to the distortion of the wide angle lens.

Typical English scene.

Skateboarders and artists, co-exist.

Catching the changing of the guard. I wished that policewoman wasn’t in the way so that I could get a full shot of the palace. I didn’t dare venture out of the area we were told to stand at, lest I get hauled to jail for questioning. :P

Always a smile for the tourist.

A picture of Norman Cook, aka Fat Boy Slim, at the O2 Wireless Music Festival. I tried to get up front to the stage but that place was jammed pack. To my left, there was some guy puking his guts out. Super darn gross.

I can’t remember their names, except the guy on the right, Sid, who was making funny faces at me. Doesn’t the guy in the middle look like Paul McCartney in his younger days? I didn’t realise it till Terence pointed it out.

Anyhow, these blokes were really funny. Just because I attended this gig with my friend Kenneth, also Singaporean Chinese, they naturally thought we were together because we both were chinese! They kept on making fun of us!

The bloke on the left was super tall. During Fat Boy Slim’s song, that had "jump! jump! jump!" he suddenly grabbed me by the back of my jacket and pulled me up with him, jumping around.

My companion for the night. It only turned dark just as the concert was over. That was 10.30pm, if I remember correctly. I love summer in London.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

I ate my first real meal in three days today, after seeing the doctor and stuffing myself full of meds. I think I got a little over enthusiastic with the eating though, because I’m back in the toilet expelling it. I also feel terribly nauseous.

The bright side out of all this is that I’ve already lost 2kg. :|

I am feeling half-dead from this bout of food poisoning. I’ve another outdoor shoot this Wednesday. I have no idea how I’m going to survive that.

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

I had a full day of shoot yesterday for a new show we’re working on. While having breakfast with the crew, I suddenly felt really lousy — body aches, cold — and couldn’t finish my food. I thought nothing of it then, but soon after, I felt like I was going to collapse any moment.

I developed a fever, my body was in so much pain but I couldn’t leave the shoot because I just had too much to do. So after 10 hours of running around, too many Panadol pills, I staggered home, took a hot shower to warm up my freezing body and collapsed into bed.

My temperature read at 40 degrees celcius and I puked clear liquid because I hardly ate anything all day. I’ve not been this ill in such a long time and I feel absolutely horrible.

The fever’s subsided a fair bit now, but I’ve got the runs and my insides still feel mangled up. I just hope this goes away asap because as much as I like being in bed all day, I most certainly don’t enjoy feeling this lousy.