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Long overdue pictures from London when I was there in May and Marcus and I decided to make the best out of the whole dire swine flu situation by enjoying ourselves for a week there! More here.

We went to this fertility festival on the penultimate night of our stay in Edinburgh. Carlton Hill was crowded with thousands of people boozing away, and the sexually charged atmosphere was spurred on by the almost-naked performers painted in red, gyrating around with lots of fire. Great excuse to parade around naked I say, but at temperatures of 2-3degC, hats off to them. I was fully clothed and swathed in layers and layers of warm clothing, and still shivering standing next to them. More pictures here

These were up eons ago, but I’m not sure how many of you click on the “my photos” link on the sidebar. Pictures from a whirlwind trip to Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road in the height of the swine flu hype.

Some pictures I took on a recent trip to Penang in June. For the rest of them, click here.

Taken by Liyana whilst the 4 of us were scrambling on the scree-covered incline to get up to the base of the Old Man of Storr.

Okay I’m being bugged to blog. Here’s some pictures I took on one of my -currently- rare excursions out to eat nice food. Halia at the Botanic Gardens currently has a really good promotion – set lunch for 4 pax at $88+, so Nat, Rous, Em and I went down last Friday for what Em calls our “last long lunch”. I sure hope not, touch wood. I really liked the environment, set admist all the greenery, even though I had to trek through the entire park at noon to get there because I parked at the wrong carpark (was too lazy to check out the place on the map beforehand). Btw, at noon on a scorching hot day at the Botanic gardens, you can only find random ang moh and taiwanese tourists wandering around in packs (and a local girl walking rapidly through because she is late and lost). The other, more oriented locals sensibly keep away.

We were given a choice of an appetizer, main and dessert from their full menu, and had an awesome (and very long) lunch. These were some of the more photogenic dishes we had amongst the 4 of us. The best though, isn’t here because it didn’t look good – the kurobuta charsiew and wonton capellini was really really tasty, even though it looked like normal wantan mee. I savoured every morsel. Tasty pork is the stuff of life. We also enjoyed rou’s coffee ice (I no longer remember the name, not least at 3am when I’m writing this) dessert very much.

Lawrence has kindly done this new page up for me -  http://www.lavanderblues.com/photos or simply click the link “my photos” on the left. My photos can now be viewed individually and in their entirety (instead of the cropped/resized ones that are in my collages). There’re also links to the flickr site (also’s lawrence’s) where the full-sized photo is stored and can be downloaded. This page will probably be more frequently updated than my blog posts since they can be automatically uploaded from Aperture on my computer. More photos to come – I have a tremendous backlog from April 2009, that includes pictures from Edinburgh, London, Melbourne and now Penang too, which I promise to slowly upload. School’s reopening tomorrow too, and the prospect of m5 does not bode well at all. Keeping my fingers crossed for what’s to come in the next 9 months.

Yesterday, Lawrence and I took a trip to the Mandai Zoo (despite the sweltering heat we’re having these days) to visit the animals and to try out his new camera. These are some of the nicer shots that I took on my trusty Canon G10. We managed to catch the orang utans when they were out for a phototaking session, and I was absolutely enraptured by them.

First post from the spanking new imac! When the doorbell rang and I saw the TNT delivery guy at the gate holding a huge box, I was in such a fluster that I tripped and -almost- fell in my haste to run down to collect the parcel. I must say that editing photos on this humongous 24″ screen with a fantastic graphics card is such a joy and pleasure. This new computer’s increased memory and speed also means that my processes (which took my old powerbook ages to do) are completed almost instantly, making image processing such a breeze.

On a sadder note, my portable hard drive died, so the rest of the pictures of Scotland have sadly vanished with it.

These photos were from an awesome dinner at Nobu London. It was my first time there, and 2nd time dining at a Michelin-starred restaurant (the first was at Martin Wishart in Edinburgh which I shall blog about later). I’d always wanted to try Nobu, and was initially supposed treat myself for my birthday (which would have been spent in London/Pittsburgh if not for the swine-flu disruptions). When elective plans were ruined by the swine flu outbreak, we decided to just go anyway.

The restaurant was upmarket, minimalistic and chic, and the well-heeled crowd quickly filled the place by 8pm. The service staff were an international mix – apparently they have people who speak different languages so as to better serve their non english-speaking customers.

I got to try some unfiltered sake – another first for me. I ordered the Sashimi dinner – the best I’ve ever tasted, each slice was so thick, fresh and succulent. The salmon slices were buttery and flavourful, and the scallops surprised me with their overwhelming sweetness. The taste of each amazing bite lingered in my mouth, and I’d pause to swoon (inwardly of course), before eagerly reaching for more. I think conversation stalled at this juncture due to the frequent interruptions from my inner raptures of joy (and outward silence). For dessert, I had the Mango katsu with coconut cream noodles in an earl grey and yuzu broth – a wonderful recreation of the traditional katsu with udon noodles dish. The broth was subtly sweet with the citrusy flavour of yuzu with a hint of flowery earl grey to anchor it, and when paired with the coconut cream noodles and the fried mango, was really something to remember.

I also got to sample some of Marcus’s Wagyu beef tartare starter, which completely changed my mind about minced raw beef with spices- it is definitely much tastier and sweeter than I’d ever imagined it to be.

More photos to come!

The Isle of Skye is an island off the north-western coast of Scotland. We took a long drive (7hrs) here from Edinburgh through the Highlands of Scotland. By an unfortunate twist of events (Lawrence’s flight here from the USA got grossly delayed due to bad weather), I only managed to spend one full day on this beautiful island. However, we still tried to make the most out of it by exploring vastly different sites. The scenery was really fantastic, and the photographs that I attempted to take really do not do the beauty of this place any justice at all. It was vast, stark, harsh, cold and beautiful, and it was so amazing just being in the midst of such natural beauty.

The views on the island are varied. It ranges from vast acreages of farmland with grazing sheep and highland cows, astounding cliffs with relentlessly crashing waves, gentle benign beaches, azure blue bays, rolling hills, strong silent deep blue lochs, to rock structures of fantastic shapes and forms. The light here is also amazing. In the morning, everything sparkles with dew, and at sunset, the sky is a dazzling array of colours. Sunsets are the most amazing – the sky is pastel pink, purple, and orange all at the same time, and it bathes everything in its golden glory.

We also saw many animals on the island. Sheep are abundant and graze just about anywhere, within the confines of farmland and outside the boundaries of any kind of farms- I swear I’ve seen them trying to eat vegetation on cliff faces too, and have no idea where or how they got there. Cows are also plentiful, there’s the normal dairy cow, and its cuter relative – the Highland cow, or Highland “coo” which its more affectionally called here. When we stop the car to take a picture of them, the cows will unanimously look up from their drinking vessel, and turn to look at me. They appear to ponder curiously about who I am or what I want, and upon deciding that I’m relatively harmless, turn back to their drink with an air of boredom. Its all very hilarious really.

Before heading to Skye, I read about a place called Faerie Glen. Its supposed to be a mysterious place filled with hillocks, and has a magical air about it, just like you’d imagine elves and faeries inhabiting the area. We made our way there, driving on teeny farm roads, stopping the car as farmers and sheep dogs herded sheep across the road and chased runaway lost lambs all over the place, and finally finding ourselves surrounded by an unreal landscape of little hills. It wasn’t as magical as I’d imagined it to be, but we still had lots of fun climbing the hills and chasing random sheep that were grazing there around.

More pictures from Skye to come!