Gingerbread Houses - Xmas 2012

I haven't posted in a while since I've been busy w/ my 'other life' and haven't gotten to take out my camera. I finally got a chance to pull out my small camera on my walk to the Princess Kaiulani Hotel to see their annual gingerbread house creation. It is really cool to see, but difficult to photograph because the gingerbread is dark and the lighting is not so great there, however, the work of art is awesome. Here are some of them.. This year, they added the Eiffel Tower and the Tower Bridge.

I had a second chance to see gingerbread houses at the KCC culinary school for the Eyes of Hawaii Christmas Party.  These were really cute.

Sushi Pics Take 2 -- Sushi Bistro 11/09/2012

We went to Sushi Bistro again to celebrate another BD and I got to take more closeup food shots w/ my Lumix.  I used the Program mode w/ Macro feature for all of these shots.  This time, for post processing, I changed my image setting at 12in. on the long side and set it to 96 ppi then do a slight sharpening to see if the shots look less 'soft' after the compression and saved the pics at High, which usually left the jpg files at around around 250kb.   Since these were originally jpgs from my P and S, I don't know if I'm seeing any improvement in sharpness of my blog pics.  I'll have to experiment some more w/ raw shots.  Also, this time, I was not afraid and I got to try some stuff I've seen but not tasted before. 

The restaurant is quite quaint.  We sat at the Sushi Bar again this time.

This time, we got this seaweed side dish.

I kinda messed up this shot because I tried to add some wasabi on top, but decided to remove it.

I know the one on the left is Salmon (sake), I have no idea what the other fish was but it was good.

I was amused by how high the foam on the beer was. By the time I got this pic, it had kinda dissipated.

I really like how glossy the next two 'macro' shots came out.  These were all lighted from the florescent lights in the restaurant.

It was so cool that ikura stuck to the side of the nori.

I tried RAW oysters for the first time. I was surprised it wasn't fishy at all.

I also tried uni for the first time.. now I know why I never tried it..sorry..but it was slimy and yucky...

I forget if this was fresh water of salt water eel, either way, it was very tasty.

By the previous sushi, I was full.. but I had to eat this one..

I raced to get this shot of the avocado sushi before it got eaten!

I got super up close of the shrimp and the rice grains.

I think this was egg plant.. not sure if it was supposed to be blue or was it my camera..

I tried to get a "head-on" shot (get it?? ha!) of this shrimp head.

Finally, my camera battery light was blinking indicating that I had run out of battery.. My last shot, I got a real closeup of the Tamago.  good thing this was the last course!!  and Happy Birthday..ET!!

The Red Moon - 11/04/2012

It's 11:30pm and I'm ready go close down my laptop and I look out and see the moon looking red. It looked soo cool, I ran and grab my camera w/ my 70-200mm lens (good thing it was already mounted) and got a few shots. This is the original size of my shot at max zoom.

I cropped the shot to show the reddish hue. I did not change the color of the shot other than boost the color saturation a little.. Hmm.. I think this is also due to the vog we've been experiencing over the past few days. 

Sunset in Vog - 10/10/2012

The voggy weather in the past few days was so humid that it reeeeally sucked..However, I  realized how beautiful the affect it made on sunsets. After several missed attempts, finally sucesss! I finally was able to make it in time to watch the sunset from the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor.  Since I parked quite a bit away and didn't want to lug my gear, I used the trusty Lumix again.  When I got there shortly before 6pm, it was still bright.  I was kinda disappointed there was not enough vog to filter the sun's brightness.

I switched between Program mode and Sunset mode to see how I can block the sun's bright light.

After a bit, the sun was low enough and I decided to set my camera to Sunset mode which gave the shots deeper tones.  I'm glad w/ even near max zoom, the shots came out sharp and not blurry.

I'm not sure if the sun would look as large had I gone to Magic Island or perhaps it was an optical illusion, but it looked HUGE.

I snapped away until the sun finally disappeared under the clouds low on the horizon.

I took a picture of the vog this past Sunday morning. The still air had made it worse.

Happy Birthday Marv!! - 9/30/2012

It was my good friend Marv's Kan'reki' celebration and I was really lucky to be able to help him document his Big day. The gathering was at Yoshiya Restaurant at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel.  I notice that most Japanese restaurants were really dark so I made sure I brought along my flash and I was really happy I did.  The room we were in was really cool and had mat floor and these low chairs.  The only bad part was that the interior was mostly yellow so I was glad the flash was able to take some of the yellow out.  I then used Photoshop to de-saturate and remove more of the Yellow tones.  

Everyone has to remove their shoes and the worker there even arranged them neatly by the door. They even had house slippers you can use to walk to restroom.

There were beautiful red themed flower arrangement center pieces for the milestone occasion.

There was even a performance by a Koto Sensei and her student.  I got a close up look at the how intricately strung the instrument was.

We all had a great teishoku lunch.

I used Jalna's technique w/ the white background to shoot the favor we were each given at the luncheon. I even shot this a little underexpose to see if I can get more detail using PSE.

Then there was a Sunday brunch at Kahala Hotel HOKU's Restaurant.  They offered us with our meal these very interesting 'freshly squeezed fruit vegetable juice'.  This was the true colors of the juice.  The one on the left is Pineapple Cucumber.. and the right was Watermelon Strawberry with Bell pepper.. Yeah..they lost me at the bell pepper as a drink.  It was really fresh, but mine tasted really like what it described.. strawberry..check.. bell pepper.. check.. yum?  uh...not really...  I kept thinking that 'I coulda had a V-8'..

The lunch was REALLY delicious..but I'm ashamed to say that I was really messy when I piled my food on my plate, so no pictures.  I HAD to take a photo of the dessert.. Bread Pudding...my absolute fav and I also tried this sticky toffee pudding that was like a moist brownie and also this fruit tart in a waffle cone.  Yummmm!

My friend had the cute lemon tart and these hazelnut something or another and said it was as good as it looked..

I had a wonderful and enjoyable gastronomical weekend.. Thank you Marv for letting me enjoy the great food and to take photos!!! and... H-a-p-p-y  B-i-r-t-h-d-a-y  T-o  Y-o-u!!!

Friday Night Fireworks - 9/14/2012

This was a rough work week. But all of it was erased when I watched the Friday night fireworks at the Hilton Lagoon from a spectacular spot. I wasn't sure where the firework was going to be set off at and hoped I would be able to catch the entire burst.  It turned out to be a great spot.  I knew I had just seconds to get it right or I'd miss it entirely.  I started at 16mm to try capture everything, but I ended up having to crop out the black sky.

It was a good night for fireworks because it wasn't too windy ...I used bulb mode and I lost count how long I kept the shutter open.

I zoomed in a little since I notice I had a lot of black sky.

My friend noted the reflection on the lagoon so I zoomed out.

I wanted to get more of the lagoon so I left the shutter open longer, and then all the bursts started to go off.. although I got the little island in the lagoon, the fireworks got blown out and soon it was all over.. just like my horrible work week! Happy Weekend!