Nostalgia

There is nothing like a holiday in one's country of birth to make one wistful about childhood. This is especially true when one is lucky enough to still have grandparents to recount their memories of one's glory days of youth. I find I'm getting more sentimental each time I return, and even if the same story is recounted for what seems like the hundredth time, I don't really mind so much these days, because who knows for how long these grandparents can continue to tell these tales.
On our last day in Germany my grandmother's husband Hans pulled out a box of photos, letters, drawings and other paraphernalia - anything I've ever sent him. Amongst all this we found some lovely photos of our many hiking trips my brother and I used to take with Hans.
I've decided to post a few of those (I do hope my bro doesn't mind..) because I think they offer a lovely snapshot of a happy childhood, and I really love old photos from a creative/designer point of view, too.


I think I was about 6 or 7 in this photo, taken on one of our many smokos we took during our hikes.

As a child my brother could be a bit of a sook (sorry, it's true!), and this story gets told and retold to illustrate this point. In our day of hiking he somehow managed to get a splinter stuck in his hand here is Hans trying to coax it out from under his skin with a needle; my brother's pained expression cracks me up to this day!

Undoubtedly my favourite of these photos. In Bavaria beer is jokingly referred to as own food group, and Hans would always let us have a sip of his beer for a special treat. Whilst I don't drink much beer usually, when in Germany I drink almost exclusively Weissbier, which is what is pictured here. I just love the slightly cheeky expression on our faces!

I hope you all enjoyed this trip down memory lane as much as I did. The original photos are back in the box of tricks at my grandmother's house for now, but one day that box will reside in one of my cupboards at home, periodically dusted off and wistfully rummaged through.

Shooting with the Nikor 24-85mm f2.8-4 D

I've been looking at getting a new walking around lens for our European adventure in October, because as much as I love my 50mm, it just doesn't have the range I want for holiday snaps. Especially for architectural shots (like I'll be doing in Barcelona) I'll need something wider. I asked around for some advice and got put onto the Nikon AF-S 24-70mm f2.8 ED which is a beautiful lens but the cheapest I could find it for was $1700 so that was a no-go. For almost a third of the price I can get my hands on the Nikon AF 24-85mm f2.8-4D IF. Luckily for me a friend of mine owns this lens and kindly let me borrow it for the weekend. Exuberant, I put the lens on my D40x and I was immediately less exuberant as my camera failed to auto focus. I frantically searched for a button on the lens to switch to auto-focus but there was none. It seems my camera is too old and crap to auto focus on D-series lenses, I need G. :(
I'm not so good on the manual focusing, so this won't be the lens to take to Europe where I'll want to be able to focus fairly quickly instead of fiddling with my camera and missing the holiday.
The manual focus is a little touchy and I need a lot more practice, as can be seen from the orange flower in the images below. The lens might not be great for me for the holiday, but I had a play around with the macro function, which is absolutely awesome. I have bought a different lens (AF-S DX Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF) to take overseas, but this lens will stay on my to-buy list for when I get a new body next year.
A few macro shots below to show how sharp this lens is, and the bokeh. Enjoy.

Crafting Lite

A few weekends ago we headed down the Gold Coast to see my goddaughter and her siblings, whom we haven't seen in quite a while. We did a little craft project to start the day off - a set of pre-cut wooden blocks to stick together into 3-dimensional objects. My goddaughter and I worked on this jet fighter.

I was very relieved

to find out today that both of the girls from Mitani Sensei's Dojo have won Japanese and international karate competitions, and have both been training for 10 years. This makes me feel a lot better about getting beaten by a 14yo girl..
They both did some kata for us tonight as well, and it was very impressive! We definitely all have a gold standard to reach for now.

Getting school by a teenager, again

This is a special week for our Dojo as we have are hosting Mitani Kazuya Sensei of Seitokukai, his wife and two of his students this week. We had our first training session with them today and did mostly sparring. At this juncture I should point out that the two students are diminutive 14-year old girls. The one I sparred is a good head shorter than I am, but she is fast as lighting. I only managed to score on her once; I lost the match 1-3. It was very interesting to watch them spar each other, they have a slightly different style of sparring to what most of the members of our Dojo do. They're very light on their feet, don't balk much, and are in and out in a flash. I hope to spar the other student on Thursday to see if I have learnt anything from my observations.

Our new fitness obsession

Photograph from Flickr, by cyrusmekon, shot in Melbourne

Last Saturday was our third foray into our new hobby - Parkour. Ton has been wanting to try it for a while now, and by chance one of our fellow karateka had given it a go and put us onto the local parkour group. They are part of the Australian Parkour Association who put on classes and workshops throughout Australia. In the First Timers class participants are taught general parkour philosophy, basic rolls and jumps and quadrapedals (this is fairly easy for the first 5 meters, then it's hell!).
The 2 basics classes we have attended so far couldn't have been more different, with the first one focusing more on games and the second dominated by drills. At this point I should note that most of the participants are about half Ton's age and a good 10 years younger than me, so it's pretty hard to keep up with these youngsters. It's also proved to be a bit of a sausage fest, so I would like to encourage all the girls out there to give this a go!
Although I seem to have turned into a grumpy old woman in the last few years and have grown to dislike teenagers more and more, parkour has actually made me re-asses my feelings towards teenagers - all these kids are pretty alright.
Parkour is also putting some other things into perspective for me:
1. I need to get way fitter. I am so sore today that I have tried to avoid laughing because my abs hurt so much. Sneezing has also proven extremely painful.
2. I have gotten so cautious in my old age. As a teen I used to go rollerblading down some crazy hills; ski black slopes without a care; and generally seemed to have no fear. It's quite confronting to see how much my mind can get in the way of me doing a physical feat that I probably could accomplish, but don't because of a mental bloc. Must work on this, too.

I can't wait to get back to our next session this Saturday. I couldn't recommend Parkour and the lovely and very skilled instructors at Brisbane Parkour more. Go forth and try this!

The Clean-up continues

Photography by Ton

An interruption

Life was interrupted for all Brisbanites last week with horrendous flooding destroying homes and businesses in the South-East. On the weekend we helped some friends clean up the black sludge the floods left behind.

Photography by Ton

So I ran my first 5km 'fun' run today

I really do think that fun is the wrong word to associate with running. Although I certainly enjoyed the moment it was over. The occasion was the Resolution Run, held in Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane South Bank.I didn't even have a New Year's Resolution about running, but alas, my brother didn't want to take no for an answer when he asked us if we wanted to participate. Anyway, I did the run as a half-jog/half-walk in 39minutes, 15 seconds. Not exactly respectable, but I'm happy I finished it without collapsing, considering that I'm not really a runner. However, I think I may have gotten a taste for it now; there is a 3km run in March that I'm keen to participate in to see if I can actually run the whole damn thing. Will keep you posted.
KKxx

Update Monday morning: It's definitely not fun today. OUCH!

The year for being organised

It had been our intention for a good long while to replace our hodge podge of shelving in the office with one nice big bookshelf that takes up the whole wall. Over this break we finally managed to get there. I know some people hate IKEA but the white Billy bookshelf we bought fits perfectly, didn't cost the world, and it's clean and minimalist.
The only downside has been that this has created somewhat of a domino effect, so we ended up rearranging our spare room, too, as well as the bedroom, and it has also had a flow-on effect on our living room. We basically lived in a big old mess the last week. On the upside, I finally rearranged our wardrobe, and donated four bags of clothes, books and shoes to St Vinnies this morning.
To cap off a week of being super-organised I got 90% of errands done today.
I'm feeling good about this year.

What I learnt at Muse on Monday night

If there is a massive crowd of people clapping to the beat, ONE person who is off-beat will ruin the rhythm and everyone will stop clapping.

Yoga in the Botanical Gardens

This morning was an early start for us to get to Brisbane Yoga Aid Fundraising Yoga Challenge at the Botanical Gardens in the City. We started at 7am and did 2 hours of sun salutations, which was hard work, but a lot of fun.

 

Eloping

It seems that in my circle of friends and acquaintances, people are gravitating towards small weddings or even eloping to escape all the rigmarole and politics that can plague large weddings, not to mention exorbitant cost.
My own parents eloped 30-odd years ago because they didn't want a big fuss made about it. They also didn't tell anyone that they got married, so their witnesses were the only people who knew for quite a few years.
This couple didn't take it quite this far; they did elope, but got a gorgeous video to share with family and friends after the event.

Click on this link to read the background and watch this beautifully shot and executed video, totally worth it! And it's only 4 minutes long - no one wants to watch a 1 hour wedding video, after all...

Welcome to the Digital Age!

One of the aforementioned friends who will be traveling Egypt and the Middle East from next week has kindly started a blog to keep us abreast of her adventures and post some happy snaps to make sure we are never cured of our collective travel bugs.
So, say hi to Megan over at On the Doorstep...

KKx

Time flies

This time last year Ton and I were in London, walking through Trafalgar Square. How quickly time goes! It sucks to be stuck in Brisbane, especially when so many of my friends have recently traveled, and will be traveling over the next couple of months - Egypt, Africa, Middle East, England, Netherlands, China.
Although I was overseas fairly recently, the travel fever just won't leave me alone. I'm hoping that we can take at least a small trip SOMEWHERE O/S in the next 6 months, despite my lack of leave and savings.

KKx