so, so semiprecious

I've almost finished writing tripadvisor reviews of all the guest houses and hotels we stayed at during our month away. Only two remain: this one

(the beautiful Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion in Georgetown/Penang), and our final-night splurge, the fabulous Pan Pacific in Singapore...which still, in all its glory - and with a buffet breakfast the sumptuous likes of which I have never seen - cost less than a mediocre 3* hotel in Amsterdam on a weekend night.

Yes, I'm still in a nostalgic state of mind, and this is still Southeast Asia. Hey, it's still Penang, even. Bear with me.

een lentesymphonietje

Sophie is so beautiful that all the pictures taken that afternoon at Schiphol are stunning.*

I just know, though, that she is going to see them and sigh, and drat that errant lock of hair and that ever-so-slightly crooked necklace.

The young lady is a perfectionist; I hope they please her despite.

*well, except for the ones shot on Retro 80s: I optimistically loaded the GW with it and then the day turned very dim, and then I neglected to slow the shutter speed down, so those are a wee.bit.underexposed..

i guess that's why they call it

The Cameron Highlands is a kind of Malaysian Escape to the Country : temperate climates, stunning panoramas, and decidedly non-tropical vegetation, like roses, and strawberries, and tea.

And morning glories.

stilted redux

The Clan Jetties in Penang reminded me very much of Tai O on Lantau Island (HK) - much smaller, of course, and more urban - but reaching the latter involved the kind of bus ride that gives me nightmares for months, and reaching the former involved a leisurely morning stroll through irresistible Georgetown.

this dream in motion

My Mamiya decided - somewhere between Chiang Mai and Bangkok, it would seem - that it had had enough of aperture adjustments, and dug its heels in at f16: all the pictures I took in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and last-day-Singapore are underexposed except the ones shot stopped-down.

My Polaroid 680 sadly stopped functioning at the start of our holiday, and now this wonderful lens is going to have to be sent off for repairs. I feel very discouraged indeed.

the bright side

I packed four whole rolls of black & white film, but my good intentions fell by waysides...like this.

ad infinitum

i am so busy joyously scanning endless negatives (i had 20 rolls of 120 and 3 rolls of 220 processed at the wonderful IQ Lab in bangkok a week before we came home) that i am forgetting to post!

this is the charmingly dilapidated and stunningly blue f.m.s.. building in ipoh. it was love at first glimpse.

to taste

if i were not too tired to be silly - i last awoke 38 hours ago - i might be tempted to say something about needing to "catch up".

ahem.

and hello.

semicolon.space.

"This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again."
-Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and Critic, 1854-1900)

There will be an English and a Dutch version of the Secret Amsterdam book come September or October, and I offered, in a mad moment, to proof-read both versions - the first because I am, after all, Canadian, and I did, after all and once upon a time, study journalism; the second because...well, just because.

64,979 words later (and not done yet), I am not exactly cursing that mad moment, but I am looking longingly at the sun between my noughts and my crosses.

eggs have no business dancing with stones

these pebbles - even as i approached them step by step, closer and closer, and watched them slide effortlessly into focus - justified my lugging this extraordinarily heavy piece of equipment across the channel. there is not a single mf camera in my cupboard that could capture these little stones so sharply, and effortlessly, from a few inches away, with just an 80mm lens and no attachments.

i like this mamiya very much indeed.