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.

cream of asparagus

we three had finished our starters. tante, though, who is three years shy of her 100th birthday, savoured her soup at her own sweet pace, and when she perceived the waiter approaching, intent on preparing our table for the next course, she chuckled into her spoon.

"take your time!", she muttered. "we old ladies are abominably slow". as the waiter turned on his heel, she sipped - unruffled - further.

we do love her.

and maybe not.

i could hardly concentrate on the pictures wanting to be taken, there on the harbourfront at aberdeen, because an energetic, elderly-but-ageless little chinese entrepeneuse followed us everywhere we went.
"sampan? sampan?" she wheedled. "very cheap! very nice! see jumbo restaurant!". my husband, who has traveled extensively in china, answered - time after time - "maybe later!". and - time after time - she muttered "maybe later! ahh!" and paused in her pursuit, only to pop up moments later to try again: a relentless wrinkled shadow in a bamboo hat.

will you stay for tea?

i have been an inattentive hostess, but i am determined to lay my table with sweetness and delicacies again.
you are very patient, and oh-so-very welcome.