Dandelions

I have to say that I completely sucked at taking firework photos this new year's.  Absolutely sucked.  I really have no one to blame but myself, since I did not completely plan it out.  My fault.  But hopefully, that's what this second run on the project will do to me.  Teach me how to plan things better.

I chose this photo because it was one of the nearly publishable ones, plus it really reminded me of a bunch of dandelions.  I absolutely adore fireworks.  Hate firecrackers, because they're just plain noisy.  But fireworks?  They're absolutely beautiful!  I can watch those lights shoot up to the sky and then burst in all colors all the time.  They're really pretty.  I love it when they burst in a hundred little light strands that they look like dandelions.  Similar to the ones above.  They just give you all the right feels.

Herald the new year with a my current feel-good song: Northern Lights by Cider Sky

Happy New Year!

This isn't my official first photo of the year.  Besides, I didn't take this photo today.  I took it last new year, when we welcomed 2012.  Of course, given my lazy ass, I never got around to posting it.  But, it seemed like such a pretty firework photo to put to waste.  It looks like a dandelion, but it looked absolutely magnificent in the sky.  

I have more firework photo taken today, but I'll spare it for the first official post.  I just wanted to wish everyone a great new year.  It looks like it's going to be a firework.

The Return

First of, Happy Holidays!!!

Now, onto business...

I did finish my first 365 Project in 2011.  I promise, I did.  I was just too lazy to update when the time came.  Then real life kind of caught up on me and I never managed to upload or even identify which photos went for which date.  So, yeah.

I decided to skip the project in 2012 because I suddenly felt like doing it has become a chore.  So, I gave Nino a rest.  I hate to admit that I only managed to take photos whenever I traveled.  I enjoyed doing that, though.  I did most of it for shits and giggles.  Sadly, it did not improve whatever technique I had or made me learn anything new.

So, in the grand scheme of things, I'm going back to blogging and taking photos.  Every single damn day of the next year.  Again.  

So help me God.

Day 352: Drink Up!

I never realized I never got around to publishing this.  But this is Kyla sipping up iced milk teas at E.S.Kimo just before we left for the airport.  Awesome, kid.  You make ninang proud.

Day 351: Kyla

Meet my godchild, Kyla.  She's not at her finest, but probably one of her funniest.  Watch her amuse herself while we wait for her dad to finish shopping.

People would sometimes ask me why I try to visit Macau every year.  There's the old world charm I talked about.  There's also the food I love.  There's the Venetian.  There's also an old friend that I visit.  Then there's her kid, who is my godchild.  Kyla, really is a good part of why I try to visit every year.  The first time I came to Macau was a month after she was born.  I've been there every year, save for one year, since.  I try to time my visits around her birthday.  Which, I also think is a perfect time.  The weather is slightly cool, but not too cold.  It's around the Mooncake Festival, and it's not as brimming with tourists as it would be around December or January.  During the first few years, I'd visit and take Kyla to the park.  Now, I visit and I take her and her younger sister to school before I go jog.

It amazes me how much she has grown.  She was a skinny little baby when she was born.  Everything about her was little.  Then she started watching Baby Einstein and got really smart.  She now speaks English, Mandarin and Portuguese.  She even teaches me how to say things in Portuguese using her iPad2.  Yep.  The kid's got an iPad2.  Let me remind you that she's six.  I tell her sometimes that she's getting so smart I don't know if I should be proud or scared.  It's a little difficult to say no to her, though.  I'd sometimes talk to her mother over FB and when she starts asking when am I going to visit, I start looking at my calendar and seeing when I'll be available to go on leave.  I mean, what do you say when she asks, "When will Ninang Faith take me to school?"  Seriously, how do you say no to that?

Day 350: St. Mark's Square at the Venetian

Venetian never gets old.  It has always been an eye candy for me.  Every time I visit Macau, I need to dedicate an entire day for Venetian.  With every other hotel-casino cropping up on Cotai, you'd think that Venetian would eventually be passed over.  It doesn't happen.  Has never happened ever since I first saw it.  If they put up a Bellagio on Cotai, then that's probably a possibility.  However, with how this entire majestic place is built, I just don't think it's going to happen.  Even their public lavatory looks amazing.  Seeing Venetian is like going through the motions of a dream.  Every little piece of it is an eye candy.  I'm not a big fan of clowns.  In fact, I hate them (which is synonymous to being afraid of them).  The jesters in Venetian, though, I can tolerate.  Most of the restaurants, too, do not charge you an exorbitant amount for meals.  Plus, the staff speaks English.  You'd even get lucky and find a lot of Filipinos.  Going to the hotels in Macau is actually isn't as difficult as most people think it is.  All of the hotels have free shuttle service to and from main transport locations like the Ferry Terminal and the Taipa Airport.  I did go around the Lisboa area, too.  However, Venetian really was the cake of my day.

The entire place was lit brighter for Christmas, and it looked amazing.  Apart from the regular opera songs that gets sang by a woman from a window, she also sings a Christmas song.  The gondoliers also sing Christmas songs and wear Santa hats.  I love hearing them sing in Italian while rowing gondolas on the man-made moat in the Marco Polo wing.  They also have gondolas outside, but they'd only take tourists on rides when it's not winter.  I really love Venetian.  You do not even have to do anything.  Just walking around it is enough eye candy for one person.

Music while walking: The Dance (Charlotte Martin)

Day 349: Macau Tower

Gorgeous, isn't she?

Today, I went around the city on my own.  I'm going to sound really arrogant, but having visited Macau several times, I guess it makes sense that I understand the transit system.  My friend says that I've been here so many times, I cannot really be classified as a tourist.  I'm more of a returning expat.  Hahaha.  I was a bit nervous about going to the Tower since I've never been there on my own.  Turns out there's a bus that goes directly to the Tower from the bus stop near where my friend lives.  I got lucky.

This tower is famous for being the highest bungee jump in the world.  The jump itself costs like an extortion.  Around 9000Php for one person.  People still pay to jump, though.  Surprisingly, there were a lot of folks who paid to put their lives at risk when I went there.  It was one after the other.  I was watching them jump one by one while reading and having coffee and cheesecake at the Singing Bean Coffee.  The view is amazing there as you can see people jump off the SkyJump simultaneously with the sun setting off the bridge.  The sunset is glorious from this side.  I'm adding a photo of it after the jump.  Remember those things I said that sometimes you see and make you marvel at how great God is for creating such things?  A sunset is one of those things.  I don't know what I did to deserve seeing such beautiful things, but I'm glad I'm blessed enough this way.  You somehow just Breathe (Michelle Branch) it all in.