I’ve spent most of the past couple weeks at the beach – outside of work hours anyway. I’ve found a nice little cafe at Coogee called Cafe Congo. Great food and even better coffee. The staff are just quite friendly. I’m currently sitting here writing all of this. I’ve just finished another morning spent lying on the beach and finishing off the Vancouver album design. It’s… nearly there… it’s not perfect, but I guess the longer I stare at it, the more I’ll end up changing. I’ll give it till next weekend and I’ll send it off then.

The days have had a minimum temperature of.. 24 degrees and its clicked that it means the coldest for the whole day is 24… meaning at midnight its 24, and I’ll wake up and its 24. The temperature has been hovering around the mid 30′s.

I’ve been carrying my camera with me to and from work, having a few snaps here and there, but I’ll have to upload that when I get home.

In terms of work, I spent a day out at Moss Vale installing and setting up a couple computers and trouble shooting a few outstanding problems. Lovely drive out there – nice and quiet once you are there. I’m still yet to get my head around the next project. There’s a device which is updating its software and database schema, meaning our program which imports that information is somewhat broken at the moment. The new database schema, is… well I’ve no idea what they were thinking. It’s just making my life a bit difficult at the moment.

New phone – N85. Hate it in the sun, since I can’t see a thing with the new OLED display, but apart from that, its a great phone. I’m not a big user of all the functionality, but it makes calls, syncs with my iCal and rings, so it does everything I want it to do. 5MP camera as well, which… I’ll have to grab a photo off it so I can see how good or bad it actually is.

Uni… I’ve enrolled in 2 subject this semester – Project Management and the Professional and Finance and IT (first year subject I missed out on). Currently I’ve got clashing tutorials which I hope the uni will sort out for me, but I should do fine in the two subjects. I am taking the easter break off, so I’ll need to make sure my assignments get sorted before I head off. There’ll be a bit of pressure this first semester.

Written by Milton Lai

Its been quite a slow week considering how much work has piled up over the break. There’s just a backlog of issues that mainly I can address. Having arrived on tuesday – and beaching it up on that sweltering day, the jet lag only hit 2 days ago. I should be ok heading out of this weekend. I’ve been tossing up making an album of the Vancouver trip and which companies to go with – since I’m not made of money and these things aren’t cheap. I’ll possibly start editing tomorrow.
Today – I had the photo shoot and then afterwards I headed to the Sydney Festival where the Cat Empire were playing =).

Written by Milton Lai

I had a shoot today for a friend of mine who runs Beloved. Quite relaxing and fun – shooting her two friends in an abundance of clothes. A few that I dug from today. Make up was done by Stella.

Written by Milton Lai

Last leg. Currently at Vancouver airport – taking up their offer on free wifi.Its a bit limited with no direct ftp access, but all’s well. Last night had my final dinner with my hosts’ family and packed. This morning, headed out to see the south side of Stanley Park and also the Vancouver Art Gallery which featured pieces by Jeff Wall. Quite some nice pieces.

I then found myself at a temple before ending up at… a seaside fishermens bay area where they literally sold the fish right off their boats.

I really wish I had more time here, to just chill out and relax and walk up and down all the other streets in town. I feel that there is just so much more to Vancouver than I saw. I’d say it really is a smaller and quieter version of Sydney. The people here are very friendly and I’d definately come back again, just as long as it was for a longer period of time and I had something going on – not just as a “holiday” but a working holiday. If it were a holiday, I’d either go snowboarding or be lying on a beach somewhere.

Exhausted. I really just want a day of sleeping in and then I don’t want to leave… just yet anyway. Plane heads back home tomorrow in the evening around 6. Today was spent with my hosts’ parents who took me to Queens Park, Granville Island, and quick drive through Stanley Park and a walk through Chinatown. There will be a lot of sleeping when I get back home and I don’t think I’m anywhere near done exploring Vancouver.

I do think anyone could spend years photographing a place and still not be done with it. I’m sure you can tell, that my focus has been on people – not just because there aren’t a whole heap of attractions, but it portrays what I saw in the city.

Written by Milton Lai