It's been several months since my last blog entry. Here's a bunch of pictures that I recently took around Christmas time in the Bay Area when the weather was near perfect.

And here's a picture of Joseph and his big cousin Brandy that they'll look back on many years from now with much sentiment.

Ah, the youngest generation of our extended family!

Lastly, my favorite ad for the Zune.

After a good night's sleep, we decided to take it easy for another day as we wind down our week in Kauai. We took a short drive to Wailua Falls.

Even though it was another hot day, we just had to get some noodle soup at Pho Kauai in Lihue, which I highly recommend.

Later that night, after dinner, we went to the Coconut Marketplace to get some ice cream from Lappert's, and everyone enjoyed their scoop!

Back at our resort, I took the kids to the beach to light up the rest of the sparklers, and I managed to take some awesome pictures using delayed exposure. Here's one with 1/3 second exposure.

And 0.6 second exposure. This turned out to be my favorite shot.

And 1.3 second exposure. Very cool looking!

Lastly, 2 second exposure.

After 2 hectic days of driving and sightseeing, we took it easy on the 4th of July. Sudi got a bunch of beautiful flowers for only $5 and some fruits from the Farmers' Market.

And Isabel was enamored by what I could only call "hanging Birds-of-Paradise" flowers.

The kids were getting very anxious about seeing the fireworks, so I let them light up a couple of sparklers.

After dinner, we headed over to Lihue and got the perfect spot for viewing the fireworks show. I repeatedly played with the settings on my camera until I capture some really good shots.
 

We had a couple of hours to kill before the luau, so we hung out at Po'ipu Beach, where the boys had a lot of fun getting splashed by the waves.

Upon arriving at the Grand Hyatt, we saw a couple of rare black swans.

The hotel was definitely very nice!

There were probably 500 people at the luau, and the weather was just perfect.

Isabel couldn't get enough of the very sweet pineapple. She must've had 8-9 pieces!

And I couldn't get enough of the Kalua pig! I had 3 big servings of it!

I managed to get seats very close to the stage, so we got a very good view of the dancers.

And she was definitely my personal favorite! :-)

Known as the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific," the Waimea Canyon was something that we just had to see. On our way there, we get a little teaser view it from a scenic lookout.

And it's another hot day in Kauai -- about 90 degrees!

About a 1/4 of the way up the road towards the Waimea Canyon lookout, we saw a cool little water fall.

And then, after another 20 minutes of driving, there it was -- Waimea Canyon! Truly grand and beautiful!

I just love this picture of me and Joseph!

Sudi and Bambi cut up some very sweet papaya, and we just sat there talking about how amazing this place was.

And then we took one final picture before leaving the canyon.

We stopped by a scenic overlook of taro fields.

And it was great to see the kids being so happy and playful.

We then visited the famous and grand Princeville Hotel, where Isabel (after having such a nice, long nap at the beach) kicked back in the lobby.
 

Everyone together now .. except me taking the snapshot. Joseph was not happy because he was extremely hungry and tired at this point.
 

On the way out the door, we saw a couple of Tahitian dancers.
 

Since there wasn't a reasonably priced restaurant in Princeville, we went back to Hanalei in search for a quick dinner and found the Polynesian Cafe in the Ching Young Village, where we ordered authentic Hawaiian twice cooked pork, which Isabel loved.

On the way back to the car, we saw a couple of a very cool looking tree with leaves that look like butterflies!

After 50 minutes of driving on our way to Ke'e Beach for our hike on the Kalalau Trail, we stopped at Ha'ena (a.k.a. Tunnels) Beach to check out its cave. Marichu and Sophia stood in front of the massive monolith with roots of trees dangling all around. It was weird and awesome at the same time.
 

Here's what the whole monolith looks like.

The cave structure is located at the bottom left of the monolith, and it is massive! Yes, those tiny figures in the middle are us!

Here's a close-up shot of us.

After waiting 20 minutes or so for the rain to subside, we drove for a few minutes to reach Ke'e Beach and then started hiking the Kalalau Trail. Marichu carried Isabel about half way up to the top, and amazingly, Isabel hiked the rest of the way, which was about a 1/2 mile of steep, rocky climb.

At the top, we rested, enjoyed the amazing view and fabulous breezes, and decided that it would be safer for us to head back rather than proceed onward for at least another hour through a steep, wet, and treacherous descent down the other side of the trail.

We then spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and snorkeling at Ke'e beach, which had a large reef that provided fairly calm waters and plenty of colorful fish.

And Isabel was exhausted and took a 2 hour nap!

The girls were up very early today. They're still on Seattle time, I guess.
 

We started our Sunday by going to the local St. Catherine's Catholic church for mass.

Then we had very tasty burgers at Bubba Burgers near Kapa'a. I can now vouch for their slogan, "Always Juicy, Never Greasy."

I decided to start our week by going to the highly rated and popular Lydgate Beach Park, and it definitely did not disappoint. The kids had a marvelous time. Joseph said, "This is the best day of my life!"
 
 
 

It's hot - 85-90 degree temperatures at 6PM!

And the kids are loving it!

We see a few mountains (and a volcano, I think).

And pass over the famous Diamond Head of Oahu.

Joseph already adjusting to the 3 hour time change.

And Isabel, too.

After the nice weather last week, it's a bit depressing to go through a 3rd day of fairly heavy rains this week. So, to cheer myself up, I looked through some past pictures and found a few more from spring when the sun started to shine after a few months of being blocked by cloudy skies during the winter and the flowers started to bloom.

Even a heron or stork paid us a visit!

Here are some really great pictures I took while we were back in the Bay Area during Easter break (April 9-13). The day was perfect -- clear, sunny, and warm -- at Baker Beach in San Francisco. I almost lost these pictures because my harddisk crashed. Fortunately, only the OS partition had bad sectors, so I was able to recover all of the pictures. Whew!

I just planted some dahlias and gladioli, so I'm looking forward to seeing some nice flowers this summer, but here are some spring flowers currently in our backyard.

Well, not really. Just atop the hill above U.C. Berkeley where the Lawrence Hall of Science is situated. We had a great time with MJ and her kids.

Last Saturday was unusually sunny and warm (yes, we're still seeing mostly gray skies here in Bellevue, and it's May already!), so we decided to visit the arboretum for the first time. As soon as we got there, Marichu and I gave each other that look that was like "Why didn't we come here before?"

The place is very nice -- big, clean, grass (yes, grass!) trails. Here's a couple of my favorite pictures from our walk. I love how the light partially hits the ferns.
 

Here's a couple of shots of Joseph blowing at a dandelion.

Here's a very nice flowering Japanese plum tree (oh, that's -- second from the right -- Sophia's best friend, Thalia, from school).

Look at the sheer size of this rhododendron!

Wow, it's almost 3AM, and I'm still wide awake. I guess the +8 hour difference creates a "jet forward" rather than a "jet lag" effect. I'll probably be very tired tomorrow (er, later today) since I will not have gotten much sleep by the morning.

Anyway, it took 9 1/2 hours to fly from Seattle to Copenhagen and another 1 1/2 hours from there to London. Add to that the 1 hour layover and +8 hour time zone different, and I’ve just lost a day out of my life. Being in Business Class partially made up for it since I was able to plug in my laptop and work for 3-4 hours on the way to Copenhagen, but I almost didn’t get any work done if I hadn’t stop myself from drinking all of the alcohol they served! I can recount at least 6 occasions when they offered me something to drink. I ended up with a glass of champagne, 2 glasses of Pinot Noir, a glass of Argentina Merlot, a glass of port, and a glass of Cognac. Fortunately, I did not drink more than half of all that!

I arrived in London around 4:30PM, and the sun was already setting, but I managed to take a couple of pictures during the cab ride to my hotel before the sky went dark:

London is full of these classic, multistory buildings! I'm staying at the Sheraton Park Place Hotel, which is right on the Piccadilly, the main street in town. It has a very cozy lounge (pictured below), but I didn't have time to rest because I wanted to check out London at night.

So, I walked down (heading northwest) Piccadilly and saw:

Again, these types of buildings were everywhere! And I haven't even ventured over to the Buckingham Palace or Westminster Abbey or the like! I plan on doing that tomorrow -- I mean, later today.

Although I hate to eat out by myself, I decided to have dinner at the (supposedly world famous) Nobu London restaurant just southwest of my hotel, and I'm so glad that I ventured out because it was some of the very best sushi I’ve ever had, and I've had plenty.

Here's more info on Nobu. Yes, "snooty wait staff" is true. Everyone wore all black (including many of the customers) and looked like models, which provided a bit of ironic contrast with the middle aged Japanese chefs wearing all white at the sushi bar, where I sat. There was even a celebrity sighting tonight -- some British models/actresses here early for London’s famous Fashion Week next week. Fake kisses/hugs/laughs all around – very annoying.

But I really shouldn't complain because the food was marvelous. The (tuna) sashimi salad was wonderful as was the toro (tuna belly) tartar with caviar. The uni (sea urchin) tempera was unique, very fresh, rich and buttery -- I'd recommend it to anyone, who has been turned off by not so fresh uni or uni sushi style, which can be quite an acquired taste. There were many other very tempting signature dishes available. The ama ebi (raw sweet shrimp) melted in my mouth, and the shrimp heads were fried to perfection, which also melted in my mouth. The hotate (scallop) was the freshest/smoothest I've ever had. And the dessert -- I forgot the name, but it was some kind of sake laced ice cream with very finely diced pineapples -- was to die for and a perfect way to end the evening.

   My pictures might not be as good as the ones here, but I really enjoyed having some free time to experiment with the camera while Marichu went shopping with the kids at the Metreon.

   Here, I was trying to take a photo to show what the perspective would be for one of the birds sitting in the water.

   I really like the sharp focus on the pigeon, but I should've positioned the camera higher, so I could get a clearer reflection of the bird in the water.

   I took the following shot from below -- lying down on the ground, which made Isabel look like a giant. The moon appears very faintly next to her right elbow, but I have no idea what the other two white dots are. Alas, I haven't had time to start playing with Photoshop or other photo editing programs to touch up my pictures.

   And lastly, a classic shot (I should've shot it in black and white) of Mary June playing with Lilie and Isabel.