Post from March 12

After enjoying the poetry slam, my roommate, Jonathan and I went to Centretown to join our friends for a game of pool. There was a wait at Maclaren's on Elgin, and in the end, we didn't end up playing even when a table finally opened up. We decided to go to Byward Market instead.

Old Building at Queen and Elgin. I learned the name but I can't remember any more. 

When we got to our destination, it was getting late so Jonathan and I decided to call it a night.

Do not try this at home.

By the time we got home, it was around 1 and streets were relatively empty. I wanted to get a long exposure shot of the street, so I did. I had to get down on the pavement to compose this shot. I don't recommend doing it.

 The next day, I was feeling a little down so I decided to go for a walk. The snow had just begun to melt so the trail conditions were less than ideal. Consequently, my socks were soaked and my boots were covered in mud by the time I got back from trekking.

This was taken underneath the Transiyway bridge between Lees Station and Hurdman Station. The water levels were very high and I was standing on a thin layer of ice. It was hard to get a stabilized shot even on my tripod as it was moving around everywhere.

On the map I saw a bridge going across the river so I thought I'd give it a try to get a good view of Rideau River. The bridge ran parallel to 417 which is also a part of Trans-Canada Highway. I was originally going to go across the bridge and walk to Lees Station to catch the bus home, but I was getting cold and wet, so I decided to walk back to Hurdman Station.

View of Rideau River

Back to Hurdman

Versefest

Last Friday, I had a chance to check out Ottawa's annual Versefest (http://versefest.ca/). I had actually heard about it from other co-ops at work when we went to Jacques Cartier Park during lunch when it was closed. At the time it seemed really lame, but I came upon a blog entry on Apt613 (http://apt613.ca/) and thought it might be a cool thing to check out. Luckily my roommate Jonathan has been to a Poetry Slam before and he enlightened me of its awesomeness.

Shawarma Poutine at Shawarma Byte on Osgoode Street in Sandy Hill

After work on Friday Jonathan and I went to Rideau Centre then went to Ottawa Arts Court to pick up the tickets for the show. We then decided to get poutine from a different place from the one we usually go to. For me personally, it lacked the wholesomeness of poutine as it just tasted like fries, chicken, lukewarm gravy and unmelted cheese curds.

We went home, got changed, and I grabbed my 50mm lens for the event. Just before I entered the theatre, I realized that I somehow managed to lose my ticket even though it was in my coat pocket on the bus ride to the venue. But I managed to get in because people working at the theatre seemed very trusting. The guy in the picture above gave the event a kick start it deserved (The theatre was so full that some people were already sitting on the floor!). He was not one of the contestants though.

I don't remember much from the night because I was too busy taking pictures. Sometimes it's so easy to get taken up by shutterbug inside of me. Out of 12 contestants, these 4 men were most memorable of them all. They were clever, funny, insightful, and eloquent. Because I am not very good with words in any way, I was just blown away by how articulate they were in delivering their thoughts in words in front of a large crowd. Sure, they must have had practice before coming on stage, but to convey their thoughts in such convincing and poetic way must have been difficult. It seemed like everyone on stage was performing truly from their hearts.

Life in Ottawa

It has been just over two months since I moved to Ottawa for work. I didn't think I would enjoy the cold winter too much, but the weather has been surprisingly mild in my standards, and there are a lot of things to do in Ottawa as opposed to St. Catharines or Waterloo which are all located in Southwestern Ontario. One thing I've done a lot this Winter is skating. I've never actually owned a pair of skates until this year, so I didn't know how good I'd be at it. I did heavily rollerblade when I was younger so I was familiar with the concept of pushing myself forward. But on ice, there is significantly less chance of falling and injuring yourself, so I went full out on the ice whenever I had the chance. Because I didn't have to wear rental skates that were always a size too big, I was much more comfortable without having my ankles painfully collapse inwards especially with my axillary naviculars.

Rideau Canal

Unfortunately Spring (more like somewhere between Winter and Spring) came so the canal had to be shut down because maintenance would be too much work for little gain to be had. But compared to most people, I think I skated enough to make my Ottawa life worthwhile. I just have to find something else to do now that the canal is closed. 

I am back.

After being absent from blogsphere for almost a year (well I've been to Tumblr, Wordpress, Naver, Cyworld, Paran, and something else I can't remember at the moment). I have been active in Korean blogsphere for a while I was in Korea, but since school started everything all ceased except for Facebook. Since I'm in a new city and this is a new year and I have met a lot of new people (quite possibly more than I was expecting to meet this year), I thought I'd post again. I'm not going to link images to my Flickr account because I don't have a pro account and I have hit my 200 photo limit, so some of the older things might get hidden soon if I keep posting my photos on there.

A friend reminded me that it was Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent. I'm challenging myself to not get tempted into buying any photography-related products. At the same time I'm challenging myself to take a photo-a-day until the day before Easter Sunday to challenge myself to develop my photography skills.

This was just taken on the porch because it was snowing hard last night (March 9th). I think the weather shown in this photo well sums up the winter in Ottawa although I believe this has been a very mild winter. Thanks to the nasty system that swept through Ottawa which brought wet ice followed by rain, tomorrow's (Friday) commute will be bad even though today's (Thursday) commute was pretty nasty in slush.

This is the photo taken today (March 10) at Byward Market. I had some time to kill before meeting up with a couple friends to grab dinner, so I quickly went to the bank to get some cash and went to a store I've been wanting to go for the past week. It was nice, but it was nothing too exciting. I came out empty-handed.

Although my re-employment for next term has not officially been confirmed yet, I'd like to think it is as positivity will bring change. When I do work here in the summer, I will be living really close to downtown (again, haven't heard back from the subletter, but I'd like to think that she's been in contact with my future roommate), and I will be exploring more places in Byward Market for eateries and nightlife. I'm not really big on club scene, but there isn't really much to do in Ottawa now that Rideau Canal is closed. Canal is a whole different story which I shall save for a later time.

This is what I had for dinner today at Richtree. It was going under a rennovation so only takeouts were available. Shepard's pie was good but I'd definitely want to come back and try it on actual plate while it's still steamy hot. I need to get at least 5 hours of sleep! Good night.

Lights comes to UW!

UW , originally uploaded by hjkimbrian.

Canadian sweetheart singer-songwriter LIGHTS came to UW. I don't know how much UW paid to get her to come and perform, but she did put on a good show. It was packed!

Just between us...

Just between us..., originally uploaded by hjkimbrian.

I wonder what is going on between them?
Pentax K10D with Takumar 135mm f/2.5 (Bayonet)

My favourite photo

While I was going through my catalogue the other day, I came across this photo of Shannon Falls. It was taken in June 2008, which is approximately one year ago. Although I was relying on my camera for configuring the settings, it turned out fairly well, and I am quite proud of the result.

Now that I have more controls over my camera, I would like to take a picture that I can really be proud of.