A family European trip - to meet the small and white, clean and bright, Garmisch, Germany

Remember the lyric lines of "Edelweiss" from the musical "The Sound of Music" - "Small and bright, clean and white. You look happy to meet me. Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow...". That's Edelweiss (little white snow flowers found in the Alps mountain) with Lavender in the photo 1. Garmisch is a very tranquil area of Germany on the Alps mountain range.

A family European trip - from Verona (Italy) to Garmisch (Germany)

Photo 1-4 were taken in Verona, Italy. Then heading to Garmisch, Germany.

A family European trip - 2nd stop - Venice

Such a beautiful city - Venice.

A Family European trip - Day 1 in Milan

OK, the journey continued on my sister's trip to Europe. The below photos were taken with Leica D-Lux 3 and a Canon 400D. See if you can tell which ones are from which one. FYI, Leica's color is more "raw vivid" and D-Lux 3 would boost up the light source in some way when it's set in auto. The Canon 400D kit lens with a lens hood and a UV filter lens which is good for taking this kind of sunlight photos.

The below are the center area of Milan. The big mall is just next to Duomo (the big church).

A family journey to Europe - 1st stop Milan

At the courtesy of my sister, I'd like to share some of the photos taken by her and her daughter at their recent family trip to Europe. Photo 1/2. Taken 4-5 hours after take-off. This area should be at the border of North West of China. It'd be at around 3-4am and the summer sun light was already there. 3/4. Landing Milan Airport. Miss this place so much. Check the mountain range which is very close to the border of Switzerland and the mountain is still with some snow on the top. 5. Duomo - Milan big church. See that blue sky. I didn't change anything on the photo. It's straight out of the camera and the setting was F11 at 1/320 seconds.

EXP Taikooshing HK

Thanks to Pixmation for reminding me about some Panasonic DCs' JPEG compression problem, I went back to pick up my Leica D-Lux 3 and tried some raw photo taking and compress it on my own. It's not the first time I was told about the benefits of shooting in raw format. Somehow I didn't go for that way. So at the recent testing, this turns out pretty nice, especially on the color saturation and clarity, though the D-Lux 3 is very slow in taking raw format (at least 2-3 second processing).

So back to the food of EXP, they are always consistent. I like the way they cook the food not too oily and not too heavily seasoned, though it isn't the best. 1. Shrimp on cane roll and satay platter. 2. Penne pasta with chicken in tomato sauce.

Nathan Road from Kimberly Road to Jordan Road, Kowloon HK

The section of Nathan Road from Kimberly Road to Hillwood Road is the quietest and pretty intrigue to me. It's like a mini jungle when we walk past it. At the junction of Austin Road, there it goes the glamourous neon light towards the very end.

新滬點 New Shanghai dim sum, Jordan Kowloon

Remember Cherikoff 車厘哥夫 and Siu Lon Bao again? What's about with Shanghai food shown below. It's just this Shanghai restaurant taking the place of where the old Cherikoof was near Hillwood Road in between TST and Jordan. My trying of this restaurant is also part of my old time memory with this bakery cafe. Back to the food of this new restaurant:

1. Shred chicken in sesame sauce HK$42. The sauce is a bit heavy but the chicken meat and the Shanghai flat noodle is pretty nice.

2. Siu Lon Bao in 3 flavour HK$36. Apparently the one with chili is a spicy hot one. Not bad.

3. Preserved veggie pork noodle soup HK$36. The noodle is pretty nice.

4. Lion head (deep fried meat ball stewed in thick soy sauce) HK$58. This one is quite surprising to me since some black vinegar was put to balance the heavy taste. The meat ball is pretty nice and aromatic. *once again, even this restaurant's Siu Lon Bao is more standard and appealing.