Kirkland, WA!

I've lived in the Puget Sound area for almost a decade now, but I have just discovered this great town in the northern King county. A quick trivia: If you've been to Costco (which started its business right here in Seattle, WA) you probably saw its house brand "Kirkland Signature". Kirkland Signature has its headquarters in Kirkland, WA.

After church, Christine and I stopped by a plaza with luxury condos with a variety of shops.

Canon EOS 30D / 17-40L

We first had some Thai food! The place we went wasn't extraordinary, so I won't bother mentioning it.

Cat'sEye Rama Noodle

As always, I craved for a cup of coffee. So we went to Urban Coffee Lounge around the block.

Iced mocha with pastry

Almond Creme Pithivier Breve with rock sugar!

Yes!

The pithivier just melted in my mouth, especially the almond creme part! So after we fulfilled our urges, we moved to Marina park facing Lake Washington.

View Larger Map

Marina park

We had to go on the dock and do something crazy.

"Look at me go!"

I'll save mine for next time...

Coffee break!

Although Seattle is home of Starbucks, there are hundreds of local coffee shops that offer much better tasting coffee and pastries. Located in the hipster town of Capitol Hill, Espresso Vivace Rosteria has become one of my favorite coffee shops in Seattle. I'm not much of a coffee aficionado, but the retro-Italy inspired interior design with an oval bar and ingenious items on the menu won my heart in an instant.


View Larger Map

Canon EOS 30D / 17-40L

caffe soy

I ordered caffe soy (a latte with soy milk in place of regular milk) and a small cheese cake to go with it. It had a very smooth creamy taste, just the way I expected it to be.

Coffee tasting in progress!

Opened all the way up!

The garage-door-like opening in the front façade is what made the experience at the Vivace more fun. Observing people walk by while sipping coffee, and taking pictures of them was what I wanted to do all day.

More coffee parlors coming up!

Tacoma, WA!

You probably heard about Tacoma in one way or the other; it's one of the largest port cities in the U.S.
Christine and I, for some reason, never went to Tacoma for a date. So we decided to explore the city. Looking for a place to dine in, we found Indochine!

Featuring dishes from Thailand, China, India, Japan, and Vietnam.


View Larger Map

The interior of this restaurant was very impressive with artifacts from the countries representing the food.

Would've looked better at night!

Canon EOS 30D / EF 17-40L

The orchid is a plus.

The food came out fast, well presented in Staub cookware, and needless to mention it was absolutely delicious! I ordered the peppered prawns rated at 5 stars (rating the spiciness factor) and it was just perfect. They were popping in my mouth with its juice drenching in my mouth and I couldn't be happier.

Pepper Garlic Prawns

The Panang curry went well side-by-side with the spicy prawns. Its creamy curry sauce mediated the intense flavor of the peppered prawns.

Panang Curry

Canon EOS 400D / EF 50mm f/1.8 mkII

I would, without doubt, revisit this place and check out the lounge that they have.

HBS!

EOS Canon 400D / EF 50mm f/1.4

...or happy bokeh Saturday! For those who are not familiar with the term bokeh, it is derived from Japanese noun bokeh 暈け, meaning "blur" or "haze".

Here's the story behind the picture: my sister, Haley, and I love ice cream and we wanted it so badly that we actually walked all the way to the Met. Market, which is around 25 minutes each way.


View Larger Map

It was definitely worth it! Caramelized Hazelnut Gianduja!
You've gotta try this flavor if you haven't done so already. Oh, I also recommend Zesty Lemon!

50 First Dates

No, her memory doesn't get purged every 24 hours, but it's that we only get to see each other every two months. It feels as though our "first" dates together after being parted for so long, actually feels like the first date ever.

I got back to my hometown Federal Way, WA just yesterday and the first thing I wanted to do, of course, was to go to the beach! So we went to Browns Point! I LOVE BROWNS POINT!


View Larger Map

Canon EOS 30D / 17-40L

This is the place to be! It's not a sandy beach, but it's got its own mood to it. Empty your mind, listen to the pebbles get washed by the waves, and feel the salty breeze pass through your hair.

Drift-logs!

I remember sitting on those logs at night with my best buddy Brian on a mid-summer's night, sharing our girlfriend rants and laughing away! Ahh the good times come and go like the waves on the beach... The sound (of Puget Sound) is what I missed the most, and is what made me homesick.

Any who, Christine (that's her name obviously) got really cold, so we had to GTFO! I did manage to get some decent shots though...

Can you say "romantic"?

Always ready to "shoot" each other!

I wish I owned both!

After we left the place, we went straight to Metropolitan Market! It's a market that sells organic and local goods. We browsed the store, talked about which wine we would drink, which cheese to go with the wine...

Conversation over extravagant water and kumquat flavored soda

Planned where we would get away over a few drinks of, well... water and pop.

Ahh, it's good to be back home.

Cedar Point!

So the past weekend, my friends and I went over to Sandusky, Ohio to go to Cedar Point! It's a Peanuts theme park.

I only look silly, because the kiddo who shot this said "say cheese" and I simply did

What makes this park stand out from the rest is the fact that it is located on a peninsula surrounded by the lake. Because of this, the vista you get to see when you're up in the air is simply amazing.


View Larger Map

Here's the best ride that I've ever been on in my life: the Millennium Force. We waited for an hour and a half in the queue and it was definitely worth the wait! It descends at an angle of 80 degrees for 300 ft at 92 miles per hour!

Photo courtesy of www.cedarpoint.com

I thought I was flying. Another unique experience comes from a unique ride called Mantis. It's a stand-up still roller coaster.

Photo courtesy of www.cedarpoint.com

That's right, you ride this ride standing up. Quite silly if you'd ask me, but refreshing. Unfortunately, there was one ride that we never got to ride. It's called Top Thrill Dragster. Its top speed is at whopping 120 mph and descends at an angle of 90 degrees for 400 ft.

Oh yeah, I ate an elephant ear! lol

Mmmm, elephant ear...

We shared it!

Say hello to photogenic Jean!

We eventually stayed there for eight hours and rode eight different rides! To top off such a great day, we went to a nearby Japanese steak house called Nagoya. We didn't expect much from a small beach town that this restaurant was located in, but...

I barely understood what you said, but your food was good!

Wow... I really gotta give it to them. The fried rice, seared vegetables, chicken, steak, prawns and scallops!

Scallops, scallops, scallops. It gallops in my mouth!

Especially the scallops, so tender and juicy... Probably the best one I had in a while. I will never forget this place.

I'm planning to revisit this place (both the park and the restaurant) during the fall semester.
Does anybody wanna tag along?

THE FAN-ATTIC

It was unusually nice outside and I just had to get out. My camera's been sitting around collecting dust, so I took it along with me. There's a small vintage store on State St. that I visit from time to time. I wanted to take some decent self-portraits, I bought a vintage shirt, a headband and a couple of wrist bands to complete the look.

I set my camera on a tripod and shot away.

Canon EOS 30D /17-40L / Speedlite 580EXII

It was at a back alley behind the Michigan Theater covered by graffitis and gums!

As if standing in front of a tripod and posing wasn't embarrassing enough, someone opened the door and pushed me out of the way. 3...2...1... snap!

"Dude, just so let you know, there's a door here"

Yup, I'm a photography fanatic.

chromaphile?

Before I created this blog, I wanted it to have an ingenious title. At first, I thought about conjoining two random words that sounded cool, like "blind pig", "citrus moon", "squid fingers" or something of the sort.

So why "chromaphile"? (kroh-muh-fil)
Well I take photographs and photographs record an immense amount of colors present in the atmosphere. So to express my love for the spectrum, I simply used two Greek roots "chroma" and "phile", meaning love for colors.

That makes me a choromaphilliac.