Gingerbread Houses

The Sheraton hotel downtown always hosts a gingerbread house competition. They are each designed by architectural firms, and have a theme. Here are a few of them! These pictures aren't exactly photographically wonderful, but I just wanted to capture the brilliance and beauty of these.

Here is the Star of Bethlehem in the middle, made entirely of candied sugar. To the left, is the non-vacant inn, and it's difficult to see but the right is the manger where Jesus was born.

 Close-up of the inn. I love how the candied sugar was blown out into a globe.

Do you recognize all the Seattle sights? In particular, the Space Needle, ferry, Great Wheel, Big Bertha, and Underground.

This is the back side of it.

And a close up.

Under the Sea!

I like the sea turtle it's all built upon.

This is all a family tradition to go and visit these after school is out. It always was and still is so much fun!

U Village

I grew up in this place near the University campus called U Village. I have fond memories of wandering around the outside shopping village during the holidays. Here are a few pictures I took during my last shopping visit with my family.

There is this cute little Japanese crepe stand outside, and this mother and her daughter were buying one at the window.

Hope you are having wonderful holidays!

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Okay here's a post I wanted to do awhile ago--that is, about two quarters ago! Every spring, the university has a research symposium where undergraduates who have been working on any sort of research project (genetic testing, socio-economic trends, etc.) can put up a poster and present their work to prospective company bosses, other scholars, and students. It was bustling when I went, and some of the posters were in the main hall of Mary Gates Hall. These are the pictures. I really like how colorful the people are dressed. They make everything pop, compared to fall right now, when everyone is transitioning to greys and blacks.

Quote poster

I'm alive! Hello, yes, I've been gone quite awhile--ooh, new couch in the corner, I see. Anyways, I have a good excuse though! I was in Europe for awhile just after summer quarter let out. Then as soon as I got back, fall quarter (autumn, if you wanna sound fancy, and my university does) was just about to start. So as I'm getting all caught up in the rain I missed while in Rome (pictures coming soon, I promise), I want to get a few pictures and things up here every once in awhile. This may not be updated once a week as I was doing previously, but there will be new pictures.

And so having said that, there is not going to be a picture today, but instead there will be one of my drawings, haha. I am taking biochem this quarter, and my teacher is about 80, incredibly knowledgeable about chemistry, a little bit lost on biology, and absolutely hilarious. Who else tells his lecture that "We all started out as one cell. And look what marvelous entities we have become. Well, most of us. Some of us are going downhill."? Haha.

So this poster/drawing thing is of one of his quotes. I believe he was talking about protein purification procedures (I really need to study; I have no idea what those are at the moment...). But he was referring to how all the pictures in textbooks are idealized, which is very much not the case in real life labs or nature.

Quote: Rules are sort of decoration. ~ Wim Hol

Have a wonderful day!
(I woke up thinking I had an 8:30 class, and promptly realizing my first class starts at 10:30 today. So I have a long day ahead of me, haha.)

Bambi?

 At Hurricane Ridge, the deer were coming out to play. This little guy was so cute, with his little antlers starting to bud out. 

Unfortunately, the deer were not afraid of the people/cars, which is quite dangerous.

Camping on the Peninsula

We took my little cousin camping for the first time! The weather was perfect -- not too rainy and comfortable temperatures at night. Wanting to ease her into the camping scene, we chose a campsite with running water and toilets :P

Here are some pictures from around the campsite (yes, it was this beautiful!)

There was a path by our campsite that led down the coast to a beautiful beach view.

A few panoramas were required to try to capture the beach's beauty. Oh, and by the way, that's Canada across the way. We were actually camping on public land that was a fort during WWII (Fort Hayden).

I would love to straighten out the water in the picture, though.

This island stood out in the middle of the strait. I tried to frame it with the grass and trees. I like the look I captured with the sun's glow coming from the right.

And of course I captured pictures of the sunset. Look how clear the skies are! Using the panorama setting on my camera, the right side got a little bit choppy, ruining the lines. But I think it still captures the beauty.

My cousin loved camping so much, she wanted to stay an extra day past the 3 we had planned! I would call that a success.

4th of July!

This is the first year I've got decent photos of fireworks! I adjusted the f-stop and ISO, and just held the camera. I didn't have a tripod, so I did my best. And it sort of worked!

 Hope you had a fun and safe 4th! And to everyone else, hope you had a wonderful weekend.

My hand shook on this one above, but it makes it look a bit like a peony or a chrysanthemum, doesn't it? Coincidentally, the latter is my favorite flower :)

University Street Fair

The University street fair came around about a month ago, and this is my favorite picture from it. Outside of the gargoyle shop (I know, right?), this artist was carving a gargoyle out of clay. I like how you can see his concentration here as he works on the wing.

Lavender

Have some lavender to brighten your day! I love the smell of it, and huge bunches of it live on the side of the road near my classes. I took this picture on my way home after my last lab of the quarter (whoo hoo!)

Summer at Gasworks park

Today was my first day of summer classes. I'm commuting to school with my mother, who is re-schooling right now (it's super fun). It got quite sunny today, but now as I'm posting this the clouds have covered up. So today's post is a bit of a dichotomy in two ways: a) it's about the end of last quarter as I start the beginning of summer quarter b) It's about the stretch of sun we received, while the current weather is overcast. Onwards!

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Right around dead week, we had a long stretch of beautiful sunny days (figures, right?). The Boyfriend and I walked to Gasworks park about a mile away, and I took a bunch of pictures. Here are a few:

This picture reminds me of a postcard or something. I really like the bright and varying colors of the house boats. The sailboat also adds a nice break to the craziness of the houses. 

There were fields of buttercups along the side of the paths. I tried to capture the silky reflection of the petals. I have memories of picking little handfuls of these along the hill near my elementary school with my brother.

A group of med-school graduates were taking their graduation pictures here too. They all wore a pink stethoscope in their pictures.

This little girl was climbing up the tall hill in the center of the park. The grass was so tall it looked like she was wading through corn fields or something. Look at her trek up it!

We need more sunny days like this!

Peonies!

This is incredibly late, but The Boyfriend bought me flowers! About a month ago. Heh. 

These pink peonies were beautiful and smelled wonderful. They made my little dorm room a nice little slice of heaven. Or at least smell like a field of flowers. Anyways, they were much needed during my finals, so I greatly appreciated them. And of course, took pictures of them too!

This is where they lived on my windowsill! They were a wonderful burst of color, as you can see.

I loved how the petals had choppy, uneven edges.

It's like a cacophony of  petals!

It had been forever since I received flowers, and I loved how he surprised me with them :)

Full Moon

Have you looked at the moon lately? This past week, it became a full moon, and walking back to my dorm on a warm night, I was able to fully enjoy its beauty. 

When I returned (safely) home, I was compelled to capture its brightness and the crisp circle of the moon as it diffused into a halo of light. I have never been able to photograph such a bright, clear picture of the moon before. This one was taken from the 7th floor, out an open window.

I like how you can see the bright ring drawing the moon's edge, contrasted with the darker center, and the light disseminating from it.

Goodnight, Moon.

UW Night Market 2014

Last night was the Taiwan Night Festival at the UW. I went with a close friend and we had a wonderful time. In between eating delicious food, we also watched music performances, one of which was her cousin, Fiona Dawn. It was nice night with blue skies, good food, and catching up with old friends.

Fiona played the Guzheng, a traditional Chinese instrument. She writes and composes her own songs, which are in English, Chinese, or both! I really liked how she managed to weave the two cultures together in the language of the lyrics, and sounds of the music.

I still need to figure out how to photograph at night :/ This picture below does not have very good clarity, and the bright lights overtake the lack of details. 

I like the composition of this picture a bit better, but it still doesn't have very good clarity.

Ducklings in the Sun

The ducklings in Drumheller fountain were basking in the sunshine this week! They were slumbering together on the duckling ramp the UW puts in the fountain every spring. Aren't they cute?

[I really like the composition on this one below, with the different horizontal stripes broken up by the ducklings (and their own stripes on their eyes and bodies!)]

Then they started waking up

And took a quick dip! With the mother duck keeping an eye on the spectators.

Happy Mother's Day!

It's beginning to feel a lot like...Spring!

It is finally feeling like Spring here!

Well, sorta. Last week was all sun and no clouds, so everyone on campus broke out the shorts and dresses. We all soaked up the sun, and got sunburnt and no homework done. But hey, when the sun comes out, we all emerge from our winter caves in Seattle. It is a holiday in itself.

But then of course, this weekend it poured (perhaps to make up for the suddenly nice weather?). So hey. It's April showers.

But here are some shots I took during those hot, muggy days (I'm a wimp in heat).

These first two were taken during a walk with The Boyfriend. The walk ended up lasting quite long, but the scenery was really pretty (if a bit hot...heh). We walked around a neighborhood nearby campus.

I know this second picture is technically the same composition of a previous one from Easter, but I couldn't resist. I really like the pattern of the shadows from the petals. And I think this new one turned out better than the first :)

You really know it's spring when ducklings come out to swim! This is in Drumheller fountain.

Because it was sunny for such a long stretch with no rain (3 days, oh my! haha), every slight breeze jostled off seeds from the trees on campus. I'm not sure what tree these are from, but they covered all the sidewalks and gutters. As you can see in the background of the last picture.

I didn't see that car in the background!! Oh well.

Have a wonderful week!