As for my day I think it is all in the attitude, my perception of things and understanding of the situation, so I think it went well. Life, work and living is not like a picnic in the park anymore, this morning sky portrayed of what is to come and to remind myself to expect the unexpected.

exif data: Canon T2i, EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens, f/13 at 2.5 sec, ISO 100, 40mm, tripod mounted

My sister Bee showed her how to make one, and Lee picked up real fast.

The first bracelet that she made was for my older sister.  Lee made the one that said ‘piggy’ and my niece made the ‘love’ bracelet, they both sold it for $5 each.

Lee thought the black and white would look nice with her Ying-Yang Medallion.

Here is Lee’s Ying-Yang bracelet.

This one is Lee’s Ocean Crabby bracelet

Her Chinese New Year bracelet.

So far she has a nice collection. I was really surprised how nice her bracelets look, and she came up with the color scheme all by herself.

The table was set for two, for my grandparents on my dad side.

My grandfather was Chinese, he came from China as a young man and his story was very much like many that came to Thailand and Laos for better opportunity.

My dad and sister went to Charlotte to get the chicken. It is rather expensive since they weighted the bird by the pound and this chicken cost $19.  It is important that they get one with it’s head, tail and feet intact to symbolize completeness.

The noodle soup has a symbolic meaning also.  If you want to live longevity then you eat long noodles and my sister prepared cellophane noodle soup with mushrooms, Chinese flowers and meatballs.

Lee and my niece received Lai See money in red envelopes from the adults. It’s like Christmas all over again for them.

We had a get together on Saturday and ate plenty of long noodles of Pad Thai.

I fixed Tum Maak Houng following my GI Joe sister’s recipe and it came out very much like hers.

My first time deep frying squids, and it tasted okay.

My sister made Cassava Coconut Flakes Dessert.  My oldest sister told us that many people from Thailand died from eating half uncooked cassava.  It is very scary to know that if it’s not fully cooked then it can be deadly. According to wikipedia, improper preparation of cassava can leave enough residual cyanide to cause acute cyanide intoxication and goiters, and has been linked to ataxia or partial paralysis. Bo showed us a picture of 700 cattle that were killed overnight by poisonous weeds in Australia, 1907 and this freaked one of my sisters out. She stopped eating the dessert immediately after she heard this.

I saw this in a Thai magazine, I didn’t know that they made MSG from cassava.

Besides the Cassava Coconut Flakes Dessert, my dad normally stocked up on Asian cookies and candies during this time of the year.

This is a translated article from Koosang Koosom Magazine, written by Ngasai of Samudragarh in Thai Language, translated by Nye.

This goes back to 1995 (Thai year 2538), even though it happened almost 20 years ago but I will never forget the incident.  At that time 3 of my friends, Kai, Keo and Daecha were college students at one of the Art Universities out of state.  We were best friends, and would party and hang out together all the time.  We all stayed at the dorm right behind the University.

One day during our senior year, Kai brought a white cloth (use to cover a corpse) to show us and said,

“Why don’t we use this cloth to write our own death certificate?”

This might sound bizarre to an ordinary person, or even give you chills, but we were like teenagers and at the time it sounded fun and daring. Then Keo finally agreed,

“Okay, I’ll be the first one to write.”

As soon as she finished saying that, she started to cut the white cloth into a size of a death certificate and started to write her name, last name and also the date of her death on the certificate.   After Keo had finished with her death certificate, then Kai, Daecha and I started to write our own death certificates.  To be honest, we weren’t scare at the time or even thought that this might jinx us in anyway.  We just thought it was something fun to do at the time.

Time passed and nothing bad had happened until we all graduated.  Then one day Keo drowned, which should never have happened because she was a good swimmer.  Someone found her body in the lake near her house.  We all went to her funeral and another strange thing was that her funeral was on the same day as the date that she wrote on her death certificate made from the white cloth years ago. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but then something strange happened again the second time.

Kai, one of our friends got hit by a truck, and the day that she died was the same date that she wrote on her death certificate made from the white cloth.  This happened twice, not coincidence anymore, Daecha and I got really scared.  The next victim will be Daecha, then myself for sure.  Daecha was so afraid and tried to stay inside his house.  He didn’t go anywhere when that day was approaching.  He was so stressed out and even while he was sleeping at home death came to visit him.  Daecha died from brain aneurysms and it was on the same day that he wrote on his death certificate made from the white cloth.

I couldn’t believe that Daecha died because of this, he was so healthy and took good care of himself.

After all 3 of my best friends died one after another, this made me very fearful because the last person to die is me. And only 1 month away from the day that I wrote on my death certificate made from that white cloth.  I was afraid to die, I started to ask around and found out from Kai’s brother of where that white cloth came from.

The white cloth was used to cover a female corpse that got hit by a car.  Kai took the cloth and she thought it would be fun to play with it. The cloth was not stained with blood because it was on top of another cloth.  After I found out where the cloth of the death certificate came from, I lit an incense stick and asked the owner of the white cloth for forgiveness and begged her,

“I don’t want to die.  I still have worries and have to look after my mom and dad that are old.  I apologize for trespassing and please forgive me.”

And that night as I was half-awake half-asleep I saw a lady.  Her face was pale and expressionless.  She said in a slow and soft voice.

“You don’t want to go live with your friends?”

I immediately replied,

“I will become a monk for 1 punsa (1 year) and donate the merit to you, please don’t take my life.”

A smile appeared on her face and she said,

“Don’t forget to keep your promise.”

The next morning I told my mom and dad that I will become a monk for 1 punsa to donate merit to a female spirit that I have made a promise.  While I was a monk, the day that I wrote on my death certificate came and I survived.

I remained a monk for 1 punsa as I had promised.  After that I left the temple and went back to my normal life and work till this day.  I will never forget of what happened.  It was just for fun and daring that caused me to lose my 3 best friends.

It’s obvious that one of my New Year’s resolutions is not “to loose weight” since I plan to cook more, but I do have to be active so that I won’t pack the extra pounds, I don’t need to gain either. My dad bought Cassava from the flea market last week and my sister and I made Cassava Coconut Flakes Dessert today.  This is our first time trying and I didn’t do a good job in photographing the process. We were so thrilled to see that it looks and tastes like the real dessert and it is not as hard to make as we thought.

My sister steamed the cassava battered mixed with coconut milk and sugar for 50 minutes, let it cool, cut and rolled in coconut flakes.

The basic principle behind the rule of thirds is to imagine breaking an image down into thirds both horizontally and vertically so that you have 9 parts, and where the lines meet and form a + are the points of interest or focal point, and in this case you have 4 intersections, see Scott’s post Power of Three for more detail.

If I used the rule of thirds to compose my image I would normally look at my AF points as the indicator or imaginary grid-lines to help me place my focal point. This works well for me when I’m close to the subject but it is harder when the subject is too far away.  Like tonight, I photographed the full moon and couldn’t compose my image using the rule of thirds. This is the best that I could do and I placed the moon in the center since I used auto focus to focus the moon, and switched to manual focus right before I took the picture since there were lots of clouds floating above and I didn’t want my moon image to come out blurry, image straight out from my camera.

The next best thing is to crop the image using the rule of thirds, and the next 2 images are my results.

Sometimes the exact rule of thirds doesn’t look right to me and I think it is okay to break the rule. In this picture below the moon is still on the lines but the center is not at the intersection.

And this one also, what is interesting to me tonight is not just the moon but the sky also.

Exif data: Canon T2i, EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens, Manual, f/8, 1/3sec, ISO 100, focal length 154mm, spot metering, tripod mounted, photo taken on January 7, 2012 at 9:42 pm (21:42)

My sister used celery and green onion leaf for garnish.

Lime for taste

And grilled garlic in hot oil for garnish.

Thai basil for garnish.

Her Pho stock is different from mine.  She used a whole garlic bulb, onion, celery stalks, star anise, salt, 3 types of soy sauce including black soy sauce, oyster sauce,  and beef spareribs. She boiled her Pho stock for 1 – 2 hours.

These are the spareribs from her Pho stock and she served as a side dish.

She used dried noodle and soaked in cold water for 1 hour. Then dipped in hot boiling water for a few second to let it cook.

The black soy sauce gives it a dark color and sweet flavor.

My GI Joe sister made Tum Mak Houng, she is also visiting from NYC. Her dish has a sweet, sour, and spicy flavors. I never knew to add salt to my Tum Mak Houng and is a little heavy to the shrimp paste and fish sauce flavor, which has a strong pungent odor.

We only have frozen chili peppers this time of the year, these are from my dad’s garden.  They do sell fresh chili peppers at the Asian store but she didn’t buy any.

My GI Joe smashed and mixed well the following Ingredients in a mortar and pestle.

1 table spoon shrimp paste
1 table spoon fish sauce
1 and 1/2 table spoon of sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon MSG (optional)
4-6 chili peppers
1 garlic cove

Then add 3 thin slices of lime

1 cup cherry tomatoes

Smashed and mixed well with the rest of the ingredients.

Add about 2 handfuls shredded papaya or approximately 3 cups, smashed and mixed well with the ingredients.

Tum Mak Houng tastes good with Pho as a side dish when it is extra spicy. I shot a video at my dad’s house today and it’s too funny, not sure if I will post or re-shoot the video. It seems that everyone wants to be in the video.

The monks performed the ceremony of bungsakoun for our mom and another couple’s relative, which is a merit transferring to deceased loved ones.

According to 2012 Chinese Horoscope prediction, the year 2012 is Water Dragon Year. Dragon mainly contains Earth. Earth and Water are opposite elements. It sounds that some bad news will continue to arrive. Some people have predicted the Doomsday on December 21, 2012 after interpreting the ending of the Great Cycle of the Mayan Calendar. Mayans say that this whole cycle of civilization 5,125 years comes to an end on the Winter Solstice, 2012. In China, there is no prediction about the end of the world in 2012. Conversely, hundreds of years ago, a prophet said China will become prosperous and peaceful in 2012.

We had a good turnout this year, and it is a good sign that this will be a good year.

This is an interesting Alms’ bowl.  She is very thoughtful in her offering and also includes an envelope of money as many Buddhist worshipers offer money to monks and temple on special occasion.  The money offering to the individual monk is called Pud Jai, it goes to the monk and not the temple.

Alms giving

Food offering to the monks.

Lao style barbecue, which has no barbecue sauce but seasoned with salt, sugar, garlic, and lemongrass.

My GI Joe sister makes good tum mak houng (spicy papaya salad), I will post her recipe in my next food post.

It is served with sticky rice this time.  We only eat sticky rice on special occasion and this was definitely a special occasion for us.

My GI Joe sister and my younger sister Bee in the picture below.  We built a campfire and roasted marshmallows that night, I have to say that it was more festive than our real camping trip last week.

My oldest is visiting from NYC and we thought it would be nice for her to go camping with us.  It is quiet a challenge to live in a small space and the weather was mild during the day and freezing cold at night. We woke up one morning without running water.  The water line froze during the night and it was late in the morning before it started running again.

The closest town is Moorsville and Bo took Lee to get pizza one evening.

Max loves going with us, I’m sure he will like it better once the weather gets warmer.

Even though it is by the lake there is not a lot to do. My niece also went with us this time. The weather was too cold and the girls tried their luck fishing. I’m glad they didn’t try to catch dinner.

They played pool during the day. The place was empty and I’m not sure if it were because it was during the week and not the weekend.

Max waited patiently while they shoot pool.

The restaurant/bar area was closed for the winter. I’m sure it will be busy once it is opened for business. It does have a beautiful view overlooking the lake.

The morning was peaceful and calm.  We survived living in a small living quarter and hope our next trip will be by the creek or mountain area.

My oldest sister is visiting my dad for the holiday and made Awe Gai for us.  She didn’t have all the ingredients and had to substitute some of the ingredients.

She used chicken drumstick since it has some fat and wouldn’t be as dry as chicken breast when cook. There’s chili peppers, galangal, lemongrass, kaffir Lime leaves, shrimp paste (you can also use padek), and cook on high heat.

She added Knorr for flavor. I think she uses Knorr in many of her dishes.

Stir well while cook.

She used crushed roasted rice.

Mixed well with chicken stock broth and add this to the pot.

Then add beans and green onion

Stir well and cover lid

She didn’t have dill and used frozen lemon basil from my dad’s garden instead, add this at the very end.

Also add the green onion leaves and more kaffir lime leaves at the end before turning off the stove. Notice that my sister torn the kaffir lime leaves to bring out the aroma and flavor.

My mom used to make this for us when I was growing up, she called it Om Gai and I think it is the same dish as Awe Gai in Lao.

You can serve this with white rice or sticky rice. Lao foods are very healthy and I hope to cook more in the future.

Canon T2i, EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens, AV, f/4, 1/8sec, ISO 400, 24mm, exposure bias -0.3step, evaluative metering, tripod mounted

This one is from  FullMetalPhotos.com, it is so neat to have picture printed on metal and this is a picture that I took for Lee with her favorite author Debrorah Wiles.  I don’t have enough printing experience to give a full review, and not sure if partly it is my image also that contribute to the quality of the image. I think the overall quality is okay, a little pixelate on the facial area which I didn’t see in my original image that I submitted in. This is a good learning experience for me.  It is also my first time learning how to Photoshop the background image, and made Bo and the lady blurry.

This is not on her list either, and it came with a little note that said “to be shared with Bo”.  It is so nice that Santa is looking out for Bo also.

I think this is a sign of growing up for Lee, all smelling stuffs on her list.

PJ on her list, Lee even cut out the picture to make sure that Santa will get her the right one.

Max received gifts also.

Bo got the custom towing mirrors for his truck.

Mine is the best present ever, I plan to learn how to cook more next year and these gifts will come in handy.

This one was stuffed in my stocking, it is one tall coffee mug and I loved the art work of Thomas Kinkade winter scenery.

And Lee actually opened this one last night.  It is a portable DVD player that Bo had to fight the Black Friday crowd to get it. My sister is in town and hopefully I can share some Lao food photos with you in the next few days.

It’s still my favorite Christmas poem ever written by Clement Clarke Moore, click here to read the rest of the poem.  As for us, we were walking around the neighborhood taking picture of the Christmas lights.  I didn’t have the time or luxury to stay very long in front of each house, and came back with only a few decent images.

• Silent Night

Have you noticed the theme pattern here, apparently the light ornaments are very popular this year.

I opened my gift early, this one is from Lee.

As for Lee, one opened and many more to go.

Card, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

Lights, it is definitely Merry & Bright during this time of the year.

Ornament, Bo made this with chicken wire and string of lights.

frost, this is very typical in our area for a December morning.

Treat, Lee has mastered the art of baking gingerbread cookies.

Family, I’m there but just not in the picture.

Perhaps this one will work also.

The photo hunt is due on December 30th, hope you will join in the fun.

Yesterday we decided to visit the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden to see the Christmas lights. We got there early and it was still light outside. Some of my photos have digital noise, there was not enough lighting and I bumped the ISO up to 6400.  My camera doesn’t do too well at a high ISO, and for me I rather have some noise than blurry images.  All images and video clips were shot with a Canon T2i and EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens.

The Orchid tree composed of more than 300 orchids.

At 16 feet tall the tree only includes orchids and ferns on a metal frame. One of the most spectacular aspects of the tree is the vast number of varieties of orchids.

My sister by the palm trees.

I was photographing my niece, she is right in the center of the waterfalls.

To get a clean sharp image of the Christmas lights a tripod is a must and I saw many photographers walking around with a tripod last night. The next 4 images of the Christmas lights were shot at manual mode, f/6.3 to f/8, exposure time 15 sec to 30 sec, ISO100, and tripod mounted.

The coffee bar area is a lot warmer than outside.  I only stayed in here for a few minutes and headed back outside to shoot some videos.

Hot chocolate

They have crafts for the children also.

Lee purchased a dragonfly wooden ornament.

Orchid night shots