Photo blog: red velvet cupcakes + herb garden

Momo chilling out after a haircut and bath.

Today has been a decent day. I went to yum cha with my mum, had a good chat with her about moving out, my career prospects and traveling. I've told her I'm pretty keen to go traveling for six months and just be a bit more independent. I just need some change and do some really pretentious activities like "work on myself". Places I've been thinking about going to include San Fransisco, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore, but nothing is definite. I'm not sure if I should go alone or go with people.

I will be house sitting in December, which I am very excited about. My old tutor from uni is going away for the Christmas holidays so I'll be looking after his house. I'm actually just really excited about looking after his cat. He's such a cutie! He's the same breed as the I Has Cheeseburger cat. This will be a good opportunity to taste test the whole "living alone" thing, albeit a bit more comfortably than most "living alone" situations.

My herbs, photosynthesising. They've been doing really well! I made salad with mint and basil from the garden the other day. It was very exciting. The coriander is still quite "young" so I'm waiting for them to bloom a bit more before I start using it.

 I made a batch of red velvet cupcakes today. They turned out all right, although can I just say icing cupcakes takes some serious skill! I would have liked them to be a little redder. I'm thinking next time I make this, I might actually use beetroot juice instead of milk, or do half milk half beetroot juice. I read on wikipedia red velvet cake was sometimes made using beetroot juice, which enhanced its red colour. My vegan friend says vegan chocolate cake sometimes has beetroot juice, which makes it very moist.

I used the recipe from taste.com.au because it didn't require a mixer. I also halved the frosting mixture and used apple cider vinegar instead of white vinegar because I didn't have any vinegar at home.

Rustic icing on cupcakes! I think it might be because I didn't beat the cream cheese frosting enough. On a different note, I'm looking forward to the public holiday on Tuesday! I don't have anything planned yet, but just the thought of sleeping in makes me happy.

What plans do you have this week?

Playing with my new 50 mm lens

TV Ban Day Four

I went to my friend Karmen's graduation today. It was great fun. Got home at a reasonable time and felt the urge to edit these photos. I took them with the Nikon D7000 with a 50mm lens, edited using Photoshop. I bought the lens in Singapore airport for SG$317! There were some awesome Sigma lenses but since I'm still relatively new to prime lenses, I thought I'd stick with this one. I think it takes some really good portrait shots. I mainly bought this lens for low light situations (well, it's much better than any zoom lens). I took some photos of my parents as well, which look great. I can't wait to shoot some video with the lens.

I took these photos last Sunday, after I gave the dogs a bath. Lighting was great that day, and my dogs look so cute when they're nice and clean. Even though they hate having a bath, I know they feel better after having one.

food.

I forgot to mention to the world that I will be going to...

THAILAND!

Hells yeah. I'm so excited. My partner and I have planned a 16 day trip to Thailand. We're visiting Krabi for a week, and the remaining will be spent chilling out in busy Bangkok. I'm so excited about this! I'm actually really stoked about eating real Thai food. I've been scavenging the internet, trying to read up on cuisine and it's all super exciting. I'm pretty keen to check out some Thai desserts. Writer Richard Barrow did this awesome challenge where he had to eat different kinds of Thai street food for 30 days (no repeats of dishes) and some of the things he ate are so exciting. Really do check it out. I suppose the only downer with Thai food is that they use a lot of pork and I no longer eat pork. It makes me sad sometimes, because I really like the taste of pork. Hell, I can't even eat delicious chorizo anymore!

Anyway, I'm so excited (as you can probably tell). The only issue is definitely this thing people call a "bikini body". I think it's very safe to say that I've gained a lot of weight ever since I started going out with my partner. We've both become a little more rotund than we would like to be. I suppose we have a really really healthy relationship with food, and I always make room to eat in my belly. My point is, I think I need to start doing some kind of regimented exercise, probably do some more zumba lessons. Or just dance a lot. Or I could do those zumba DVDs my parents bought. Point is, exercise, and "healthy eating" should be, er, exercised (haha!). If we're going to be in tropical Thailand, wearing minimal clothing because it's super hot and possibly splashing about in some water (or if you're like me and can't swim, chase waves in its most literal sense), I wanna look goooooood. Day-mn.

Unlike my trip to Singapore and Malaysia, I am going to take my camera with me to Thailand and document all the awesome! Yeah, I'm excited. And I'll be going a few days after my birthday so this definitely calls for huge waves of psychetude.

WOO!

Anyway, here are some pictures. My dad bought a Nikon D7000 and we went crazy with photos!

Camera help!

OH DILEMMA!



Seriously, though, I actually have a bit of an issue and I would very much like any kind of Diana/Holga/SLR/Vintage camera buyer's help. I'm thinking of buying a Diana camera but I'm concerned about the cost of film and the cost of printing. I was looking at cameras on ebay and they cost roughly around the $50-$80 mark (which isn't bad, considering it's "free shipping"). But I just don't know if it's actually cheaper to buy them from an op shop (and that's only IF they have any in stock).

Then there's the issue of what kind of film to buy. I've found a place around Carlton that sells 120 film and that's all cool, but it also depends on where the film gets developed. Plus, I want to know if you can use 35 film in the 120 film (I'm assuming that's a big fucking no but I need to ask anyway).

My dilemma is, do I buy a Diana that uses 35 film and costs around $68, or a holga that uses 120 film and costs around $52?