Seriously! They appeared overnight!

I kid you not, these buildings appeared overnight!

Hospital Buildings

The story: The Prince of Wales Hospital is the main hospital in the area where I live (btw, I live in Hong Kong). It’s within walking distance of my church and so I drive past it at least one a week. Whenever I’m visiting someone, I always park in the visitor parking lot and have been doing this for as long as I can remember.

Last week I went with my mum to visit someone and as it was a nice day, we decided to walk to the hospital from church. Let me remind you, I drive past this hospital several times a week.

We arrived and walked in through the front gates and would you believe, the above building was sitting where the old visitor parking lot had been. I could have sworn it was there last week! (the parking lot, not the building!). And this isn’t exactly the kind of building you can miss. It’s huge and sitting right next to the road and did I mention it’s huge! I could not believe my eyes. I had to do a double take to make sure I wasn’t imagining it.

So, there we have it – I am clearly not as observant as I thought I was. I missed a huge, enormous building being built and didn’t even begin to notice until I had half walked passsed it.

Unbelievable!

Dodie

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P.S. Photos taken with my iPhone as I was walking past – not the best of my photography skills! Picture borders are one of my freebies that I thought I would give a go using as clipping masks. I think they came out ok! You can pick up the borders HERE, but you’ll have to wait a while for me to get up the motivation to do the clipping masks. Still can’t believe I missed a huge ol’ building!

iPhone Camera

Ok, so one of the main reasons why I held out getting an iPhone so long was because of the camera – it wasn’t very good compared to my 8.3 megapixel cybershot camera with flash, autofocus, zoom etc. on my Sony Erricson. Sweet phone camera. Anyway, I gave in and got the iPhone and, while the camera is not stella, I’m having fun with it and am slightly impressed with what it can produce!

I was driving home from somewhere a few days ago (possibly church? or lunch with my mum and sister?) and saw a beautiful sky lit with a sinking sun. I whipped out my iPhone and snapped a quick photo. I didn’t even try to hold the camera still. Below is what I caught. Not bad for a wobbly hand, car travelling fast on a highway, with not great light. There’s hope!

iPhone Photo

And on a side note – I live right next to the building below the sun. I get a great view of the Hong Kong skyline!

Dodie
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Kevin Skinner

Kevin Skinner has restored my faith in people. Well, at least a few!

{If you’ve come for a freebie, you can find my latest freebie HERE!} Ok, now onto Kevin Skinner =)

I am watching “America’s Got Talent” at the moment (I love it! Shh… don’t tell anyone – I’ll never live it down *lol*) and this week it was the best week ever! The highlight was the very last performer, Kevin Skinner.

Here is a guy that is so humble, so unassuming and downright nice. I know that this is a lot to gather from one appearance on a TV show that was filmed hundreds of miles away, but the guy was so downright nice! I just wish the world was full of more people like him – it would be a better place (yeah, I know I live in a huge city – but still!).

I c0uldn’t resist seeing how far he would make it in the competition and so googled him and was so pleased to read that the won the whole thing! I’m now waiting for his upcoming album to come out as I will definitely be added it to my iTunes library.

Anyway, here is the clip of him on the show. I’ve watched it several times and just think he’s lovely. I’m so glad he won. He deserves it. By the way, I checked it up and chicken catchers really do catch around 60,000 chickens a night and they do grab 8 at a time and it is one of the most horrible jobs anyone could do. Kudos to him for doing it to support his wife and 2 children.

Anyway, here is the clip. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Dodie
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I Gave In!

I gave in! The fact that my mum, dad and baby brother ALL have iPhones was one thing – but when we got my mum an iPad for mother’s day last month, I suddenly realized that I had better put in some serious effort to get back up to speed with the world of technology and finally went and got myself a beautiful new iPhone. I know, I know… I should have waited to get the 4G, but then I realized that I then I would have wanted to wait for the 4GS and so on… it’s never ending.

So, I now am the proud owner of a lovely white, 3GS, 32GB iPhone that is looooovely! And I have to admit it, I was WRONG. The iPhone is definitely streets ahead of any other phone I’ve ever had and I know I made the right decision in getting it.

My old phone was a Sony Erricson with an 8.3 mega pixel camera – and the quality camera (or lack of!) is what really made me hesitate getting my iPhone – but with all the camera apps, I’m in heaven!

I have a brand new ifrogz case that is also loooovely! I’ll blog about it soon.

But, for now, I’m content (although I think spending so much time on my new iPhone probably gave me one killer migraine that last over 2 weeks – but well worth the pain for such a loooovely phone!).

I’ve also done a scrapbook layout about it and will post the layout when the kit I used is released by my designer.

Great Phone!

Dodie
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P.S. You know I’m going to have to do a few good iPhone apps for scrapbooking reviews =) There are so many!!! CLICK HERE for my first app review =)

P.P.S. The screen on the iPhone pic – mine! That’s what my screen looked like just before I posted. Gotta make it real =)

Cathy Zielske Video

Oh so funny! Cathy Z. cracks me up!

Singapore

White Tiger in Singapore

I’ve just returned from a quick 4 day trip to Singapore with my mum to relax, relax and basically relax! We stayed at the Four Seasons, which was lovely and only a 2 minute walk from Orchard Road (always good!).

I’m presently take 2 photography classes and am so behind because I had initially planned on going to India to do my assignments – fabulous place to take photos! So when those plans fell through, I decided I would have to make my photography a priority in Singapore. I’ll post a few of my favourite photos when I get time, but couldn’t resist posting a photo of a white tiger I saw.

I should mention that it was POURING rain and I had to wear this huge green raincoat/poncho that was so difficult to work with. It was super humid and my lens kept fogging up even though my camera had acclimatized! I stood for ages trying to get some good shots. I couldn’t use a tripod and the camera was literally dripping wet. The photos didn’t come out brilliant – but MUCH better than I thought they would.

Unfortunately, because it was almost dark and because I didn’t have a tripod, I had to push the ISO up to 1600 and then pray my hand was steady enough for a 1/20 shutter speed (with VR).

I’m glad I got a few photos I like! Nothing wonderful, but good enough!

Enjoy!

Dodie
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My New Avatar

I have a new avatar! Yay!

dodiesa_avatar

I love it! It’s made using “Friendly Faces” Paper Pieces by Jacques over at The Lilypad. Yay!

I Can't Work with Templates

I had one of those “hmm….” moments this week. I was trying to use a template. I’ve never tried before and just assumed it would be easier. Wow was I wrong! It was awful! The result was a layout from the 90’s and I didn’t enjoy it at all! I guess I’m just not a template kind of scrapper! I’ll definitely give it a go again sometime in the future – but for now… it’s free-styling for me!

Finding What You Love!

A few people over the last couple of weeks have commented to me that they think I’m lucky because I have something in life that I love doing.

Interesting thought!

I am passionate about quite a few things and hate not being able to do them every day, all day! But a lot of my friends don’t really love doing anything particular. They go to work, go eat, get home, watch TV, sleep and restart their day. I live to design! I couldn’t imagine how dull life would be without it! So, even though I don’t get to do it as a full time job, at least there is something I am passionate about. Keeps life interesting!

Do What You Love!

Life is too short to do something you don’t love doing! I’ve thought about this a lot lately and wish I could quit my full time job and just design. It’s not possible! But, I do know that if I find the time each and every day to do what I love, then at least part of each day will be consumed with doing what I love. I don’t know what the future holds – but I do know that at least every part of each day I live on this Earth, I will spend some time doing what I love. Maybe one day I’ll be able to do it all day, every day! I love the dream~!

Dodie
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