Potter's Cabin in Pittsboro

On 3rd May 2008, we visited the Hewitt Pottery Open House in Pittsboro, North Carolina. We had a chance to meet the master potter there, Mark Hewitt and have some nice conversations with him. Mark has some apprentices learning from him. One of the apprentices is able to live in a cabin right there in the Hewitt Pottery site. We took a few photos of that cabin. Here is one of them.

When you look at the cabin, simple and cozy. That kind of living environment is capable of producing great potters.

Rose in Duke Garden

On 25th May 2008, we visited the Sarah P. Duke Garden in Durham, North Carolina. Duke Garden has been one of our favorite gardens for taking pictures. It is close to home and therefore it is easy to get there, spend a few hours, and enjoy the atmosphere. By the front door of the garden, there were a rose garden growing some beautiful roses. Here is one of the pictures there.

As far as we know, growing roses in North Carolina is quite difficult. Bugs love to eat them, in particular, Lady Bug. A couple of years ago in our neighborhood one afternoon, all of a sudden, all of the Lady Bug came out all together. Kids were screaming and running away from them. We saw thousands of lady bugs flying above us. That was quite an experience. However, nobody has been able to tell us why the lady bugs did that. Also, how could they communicate with each other so that they all came out at the same time?

BC Ferries in Bristish Columbia

We took a trip to Canada in early September 2006. During that trip, we spent a few days in Victoria visiting good friends, Joyce and Bennet. To travel between Vancouver and Victoria, we decided to drive and took the ferry by BC Ferries. We were able to drive our car onto the ship which was really fun. On 10th September 2006, we left Victoria and took the ferry back to Vancouver. The ship ride took about one and half hour. While we were on the ship in the middle of the ride, we saw this ferry heading to the opposite direction. So, we were able to take a few pictures from good angles.

The ferry was able to hold hundreds of cars. In this picture, the rectangular opening is for cars to get in and out of the lower decks of the ship. Once we parked our car in the lower deck, we went up to the upper deck to enjoy the scenic view around. It was really a wonderful experience.

Typewriter Eraser in DC

In DC Mall area, there are so much to see. So, whenever we have a chance, we would see a small portion in that area. On 23rd November 2007 Thanksgiving holiday, we visited DC Mall again and spent most of our time in the Arts Museum. Interestingly, there is an outdoor section of the Museum with a lot of contemporary sculptures. They call that Sculpture Garden.

One of the sculptures there as shown on the picture was created in 1999 by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen entitled Typewriter Eraser. A boy leaned on the sculpture and you can tell it was quite tall. We have used typewriter long time ago. However, we do not remember we have used a typewriter eraser like this one. Anyway, it was a nice looking sculpture made by stainless steel and fiberglass. Unfortunately, the sky was gloomy. Otherwise, this picture would be much nicer.

Jordan Lake in North Carolina

The day of 24th May 2008 was beautiful, not so hot but sunny in central North Carolina. We went to visit the Jordan Lake State Recreation Area in with good friends, Lingxing and Longhua. Jordan Lake is huge and we can only visit the lake a small part at a time. That day, we visited the Parkers Creek area which is mainly for camping and picnic purposes. After we parked there, we took the longest trail and hiked all the way from the beach area to the very end of the campground territory. It was a wonderful hike under the shadow of tall trees most of the time, really enjoyable. By the time we reached the end of the trail, we overlooked an area by the water with people fishing. It was so peaceful to see such a moment. Some of them sat on beach chairs with fishing rods on their hands. Others stood by the water and waited for fishes to come. When we saw that, we believed the people there would have been very relaxing. In fact, seeing such a moment was quite enjoyable for us too.

Alexis in Duke Garden

We visited the Sarah P. Duke Garden on 25th May 2008 with good friends, Kevin and Lori. Their daughter, Alexis, went there with us. Alexis, 2 years old, has been trained nicely and properly by her parents to love animals and nature in general. Once we reached the Duke Garden parking lot, she saw a fish tank, went there, then crouched to check out the small fishes. People around there were so amazed to see a little girl have so much interests in fishes. To record such an important moment, we immediately pulled our camera out and took a few pictures. Luckily, Alexis had so much patience. She spent quite a few minutes by the fish tank, looking here and peeking there. So, we had a little time to find a nice angle to document that amazing event.

Lotus Flower in Duke Garden

On 25th May 2008, we visited the Sarah P. Duke Garden in Durham, North Carolina right by the Duke University with the Mar family. We like that garden a lot since it is well-organized, well-maintained, and beautiful. It was a hot day but it would not avoid us from running around to take some good pictures.

The lotus flowers were blooming there as shown in this picture. However, the best of this photo is that a dragon fly is sitting on top of the flower. It stayed there for a long time for some reasons. So, we had more than enough time to get some good shots. Unfortunately, it was a little far away from us. Even though we were using the 70-300mm zoom lens, it was still a little too far. Because of that, we had to crop the original picture some.

Marguerite in Chapel Hill

Spring is always the best time to see beautiful flowers. Around our neighborhood, our neighbors are so good in landscaping and maintaining their flower beds. We can tell there are so much nice human touch in their yards. However, we found these flowers on a spot which was not very neat on 4th May 2003. We believe they are wild flowers.

Well, wild flowers have their ways to present their beauty such as these two. The upper one was about to open up while the lower one was going to follow. A combination of them showed nicely on a picture. We have enjoyed seeing this picture ever since.

Castries in St. Lucia

When we took the cruise trip to the Caribbean by the end of January 2008, one of the stops was St. Lucia. St. Lucia has been a part of the British Commonwealth since 1803. Before that, the island was occupied by the French. The cruise ship docked by the town named Castries. Castries is a nice little town with some colorful local markets for great shopping.

This picture was taken from the top deck of the cruise ship overlooking the town. As we can see, the buildings are so colorful. When we looked at it, we had a mixture of joyful and peaceful feelings.

Andy in Beverly

We love to take pictures for baby and kid since it is so enjoyable to be with them. On the other hands, it is a challenge to get them to do what we want them to do in order to get some nice shots.

When we visited our good friends, Lixin and Qing, in Beverly, Massachusetts on 16th August 2003, we met their son, Andy, 13 months old by that time. Unexpectedly, taking good pictures for Andy was no trouble at all. He listened, focused, and was extremely patient. His mom was working on some baby food to feed him. Andy knew it and he simply watched how the food was being prepared to make sure that the whole process was acceptable. He sat there quietly and waited for the food. When one looks at this picture, one can tell that there is something in his mind. What is it? No matter what you say, we are sure that your guess will be a good one.

Homemade Ice Cream in Stonington

We have not met anyone who does not like ice cream yet. Particularly, kids love ice cream so much in general. This is really an international standard.

When we had our vacation in Maine with good friends, Lixin and Qing by the end of August in 2003. We spent a day in the fisherman village, Stonington. It was a quiet and beautiful city without big tourist crowd. After walking around the business area, we were thirsty. All of a sudden, we saw a sign which said "Homemade Ice Cream". It was like gold dust from the sky and we had to have that. Kevin, 5 years old by that time, enjoyed the ice cream so much. It was a hot afternoon and the ice cream melted quickly. But, Kevin wanted to take his time to enjoy the delicious ice cream of course. So, his dad, Qing, intelligently found a way to fix the problem, putting the cone into a cup and asking Kevin to use a spoon to scoop the ice cream out from the cone. Then, Kevin was able to enjoy it without getting melted ice cream all over his hands, shirt, and short. However, it did not help to get ice cream off around his mouth.

Harry Potter in Chapel Hill

Harry Potter, no doubt, is one of the famous names on earth. Can you imagine that Harry Potter came over to visit us at home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina? On 31st October 2006, he showed up by the front door of our house. Here is the picture we took for him.

We have just mentioned October 31st which is Halloween festival. As you can imagined, we had all kinds of people who came over for candy and we particularly liked this Harry Potter a lot. He had the well-known Harry Potter "Z" mark on his forehead. He dressed in black just like he was in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The eye glasses he wore was typical Harry Potter style. Of course, we liked the most was the smile he gave us. Surely, we gave him a bunch of candies and he left with a happy face too.

Reading at Beach in Beverly

On 15th August 2003, we flew to Boston to visit some good friends. Once we got there, they took us to a local beach in Beverly. That was not a tourist point of interest and therefore we expected to see how people live in that area. In fact, that was our preferred way in traveling. On that beach, there were not many people around which was good. We saw a couple of folks who sat on beach chairs reading. Next to them was two surf boards. A combination of those created a nice looking picture.

This picture is not as colorful as we would like. However, we like the idea of reading by the beach which gives us the feeling of peace and enjoyment. One day, we may want to do the same and hopefully someone will take a picture just like that for us. That would be really nice.

Bird House in Philadelphia Zoo

When we visit zoo, we spend most of our attention in animals, of course. However, when we went to the Philadelphia Zoo on 22nd March 2008, there were some very beautiful bird houses on display. They were so colorful and we had to take pictures for them. We have seen many bird houses over the past several years. But, none of them looks as nice as those in Philadelphia Zoo.

Those bird houses remind us that there is really no limit on improvement, even a simple bird house. When someone wants to do a great job in building a nice bird house, the outcome would be amazing. The only requirement is that all the materials and time are provided to that bird house builder to do the job. Also, no one is going to take credit of that beautiful bird house except the builder.

The comment from Long reminded us the bird house we built several years ago. We made a bird house with treated wood which was a huge mistake. Birds has good sense and they know that treated wood contains poison which is not good for their health. So, birds do not like bird house made by treated wood. By the time we built that bird house, we did not have good tools to make a perfect round-shape door for the house. So, we used the biggest drill we had and drilled 3 holes in triangle shape. Then, we manipulated it to become a triangle shape door. It did not look very good but that was the best we could do by that time. Many years later, we still had not been able to see any bird living in it. We were so disappointed and did not know why. One day in the morning, we looked up and found that the triangle-shape door became round-shape. We had not done anything ourselves. Some birds or insects decided that triangle-shape door did not look good and they decided to make the door round. Now, we have a round-shape door bird house right outside our kitchen window but we still can not see who the tenant is. It looks to us that they spent the effort to fix up the door then left for some reasons.