colinwoon

Belgian food, that is. We stopped by Cafe Montrose last Saturday to grab a quick lunch before we head home. Never had lunch there, basically the same dishes as dinner except the added sandwiches(which we didn't order anyway).

Omelletes - seems like Belgian omelletes are baked. Quite flavorful.


French fries - one of our favorite food of all time.


Moules Marinniere - steamed mussel with white wine. Cafe Montrose's famous dish. We like too!


Crepe Mikado - crepes with Belgian chocolate, and vanilla ice cream in the center. Very very good!

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Thanks to my "good" navigation skill, we detour a little from our intended destination, the mountain bike trail in Memorial Park.

It seems like a pretty good trail. We see a lot of elevation change, drops and some dried creeks. It's pretty easy to walk but I'm sure it's going to be a challenge with a mountain bike.

It'll be interesting to come back with a mountain bike. A good reason to shop for a new mountain bike to replace my rusted work horse from the college day!

This is the easiest part of the trail.


Butt kicker. Little speed bump to greet moutain biker.


The trails are color coded for difficulty level. Orange = Easiet, Blue = Medium, Black = Difficult.


Huh?!

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June is almost here, that means summer is closing soon. Damn, I haven't had enough fun in the Spring temperature yet.

Anyhoo, Faye wanted to ride the bike in Memorial Park last Saturday morning, supposedly one of the good spot for bike riding in Houston. And this is one of those case in which it didn't happen as planned.

Well, we found out the night before that our bike rack only hold 2 bikes but we need to bring three bikes for me, Faye, and Zoe. That's fine, we will just walk or jog then.

Being a very "good" navigator myself, I made the wrong turn and we ended up in the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center. It turns out the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center is quite nice. It has some nice trails behind the center. They even have constructed some platform over some uneven path or muddy area for people to walk on. The most interesting experience is that as we were walking on the path cover by trees, you can still hear cars running on the highway. This will be the ideal place for city dwellers to enjoy the forest, yet can't leave behind the noise of the city.

Can you believe this is actually inside the city?


The nicer path in the park.


Zoe and Faye, the look alike sister, on the trail.

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Finally!!! We found macaron in Houston!

I have no idea what Macaron is a month ago, then I saw the first macaron on Flickr. It was on a fellow Flickr friend's page, Zabaione. Based on the photos she posted, she seems to be a really great baker and a great cook too! Definitely a macaron lover and a great photographer. Her macaron photos look so good, that's the reason why I want to find out what macaron taste like. Check out her blog too!

We found macaron at Midtown Farmers Market last Saturday morning by chance. It was sold by a lady named Maison Burdisso. According to her, not many people sell macaron in Houston(possibly 3 including herself), that's why it's so hard to find.

Macaron sure is a very interesting dessert. It's like cookies with crispy shell and creamy filling in the middle. It sure is tasty! No wonder so many people like it. Faye and I love it!

Clockwise from left lavenders, caramel, tiramisu, lime, lemon, and chocolate in the middle.


Tiramisu flavored macaron is definitely one of our favorite.


Lime flavored macaron is my favorite.

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My Nintendo Wii Fit arrived today! Woo hoo!

I placed the pre-order on April 15th. I never pre-order game but I know I have to for this one because Faye came home one day last year and asked, "Have you heard of the game Wii Fit?". That is a signal telling me that she's interested. I have been trying to get her into console gaming for ages but she just never get warm to the idea. Many of our friends, girls especially, like the Ninento Wii but Faye hardly ever join me to play a game on it.

The cool thing about the Wii is that you don't just sit down and play, the motion sensor controller require you to move around to play most games. I bought it for the unconventional game play and for the fact that Faye might like it.

Back to Wii Fit, this game came with a balance board which is the main controller for the game. The player are supposed to perform some exercise movement as shown on the screen and the balance board will judge(with its sensors) if you have it right. Sounds like lots of fun.

Look, all those people on the box seems so happy.

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Future supermodel in the making! Our friends' kid model for me during a party last weekend.

She's just 4 years old. I'm just happy she will slow down and post for me. Very cute.

"Staying Cool" post.


Beautiful smile.

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Forgot to post these shots from the Samuel's birthday party. Samuel's mom made a lot of good food for his 1st birthday party but my focus is on the sweet stuffs as you may have already noticed, I LOVE DESSERT!

My wife found some good dessert restaurant on the internet for us to sample this weekend. Hopefully I will have the opportunity to take some good shots and post it here. For now, here're some dessert shots I enjoyed at the party.

A raspberry, strawberry, and watermelon bowl.


Forgot what is this called. It's crunchy and yummy. Any idea how to get this shot right? I tried and tried, this is the best I can get at the time. White balance? More light maybe?


A slice of the awesome chocolate cake. I didn't spend much time trying to get the shot right because I just can't wait to dive in and eat it!

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Our friend made this super delicious chocolate birthday cake for her baby 1st birthday as well as her husband's birthday.

And yes it does taste as good as it looks. Very rich chocolate cake with a little bitterness to it. Yum yum!

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Faye and Zoe tried out an interesting recipe for a "No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake". Instead of bake, they freeze it.

The result is very tasty, creamy and rich. It's a bit less dense compare to a regular cheesecake but it definitely taste like one. Me likey!

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It's after 5 on a Friday! The end of a hectic work week and the beginning of a relaxing weekend! Woohoo!

Taken at our backyard. See, even the sky is smiling!

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The duck family residing in the duck pond behind our house gained 3 new members not long ago. These 3 fellas follow their mom around the pond, feast on the occasional bread and food people feed them with. For some reason these duckling have dark coating, I think the last few are yellow in color.

This shot is taken at 300mm f/5.6 ISO800.

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Faye made some really tasty muffin over the weekend.

She used banana, pineapple, pecan, walnut, and wheat flour as her main incredient. The results are super delicious muffin!!! My only contribution, EAT!

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I use Google Reader on a daily basis to stay up to date with all the blogs and news sites I track. The coolest part of this free online apps is that I can access the reader anywhere I have internet connection, even on my mobile phone.

Once you add(subscribe) the RSS feed of a blog or website, Google Reader will keep track of any update. Once you login it will let you know how many updates there is of a certain blog/site, very convenient. I have tried a few other blog reader but I found Google Reader simple interface and layout to be my favorite.

Give it a try, you might like it! To add my blog to your Google Reader, just add this address http://colinwoon.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Check out Google Reader HERE.

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Assignment time! Well, it's actually for a class I took, "Basics to Photography". I chose the subject "Candid" so we went to Herman Park last weekend to complete my assignment. I didn't spent much time on it so it didn't turn out as well as I hope. By the way, all these shots are taken with my Canon EF 75-300mm. Comparing to my previous post, you can definitely see the difference between a regular lens and a "L" lens.

Caught this kiddo running around, took me a while to frame this shot because he just will not stand still.


Saw these love birds relaxing on the field. Good looking people too.


I took many photos of this kid but only one turn up ok.

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These are some of the photos I took with the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM. The image is so sharp and the bokeh is really amazing. All these shots are taken at 400mm.

That's Michael, a good friend who used to work in the same company as I do. That's a crawfish in his hand.


Check out the bokeh, it's so smooth and nice.


Kristin, a sweet girl and a good friend and another former co-worker as well.


Kristin's hubby, Chris, a very cool guy. The bokeh on this shot is even better.

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May I introduce you my new Canon "L" Lens.

Back to reality, day dream is nice sometime. I wish this is my lens but it's not, it's my manager's lens. He's into photography too. He bought this lens for his upcoming trip to Alaska.

It is the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM. For those not into photography, the "L" lens are Canon top of the line lens, which also means that it's freaking expensive. This lens right here is at least $1400. Yes, it's more expensive then my camera and accessories combined!

My manager offer me to take the lens home for a weekend but I'm scare that I might break it. Beside the more I shoot with this lens the more I want it. A few hours with it is enough.


The photos taken with this lens is amazingly sharp even at 400mm. The autofocus is incredibly fast too, near instantaneous. This will be the lens I want to take to a Formula 1 race or to a nature trail for some wild life photography.

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