6 posts tagged “kat”
We didn't exactly start the day off quietly. We had spotted this roller coaster at Mission Beach the first day we were in San Diego and we knew we would have to check it out before we left. The Giant Dipper may have a lame name, but it is a gem. This 83-year-old wooden roller coaster bangs you all around inside the car as you snake around on its nearly 1/2 mile track. So why not come along for our ride. Drew whipped out the Flip video camera so you can share our point of view. The Flip does not do motion very well (the DivX codec just doesn't have enough key-frames for smooth picture) but we still like the way it looks. Depending on your connection you can see the high bitrate version or the lower bitrate version on the left. In the end, the video quality is equally crappy.
The rest of the day was pretty low key. Much needed after the animal overdose of the Zoo on day one and the Wild Animal Park on day two. We did a little shopping, explored some of the neighborhoods, swam in the hotel pool (even though it was probably on 48 degrees with at 15 mph wind) and then ended the day with great Mexican food in Old Town. It was a great way to wrap up our brief stay in frosty San Diego. We will hit Balboa Park in the morning and jump on our flight home in the afternoon.
The park is incredible. The kids decided it was like no "zoo" they had ever experienced before. The highlight was the tour where they had an opportunity to feed the giraffes. The weather finially cooperated with the sunny skies we expected when we booked this vacation last winter. The weather report is a return to 80 degree temperatures... the day after we leave. Oh well.
One of the tour sites pointed out that the cost of entry to the Zoo for four is actually more than a membership. Consequently, this was day two of our exercising our new-found zoo member status. Lots of free stuff besides admission. So lots of new photos from the day, most of them snapped by Kat. She is becoming quite the shooter.
Kat presents her insights on a little of the history of Hong Kong. With locations covering Kowloon to Lantau Island to the heart of Hong Kong, Kat helps us to understand the conflict of the Opium wars and the ancient tradition of foot binding. She puts it all in her own perspective.
You can click here for the full size version of her report, and like always, if you are on a slower connection it is best to click play, pause it for 5-10 seconds so the file download can get a head start, and then click play. It should play smoother using the play-pause-play strategy.
We are still having difficulty with the failed (fried) power transformer. It has really put a crimp in our video production process. But it has not affected our prodigious quantity of photos. One thing we have learned this trip is Kat is one heck of a shooter. While Darcy has been lugging around the Nikon, Kat has been shooting with our little Canon. We are thrilled we tucked that into her purse because not only are the images well seen and composed, but it gives a perspective to the holiday that is not from the adults. We are really enjoying the different perspective. So as you look at the photos and note the file name, if it starts with “img” you can know that is from Kat’s camera.
Thursday was a water day. August and dad started the day early going back and forth on the Star Ferry a few times to shoot his story about transportation. The entire family connected for a trip to Kowloon (on the other side of the bay, about 7 minutes away) and the Museum of History. In hindsight we should have started our trip here. We had intended to, but there were too many events that were day and date dependent so it got pushed back. It really gave us a much better perspective on life here in Hong Kong.
We spent the afternoon cruising the harbor on a junk. To be honest, it wasn’t a real junk, at least we are assuming on a real junk they don’t offer you peach drinks while you are reclining on a pillow. This was the upscale sanitized version of a “junk” experience. But it was a blast all the same. The kids were in heaven as they hung out on the deck under the orange sails, running from rail to rail watching the harbor traffic up close and personal. The scale of the city from the water is almost overwhelming. We have cricks in our necks from looking up at tower after tower. Manhattan’s skyscrapers are massive. While there are some big honking buildings here, many, if not most, are impossibly skinny. When you scatter a community that looks like a jar full of drinking straws across mountains and hillsides, you get Hong Kong.
So there are plenty of new photos from Lantau Island and the the Junk. We will keep trying to get the next few videos finished. It would be nice to get those up.
Life is so full of unexpected challenges.
As the media engine on this trip to Hong Kong (principal photography, executive producer, editor, web master and chief bottle washer) Drew has come to expect the unexpected. But he wasn’t expecting this. Our laptop crashed. Big-time. And so five days before we are scheduled to leave we are frantically trying to configure a production computer.
But we are making progress. The new machine is a cute little HP loaded with Vista. As the pround owner of this sleek little gem dad should be very excited. But alas, he is not. None of the production software we have tested works very well on the new machine (Avid, QTPro, Macromedia). In fact the Avid gives us the blue screen of death. Growing pains for sure. But we have moved over the PremierPro (thank you Adobe for building such a great app) and we seem to be back in business.
So here is the first of two tests as we try and figure out how we will get all this stuff to work in a few days. If you click the link on the right it will play full size. This video is Kat asking about flying fish at the Pike Place Market. We are testing the tool we use to compress and upload the video.
The next test will be to determine if our HD camera will work with the new video editing softare. And then we will be done. And the blog will be ready to go. And you won't have to endure our growing pains.
As we get closer to our departure for Hong Kong, the kids get more excited. This weekend was our last opportunity to shop for all that we will need for the trip. The MoKels have no idea what is in store for us, and frankly, the Pacton family has no idea either. At least we will come bearing gifts.
On a side note, Tamara,,, these are not your gifts. Really. We promise.
