Trees

Trees in Black and White

I always wanted to take some pictures of these trees; I think I have waited one too many years. I imagine that I will convert the images to a simple black and white photograph. The relentless two days rain follow by a strong wind did not dampen my spirit to go out and capture the images before the leaves come back in the spring time. It is mysterious and eerie and I imagine that I lost in the woods somewhere in the wilderness, the fact it was just less than two miles from home. It is an empty lot, waiting to be developed into more housing in the near future.

http://www.yongkieandpokie.com/2015/trees

Cherry Blossom at night

Cherry Blossom at night

Well, I hope you like night photography, below is my attempt to combine cherry blossom and night photography as suggested by my friend from Singapore. So, before the rain destroyed the blossom, I decided to take night time shots, it has its uniqueness as compare to the daytime, I included last year shots since this year we won’t have time, also because of the warm winter here in the Northwest area, the bloom came in one week earlier than last year.

http://www.yongkieandpokie.com/2015/cherry

Last year during the daytime:

http://www.yongkieandpokie.com/2014/spring.html

Joan's Ornaments

Joan's Ornaments

January has been a tough month when it comes to keeping healthy. At the beginning of the year we had to visit “Urgent Care” for Pokie then two weeks later I had the cold that has been lingering for weeks. The flu shot this season is only effective 23 percent. On a brighter note, I started taking pictures again, the first one for 2015 is Joan’s Ornaments which she will have a show in September of this year in Boise, Idaho.

http://www.yongkieandpokie.com/2015/ornaments

Portland Living Room

Pioneer Square

The threat of rain has diminished considerably to almost non-existence, so I brave myself and bring my camera to Portland’s Living Room and take some pictures in the wee hours before the crowd gathers around. Also the “Ugly Sweater PDX” dresses some of the art in downtown, which was featured on NBC News last month, so I better memorialized it. It was a balmy morning, nice enough without your hands shaking since most of the night images are handheld. Enjoy, this should be the last website for 2014 I think. 

http://www.yongkieandpokie.com/2014/pdx

Holiday Express 2014

All Aboard!

For many years, I always want to ride the Holiday Express. What prevented me for doing so were always the weather factors. Either it was too cold or too wet. Today was a perfect morning, a bit cold but not that foggy. Not a bad day indeed. So, I present you with the Santa Express to Portland from Oaks Park in Milwaukee. Enjoy the ride. All Aboard!

http://www.yongkieandpokie.com/2014/express

Holiday Cookies 2014

Hazelnut Shortbread Cookies

Holiday Cookies is definitely the biggest event of our BCI (Beaverton Culinary Institute) event of the year. This is our final gathering for 2014. Our next meeting will be in the spring of 2015, but I forgot the theme. I did suggest Southern cooking, but we will see. I believe if my calculation is correct, we made twelve different cookies for this event. As always, it was a organized but chaotic time, but at the end all cookies were baked and we had a hell of a good time. Enjoy the images, sorry no samples!

http://www.yongkieandpokie.com/2014/cookies

Hurd Culinary Institute

This is the first cooking “class” that we had, notice at that time it was not called Beaverton Culinary Institute (known as simply BCI), but we started with Hurd Culinary Institute. We made Pierogi (Polish style). It is hard to believe it was almost 5 years ago from this date of writing.

http://www.yongkieandpokie.com/recipe/pierogi