Midnight sun - the real place where the city never sleeps

dad called in yesterday...

dad: only three pictures!!!
mum: she's busy lah...

so dad, this is specially for you yo

Not vegas - though Vegas IS a city that does not sleep all thanks to the casino lightnings that are on 24/7.

I got the chance to visit Anchorage in Alaska all thanks to the CVPR conference =D. It's a huge conference with more than a thousand participants - you might see this person today and not seeing him/her in the next few days! Met lots of interesting people and had really good alaskan experiences (especially being bitten hard by Alaskan Airline (the mosquitoes!!)).

Neway I'll let the pictures do the talking =D

I was a blur sotong (octopus) when I booked for the flight to Alaska - I thought the conference starts from 22 June so I booked 21 June - only to find out it's one day later. So as I was blaming myself (for like, 1 second? =p), I immediately googled up a glacier cruise =D


no not that kind of small boat =p


with nice reflections


the very shuai captain


it's double-storey



We first visited a salmon farm, and you get to see salmons come flying from the water. But I can't predict where the salmon will jump from and therefore the best picture I got of the salmon is:

yes the white splash is where the salmon was =p gomen lah, you just have to use some imaginations...


seagulls

starting to see some glaciers:


It's kinda cold if you stay out at the front deck when the cruise is moving...



cute isn't it? =p


The captain will stop whenever we spotted sea otters - this is a mum with baby otter... chio kawaii... and they love to swim on their back =p


more sea otters on ice bergs

and finally, the tide water glaciers:

notice the distinct blue colour? "The distinctive blue tint of glacial ice is often wrongly attributed to Rayleigh scattering which is supposedly due to bubbles in the ice. The blue color is actually created for the same reason that water is blue, that is, its slight absorption of red light due to an overtone of the infrared OH stretching mode of the water molecule." - wiki

closer look


even closer =p

the fresh white (clean) part is where the glacier just collapsed in front of our eyes =D

and dad, I know you missed me, so here's your kawaii daughter before I end this entry =p

chiang =D

So, I haven't really explained bout the midnight sun - will do so in the next one yo =D

p/s: I am looking at buying a wide-angle (I know I am super broke already but... u know... =p). Anyway, just planning okay... Let me know if you have any good suggestion, I'm interested in Tokino 11-16mm F2.8 (I hope to get a wide angle with big aperture so I dont need a tripod for nightscene).
http://smartimports.net/product.php?productid=16272&gclid=CIK3yuC7pZQCFSEbagodyGyWtw

My current lenses:
Sigma 18-200mm (which has a bit of wide angle to telephoto) F3.5-6.3
Sigma 30mm F1.4 (which is freaking good for dim light shots and with a bit of wide angle - which is bad sometimes cause it makes me look fat!!! =p)