Last autumn, I traveled across the country for over a dozen fellowship interviews. It was a surreal experience because I revisited literally all the institutions I’ve studied or worked at after high school. I felt like I was time-travelling through the past 10 years of my life. Impossible not to be nostalgic and reflective.

Along the journey, one of my stops was Atlanta, Georgia to visit Emory University Hospital. It was my first time visiting Atlanta and I was so excited to visit the world-famous Aquarium. Its claim to fame is housing the world’s largest aquarium habitat. I could have sat there for hours watching the whale sharks swimming by and manta rays doing back flips. Wish they had a live stream of the view that I could set as my desktop wallpaper! I would never get any work done.

I made a video of the attraction. It’s a shameless copy of a fairly famous video showing the Okinawa Aquarium, which at one point had the second largest tank in the world.

Of course, there’s a lot of other displays in the aquarium other than the main tank, including this neat coral reef tank with hundreds of colorful tropical fish darting around.

This is a sunset shot taken precariously over the cliff walls of Horseshoe Bend in Page, Arizona. My fear of heights notwithstanding, standing at the edge is legitimately dangerous. If you take a look at the surface from the side, you’ll see all the undercut rock that people are standing on which have no supporting foundation. You are one unlucky rock break away from plunging 1,000 feet into the Colorado River. I walked halfway around the rim looking for the sturdiest place but was still very uneasy taking these photos. Do I also need to mention how windy it is here?

This is the unofficially named Pink Canyon. It is reachable by walking along the wash from dip #5 on Mouse’s Tank Road. The colors are dreamlike and out of this world.

Other than the natural sights, Valley of Fire is also famous for its roads, which are common scenes for automobile commercials. I actually saw a crew of BMW employees scouting locations throughout the day, although they weren’t actually filming when I ran into them.

This was taken from the 85th floor of the Shanghai Grand Hyatt, one of the tallest hotels in the world, located at the top of Jin Mao Tower. The hotel itself doesn’t have an official observation deck but you can take the guest elevator up to the highest floor for this stunning scene. For those afraid of heights, be wary!

I was going through my hard drive looking for a photo to print and came across a favorite from last year. I tried re-processing it from scratch and wow, what a difference.

My edit from today

My interpretation a year ago

This illustrates how my personal tastes in photography have changed. One might think the new edit is more fanciful and less realistic, but currently my tastes are bolder and more saturated. Who knows, my edit in 2015 will likely be completely different. At the moment, I feel this best captures the mood of the scene as I experienced it, basking in the ocean breeze and setting sun.

Fire Wave used to be a secret location known only to informed hikers and photographers. But it became so popular in recent years, with more people parking on the sides of the road and hiking to the spectacle, that a couple years ago the park service forbade people from parking off-road and unofficially laid out a hiking trail with guideposts. I say unofficially because Fire Wave is still not labeled as an attraction on the park map (although it’s featured on the map cover *wink wink*). The only way people can accidentally stumble upon it is by chance seeing a small sign in a small parking lot pointing in the direction of Fire Wave.

The hike is an easy 0.5 miles and well worth the walk. For photo purposes, I was hoping for better clouds and a more interesting sunset. Nevertheless, it made a strong first impression on me, and I will certainly be back.

I’ve recently been fond of making prints from notable photo shoots. Photos feel much more alive when displayed on a wall rather than living on hard drives. In the past I chose to use canvas prints because I didn’t have to bother with framing. They are lower resolution though due to the nature of the print texture. This time I chose to print on ultra high gloss photographic paper (Fuji Pearl) which has a metallic sheen. This is reportedly the same kind of paper that Peter Lik uses in his fine art galleries. The paper is then mounted on Gatorboard, saving me from having to frame this as well.

Probably hard to see, but that’s me in a Taipei BAPE shark hoody on top of the Fire Wave. The crazy colors of both seem complementary with each other

I much prefer the way Fuji Pearl looks compared to canvas so this is the way I’m going from now on. This was printed using Bay Photo, a professional photo lab. I had no issues with Bay Photo, who promptly delivered a high quality print in several days, but next time I’ll try ProDPI, another esteemed photo lab, to shop around.

Taiwan is rather notorious for the ubiquitous show girls present at any and all expos. Not unlike booth babes at E3, show girls try to drum up attention at their respective booths with dancing, sexy clothing, and free swag. An interesting subculture has evolved alongside the show girls, whose schedules are followed by dedicated fans that show up en masse for photographs and videos. A couple dedicated people I subscribe to on Youtube are SGLoveJacky and ikkiknoles, who seem to attend all the big expos.

Attending Taiwan expos is one of my favorite things to do because it’s always such a spectacle. I was lucky enough to visit the Photography Expo in Taipei, alas only for a little more than an hour before closing time. I could stay at these expos for entire days, they’re so much fun.

Swarms gather at every stage show, armed with high power camera gear

When not up on stage, the show girls can be found outside the booth handing out pamphlets, but more commonly, posing for the never ending stream of photographers

While show girls attract crowds, the host delivers the marketing message from the companies. Hosts are generally really, really good speakers and talk nonstop

Hilarious how the girls ham it up for the cameras

On a rare break from work, I escaped to Northern California for a quick vacation. The primary mission was to relax, of course, but I was also motivated to practice landscape photography. Despite some fairly in-depth research and planning, I was quickly humbled by Mother Nature. Landscape photography is definitely not easy, and uncooperative weather doesn’t help for sure. So I missed a bunch of shots I had envisioned, but this was a great learning experience.

Here’s a few photos. Rocks and water were the theme of this trip, evidently. Hope all is well! Work hard, stay positive, be brave.

Creek downstream of Bridalveil Fall in Yosemite National Park

Pacific Coast Highway. The road was so dreamy smooth

Classic Rodeo Beach view of Golden Gate Bridge. Shortly after this and for the entire next day, fog completely swallowed the bridge

Small road-side waterfall in Yosemite National Park

Closest I’ll likely ever come to rock climbing

Creek in front of the legendary Valley View, Yosemite

Lower Yosemite Falls, Yosemite. Very refreshing to bask in the mist, especially on a hot day

Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite. No mere mist here; stand here for 30 seconds and you’ll be soaked head to toe. My camera was drenched but survived

Refreshingly delicious air of Estes Park in Colorado, on the way into Rocky Mountain National Park

Anyway, that’s just a preamble to say I’ve been quite busy and one of the first casualties was this site, obviously. A lot has changed since I last posted. Got my first smartphone with a data plan (Nexus 4!!), moved into my new house, became wiser, stronger, faster. Lots and lots of material to chew on for ProtocolSnow.com. Unfortunately, I don’t have a ghost writer so updates will come when they come. I don’t know if I’ll ever resume a regular posting schedule, but I’ll do what I can. Following my Twitter account is probably the best way to keep up with what I’m into, thanks to the low commitment of a tweet vs. full blog posts. That’s the sad reality!

Sunrise at Monument Valley, Arizona from The View hotel

I’ve only recently had the chance to edit my roadtrip photos from June 2012(!) and sent them to my parents, so here’s a few more photos to whet the appetite. More to come, hopefully soon!

Long-lost family members meet at US Air Force National Museum in Dayton, Ohio

Mystical shades of Antelope Canyon, Arizona

Catching the sunset in Arches National Park, Utah

Grand Canyon, Arizona

View of Bellagio Fountains from my hotel room balcony in Cosmopolitan, Las Vegas

Las Vegas traffic

What a wonderful, peaceful end to the roadtrip. I can watch the Bellagio Fountains forever

Luckily, after starting off with an arduous schedule and the most difficult rotations in my residency, I finally have a light month and can breathe a little. This weekend I went to the 626 Night Market with much anticipation. Modeled after the famous night markets in Taiwan and other Asian countries, the appropriately named 626 Night Market is held in San Gabriel Valley, which boasts the largest Taiwanese-American population in the USA.

Some of my fondest travel memories involve Taiwan night markets: late nights wandering crowded streets lined with loud neon signs, delicious aromas wafting through the air, snacking on comfort food while shopping for cheap cute gifts to bring home. 626 Night Market seeks to replicate that experience stateside. They fall short because clearly the atmosphere here is quite different and more akin to a county fair. But while there are definitely improvements that can be made, particularly with organization and service, I’m glad this event exists and hope it can become a regular fixture for our community.

This weekend’s 626 Night Market is actually the 3rd attempt by the organizers. The first was April 2012 in the streets of Pasadena and was largely criticized as disastrous and poorly planned, with suffocating crowds and limited parking. The second event seemed marginally better, but finally this weekend’s event was moved to a new location in the middle of the Santa Anita racetrack and spread over two days.

I decided to go in the afternoon at opening hour and successfully beat the crowds. Judging from the online feedback I’ve seen, the majority agree that the new location is a much better choice with substantially more parking spaces and more room to walk around in the market. Parking, however, was a steep $7 ($4 if you arrived in the first hour like I did).

Even with the relatively fewer people in the afternoon compared to nighttime, the long waits for food was disappointing. The event organizers did their part by providing a better location, but the vendors really need to step it up. Judging from the booth signage, most of the vendors have established restaurants, but many didn’t appear to have much experience working in the outdoors with more limited resources. I’ve seen enough episodes of Top Chef to realize it’s an entirely different beast. Especially at the popular booths, the staff struggled to keep up with orders and service was frantic and disorganized. I should not have to wait 20 minutes after placing my order to get some food. I can only imagine it got worse as the real crowds arrived for the night.

Food variety was pretty good and included the usual noodle and rice dishes, stinky tofu, barbequed meats, boba tea drinks, Taiwanese snacks, and other staples. If only the legendary Hot Star fried chicken from Shilin Night Market was here… A handful of popular food trucks also showed up, including the famous Kogi BBQ with their Korean street tacos (which I finally tried for the first time after hearing so much about them; they were sadly underwhelming).

I smirked when I saw the stinky tofu booth was located at the very edge of the market. They had brisk business though, and, to their credit, were speedy in fulfilling orders. Favorite food of the day was BBQ squid! The total wait for that was an unfortunate 30 minutes.

I also came across a favorite candy from my childhood: dragon’s beard! It’s made with very fine strands of hand-pulled sugar that dissolve on your tongue. Sadly, this may be a dying art and it seems to be impossible to find these freshly made around here… until now. I personally haven’t seen this since the mid-1990s. Running into this chef was notable enough that I got his business card. Seems that he only recently started his business in SoCal, you can find more information here about dragon’s beard and his address.

The merchandise booths didn’t have anything particularly interesting. I was amused by somebody selling bootleg K-pop posters and DVDs. $10 for a copied MBC broadcast of a Psy concert? I respect the hustle though… To make this night market more authentic, we just need more people selling boxes of $1 VCDs.

Overall I was underwhelmed by the experience, but perhaps I had my expectations set too high and obviously it’s not fair to compare to the well-established Asia night markets. The good news is that the organizers have been taking feedback to heart and each iteration is an improvement. Hopefully the 626 Night Market becomes a more regular occurrence, as opposed to every three months, which will help staff streamline their operations. Judging by the crowds, clearly the demand is there, and I’m grateful that this event exists to bring out the community and to run into friends. I look forward to next time!