ANGELA B. PAN

Always looking for new framing ideas, this one was taken right after I finished eating breakfast on the Renaissance Aruba Resort and Casino’s private island. Luckily my camera goes everywhere I go while traveling. But the private island is great. It’s just a quick boat ride from our hotel and you could literally spend the whole day here. Theres a great restaurant where they serve you wayyy too much bread and on the other side of the island you can play and interact with flamingos.

Almost immediately after we got off the boat onto the private island, it started to downpour rain. We ran to shelter and figured we would wait it out by eating breakfest. Thank goodness for Caribbean weather because the rain did not last long at all. By the time we ordered our food, the rain had basically stopped. I walked closer to the edge of the restaurant to capture this view. You would never have known that it was raining just by looking at it.

And that hammock looks so inviting.

My girlfriends and I ended up spending all morning here taking a million and one pictures. Sad to see another summer go but summer 2018 was a BLAST. I’m so glad I was able to spend some time out in the sun and on the beach. I feel like it’s been a while since I had taken such a relaxing vacation where most of the day was spent not doing anything at all. So if you’re looking for a great place to visit with great weather, I’d highly recommend Aruba.

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/5000th of a second and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens handheld. Shhhh… I didn’t even bring a tripod on this trip 🙂 That’s just how relaxing it was.

In the past 48 hours, I’ve heard of at least 3 different people saying that they’re going to Japan in the spring. Obviously, my first reaction was to get insanely jealous and my second reaction is to think about all the delicious udon that they’re about to eat. Mmmmm udon.

So I decided to look back on our own trip from last year and I stumbled onto this image. I remember the exact moment I took it. Andrew and I had woken up early to make it to Tsukiji Fish Market. We tried for the 3a auction but even with the time difference and us waking up super early everyday, there was no way we were going to be able to make it THAT early. But we did make it there at around 6a. This fish market was bumpin’! I mean there were people everywhere you turned, they were all on these miniature stand up golf cart things zipping in and out of lanes, and gigantic fish EVERYWHERE. It was a seafood lover’s paradise.

Andrew, being the awesome yelp-per that he is, found the “best” sushi restaurant. It was really different than what I’m used to in the states. You stand outside and wait in this really long line. While you’re waiting in line, there’s a guy there who will take your order. It’s usually just pointing at pictures on this big billboard but luckily this guy also spoke pretty good english too. He told us that sushi in a sushi roll was for tourists and that we had to get a sushi bowl. He was totally right. Eating sushi from a bowl was a totally different experience. So it was the raw fish on top of a bowl of already seasoned rice. All the extras like wasabi, ginger, vegetables and everything were on a different plate on the side. Just the rice alone was so flavorful and delicious. But man, the whole meal was amazing. I never expected sushi to be that much better considering it’s not even cooked, but it was!

So this picture was after we stuffed our faces with fatty tuna, rice, and everything else. We went to Hamarikyu Gardens which was less than a mile away to walk off everything we had just ate. That little building in the middle of the water is a tea house. We were at the gardens so early that it wasn’t even opened yet. I bet it would of been a great place to have some hot tea though.

If you are one of those people who are going to Japan then this is for you.