Mission Street Photowalk

Nikon D810, 200-500mm lens, somewhere near the Farallon Islands Once or twice a year I try to get on a boat out to the Farallon Islands with birders in the Bay Area. Pelagic birding is my absolute favorite type of birding: being able to get out in the ocean and see a huge amount of sea life of all types is a treat. In June this year I had the...

A few things happened. The main one being, my soulmate, my soul, the love of my life, Cookie pie, passed away. I am bereft, but not afloat. It feels like a brand new chapter in my life. Cookie the Cavalier sitting under an airplane seat Cookie, born 1 October 2009 in Petaling Jaya, died 20 June 2024 in San Francisco. She was deeply loved through...

I have a weird story about scallion pancakes. It goes like this. Around this time last year, I was walking down my street in San Francisco when a woman waved something at me. I thought she needed help with something, so I went closer. Instead, she clicked something (she was waving a torch, the kind you ignite gas stoves with), and she held the...

Now that I live so far from home, I have to make my own half-boiled eggs. Half boiled eggs are not the same as soft boiled eggs: they come out of the shell almost in a liquid form, not in the shape of an egg that is starting to firm. So it's less cooked than a typical soft boiled egg. Growing up in Singapore and Malaysia, this was a typical...