A Walk Around Flushing Meadow Corona Park

I took a four hour walk around Flushing Meadow Corona Park. I haven't done this for awhile. The weather was a bit muggy. There was a brief shower but that was no issue. The water sprouts were on at the Unisphere. It's a good place to get wet and cool down in the summer.

Egg Hunt In The Park

New Life Fellowship Church was hosting another Easter egg hunt event in Elmhurst Park today. There were tons of people showing up. Kudos to them to keep the whole event relatively orderly. The weather was excellent; not a cloud on the blue sky. The kids were all having fun. Lots of parents cheating; that was kinda inevitable. The volunteers keep the cheating to the minimum though. They're very experienced at that.

The photo-op bunny. All Easter events needs one.

And kids love it.

Put your kid on shoulder for a good view.

Eager kids couldn't wait to get started.

Early birds started lining up over an hour before start.

These are the only cops I saw.
I didn't shoot the actual egg hunting part because there were so many people and eggs just disappear after less than half a minute. I was too busy holding on to my own kids. It was fun and kids love it.

Fireworks @ Maspeth LIE Overpass

It was an impromptu decision to see the firework after picking up my wife from her work. It was too late to drive to East River. All area were either closed or in heavy traffic. We just drove down around LIE in Maspeth looking for a suitable spot to see the firework from afar. We could see the Manhattan landscape from an overpass there. However, the firework was a bit to the north of what we could see. So we stay for awhile to see the fireworks provided by some random people on the street. This is a video I filmed. The firework literally exploded right above our head. We have debris falling on our head. We decided to move down the street a bit more to the west. And we were able to see the Macy's firework above the treeline for about 10 minutes. I couldn't film that because it's too far way and I was in the car.

Fiery Sunset Cloud

I went out to pick up my wife and saw this fiery sunset cloud.

NY Science Hall Again

Well, we got nowhere to go this weekend and kids just want to go to the Hall of Science all the time. So off we went. There's a make your own juice kinda activity there. I can't remember the name. It was ok; I guess. I wouldn't say it's worth the five dollar they charge me. While kids were busy making orange juice with honey, I took some snapshot of the nice lady working there.

Here's a snapshot of some unknown flower out in the new playground.

Sailing away...

Or so I wished...

NYC Whales & Dolphins Watching

We no longer have to drive to Boston to go on a whale-watching cruise any more. There is American Princess Cruises right there on the Rockaway in Queens New York. I found out about it last year and finally get to go with my family to see the whales.

The cruise went around the Rockaway Peninsula into the Atlantic Ocean. We were able to see the NYC skyline at all time, but not a single sign of whales. We cruised around some giant schools of fish along the shore. The marine biologist on board insist that the whales should be around since we were literally floating on the seafood buffet for whales.

We finally gave up on the whales, but we did met a big pod of dolphins feeding and jumping around. At least we got something. I shot over one thousand photos of them, but only get to keep five. These critters were fast. I only managed to catch their backs and tails. Next time I'll just bring along a camcorder. At least I can catch the actions.

On the background, it's New York City skyline.

That's Verrazano Bridge connecting Brooklyn and Staten Island on the background.

We were right outside New York Harbor, so there were many container ships sailing about.

This is a big group. There were at least 30 or 40 of them playing about.

Here's another shot of them.

Seagulls keep following our ship, probably hoping to catch some discarded food.

This is the ship we rode on.

There were tons of fish swimming about, but no whales came to eat them.

My son loved this old sailor for some reason.

St. Patrick's Day Parade in Sunnyside

March 6, 2016

There's a St. Patrick's Day Parade every year in Sunnyside on Skillman Avenue. I just don't get to see it every year. I was sending stuff to my father's grocery store which happens to be on Skillman Avenue, so I just stayed and took some pictures.

All parades need bagpipers.

Mayor De Blasio

Girl Scouts

Girl Viking

Girl Bee? And men with little green hat.

Girl on daddy's shoulder.

Local fire department.

Fancy Antique Firetruck

Don't know who these are, but they look nice.

More bagpipers, with very interesting hat.

Bernie supporters.

And of course there are people stuck on the phone.

Coney Island

This is probably going to be the only beach trip this year. We are expecting another baby on June 29. There will be no time to take the kids to beach any more this year. They enjoyed every moment of it.

Robin

Shot @ Elmhurst Park. I need more practice.

Testshooting with my new 55-200mm Lens.

I ordered a Nikkor 55-200mm Lens from B&H last Thursday. They shipped it free and I received it on Friday. That's a nice free overnight shipping, although it might be because they're in New York. I tracked the package in UPS site and it showed it shipped from Maspeth. If I had it shipped to my house, maybe I would get it within an hour :-)

It was nice weekend. All of a sudden the temp is in the 80s. So I decided to take Rina out for a testshoot. The lens perform well. It looked better than 18-55mm lens from the viewfinder already. The pictures did not disappoint me.

In Elmhurst Park near the railway track, there were quite a lot of birds gathering in the shades. I can get quite close to then. I need to bring a tripod to shoot them well. The lens I got doesn't have VR feature.