Aggie pics and autumn colours

Hey guys! Sorry once again for being missing in action! I've been pretty tied up with assignments and stuff...and oh my gosh, the semester's officially ending this week!! Time sure flies...or should I say, time goes at a constant rate, but we don't realise it's passing by...

Anyways here're some pictures of what Aggie the college cat's up to! I've got about 5 albums from numerous weekend photoshoots of her! Well she's a really good model actually...and that makes us wonder - was she a model in her past life?

So...let's start...

1. Being silly and sticking out her tongue (:P :P :P, back at you, Aggie!!! :P)

2. Looking at her food bowl - wooaaawwww (feed me!!!)

3. Lazing on the garden bench, soaking up vitamin D...

4. Pretending to be a monorail cat...

5. Surveying the kitchen garden (and possibly looking out for an entourage of people carrying cans of tuna for her)...

6. Being a poser as usual...I think we're even more certain that she was a supermodel in her past life!

7. Jumping into garden beds and sniffing out caterpillars (and possibly looking for a good garden bed to nap in...although she's NOT allowed to)

8. Using the garden bed as a scratching post (again, this is prohibited but she still does it)

9. And of course, after a long day of surveying the garden, scratching, pretending to be a monorail cat, looking out for tuna, sleeping in garden beds etc., it's BATH TIME!! :D Possibly her favourite time of the day - she definitely spends a lot of time on this!

And I also realised that the black goatee below her nose was shaped like a heart! No wonder she's such a lovable kitty... :)

So yeah, besides doing lots of photoshoots for Aggie (and yes I might do yet another one for her this weekend!), I've also been going around my suburb. It's late autumn now and the trees are shedding their leaves - and there's a gorgeous mixture of red, orange, yellow etc all around.

Along the crescent - looks like one of the trees has nearly gone bare...and wow, I wonder who's living in this cottage...looks pretty cosy...

Autumn colours along the street leading up to my residential hall. This side is known as College Crescent...well it's shaped like a crescent surrounding the main campus...

Another view - this time this was taken from college, with autumn colours from yet another street in the background. This street's known as Royal Parade.

And here's Royal Parade. Most of the trees are pretty much thinned out by now, probably just a few leaves hanging here and there...and yes, spot the evergreen tree amongst the deciduous ones...

Yet another view from the junction of the crescent and Royal Parade.

Just outside my college. These are pretty much bare by now.

Took a walk around the quieter areas of the suburb the other day too...and here're some of the more impressive-looking houses. In fact, most of the houses were actually gorgeous, but some definitely stood out amongst them.

This was the first street I walked into, from Royal Parade.

This place was shaped somewhat like a grid, so it was easy to walk around.

Some autumn colours from the other streets...

And yes - the giant inflatable penguin from one of the balconies! I just had to take a picture of it. :)

One of the houses along the intersection of 2 streets. This was one of the biggest houses in the area.

I think I was more interested in Japanese maples than anything else, coz I took so many pictures of them! Well they were gorgeous anyways - and oh yes, they were the maples from the first street I walked to...

There was also a pair of maple trees growing in front of a house along Royal Parade, and I waited 3 long months for them to actually turn red/orange/yellow!! Gosh, they were one of the later ones, and they didn't even last. I went to take pictures of them twice, and by today, they were nearly bare.

Well, the pic below does explain quite a lot huh?

Sometimes when I look back at these pics, I feel as if I've done a photoshoot for a pair of Japanese maples...

And here they are! Looking good last Sunday!!

Couldn't resist the urge to take yet another pic of a maple near the 7-11 store...

And I guess that's it!! Will update again in the near future!

St Patrick's Cathedral, St Peter's Church and Parliament House

It's been quite a long time! Wow - about 13 days since I last posted! I've been really busy with assignments and ensuring that my work's up to date, for the past 2 weeks (and it definitely paid off!). Sorry guys, for the lag!!

I noticed that I've fallen into a routine - a fairly balanced one, I think. Mondays to Fridays are typically spent doing lecture summaries, assignments (if any), and Saturdays or Sundays (sometimes both) are taken as days off. And of course, I practice piano everyday, which is something that I cannot sacrifice. So yeah, my Saturdays (or Sundays) are typically dedicated to trips around the city. Not large-scale trips, just small ones, typically half a day, to unwind and then get back to work the following weekday. And it definitely helps!

Anyway this entry's mainly about the gothic-revival Catholic church, St Patrick's Cathedral, located near the city, somewhere in East Melbourne.

Pavement art along the street. Taken while I was walking towards the tram stop.

It was so gorgeous that day - clear blue skies, hardly any clouds, and it stayed that way until dark. And here's the tallest tower of St Patrick's. I'm really amazed by how they actually built the cathedral in the 1880s - all the limited technology and stuff, plus the massive stones that set the foundation, plus the details on the roofs etc...WOW!

Interior of St. Patrick's. The stained glass along the sides of the main hall were mostly yellowish, so it made the entire hall appear orange, and as "Bridge to Terabithia" puts it - it makes the whole hall "catch fire".

One of the stained glass masterpieces - located right at the entrance.

And this is how it looks like from the aisle.

One of the orange-tinted glass windows.

How the sides of the main hall look like. Quite a number of people were coming in for quiet prayers as well, and many others, for sightseeing and enjoying the peace within the hall.

Yet another view of the main hall, including the sides and the pillars.

Some details of the roof. And yes, the roof was amazing too! Wonder how they made it so elaborate and detailed...

The altar. We weren't allowed to go in though. And above the altar, there were some words painted on the beams.

Something which I always look out for whenever I go to cathedrals/churches: the pipe organ. I've never played a pipe organ before, but I'd love to try it someday. I love its rich, resonant tone, and especially with the acoustics of the cathedral itself - it's just so gorgeous!

The church was shaped (somewhat) like a semi-circle on top of a massive rectangle, and here is the "semi-circular" part - where the coloured stained-glass windows were.

And from the "semi-circular" part, when you look into the main cathedral, this is what you see.

Walking towards the end of the semi-circle...

And yes, the lighting was so gorgeous that day, so I just had to experiment with different angles, compositions etc.

More views of the main hall, while walking towards the exit/entrance. I think I spent at least an hour or so within the cathedral, enjoying the peace and quietness, and happily snapping pictures. And the best part - not many people were there at that time.

Candles as offerings. Quite a number of visitors lit candles for their loved ones. There was also a small information booth nearby.

And here's the lady in charge of the information booth, making sure the candles were intact.

The sand-filled stone bowl where we put our candles.

Actually, I had an epic fail moment that day, as I didn't manage to find the entrance to the cathedral (there were 2 or 3 I think). But a really nice guy pointed it out to me, eventually - apparently he went to the cathedral countless times, and knew quite a fair bit about it.

Some of the impressive details of the cathedral.

Pictures of the main tower and some of the other smaller ones. For some reason the cathedral reminds me of a fortress.

More wide-angled shots of the cathedral before I left.

Surroundings of St. Patrick's.

A sign that autumn has well and truly arrived - red leaves around the fences of the cathedral.

And some of the well-maintained flowers within the flower beds.

Had to leave by then, so I headed towards St. Peter's Church. It was a pretty small church, but definitely more cosy than its intimidating neighbour. And its exterior was pretty gorgeous too! I don't think it's a Catholid church though.

Before I headed back to college, I went to the Parliament House - a popular spot for wedding pictures.

And I was lucky - there WAS a couple taking wedding pictures there! So I decided to take some shots for myself...

One of my goals is to take wedding pictures for people. Unfortunately no one that I know of are getting married (we're still too young!). Oh, and the pictures above are not counted - since I am not the main photographer! So yeah...that's something to look forward to.

Closeup of the Doric columns supporting the Parliament House. Chose this shot because of the lighting.

And that's another epic weekend covered! Not as epic as the Williamstown one I did during the Easter break, but still awesome!

Anyways I did go back to St. Patrick's, but this time the lighting was totally different - it was an overcast day, and it was nearly dark. It's interesting how lighting plays such a massive part in pictures.

Once again, sorry for the delay!!