Mike Mander's Photo & Imaging Blog

2024 Southwest Trip - Days 1 & 2

2026-03-29T18:44:00.000-07:00

Gallery (55 images): 2024 Southwest Trip - Days 1 & 2

This gallery has images from the first two days of photography during my first Southwestern US trip with my wife Emily in April of 2024. There are some days where I took no photos due to lots of driving, so in this case day 2 is not the next day, but the day after next. I published a "trip highlights" blog post in May of 2024 which details the route we took, and that can be seen here...

http://www.mikemander.com/2024/05/2024-southwest-trip-highlights.html

On this trip, Fujifilm Canada was kind enough to lend me a demo X-T5 body, so my X-Pro2 acted as a backup on the trip. It was fantastic having a camera with in-body image-stabilization (IBIS) especially for our tour of Alcatraz (next blog post!), and also having a 40 megapixel sensor for landscape detail was great as well. As of August of 2025, I now have my own 40MP, IBIS equipped Fujifilm camera, the very compact X-E5, which is a fantastic camera too. So after two years, I am now finally starting to post some daily trip galleries (like this one) with more detail about all the places we visited. Since Emily and I no longer live in BC (we moved to Ottawa, Ontario as I'm sure you've noticed, based on my recent blog posts), we are unfortunately no longer able to do any easy Southwest road trips. Working on images from previous trips will then be my way of experiencing and reliving the wonderful deserts of California, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, as well as the high deserts of Oregon, all of which I greatly miss already!

On this 2024 road trip, Emily and I drove through Washington and Oregon, basically non-stop, and the first place we took some time to explore was Stout Grove in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, situated in northern California. We didn't have as much time as we had hoped, which was my fault: I accidentally forgot to pack Emily's sun hat and we decided to detour to an REI for some shopping in southern Oregon. The detour and time spent at the REI was longer that we had anticipated, and since we had booked a hotel in San Francisco with the plan of staying there for three days, we only had limited time on the drive south. The second part of the gallery has shots from San Francisco...

On our first day there, we walked from our hotel near Chinatown to the very scenic Fisherman's Wharf area, and spent the day sightseeing, visiting a few places of interest. Photos 18 to 20 show the large number of sea lions that frequent the harbour, sunning themselves on the docks. We went up on a huge Ferris wheel with enclosed cabins (thankfully since there was a very cold wind that day) and photos 29 to 32 were from up high, although the city views are a touch blurry due to being shot through less than clean glass. Photo 28 shows the ferris wheel in the distance. Next was a weird and wonderful museum of antique mechanical "arcade" machines, The Musée Mécanique, shown in photos 35 through 43 in the gallery. We also walked to the famous Ghirardelli chocolate factory, photos 47 to 51, which was founded way back in 1852.

The last photo in the gallery shows the famous steep stretch of Lombard Street from below, said to be one of the crookedest streets in America with eight tight hairpin turns in only one block! You can see all the cars backed up and descending down the hill.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2024 Southwest Trip

2026 - Ottawa Winderlude & Chinatown

2026-03-18T19:33:45.588-07:00

Gallery (40 images): 2026 - Ottawa Winterlude & Chinatown

In early February, Emily and I walked over to Confederation Park one evening to view the "Winterlude" festival ice sculpture displays. Many were lit with bright, coloured LED spotlights, however a few were dark, so Emily shone one of my flashlights at those to light up the ice while I took photos, like the Artemis 2 sculpture for example. These photos were all handheld, no tripod, and once again made me very glad I am now shooting a Fujifilm X-E5 with its effective in-body image-stabilization (IBIS), since that helped me keep my ISO down to 400 or less, despite it being fully dark out.

Then, in late February, Emily and I decided to go for a chilly 10km round-trip walk to Ottawa's Chinatown where we found a very nice cupcake bakery called Thimble Bakery, where I had a fantastic Black Forest cupcake! During our walk, we actually came across a real live working phone booth, photo 35 in the gallery. We also went as far as the outskirts of Ottawa's "Little Italy" district, which seems to border on Chinatown. Later that evening went for some excellent Chinese food in a local restaurant and then walked back home.

Website is up on new servers...

2026-03-08T18:00:00.000-07:00

My new server for www.sublimephoto.com has been up and running for a few days now, and I've gone through and fixed all the links to galleries and embedded images that were missing and not working on my blog pages. If you see any blank images, just hit reload and they should load. I see I started the blog in June of 2010, so getting close to 16 years already! I still need to go through all the galleries and links on my website, to be sure they are all working, but the vast majority (if not all) should be fine now.

Possible downtime...

2026-02-22T12:37:00.000-08:00

I will be transitioning to a new domain host in the near future and in the interim, it could be that my image galleries will either load slowly, or possibly not at all. In addition, the headline images for the posts in this blog may also not show properly. My previous domain host was bought up twice, most recently by Network Solutions, and I suddenly received notification that a huge charge for a three year renewal was attempted to be charged to my credit card. I never received any notification of an upcoming bill, nor could I even see on their domain hosting page how much the renewal was for, for what term it was and what services were being renewed.

After a very frustrating few hours in a support chat, I was promised a reduced rate for a one year renewal, which was still substantially higher than I could get from a different domain host. After I grudgingly agreed to that charge, despite the fact that they refused to send me an email detailing the charge and the subsequent renewal price after the promised year, they charged my credit card. I then received the confirmation in the mail that said the charge was for only one month of renewal and not one year as promised - WTF! They apologized for the confusion but refused to do anything further about it, so I asked to be refunded. My website (www.sublimephoto.com) still works for now, and so do the galleries in this blog that are hosted on my site, but perhaps not for long...

So... I am now in the process of signing up with a different domain host and laboriously uploading all of my content again. What a massive pain since I have about 25GB worth of image galleries online. In any case, I absolutely DO NOT recommend Network Solutions as a domain host. Their account pages provide almost no detailed info and either the billing support person I spoke to was, at best, terribly incompetent or at worst, guilty of trying to scam me into paying for one month of service at the price of a promised year of service. What an annoying way to start a Sunday morning!

2025 Ottawa - Fall Colours

2025-12-14T12:56:00.000-08:00

Gallery (65 images): 2025 Ottawa - Fall Colours

In late October, I had the opportunity to take some photos of early fall colours in and around Ottawa during two different excursions. The first was a weekend day trip to a pair of quaint little towns to the southwest of Ottawa, one Carleton Place and the other Almonte. The other time was on a walk to the Canadian Museum of History where Emily was attending a conference. While she was at the conference, even though it was somewhat overcast, I took the opportunity to wander about and take many shots of the fall colours in the area, and walked quite a ways along the north side of the Ottawa River from the museum.

Later in the day, it cleared up for a time, and I captured some nice shots from the Alexandra Bridge, including numerous stitched panoramic images as well, which I have included below.

2025 - Canadian Museum of History

2025-11-22T16:34:00.000-08:00

Gallery (55 images): 2025 - Canadian Museum of History

On a beautiful early fall day, Emily, her friend Emma, and I walked across the Alexandra Bridge over the Ottawa River, to spend a day visiting the wonderful Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec. It was the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and there were some special exhibits and movies being shown in honour of Indigenous peoples, in remembrance of the suffering many underwent during the horrifying time of residential schools in Canada, surely one of the worst blights on Canadian history.

The Canadian Museum of History is an absolutely beautiful building, with stacked floors exhibiting swooping organic curves and an interior that is just as fascinating with a huge variety of beautifully done exhibits. It was designed by an Indigenous architect, Douglas Cardinal and overlooks the Ottawa River, opposite Parliament Hill.

2025 - Ottawa Arrival

2025-11-16T19:03:00.000-08:00

Gallery (30 images): 2025 - Ottawa Arrival

At the end of summer, I arrived in Ottawa to finally join my wife Emily there, after a long 4,500km, six day drive across Canada with my 94 year old dad. Emily had started work at the National Gallery of Canada in the conservation department earlier in the year. After a brief visit, my dad flew back home to the West Coast.

While my dad was here (yes, I can say that now!), we took the opportunity to visit the Canadian Heritage Garden on the grounds of Rideau Hall, where the Governor General of Canada resides. Our first visit was just a casual walk around the grounds and above you can see my dad and Emily taking a break. The next day we figured out where the rose garden was and went there so my dad could finally see where his own hybridized rose, Canadian White Star, was planted. There is a plaque mentioning his rose, and that can be seen up close in photo 6 in the gallery.

He was moved at finally seeing his rosed named on the plaque there, although unfortunately last winter was a rough one and many roses in the garden had died. Also, most roses were already bloomed out and the map showing the exact location of the roses was a bit vague too, so we couldn't tell for sure where his roses were actually planted. Hopefully early next summer when the roses are in bloom, I'll go there and be able to positively identify where his roses are.

Canadian White Star was also featured on a Canadian postage stamp included on a souvenir sheet of Canadian bred roses back in 2001, and the official first day cover can be seen on the homepage of my dad's website (hosted on my own) and on his site, there is also an article with the story of the origins of the stamp.

The last two shots in the gallery were much more recent, a filler to make a 30 image gallery. The last shot shows some nice fall colours in the distance and my next gallery, due to be up in the next week or so, will have many more recent photos with many colourful trees!

Ottawa - Early 2025

2025-06-01T15:46:00.000-07:00

Gallery (55 images): Ottawa - Early 2025

At the end of January, I helped my wife Emily move to Ottawa, where she was starting a fantastic new job at the National Gallery of Canada's conservation department. It was bitterly cold and I didn't take too many photos, but the first ten in the gallery are from that time.

Then, during the week after Easter in late April, I visited her again. I took one day to wander the city while she was at work and took many shots. Sadly, the Parliament Buildings were undergoing a lot of work and there were many construction cranes, scaffolding and other building materials everywhere, interfering with my photos. The weather was beautiful and quite warm, but nothing was blooming yet. The trees were sadly still bare.

In September I will finally be joining her myself, and I am looking forward to some good weather and green trees to take more photos! For the foreseeable future, you won't be seeing any more new trips to the US Southwest deserts, rather I will be posting new galleries from our new life and travels in eastern Canada! Of course I am very behind with US trip image galleries too, so I will certainly be posting more of those as well. And, I still haven't finished all the galleries from our honeymoon in Hawaii either. Stay tuned!

Lastly, here are two stitched panoramas, one from the Rideau Street bridge overlooking the Rideau Canal, and the second from just north of the Parliament Buildings, a view where the Rideau Canal connects to the Ottawa River. You can see the Alexandra Bridge heading over to Quebec, and the National Gallery of Canada just right of centre. Click on the images to open a larger view in a new window or tab...

Hawaii 2023 - Chain of Craters Road

2025-02-23T21:52:00.000-08:00

Gallery (40 images): Hawaii 2023 - Chain of Craters Road

Our first major excursion while staying near Hilo, was to head west and then drive the Chain of Craters Road to the south part of the island, as far as one can go.

The first shot in the gallery was of our vrbo booked stay, the "Peace of Paradise" as it's known. There were three huts, all connected by wooden walkways and surrounded by jungle. There was a living room hut, a bedroom/bathroom hut and a kitchen hut. Apart from some dogs barking from the relatively close-by neighbours (who we never saw or heard), it was peaceful and relaxing stay. The accommodations were unique and made the second part of our honeymoon special! The jungle sounds at night were amazing... and loud! At first I thought they'd be disturbing, but they were surprisingly unobtrusive while sleeping, even relaxing somehow I thought.

There were so many geckos too, including one that decided it liked walking all over our ceiling inside our bedroom hut. It was a game in the morning after waking up; who would be first to spot our little green gecko friend! There will be a cellphone image gallery coming as the last blog posting from the trip and it will have more photos of the huts.

The remainder of the gallery has photos from our Chain of Craters sightseeing drive and hike. I took many photos of waves crashing against the rugged lava rock coastline. Once again, there wasn't all that much sun, although it did peek out a few times, like for the above headline photo.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2023 Hawaii Trip

Hawaii 2023 - Five Days

2025-02-23T10:50:00.000-08:00

Gallery (20 images): Hawaii 2023 - Five Days

This next gallery has images from our next five days in Hawaii... well six days actually, but I didn't take any photos on one day. I didn't have that many opportunities to take photos, but they were nice relaxing days. The first set of images in the linked gallery are from the "Feast and Fire Luau" at the Kona Outrigger Resort. Sadly, during the amazing fire dancing segment, which I recall was definitely worth seeing, they did not allow any photography at all, not even with cell phones. The famous fire dancing segment was one reason we decided to go to that particular luau, and I had been looking forward to taking photos. Oh well. What is interesting is that I hardly remember any details about the fire dance segment, but maybe it was because I was so irritated at not being allowed to take photos? Regardless, it was very enjoyable overall and the food was excellent!

The next set of images was from the Waipi'o Vallery Lookout on the north coast of the Big Island. My father made his way down the steep trail with his rollator (a rolling walker), and although I had intended to push him back up in it, since it converts to a transport chair, the big ridges and washouts on the trail made it pretty much impossible to push. I was anticipating a long arduous journey back up, when a big burly young native Hawaiian man generously offered to assist. Between him pulling the front of the rollator over the bumps and washouts, and me pushing from the behind, we made quick work of the trail back up again. We thanked him profusely for the help and he was super friendly - a typical Hawaiian! That was one of the reasons my mom loved it so much in Hawaii; the friendly and welcoming nature of native Hawaiians is wonderful.

The next few images were taken from the balcony while Emily and I were having a nice brunch at the Papa Kona restaurant. Originally, when we were contemplating getting married in Hawaii, Papa Kona's was one place we were seriously considering. Lastly, there are a few views from our stay at the Kona Bali Kai, and the last shot was after we had driven to the east coast of the island for the last part of our stay at the wonderful "Peace of Paradise" cabins, south of Hilo; a photo of one of the many cute little geckos that shared our stay in the jungle.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2023 Hawaii Trip

Hawaii 2023 - Old Kona Airport Botanical Gardens

2024-10-01T20:53:00.000-07:00

Gallery (45 images): Hawaii 2023 - Day 3

On our third major day in Hawaii, we drove to the Old Kona Airport, north of Kailua-Kona and spent a few hours strolling around the botanical gardens there, marvelling at the diverse range of colourful plants and some large and cool looking spiders too!

As is typical for the Kona coast, afternoons are overcast and one really needs to be a morning person to take advantage of full sunshine! It was still wonderfully warm, but with mostly cloudy skies, the colours didn't pop as much as they could have. In the evening, the clouds often burn off and it clears up then, making for nice sunsets at least.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2023 Hawaii Trip

Hawaii 2023 - Miloli'i and South of Kona

2024-09-23T21:32:00.000-07:00

Gallery (35 images): Hawaii 2023 - Days 1 & 2

In mid August of 2023, a week after Emily and I got married, we were off to to the Big Island of Hawaii for our honeymoon. Following will be an excerpt from the above linked blog post about our wedding...

For a few days at the start, my father joined us since he'd been wanting to revisit the memorial for my mother one more time, which is on the outskirts of the village of Miloli'i, on the Kona Coast, where my mother's ashes were scattered in the ocean back in 2008. A night shot of the memorial that I took in 2019 can be seen below. I am sad that my mother never had a chance to meet Emily. She was an artist herself and she and Emily would have had many fascinating discussions no doubt!

Being 92, travel is becoming more of a challenge for my father and that may well have been the last opportunity for him to visit the memorial with Emily and I. For more on this memorial, see this blog post of mine from 2019. Once my father flew back home we started our honeymoon proper, spending a few more days on the Kona Coast, then over to the east part of the island, staying just south of Hilo at a wonderful little private set of three walkway connected bungalows in the jungle.

Oregon 2023 - Shaniko & Antelope

2024-09-15T19:13:00.000-07:00

Gallery (30 images): Oregon 2023 - Day 5

On the last day of this trip, during our drive north, we stopped by the ghost town of Shaniko. There are still people living in Shaniko (30 as of 2020), but it is mostly deserted and there are numerous historic buildings. As you'll see in the gallery, I was fascinated by the "Chrysler Fluid Drive" emblem on an old car there, haha. Shaniko does have a hotel, and you can see it in the gallery where my Subaru Crosstrek is parked. For more photos of this quaint location, see the first twelve photos in my 2019 gallery here: 2019 Grand Canyon Trip - Days 1-3

After Shaniko, we drove onward to the town of Antelope and briefly stopped at the historic school there, built in 1925. The school is stated for restoration work to become a city hall / community centre. The last three photos in the gallery were taken inside a quirky little shop in Condon Oregon, called The Condon Local. There, they serve breakfast & lunch, have ice cream and milkshakes, have an espresso bar, sell vintage items and clothing, and have numerous little displays with antiques, like the old boxes of Kodak Developer Tubes shown in my photos. This was the last blog entry and gallery from our 2023 Oregon trip. Next up, photos from Hawaii later in 2023, when Emily and I were on our honeymoon!

Read: All the blog postings from my 2023 Oregon Trip

Oregon 2023 - Pine Mtn. and Paulina Lakes Obsidian Flow

2024-09-12T22:50:00.000-07:00

Gallery (30 images): Oregon 2023 - Days 3 & 4

After the Painted Hills, we drove further south and camped up on Pine Mountain, where there is also an observatory run by the University of Oregon. After hiking to the top of Pine Mtn, we drove to Bend, where we had an amazing breakfast at The Victorian Cafe. Then, for the rest of the day, we drove around Bend, checking out some shops until camping at Skull Hollow to the north.

The next day we drove further south, stopping at the Bend REI and then heading to the Paulina Lakes at the Newberry National Volcanic Monument and hiking up the 1300 year old Big Obsidian Flow, which is actually the youngest volcanic lava flow in Oregon. The photo at the top of this blog post shows the edge of the massive basalt and volcanic glass lava flow and photo 29 in the gallery also shows how deep this flow is at its edge in spots, dwarfing some fairly tall trees right next to it. Photos 10, 20 and 27 show some good views of this black volcanic glass, which is formed by rapid cooling of magma which had minimal water and gas content, rapid enough to not allow the molten minerals to crystallize. After hiking around the obsidian flow and taking some photos, we started heading north again, through Bend and camping at the Postpile Campground on the Crooked River.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2023 Oregon Trip

Oregon 2023 - Painted Hills and Blue Basin

2024-08-15T22:20:00.000-07:00

Gallery (65 images): 2023 Oregon - Days 1 & 2

This is the first gallery from our week long June 2023 trip to Oregon. On the drive down, we passed an old abandoned house in northern Oregon, one that has been slowly deteriorating over the years and gaining more and more graffiti inside. I've photographed the same house on multiple other occasions over the span of decades and it is interesting to see the progression.

The first "real" day of photography started to the north east of the Painted Hills Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. The above image was taken along a backroad route, coming in to the area from the north, whereas normally people would access the Painted Hills from the south. This was a very scenic drive as you can see, first starting off with a lightly paved backroad before turning into a much narrower and rough gravel off-road trail. The views were spectacular and there were virtually no other vehicles along the way, something I love about the Oregon Outback! The night skies there are magnificent and the area has been designated the largest dark sky sanctuary in the world.

We spent the afternoon and evening at the Painted Hills and that night, camped nearby. The next morning was relaxing, taking in some gorgeous views over the John Day River while sipping our morning coffee.

After breaking camp, we drove back out and up the John Day River valley to an area called the Blue Basin, which features strongly blue-green coloured and eroded soft sandstone formations, which made for a very scenic hike. I have been there on other occasions over the years, but if I recall, it was always either overcast or hazy, or scorchingly hot, and I never had an opportunity like this one to capture the beauty of the area...

Read: All the blog postings from my 2023 Oregon Trip

2023 Victoria Trip - Day 6

2024-07-08T20:56:00.000-07:00

Gallery (80 images): 2023 Victoria Trip - Chinatown & Butchart Gardens

On our last day in Victoria, Emily and I first walked over to Chinatown and did a bit of exploring, including visiting the Chinese Canadian Museum, which was quite fascinating. The narrow brick lined alleys with lots of paper lanterns were wonderful and very photogenic! It turned out to be a rather lengthy walk we did that morning and early afternoon, totalling over 12 km. After finding a coffee shop and relaxing for a bit, we headed back to our B&B, grabbed the car and then headed up to The Butchart Gardens, where we spent another few hours walking around and taking lots of photos before having a quick dinner and making our way to the Swartz Bay ferry to head back to the mainland. It was a long day with lots of walking but the weather was absolutely beautiful and it was a great way to end our trip to Victoria!

Read: All the blog postings from my 2023 Victoria Trip

2023 Victoria Trip - Days 3 - 5

2024-06-27T00:03:00.000-07:00

Gallery (55 images): 2023 Victoria - City Walks

The next three days, I spent my time wandering around Victoria, part testing lenses and part just exploring the city. These were slow and relaxing days, wandering around and taking photos. I used to do this quite often in and around Vancouver, but I've never taken the time around Victoria.

I had borrowed a few lenses and a GFX body from my Fujifilm rep for a couple of the days. One was a pre-production Fujinon XF 8mm f/3.5 R WR (equivalent to a very wide 12mm lens on full-frame) and there are a number of photos in the above linked gallery that were taken with that lens. I was impressed enough with this lens, that this year (in 2024) I bought one just before my trip to the Southwest with Emily. It replaced the also otherwise excellent Laowa Zero-D 9mm f/2.8 manual focus lens I had been using for many years with my X-Pro2. In a few ways, the Laowa 9mm is actually slightly better than the Fujinon 8mm, but overall I ended up preferring the Fujinon for a few reasons, so I made the switch.

At the beginning of the above linked gallery, there are also some infrared (IR) shots taken with my IR-converted X-E2, a camera I rarely use and when I do, I always tell myself I need to use it more often since the results can be magical! The grain and highlight glow, to mimic B&W Kodak IR film, were added in post with Adobe Photoshop.

I had also borrowed a Fujifilm GFX 100S as well as the then new ultra-wide zoom Fujinon GF 20-35mm f/4 R WR (roughly equivalent to a 16-28mm in full-frame terms), and this combination proved outstanding, with the zoom lens performing pretty much every bit as well as Fujifilm's GF prime lenses. If I were to ever get a GFX system, that lens would be very high on my list of lenses to buy! There are no images from that combination in the gallery, although there are a number in the gallery accompanying my review of the lens on the Beau Photo website here... https://www.beauphoto.com/tested-fujinon-gf-20-35mm-f-4-r-wr/

Read: All the blog postings from my 2023 Victoria Trip

2023 Victoria Trip - Days 1 & 2

2024-06-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

Gallery (100 images): 2023 Victoria - City, Beacon Hill Park and Finnerty Park

This is the first gallery I've posted from my 2023 trip to Victoria, BC, in late May. My wife Emily was attending the Canadian Association for Conservation conference there and I decided to tag along, which gave me some time to meet up with some old friends and colleagues, as well as wander the city and take lots of photographs while she was busy.

Fujifilm Canada was working the same conference and I thank the rep for lending me the then brand new Fujinon XF 8mm f/3.5 R WR for a day of shooting in Victoria, a pre-production copy that nonetheless provided excellent image quality. In the meantime, I've purchased the same lens for myself and have been extremely happy with the results. For example, the recent posting of my 2024 Southwest Trip - Highlights gallery has many shots taken with the new XF 8mm.

The gallery accompanying this post has some shots I took while wandering around the city on the first day, then shots I took in Beacon Hill Park on the next day (the first ones with the rock formations sure don't look like they were taken in Victoria!), followed by a trip to Finnerty Gardens at UVIC, where I killed some time prior to meeting up with Eric Higgs, who is in charge of the fascinating Mountain Legacy Project. I acted as a consultant early on in the project, giving advice on the high end medium-format digital camera equipment used to capture the repeat photos for the project. Definitely head over to the link above to see some fascinating examples of how the Rocky Mountain landscape has changed over the last 100 years or so, due to both natural and man-made influences.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2023 Victoria Trip

2024 Southwest Trip - Highlights

2024-05-28T11:43:00.000-07:00

Gallery (140 images): 2024 Southwest Trip Highlights

In early April of 2024, Emily and I went on our first long road-trip to the US Southwest, driving a total of just over 8,000 km. We had talked about doing a trip like this since shortly after we met in early 2020, however first the COVID-19 pandemic got in the way, and then a few other trips; a trip to Germany in 2022 and then our honeymoon in Hawaii in 2023. However this year, we finally made it! Here is a map of our trip as recorded with my Garmin InReach Messenger...

Eventually I will be posting a full set of image galleries from this trip, but first I need to catch up on previous trips, including a short trip to Oregon in 2023, as well as a trip to Victoria, then our Hawaii trip later that year. For now the gallery linked to at the top of this post just contains some highlights from the trip.

Lastly, I'll leave you with a few panoramas I created, and you can click to open larger version in a new window or tab. Please only download these for personal viewing. These images are copyright and are not to be used anywhere in print or elsewhere on the Internet without my prior consent!

Wedding! August 2023

2024-02-18T18:09:00.000-08:00

Gallery (30 images): Wedding!

Yes indeed, I am now married to my incredible, lovely partner, Emily Min! We met in January of 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Had we met even a few weeks later, things may have turned out differently as the world shut down and everyone started social distancing, but timing was just in our favour and we stayed together during COVID. Emily is the most kind, caring and conscientious person I have ever met, and I consider myself extremely lucky to have met her when I did. She works as an art conservator and I was (and still am) astounded that she can repair and restore a damaged piece of artwork just as seamlessly (or more so) than what I can do for an image in Photoshop. Her skills are amazing.

In December of 2022, I proposed to Emily and to my delight she accepted, and in early August of 2023 we got married. The above linked image gallery is a small subset of our wedding photos, which were taken by my good friend Ted Marshall. My father George Mander, who is 92, hybridizes roses and he provided some his own roses for each table at the reception, and a bunch for our sweetheart table as well. A few of the roses can can be seen in photos 27 and 28 in the gallery.

We had about 55 guests at our wedding, which took place at the Celebration Pavilion in Queen Elizabeth Park, and the reception after was at the park restaurant, Seasons in the Park. A shout out to the incredible service and delicious food at Seasons which helped make our wedding day perfect. Another shout out to the bakery that made the amazing wedding cakes for us, Cadeaux Bakery. We asked if they could decorate the cakes with roses and mimic the colouration of one of my dad's own varieties, and we feel they did a tremendous job as can be seen in photo 27! Note that to respect the privacy of our guests and their families, I am not posting any of the many images which included them, other than a handful with my father and Emily's parents, and one with Emily's brother.

At the start of the reception, Emily and I donned traditional Korean wedding attire to perform the Korean Paebaek Ceremony (a link here which has a good overview), and there a number of shots in the gallery of that. One aspect of the ceremony is for the groom to give the bride a piggyback ride, signifying his strength in being able to support her in the future. That was a lot of fun, as was the entire Paebaek Ceremony, and everyone enjoyed the colourful outfits and spectacle!

Germany 2022 - Frankfurt Historical Museum

2023-11-27T22:55:00.000-08:00

Gallery (60 photos): Germany 2022 - Frankfurt Historical Museum

On our last day in Germany, Emily and I visited the German Historical Museum while my dad stayed with his brother. It was a huge museum and unfortunately our time was too short to properly see it all. What we saw was fascinating and well worth another visit in the future! Emily and I had discussed possibly getting married in Germany, at the Römer in Frankfurt (the old city hall) where my parents were married too. The first photo in the gallery shows the Römer. In the end, it would have been too difficult for Emily's entire extended family to travel to Germany, so we gave up on the idea. For a while though, we were seriously thinking about it.

That's it, the last gallery and posting from our wonderful trip to Germany in August of 2022. Emily loved the food in Germany and was happy to meet the extended Mander family too. We hope to return in a few years and we both want to visit Berlin (I have never been either) as well as head back up to the island of Föhr in the North Sea, with its quaint villages and wonderfully photogenic thatched roof buildings, and of course visit friends and family again.

Next up on my blog will likely be a gallery with few photos from our wedding back in August, as well as our honeymoon in Hawaii after! Then I'll likely circle back to my 2018 trip to Germany and finish those galleries, before working on some closer to home trips and outings with Emily during COVID-19.

Show: All blog postings from my 2022 Germany trip

Germany 2022 - Eltville

2023-11-06T22:09:00.010-08:00

Gallery (45 photos): Germany 2022 - Eltville

On this day some friends took us on a wonderful walk along the Rhine River and into the town of Eltville. There, we wandered through the walled gardens at an old electoral castle which also had some nice shaded benches to take refuge on this very hot day. As you can see the weather was fantastic, perfect for taking photos, with a deep blue sky and fluffy white clouds!

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Germany 2022 - Frankfurt / Museum of Applied Arts

2023-04-15T07:00:00.002-07:00

Gallery (130 photos): Germany 2022 - Frankfurt / Museum of Applied Arts

We arrived back near Frankfurt, staying in Dietzenbach where my uncle lives. We left my dad to visit with him, and Emily and I drove into Frankfurt for the day to walk around the central old part of the city, where the picturesque medieval city hall is, the Frankfurter Römer. This is where my parents were married and the town square there is ringed with shops, cafes and restaurants. There is a small gothic church in the same area, some museums and the huge Kaiserdom, a large gothic cathedral where one can climb to the top of the high tower for some amazing views of Frankfurt below.

After having a coffee and a morning snack in a cafe, we took some photos of the Römer, went inside the small church, then made our way to the Kaiserdom and climbed up the 328 step narrow spiral staircase to the viewing platform which rings the tower - the views were indeed spectacular! It was quite hot and a bit of a challenge to climb up, especially when one encountered others coming down. The staircase is very narrow! After we came back down, we went into the Kaiserdom and took photos, then made our way across the Main River to the Frankfurt Museum of Applied Arts, the "Museum Angewandte Kunst." Some months before, Emily and I had watched a documentary about the famed designer Dieter Rams, who created many of the iconic product designs for the German company Braun. It turns out that he was also a major influence on Jony Ive, the lead product designer for Apple for many years. When we found out there was a dedicated area with a permanent exhibit of some of Rams' work for Braun and others, we thought it was worth a visit to that museum. There were many other very interesting displays and it was totally worth seeing! There are many shots from inside the museum in the large image gallery linked above.

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Germany 2022 - Michelstadt

2023-02-15T14:00:00.040-08:00

Gallery (35 images): Germany 2022 - Michelstadt

We left the Black Forest in southern Germany the day before, and drove back up to near Frankfurt again. The next day, we visited the picturesque town of Michelstadt, just south of Frankfurt and wandered around, visiting some gift shops and taking photos inside the town's church. Later that evening, we visited some very good family friends near Frankfurt, Günter and Renate. My mother had gotten to know them a very long time ago, even before she had met my father, and it was wonderful seeing them again, even though the visit was only brief.

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Germany 2022 - Gengenbach

2023-01-29T14:53:00.010-08:00

Gallery (45 images): Germany 2022 - Gengenbach

The next day on our trip, we were in the Black Forest region of southern Germany, visiting the town of Reichenbach. Franziska's son helps to run a wonderful hotel and restaurant there, the Land-Gasthof Rössle. The food was incredible, including the best Schnitzel Cordon-Bleu that I have ever had. Not only was it stuffed with ham and Swiss cheese, but also had caramelized onions inside. The flavour was amazing, as were the perfectly cooked pan-fried potatoes too. I can't wait for the next time I visit where I will surely order that again!

We left my dad to relax at the Rössle and Emily and I drove to the nearby town of Gengenbach. It is a small town, filled with interesting shops, and it had some very picturesque, narrow cobblestone streets lined with historic timber-framed post-and-beam constructed houses and buildings. In German a building constructed like that is called a Fachwerkhaus. There was an externally unassuming church in Gengenbach that turned out to have a wonderful, ornate interior.

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I just have to share an iPhone shot that Emily took of my wonderful schnitzel dinner at the Rössle!