Out & About #175 | Weekly Visuals: Long Exposure Experiment + Pearl King

The existence of backlog is a stressful thing, thus I spent majority of my weekend past study room doors - open, since I'm claustrophobic after all - relieving myself of the major pileup.

Resulting from this relief was, as you can probably predict, the urge to take even more photographs for the sake of experimentation.

Conducting nighttime long exposure shots was a technique that I had wanted to dabble in for quite some time, but the occasion never arose. Towards the end of the weekend, though, I finally decided that it was time.

With the assistance of a very nice friend, I set up my camera over the 403, making slight dial adjustments after every fleet of cars zoomed by beneath us. The results are as shown above and below: an intriguing mix of red and blue streaks, complimented with either a warm haze from freeway streetlights or bluish, starry spots from ones at street level.

All in all, it was a very fulfilling experience, and I can only hope to further develop upon this method to produce images of greater visual interest and higher quality. And with, Christmas just around the corner, there really is no better time capture the smooth flow of multi-coloured LEDs on residential streets.

No weekly visuals post could ever be complete without food snaps!
Somehow, I found myself wandering into Pearl King as company for a late lunch.

It hadn't been my first time experiencing the restaurant's North American-ized Chinese food, though it was the first opportunity I had at taking in their bistro-like decor and unseemly presence of a marble-topped bar area in the very centre.

The lunch rush had passed, enabling the restaurant to have a moment of peace.

Several dim sum dishes were ordered, including the Hockey Pucks (Pan-Fried Chive and Shrimp Patties), Wonton Soup, Spring Rolls, and a bowl of Steamed White Rice.

As I had mentioned previously, the food tends to be catered toward the general group of working adults in the area. Neither particularly flavourful nor stunning in taste, the dishes all shared one similarity: they were unnecessarily greasy (with the exception of the soup dumplings).

The Hockey Pucks were essentially starchy patties containing not-so-fresh shrimp and chives that had been steamed and then pan-fried for crispiness. Relatively tasteless, the chives were completely indiscernible besides their stark green hue; the side of chili oil was, unfortunately, more oil than chili.
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Simply acting as company, I didn't really try the other items, but it was obvious that the Steamed Rice was on the dry side (difficult to pick up without clumping) and the Spring Rolls hadn't been drained properly before being brought to the table after the other three dishes had been demolished. Not to mention, the supposedly appropriate sweet-and-sour sauce resembled more of a watery, ketchup-meets-vinegar paste than proper dipping sauce. 

Service wasn't particularly lacking, though it hadn't been extremely attentive either. The hostess was a bit awkward, speaking somewhat broken English, but still friendly. It would have nice if the waitress had come around a bit more frequently - pouring my cold water from a wine bottle isn't exactly an element I associate with dim sum; offering hot tea to melt away the greasiness would have also been appreciated.

During this visit, I was also informed that they no longer take Vicinity as the number of visitors that utilize the points card are very few. This was fair enough, as investing in technologies that would not increase revenue is pointless anyway.
I suppose the sole redeeming aspect of the visit was that their basement-level washroom was nicely lit and decently clean.


Other visuals of the week include purchasing a jar of Nutella from Shoppers (it was $3.00 off!), which was later employed in the making of Nutella Hot Chocolate w/ Toasted Marshmallows and a Nutella Orange Zest Latte (not pictured).

Revisiting Union Juice to try their Green Monster Acai Bowl was a mistake: vividly green and runny in consistency, I felt bloated and uncomfortable after its consumption as opposed to "healthy and detoxed". The bitter aftertaste and coarse clumps that remained in my mouth left much to be desired.

Erin Mills Town Centre is really starting to look more like Square One! Though I must say, our Christmas tree is much more fabulous than that of City Centre. (Hehehe)

Just about all GO Train-riders received a coupon-adorned candy upon exiting Union Station in the morning. That being said, several were seen throughout the office in odd places, including stuck between cubicle panels...

Aside from my bao from T&T, my remaining visuals are all holiday-related: an Eggnog Shake from Booster Juice (Ritual is downright awesome!), a hilarious plush reindeer flipbook, and Second Cups' gorgeous blue-and-white cups featuring snow-capped mountains. Of course, the mocha I tried was also equally amazing.

My lesson of the week: Don't try to fight the need for caffeine - succumb and continue to be productive.