Lao Silk & Craft

Lao Silk and Craft is a company that seeks to help and support Lao producers enter markets that appreciate the distinctive arts & crafts of Lao. Boby, the founder says, "I believe that supporting trade is a way out of the poverty rural communities face. I want to encourage the villagers to become self sufficient and preserve their culture and traditions. I want to ensure the continued development and training of local farmers and weavers."

Lao Silk and Craft is the only Lao business enterprise recognised by the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT) for its practice of fair trade with the Lao mulberry farmers and silk weavers. Here is a good blog with more information.

This is Kommaly Chanthavong. In Febuary, 2008 during the Sustainable Living Festival, I was fortunate enough to meet Kommaly, Boby's mother, who is the inspiration behind Boby's business and founder of the non-profit organisation, Lao Sericulture Co. in Laos.

She is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee in 2005. Fantastic achievement!

All products are hand-weaved together and takes months to do. Natural dyes are used which is responsible ethically and friendly to the environment. Read this to find out more about the benefit of natural dye, and this about the labour intensive process (17 steps) to produce this wonderful product.

Lao Silk and Craft's products include traditional, hand-loomed Lao silks and traditional Hmong appliqué, embroidery and batiks transformed into beautiful fashion accessories, babyware, homewares and décor - including silk scarves and shawls, bags, cushions, quilts, wall hangings, table items, kitchen items, and baby items.

Australia Sports Model of the Year - La Femme Physique Australia

Thank you very much to Brett for your encouragement. Thank you Clint for the pass. What an amazing experience. Great to catch up with you Christine and Mag. Nice to meet you again Patrik. I love your work. Nice to meet you Christian. Thank you very much to all the new friends as well - Wendy, Shenelle, Ruth, Bianca, Amanda, Jennifer, Nicole, Anna and Tricia. What can I say? you are all beautiful!

May our Australian team rack up all the prizes at the WNBF competition. Aussie aussie aussie oui oui oui!

It was Australia Sports Model of the Year- LeFemme Physique Australia Calendar Launch held at the Transit Lounge, Federation Square. Look at how much fun these photographers (and video cameraman, Christian) are having. I can't wait for the next event.

Let me introduce to you, from left to right, Fernanda Ramos and Wendy La Roche. Wendy is the defending world WNBF title holder. You just have got to read her bio. She is a wife and a mother of two, postgraduate in Marketing, in IT, modeling, an athlete and body building competitions. Amazing woman!
Garth Ploog performed live at the launch. Garth is a jazz singer / songwriter. He has appeared in musicals and TV series such as Neighbours and Australian Idol. In 2004 he was the youngest male to perform on the show and reached the wildcard final. There are lots of his music and videos at MySpace. His complete profile can be found here.

2008 Melbourne International Arts Festival - Opening Night

Wanted to photograph Federation Square crowded with people (just like during 2006 FIFA World Cup when it was broadcast at Fed Sq. I missed that).

There were many excellent cultural performances. How excellent were they? Just watch the reaction of the crowd.

Music performance dominated the evening. A very strong crowd made up of people of all ages and all races - senior citizens who brought with them chairs, office workers, students, families, youth and kids.

This picture of the jumping girl do no justice to how high (thus excited) she was jumping. She is not that much taller than the boy in front of her! She should be in our Olympic volley ball team!

This guy can dance, he and his friends had so much fun. Just look at how he is transfixed to the performance on the stage.

And what about this girl (and her partner - the lucky red shirt guy behind her), she was great - photogenic, moves great with the music, really enjoying herself, a pleasure to photograph. I killed many shots on her. Basically everyone in the front close to the stage were dancing. It was just crazy. The only person who didn't appear to be enjoying himself was the guard who was standing by the edge of the stage watching for any mis-behavior. Even he must be happy to say the crowd was good and behaved well.

That said, I must say I was very happy about how nice people were. They were polite and caring. Some even made effort to let me move around. I was pleasantly surprised. Australia is a great country and Australians know how to have fun!

OK, what were they cheering for? What were they dancing to?

This guy is good. Notice he is actually facing the crowd, not the marquee? That's right, he was conducting the crowd as well as the orchestra. He did really great to stir up the crowd.

Everybody's favorite, John So, the Melbourne mayor

Victorian premier John Brumby

Flying in a Jet Fighter - BAC167 StrikeMaster Mk.88

Went for a jet fighter flight in an ex-NZ air-force fighter / bomber - BAC167 Strike Master. While it was a mere 20 minutes introductory flight from Australia Jet Adventures, it did come with many aerobatic moves - aileron turn, derry turn, barrel roll, loop, inverted flight, wing over, hesitation turn, victory roll and combination manoeuvres. I experienced between 0G and 3G and saw the horizon turn around and around... If you feel sick just reading this, imagine how I felt in the cockpit.

In the pre-flight briefing, I learnt to use the sick bag - where to put it so I can get to it very quickly. I learnt how to put on and take off the helmet, slim line parachute, how to operate the face mask and release the parachute, seat belts and the canopy in the event of an emergency. But the most important is to how to take off the mask if I need to puke. Apparently, the mask can not be cleaned completely once I fill it up with my breakfast or dinner from the night before... Therefore, getting it off quickly is crucial.

The plane is a BAC167 Strike Master, nicknamed Blunty where I sit side-by-side with the pilot and I am pretty close to the tip of the plane. Being a much smaller plane than passenger jets I am used to and closer to the front and speed, I thought it would be quite scary. We did get off the ground in just a couple of seconds, however it wasn't that scary until Darren starting doing aerobatic manoeuvres. If you are prone to motion sickness, one good tip is to look straight ahead. Because it is a jet fighter, there is little turbulence and the brain is not fast enough to react and cause nausea. However, the thrill factor is substantially discounted unless you look around (and see the horizon spinning around). I did and thank God I didn't puke up there.

The pilot Darren executed each manoeuvre with great precision and enthusiasm. I went quiet a little bit after the wing-over (basically turning 360 degrees clockwise and then immediately 720 degrees anticlockwise. Felt like I was in a front loader washing machine... There was nothing to hold on to although I was strapped down by at least 6 seat belts. I was moving around quite a bit and thought my helmet will hit Darren's at times. I imagine I must have turned from pink to red to white and may be green... Of course I couldn't throw in the towel and ask Darren to head back to base because of a little nausea. The whole experience is definitely the most thrilling in my life! Thank you very much Computer Associates for the voucher. I was actually a fairly breezy day but I found myself completely covered with sweat by the end.

This picture gives you a little idea of me in the cockpit. I was sitting on the RHS (bottom) and wearing the same helmet as the passenger in this picture.

I struggled for a long time thinking whether and what I should post here because I only have a few pics of the plane and no pics of myself at all. There are a fair bit of security restrictions since 9-11. Understandably, safety is a big deal as well. No loose items are allowed in the plane hence this photographer's hands were tied. Thank God that there were 3 video-cams in the cockpit. I am still waiting for the video to arrive. Thank you Jared for taking a few pics of me with the plane. You can see them in my wife's blog.

This picture must be one of the worst pictures I have ever taken. You can only see a little fin on top of the plane. LOL. I was very keen to photograph the plane in the air. It is hard because it flies very high so I could only shoot it taking off. I got really close to the side of the runway.... too close... I've been to airshow a couple of times (and love it!).. but the noise from the Rolls Royce Viper 535 engine was so deafening I was literally blown away by it. One thing I learnt from this is how very well the canopy blocks out noise in the cockpit.

Welcome baby Jaslyn!

Hello everyone. My name is Jaslyn Eve Wong. I am 1 day 7 hours and 6 minutes old.

Congratulations to the very proud first time parents, Chong Yau and Lynette, for your beautiful new daughter. Praise the Lord for the safe delivery. Very well done to you both.

May Jaslyn bring you both loads of joy and a lifetime of pleasure and blessings. May she grow healthily and become a lovely lady and a wonderful person, just like her parents; and may be a good cook as well, just like her mother.

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Psalm 139:14

Andrew's Baptism

A good mate of mine was baptised on 21st Sept, 2008 (10:40am to be exact thanks to embedded metadata (EXIF) in the pic).

Congrats bro! As you make your vow to the Lord public, may Matthew 6:33 and many other wonderful promises from God hold true in your life; and these blessings and love will overflow to people around you also.

Just look at how joyful this man is!