22 Jan 03
I thought I'd start this to keep the website alive with some of my personal thoughts and feelings on certain issues......photography and non photography related.

23 Jan 03
Dear Diary,
Running around Bangkok with Adam Gregor (a new friend I'd met at www.contaxg@contaxg.com) today, I felt my old bones creaking as this old ass tried to keep up a brave front for 21-year old Adam.

From the grand dame, Hualompong train station, we'd covered quite a bit of old Bangkok's back alleys, Chinatown and up the Chao Phya River with the Grand Palace and Wat Po thrown in at the end. Young Adam looked as if he'd just finished a casual stroll around his backyard.

Observing camera gear in the hands of tourists is a sick perversion of mine. I could'nt but help make some general observations.

1. A digital camera seems to be in the hands of 3 out of every 6 tourists we'd come across.
2. Minolta AF seemed to be the SLR of choice amongst the Euros
3. Almost every woman carried a pocketable point n shoot
4. Spotted quite a few Canon SLRs including a couple of EOS 30/33 and an EOS 50 of which
5. Didnt see much of Nikon
6. Tamron seemed the off-brand lens of choice
7. Lastly and most surprisingly, the ol' manual focus SLR (saw quite a few Pentaxes and a couple of Nikons) is alive and kicking with good numbers spotted (one with an off-camera flash attached!) and the majority of them with prime lenses of around 35 to 50mm focal length attached (give me a high 5 brothers!)
8. No Leicas spotted

Adam's been in a really really happy mood since coming to Asia....paying half price for TMAX, Provia and Velvia compared to home in Melbourne. He started sounding like a bird during our conversations on flim, developing, printing and scanning costs here vs. back home with his constant "Cheap, Cheep, Cheep..."

Enjoying our smokes on the steps of Wat Arun, I suddenly realized I've never actually walked/worked together with another fellow Contax G2 user (that's what we were lugging, mine in a shoulder bag and Adam's in a hipster). It felt weird...like kissing my own sister. We'd both didnt bother with neckstraps opting for hand straps instead. He with a cool looking Optech neoprene thingy and mine, constructed out of a thick shoe lace.

I wish Adam safe and enjoyable travel as he heads up North into Laos tomorrow evening and the rest of his Odessy after South East Asia which will see him in the UK, Portugal, Mexico and Cuba.

My masseau will have her hands full with me this evening.

Ed