Have been under extreme stress lately.... very chaotic on both personal and work fronts. Need to de-stress myself quickly. Tibet here I come.

Rather than revisiting the stunning Potala Palace and spiritual temples, I timed my trip to the Linzhi area for the plum blossoms. Last year in Sichuan Chengdu, I saw a breath taking photo of the plum blossom by a Hasselblad Master. I was so impressed that since then, I was determined to see it myself. I was really looking forward to this photo outing.

HOW DID IT GO.........

Good: Met a bunch of new friends. While the weather was not very good (it rained for a few days), we were able to see some beautiful sceneries. Oh, and the chicken soup was very tasty

BAD: While I was well geared in terms of photographic equipment, I was totally under geared on my clothes. Not sure what was in my mind but all I brought was a few t-shirts and a light fleece. It ended up snowing heavily so I became a human lollipop. The high altitude didn’t help too. And to top it off, 6 out of the 9 days tour, I had a really bad stomach flu. I got so sick by the end of the trip that I could hardly walk. My tripod became my cane. Having a stomach flu in the rural of China where there is no proper toilet facility, plus a few hours of car ride on bumpy roads everyday is absolutely the worst nightmare one can have for a photo trip. It’s beyond what words can describe.

Thanks to my tourmates, I was able to come back in one piece. Jeffrey lent me his fleece pullover which was a life saver; Amy’s Andrex (premium quality toilet paper which became my best friend throughout the trip); Ms. Ng’s Eclipse mints; Pauline/Dodie/Eldy’s Pocari; Carmel constantly watched out for me; and everyone’s care and moral support..... I finally pulled through. To celebrate my survival, I treated myself with a big bucket of KFC as soon as I got home.

Took me much longer than usual to sort out my pictures. I didn’t even want to look at them initially  cos I was still under the shadow of the whole drama. I also later realized that a lot of my shots were really sloppy. So I was not very excited about my photographs. Reluctantly, I made my photo selection, and did the respective raw conversion + post processing. Whatever!!!!

2 weeks have gone by, and this afternoon I dug out the photos to take another look. Hmmmmm, while I can hardly remember where and when I took some of the shots, I suddenly realized that this place is heavenly beautiful. Somehow, the pics look nicer than 2 weeks ago.

Below are some of my favorites: