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Orlando Christmas: Go Karts & Cirque Show - Day 6 (click once
on any photo to display full image) |
We joined Wei-Shen and Lauren for
morning bird photography at Newton Park. Maureen wanted to get a feel for
exactly how difficult it was to capture these bird shots, so she decided to
give it a try. She learned that the hard part was not using the camera (the
auto settings and auto focus get it right most of the time) but in knowing
where the action shots were going to be and being able to get in a position
quickly enough to capture the shot.
While
Maureen did manage to capture one bird in flight, it wasn’t a noteworthy shot
because the bird’s face was in the shadows, it didn’t have a fish in its mouth
or claws, and the photo background was just boring white sky. She would need a
stroke of luck to be in the right place at the right time to capture those
noteworthy shots. However, the still of this white egret in the tall grass
isn’t too bad (first photo below), and it was her best shot of the day. Li
managed to capture a decent shot of an arctic tern with a fish in its mouth
(second photo), while Lauren captured the next 2 much more noteworthy shots (an
anhinga about to chow down and an osprey with his catch). The progression of
our skills as photographers is clearly evident!
After the bird photgraphy, we stopped at the West Orange Arts
and Heritage Center where there was a small outside market of local craft and
food vendors. Inside the museum building was the annual Trees of the Seasons
contest with trees decorated in themes by various orgnaizations and companies
where you could vote for your favorites.
We had a fabulous lunch outside on the deck at the 19th
Hole, the restaurant at Wei-Shen’s Bella Collina golf club.
Afternoon Go Karts
In
the afternoon we went to Dezerland to try another one
of the Chins’ popular pastimes, go karting. What a motley crew!
Maureen and Li
burning rubber on the track. Well, Li maybe, but Maureen not so much (see
results below).
Of
course Wei-Shen
finished first with a considerable margin above everyone else. Ron held his own
with a respectable third place finish, while Li barely nudged out Lauren for
fifth place, but Maureen was lapped and came in dead last due to the difficulty
she had navigating the back to back hairpin turns
because it required so much strength to turn the steering wheel. So… between the
morning bird photography and the afternoon go karting, it was a rough day for
Maureen, and she concluded that she won’t be a photographer for National Geographic
or driving in a NASCAR race any time soon!
Prepping
dinner in Wei-Shen’s condo before the evening show - shrimp pasta with a made
from scratch garlic and green onion chunky tomato sauce.
Evening Cirque Show
The evening’s show was a perfomance by Cirque Mechanics. They
are similar to Cirque de Soleil but not quite as professional although they
perform in much smaller arenas and we were seated very close to the stage with
a great view. The first photo was taken just outside the show venue’s tent
entrance. Some of the acts included trapeze artists, trampoline acrobats, and
balancers (seen respectively in the second, third, and fourth photos below).
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