Expect the unexpected as my accounting lecturer in Australia would say. When I was planning my trip to Singapore in October, I hadn’t expected to spend sooo much time at the world’s favourite coffee joint—Starbucks. Cafes have come a long way and from what I can see, they are now the place to hang out. So much so they, or more specifically Starbucks became a great rendezvous to do my thing – networking!
One of the first people I met on this trip was David Ho a good friend and entrepreneur who introduced Lensbabies to the Singapore market some years back. At Starbucks Orchard, he brought with him a Lensbaby 2.0 for me to play with. Rather unexpected to be testing Lensbaby at the cafe but nonetheless it was the start of an interesting day.
This is neither mine nor David’s regular Starbucks order. It so happened that their coffee maker was being serviced so we unwillingly settled for brewed coffee. The day was slightly overcast and we had a lot to catch up so we were rather forgiving to the fact we couldn’t have our Double-Shot Cappuccino & Hot Latte.
The EOS 20D is my second dSLR body after the 300D and it’s the one I’m most likely to bring on a holiday (and networking trips abroad). I’m such an ultra-wide junkie so the EF10-22 stays on most of the time. Otherwise the 50mm 1.8-II is a wonderful lens with amazing DOF. Here are some images I shot with the Lensbaby 2.0 and check out the latest set of images from David (posted 13.11.07)
Lensbaby 2.0 images © Jan Shim Photography
In the two days I was with David, we hopped from one Starbucks outlet to another, from Orchard to Bugis to One Fullerton to …. who knows which other I may have missed.
Starbucks Bugis. Here’s David messing with my 10-22mm catching an inquisitive patron looking at me checking out my Sekonic L358 Light meter.
So what do I think of the Lensbaby? I’m not sure it’s my thing. It takes a lot of patience and practice to fully appreciate it. The way I see it, Lensbaby gives dSLR owners a shot at Lomography at what may be equivalent to the cost of a dedicated Lomo camera. Don’t expect to see me shooting with one anytime soon. I have enough Canon EF lenses to worry about and if I can help it, I’m trying very hard to resist the EF 85mm f/1.2 😛
SHIMWORLD 
I never had a Starbucks before…Love all the pictures you shoot!
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Hi, I was wondering if you could tell me how you got the search bar off the top of this template? I am having the same issues as I saw you had written about in a forum with my pages going under the search but didn’t see an answer there. Thank you.
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The only problem with meeting up with people at Starbucks, at least in Seattle, is you need to be very very specific about which one… often times there are some just across the street from each other, on the same block, etc etc. I do agree though, it’s a great place to meet with people.
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whats the model ?…………….
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@ Kiden
When you have a chance and if you happen to like coffee, order a cappuccino (I have mine double-shot) .. the froth is amazing—thick and full of character. Quite unlike how Coffee Bean here makes my cuppa. The attention to the froth alone is enough to have me going back for more!
@ bherhei
The Search Bar is a little annoying, isn’t it? The only way you’ll be able to remove it altogether is through Custom CSS.
http://wordpress.com/products/custom-css/
http://faq.wordpress.com/2007/10/18/about-the-custom-css-upgrade/
@ Matt
I can imagine. This was the first time I had spent so much time at Starbucks and it seemed that everywhere I went with David there was an outlet beckoning a cup! As we walked along Orchard Road and streets as far (or near) as several MRT stations away, the Starbucks logo appears just as much as the HSBC logo appearing at almost all the major international airport I’ve landed in.
@ Property in France
I’m assuming you’re referring to the Lenbaby. It’s simply Lensbaby 2.0. The number 2 denotes starting aperture f/2 and with magnetic aperture discs, you can get up to f/8.
Check out some of my other posts of Singapore:
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the lensbaby is pretty clumsy handling wise imo. id much rather achieve the lensbaby effect in post and with more control over the variables.
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Hi. Sorry to continue to be a pain about this but you are right, the search bar is really annoying, more so than my awkwardness over bothering you. I already have the CSS upgrade (I have already changed a bunch of things on my template) but what I’m not certain of is what specific code to use to remove the space bar from the template. If you can help, great, if not, I understand. On a more personal note, I’m an American living in Hungary and it is quite a tragedy to me that we don’t have Starbucks (or Charbucks like a coffee snob barista friend I have calls it because she thinks they burn their coffee beans) in the country I live in. Alas they keep on promising but as of this comment I am still without. So sad.
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They say “No pain no gain” and I’m pretty sure that’s open to interpretation and one such interpretation I have is of a physical one called Cupping Therapy. Yours, however, is a lot more subtle and I’m happy to oblige. In my CSS Edit box, I have the following entry appended to the existing theme. I know nothing about CSS so feel free to do a preview of the result these have on your theme. All the best!
#navigation ul li.search {
display:none;
font-size:0.9em;
right:0;
position:absolute;
top:0;
}
#navigation ul li.search input#searchsubmit {
display:none;
border:#999 1px solid;
font-size:0.9em;
background:#ddd;
color:#265e15;
margin:0 0 0 2px;
padding:2px;
}
I live in Brunei and we have no Starbucks. We do have the other coffee franchise, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf which is equally good except their cappuccino froth needs a lot more work to be at par. At home, I’m a Nescafe Gold person and when I have guests over, I’ll make them Vietnamese Coffee.
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The code worked perfectly! Thanks again for your help.
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ooooo….. Vietnamese coffee! OMG…. i tried it once and i love it to bits! hahaha….
At the moment, i like Mac Cafe’s cappuccino and their latte as they are rather affordable.. except i see more milk froth than the coffee… Next would be starbucks frappuccino! I particularly like the one that they have for christmas season… Peppermint thingy.. cant remember… 🙂
Should suggest to do a franchise of Starbucks in Brunei! Am sure it’s going to be well received! 😀
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@ bherhei
Glad that worked for you. The one thing in the WP.com MistyLook theme that annoys me is how the Archive template lists a maximum of 50 posts as opposed to all. I emailed the creator this morning to have this confirmed that there is no way (without some backend coding work) to overcome this. Otherwise this theme is nearly perfect.
@Jaslyn
When I was in Vietnam a few months ago for the ASEAN 100 Leadership Forum event Vietnamese coffee was not on my mind. Instead I fell in love with the deliciously smooth Pho Bo aka Vietnamese Beef Noodles. So much so I had a bowl each day of my stay. It was only recently in Singapore that I discovered the beef noodles at Singapore’s Wisma Atria Food Republic to be just as good. My days of drooling over the ‘first love’ is over.
As for Starbucks in Brunei … we do not need to go that far (and it would be too long and excruciating painful a wait). Coffee Bean makes perfectly good double-shot cappuccino for me—all I ask is BETTER FROTH! 🙂
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In love with Lensbaby…all over again!
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