After so many warm and sunny days, it was almost unbearable now that the cold and windy rain returned here in Seattle (I know, Seattle). And there wasn’t much to do except taking some shots from a friends’ downtown penthouse, or venturing out after the rain stopped.

So unbearable (am I complaining?)

I was going photograph the sandhill cranes in eastern Washington today. I got all jazzed up after reading an article from The Seattle Times. Apparently they made a stop here each year before heading to Alaska. But then when I called the local wild life office, the guy on the other side of the line said ‘Ahh…haven’t really spotted them lately.’ They were all gone! Thousands of them…

I was really bombed because my mindset was all about photographing some wild lifes this weekend. So, no wild ones, then my only choice was the tamed ones in the zoo…can stilll use my 100-400 big gun.

It was kind of late and cold. The lion looked bored as usual, the elephants were hiding inside, the hipo’s rear end looked like a huge brown ugly thing. At this point, I didn’t even bother to go to the bears park. Then we saw this Samatran tiger! He was pretty restless (probably hungry) and even offered a few roars.

And we saw this show-off peacock at the gate.

Not too bad a day.

We went to Ballard Sunday Market this afternoon. Ballard is also our friend Big Jon’s neighborhood. We think he patrols the street and secretly collects protection fee and stuff, because everyone seems to know him and he seems to know every body. We could not move 10 feet without him chatting with seems everyone walking by…

The old town Ballard is a fun place to visit during Sunday. Lot of old buildings, charming local stores, friendly vendors, dogs…Ballard is fun and trendy now and our friend big Jon is patrolling the street when he is not patting his cats.