Lil' Firey

Day 49

He loves firetrucks. I'm not sure if all kids have a thing for firetrucks, or if this little one knows his late Grandpa was a firey, but he is obsessed with them. That steel peddle truck you see in the left - he asked me to bring that from Hong Kong for him! Vids and Vivek helped me move to Hong Kong in 2009 - my third Hong Kong stint by then. He was only about 2 at the time. We had a blast, and we went out a lot together. Anyway, he spotted this pedal car in the window of a shop in Ocean Terminal, pointed to it, asked for it, and I thought no more of it after I had said "no, it is too big to take back to Sydney" (as if a 2yo would really understand or care what I said, if he wanted something!).

As time went on, I stayed in HK, and the fam went back to Sydney on what we expected to be a short stay before joining me in HK. The stay ended up going on a bit longer, however, the young fella confidently claimed at his next birthday in July, that I was bringing him a big red firetruck from Hong Kong. He even described it, as best a (then) 3yo could. So I had to do some thing!

I searched for this thing in all the places I thought I had seen it, then finally found it in a dark corner of a Kids accessories store. I was able to haggle the price down (as you do) and drove home, very happy with my purchase... until I measured it. It was well over the maximum baggage size, however I had mentally stripped it down and thought I could squeeze it into a box that would just scrape as max allowance. I had to remove the steering assembly, the ladders and hose and windshield etc, and managed to just get it into a box at just shy of the weight and volume limits. I was stoked.

Then I had to fly it to Sydney as check in baggage (with a few hiccups on the Sydney end), and the re-assemble it before his Highness saw it. He was happy, but not at all surprised... almost a "yeah, I expected that... next". However, even today, he and his mates play on it, so I don't feel too cheated by his non-chalant acceptance of my gift.

I tried to fill the room with light here - 2 YN460IIs bounced off roof at 1/2 power, 580EXII on-board, bounced. One of my first pics with the 5DmkII - the 24mm lens on this is WIDE! So much wider than it is on the 60D - almost useful, one could say.