Stella

/Stella Chiu-Freund

About Stella Chiu-Freund

Stella was born in Manila, Philippines in 1965. She studied anthropology but ended up in advertising, producing radio and TV commercials for 7 years. After quitting advertising, she ventured into the freelance world in Manila producing video documentaries for a publishing house, government agencies, non govenmental organisations, and the academe. She moved on to producing books and had a stint at working with foreign production companies visiting Manila. Stella, now based in Cairns, produces photo stories with her husband Jürgen Freund.

Dive Tales Tubbataha Reefs – Day 2

12 April 2009 Dive 1, 7:30 am, Bird Islet’s Washing Machine Schooling jacks - LOTS Hardly any current, but this dive was fantastic. Our dive master Omer Alanis already pre-checked where the huge school of jacks was, and made us go down exactly where they were. The water was finally crystal clear, and [...]

Dive Tales from Tubbataha – Day 1

11 April 2009 Dive 1, 7:30am, Malayan wreck Malayan wreck with jacks in the shallows It was the first dive of the trip, and it started with very slight current and some fan corals. The highlight of the dive came towards the end, when we reached the wreck in very shallow waters. There [...]

Box Jellyfish Hunt

10 April 2009 Puerto Princesa Pier Again had lovely breakfast with Angelique, Norman and their son Nathan Songco. Their house is just so lovely and a squirrel decided to pass us by hopping from tree to tree. Not everything with four legs gets eaten in the Philippines, as is the common knowledge. We had crispy [...]

Maundy Thursday in Puerto Princesa

9 April 2009 Puerto Princesa Wet Market We arrived Puerto early evening of the 8th and immediately after checking in, were whisked away by our friend Angelique Songco, boss woman of Tubbataha Marine Park, to dinner at Ka Lui’s. Our host for the evening was Rolando "Boy" Bonoan, the Palawan Provincial Government’s Information Officer. What [...]

Hong Kong Eating

6 April 2009 Live Reef Fish Trade It was simply glorious to finally go to sleep without worrying about storage. We can now start working. Working in Hong Kong meant starting our day looking for the nearest busiest “Yam Cha” or dimsum breakfast. It is after all, all about FOOD. With millions of mouths to [...]

Goodbye Yorkeys

03 April 09 (22:09) At the eve of our departure, the neighbor's music blares and we think to ourselves, good riddance.  This is the last night we will sleep in this house and we're so happy.  Can't wait to get out of here and we are off tomorrow!  This expedition could not have come at [...]

All packed up and places to go

25 March 09 (02:21 am) Ugly job of packing a whole house into storage The house is empty. Well, almost. The removalists efficiently packed our furniture into their truck, and in two hours flat, had everything in storage. It pays to hire the experts and not have to do the heavy lifting ourselves, [...]

Yorkey’s Knob, Cairns (home)

3 March 09 (00:15 am) This is the second night in a row I could not fall asleep.  The clock is ticking and the days are rushing and before I know it, it’s time to leave. We are preparing to pack our entire household and put everything in storage for a year. Our WWF Coral [...]