To flash or not to flash

It's been such a long time since I lasted posted pictures taken by my Golden Half! The outdoor shots are bad... and I'm thinking of getting a flash for it. Should I? :) Anyway, here's some pictures of the dept trip to Bintan!

阿里山

几年前，我游了阿里山。很喜欢那里的满天星星，壮观日出， 也很享受那里不商业不做作的经验。如果能够重游，阿里山会是一个首选。

年轻的时候以为每个愿望都会实现， 每个都市都将重游，现在才懂得许多风景只有看一次的缘分。。。妹从阿立山带回来的守信上是这么写的。读了以后很有感触， 想把我的心情记在BLOG。但一直没有抽出时间。今天终于可以了。

现在想想，不知会不会有机会重游阿里山。毕竟台湾那么大，还有很多地方想去看看， 走走。所以，我们真的要好好珍惜每一次的旅行，把它存在记忆里，因为我们可能不会有看第二次的缘分。



阿里山的姑娘美如水。。。



阿里山的男儿壮如山。。。



阿里山上的一个餐厅。这是它的故事。很美吧？

很美味，很温馨的晚餐，很怀念。



等待日出。。。很冷。。。



阿里山的日出。。。



神木。千岁的树。



因为台风的破坏，无缘乘坐阿里山著名的火车。

MGC in HCMC!

I'm off to my first MGC in Ho Chi Ming City! This is my first business related trip but I did not really feel any excitement till now (must be too swamped by work) It's going to be a good break from work :) Leaving for the airport in an hour's time - will try to bring some lovely pictures back!

Brown Eagle

Was still on leave one week ago. Langkawi aftermaths - busy, busy, busy. 

Think I have not gotten back to 'work' mode. Still in 'holiday' mode.

Got off to a bad start in Langkawi - camera died, shoes (two pairs) also died. No photos to show this time. Took many videos though. Will see what I can do with them :)

Found Langkawi (malay for 'brown eagle') very kampong. Enjoyed the pool and beach at Holiday Villa - although the facade and decor of hotel were not impressive, the service exceeded my expectations. Massages were good too! Wished I had more time to R&R at the pool and beach though - did not get a good tan as the weather was not great (cloudy, slight drizzle). The mangrove tour was very good though - guide was knowledgeable and I can feel that he loves the island. The city tour and island hopping was so-so only - guides were no good : / I guess passion for what you do can make a lot of difference.

18 August 2010 - here's the pictures from ST's camera!



Holiday Villa - Private Beach





Batik - I like! 





Oriental Village - Cable ride to the top. Fantastic view!





Eagle Square





Mangrove Tour - highly recommended!

My Golden Half - Roll 2

I finally finished my second roll of film using my Golden Half (since March!). And I really love the effects! Here are some of my fave pictures :)

My first picture in this roll - love the black/colour constrast of the church in Malacca. Love the over-exposed edges...

Red square in Malacca - it was a very sunny day. The sky was so blue...

Special effect - turned out naturally on its own. No photoshop effect.

Macau - From top (clockwise): Again, I love the black/colour constrast of the church (it's kind of surreal how. Taken behind the facade, from the top of the facade and in front of the facade...

Egg tarts - such cheery yellow...i guess you always feel this way when on holiday! :)

Genting Highlands Theme Park - I want to fly!

 

Right: In front of where I work. Left: In front of my house (it's autumn!!)

Laidback Malacca

My friend S asked me to join her on a trip to Malacca in March. She went on a photography trip last year and really enjoyed herself. Her friend J also joined us.

It was a weekend trip. Malacca is about 5-6 hours' drive from Singapore, and we reached in the afternoon. Had lunch at Secret Recipe at the shopping complex next to Equatorial Hotel. The price is the same as Singapore but in Ringgit! So it was good value for money. With no plans for the day, we decided to shop around the area and check into the hotel at night. We had dinner at a food stall for malay food with rice, cockles, curry chicken etc. It was very local fare and cost around $4-5 per person - very cheap!

The adventure began when we went in search of our hotel after a taxi-driver declined to send us to the hotel as it was very near. However, it took us hours before we found it after going in circles (thanks but no thanks to the directions given by the friendly people in Malacca). It was getting dark and the directions we were given took us to dark streets, which was quite scary. Luckily, we met a kind couple who offered to take us to our hotel which was indeed just a few turns away. The people in Malacca are really friendly and that's one of the reasons why I like the small quiet town.

We went for a half-day tour the next day which started from Equatorial Hotel. The hotel people told us how to get there and indeed it was a few streets away, a few minutes walk away. We took a ferry ride, visited the square, went to the Peranakan museum, had lunch at a Perankan restaurant (and chendol which was yummy!) before our last stop at Chinatown (Jonker Walk).

For the rest of the day, we just explored the street which was lined by old dutch colonial houses (which I really like). Each house was long and stretches with several courtyards- it was interesting to know that in the past, houses were taxed in terms of their width but not their length. Hence, the smart Malacca people build long houses to avoid tax and create maximum living space.

We bought the famous pineapple tarts - there was this panda flavoured pineapple tarts which my mom loved! We stopped for drinks at the Geographic Cafe, which overlooked the street, so we spent some time watching the world go by! Then we had dinner at the famous chicken rice shop, which was nice but a bit commercialised. As I looked back, it was a very very relaxing day. Often, we would try to do so many things in a day during a holiday and end up very very tired. So this is another reason why I like Malacca - the slow and quiet pace of life. You cannot really find a lot of things to do.

And on our very last day in Malacca, we went shopping and I bought 3 pairs of shoes (shoes are must-buys in Malaysia - good value for money!). As usual, shopping got the better of us. As we spilt up to do our own shopping, J went missing for a while in the mall but thankfully she was found. We had to rush for lunch (I had McDonalds :P) before the bus ride back to Singapore which took about 4 hours - it was a very smooth journey back home and we were very happy that it's so much shorter than we expected.

I did not take many photos on this trip. As I turned 30, I have taken less photos but enjoyed more moments.

13 to 30 (Fun in HK and Macau)

Did so many things for the first time since i turned 30....

ah! the first time i travelled to HK/macau with the clique...

Some background about the clique - there's 5 of us who knew each other since secondary 1 (our class was 2/3!). If you think about it, we (PY, MQ, ML, AL and me) knew each other since 13 years old but only managed to travel together this year at 30 years old! Come to think of it, we did travel to Batam for PY's bridal shower but guess that probably don't count since it's like going to sentosa :P

Well, there's probably lots of whys (bf, work, no time, no $ - so I shall not speculate). So we were all looking forward to the trip. but. but. but we did not expect that we had to overcome so many odds in order to go! Swine flu struck 2 weeks before the trip (we tried to cancel but zuji won't let us, had to seek permission from bosses, be prepared to self-quarantine and be stuck in the HK hotel should any guests kana H1N1 etc etc).

We decided to go in the end and had fun! We had different roles during the trip:
- AL was safety officer (think masks, sanitizer) and was a great map reader
- MQ did a lot of research before the trip
- ML was $ IC (easy job for the accountant)
- PY was translater while I was the assistant translater (means broken cantonese :P)

And as fate decrees,our secondary school projects had prepared us to work well as a team and we survived this short and sweet vacation :)

And I must say I really like HK/Macau - the food was nice (yummy!), the firework at disneyland was spectacular, lantau island was very peaceful (and cool in the rain), the peak was beautiful (a bit foggy though), shopping was fun (although I did buy much, I like what I got from H&M and Esprit) and I laughed so much in Macau at the jackpot machines that I really want to go back again! And the best and worst part was lugging the food back (but the duck tongues were nice!)

It was also great to catch up with the gals. And it was like being back in secondary schools when we saw each other in school everyday, ate together during recess, supported each other during school performances, walked the back alley and parted at the bus-stops to go home etc etc. Well, there was exams stress but we were really carefree then. Things were more real back then- we were angry when we were angry, we were happy when we were happy, we were sad when we were sad. But now, it's hard to tell the real from the fake.

At least the HK/Macau vacation was real! Am looking forward to the next trip with the girls. Hope we don't have to wait too long...

###

Full time student?

School started this week. Went to the co-op to get my texts yesterday. It was a good feeling to walk through the campus in broad daylight. I remember the fluffy clouds on Monday afternoon. Such softness. When I started on my Masters this time last year, the campus was dark most of the time I was in school. Spent an hour in the library after I got my texts. [No more excuse to mug last minute :P]

There is no more backlog to clear at work. There is backlog to clear at home. Travelled to Siem Reap last April and the digital photos are still in the folders. Sorted them yesterday. Will develop the photos soon. Well, Siem Reap is a beautiful place. It was a good trip. Full of fun and laughter. Full of sights to behold. [see some of the photos]

One of my classmates was asking me about how I spend my time now. Well, clearing personal backlogs [there are more waiting for me to unravel, I'm sure] is a priority. Reading the newspapers for more than an hour is a pleasure [was thinking that I would not know much about the sub-prime crisis otherwise]. Sometimes, you focus so much on your work that you bury yourself at work and ignore the rest of the world. Now, I wonder if I would be able to get a new job if the crisis spreads. Perhaps, like they say, sometimes ignorance is bliss. Perhaps.

Krabi - A short vacation

Went to Krabi for a short vacation recently. Guess this short vacation kick starts a longer vacation. There was no job to return to. No backlog to clear. No emails to reply. No voice messages to answer. No concrete plans for Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov nor Christmas... Not sure if I feel good about it. But it is definitely a strange feeling - being free to think about what I want to do only when my eyes open every morning and not before they close every night. [Strange indeed!]


Perhaps a blog to commemorate this new found 'freedom'? Well, not really. Well, this blog was probably created because of the friends who wanted to start a blog to sell accessories [handmade ones of course!! what else?? :P] There was some bicker over lunch who should do it. And well, you guess right. The arrow naturally points to the free one. Of course, there were some resistance. It is not that easy to create a blog, ok? And well, I may not be afterall really that free and well, there was always better things to do, right? [:P]


And so it started because of the other blog [shall have a link from this blog to the other blog when the friends ok it:)].. It was well, I must admit, quite easy to create a blog [at least it was easier than I thought :P]. A simple blog. And well, I was free today to do it, having finish the potter tale...


Back to the short vacation. Krabi, to quote and unquote my travel friends, is like our dear own sentosa [guess this is perhaps our best benchmark to compare the world]. Why then do we still want to venture to Krabi bay when we have the beautiful Sunset bay so close at home? So close to heart. Perhaps we really have no time to sit down and see our world go by everyday? Perhaps it is only during holidays that we find time to sit down and see the world go by. [A sad thought indeed...]


So what is the Krabi like in my eyes? A producer once told me that if the audience can remember 3 things that he want them to take away, the video has achieve its purpose. So what did I take away from Krabi? Well, I know this is going to sound cliche but a picture does tell a thousand words... This is one of the trips when I took so few photos [see the pictures posted]. Perhaps there was nothing much to take away. Perhaps I chose to sit down and see Krabi go by...