Bits and Pieces of Life…

Sand Castle @ Boracay Long Beach

Finally uploaded some photos from my recent short trip to Boracay, the Philippines:

http://travelgaia.com/gallery/Boracay_May2009/

More trip details to follow.

Well I have had some really bad dives that I wish I am back in the office...

Taking advantage of season-opening Early Bird Promotion (see another post here), I visited Redang Island again from 28~30 March 2009. No diving this time, only signing up for the standard 3D2N snorkeling package, but nevertheless as tired if not more.

Redang Island, a beautiful tropical island retreat, is located 45km off the coast of Terengganu state, about 400km from Kuala Lumpur. It can be reached either by air (http://www.airasia.com, http://www.malaysiaairlines.com) or by road. Either way, you will en route Kuala Terengganu, the state capital of Terengganu. Besides that. Berjaya Air operates Dash 7 flights directly touching down on the island from Subang Airport, Kuala Lumpur.

Sharing some of the transportation details from my March 2009 Redang 3D2N trip:

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Redang Holiday Beach Villa - Seaview Semi-D Bungalow

Visited Redang again last weekend, 28~30 March 2009 to be exact. No diving this time, just 3D2N snorkeling pacakge. This write up is not really about the trip as a whole, but just about the resort we were staying during the trip - Redang Holiday Beach Villa.

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Bali Dive Map:

7th Apr - Arriving Denpasar airport ~7pm. Too late for Tanah Lot. Eat etc. Drive to Gilimanuk (110km, ~3hours). Stay @ Gilimanuk. The car better be prepared there!

8th Apr - Dive Secret Bay at Gilimanuk. Departs afternoon, heading to Labuhan Lalang (jetty to Manjangan). It is quite near Gilimanuk from the map, maybe 45mins or so. Stay.

9th Apr - Dive Menjangan. This should be one of the highlights of the trip. Top dive sites are:

• the Anker Wreck (40+ meters),

• Eel Garden

• Pos II.

Depends on how it goes, maybe stay extra night here, or heads to Tulamben after the dives. The road is straight forward, moving across the north of Bali, maybe 2-3 hours. Stay at Tulamben.

10th Apr - Dive Tulamben + Amed. Maybe not enought time for Amed.

• Liberty Wreack
• Drop Off
• Batu Kelebit

Heads back to Kuta afternoon. Stay at Kuta. If time allows, go straight to Uluwatu before dask.

11th ~ 12th Apr: standard thingy. Short trip to Ubud? Pantai Kuta, Uluwatu or Tanah Lot, souvenir.

Hot Air Balloons Flying Over Putrajaya

Never heard about this event until some hot air balloon photos showed up in the newspaper on Friday morning. Maybe there are more ‘interesting’ news in the Malaysian political front as well as on the world economic crisis that overshadowed it.

Anyway, I was there on the evening of the last day of the event (22nd March 2009). Reaching Putrajaya Percint 2 at 5:30pm, the traffic is already in really bad jam - I thought I am the only one that haven’t seen a hot air balloon, but apparently not. Took me like 15 minutes to get a parking. The preparation for flying the hot air balloons, of a total about 20 of them, was already underway.

While shooting away with my Canon 400D, I used my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic to capture some photos too - not to prove that the camera feature on it really sucked, but to try on the geotagging. It turns out to be working great, all the photos taken with the phone have registered the correct GPS location, as show here in iPhoto:

Geotagging photo (with Nokia 5800)

Most of the balloons are standard ones, but a few of them are in special shapes like elephant, peacock and clowns. The balloons look great in the clear blue sky. One after another the balloons ascend and fly towards the mosque’s direction, and by 7pm the crowd disappeared as fast - if not faster - as they conjugated a couple of hours ago.

And Putrajaya reverted back to its original form by 8pm - grand, expensive, quiet, deserted, and probably unnecessary. At least the hot air balloon fiesta stirs some liveliness into the city built on oil, even if it is a short-lived one.

More photos from Hot Air Balloon Fiesta in the Photo Album page, or direct link here: http://travelgaia.com/gallery/HotAirBalloonFiesta2009/

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic in Red

It’s been a while since I am thinking to replace my good old Sony Ericsson W810, which has certainly served me well for the last 2.5 years. It was a brick - literally. I have dropped it to ground unintentionally gazillion of times, and submerged it fully into a small pool of water once (also unintentionally), the phone just refused to stop working.

3 weeks ago I met out with a friend (you know who you are!). He showed me his wife’s new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (nickname “Tube”) in black with red linings. It is a 3G touch screen phone (Nokia’s 1st?), no physical keypad, and the screen resolution is really good. I played around with it, but really just checking the menu system and figure out how to navigate it - I haven’t used a Nokia phone before! I was told there is GPS too but I wasn’t impressed by then as I haven’t tried out any previously (yea yea I know I am outdated).

Did some online research when i was back home. The phone has everything that I need, and more. Price is not really cheap but not prohibitively expensive. I went to Digital Mall @ SS14, Petaling Jaya after a few days of consideration, and purchased the phone within 15 minutes.

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7 March 2009, 8pm at Genting Highland’s Arean of Stars, Kitaro starts his 2009 “Love and Peace Planet Music Tour 2009″. It was a drizzling night.

This is my first time listening live to Kitaro after start following his music many years ago, and it sure did not disappoint. Our seats are at Price Scale 3 (PS3), in the middle of the hall but 3rd row from the last, so it was about 25-30m to the stage. I’d prefer front seats but it was not a big issue - the music is just as sweet over here.

Kitaro Live @ Genting 2009 - my best effort using 100mm F2.8 from way back

Kitaro @ Genting2009 - Official Poster

The 2 1/2-hour show has some new musics that Kitaro said hasn’t been recorded yet, coupled with total light-out with just 2 screens showing sun, moon, nature and planetary objects. This is Kitaro’s message to us on Save The Earth. The music is good but it is a bit too long for me, it probably runs about 45mins or more.

The classic ones received the most applause from the audience, like Silk Road, Oasis, Heaven and Earth, and of course, one of my very favorites, Matsuri.

Kitaro also displays his well-verse in musical instrument through the show, where he not only creates magical tunes by finger-dancing on the keyboard, but also jams bass guitar with the guitarist, plays the big horn, flute, harmonica, 太鼓 (the big drum), and a few other that I can’t name. He is really an amazing musician!

There are total 6 of them: 2 keyboards, 1 electrical guitarist, 1 violinist, a drummer, and Kitaro, but the music that they play sounds like from an orchestra. Seats are about 90% full, indicates Kitaro’s popularity among Malaysians.

The last 2 songs, “The Light of the Spirit” and “Free Flight” ended the live performance. I particularly like the former one. What a way to end the show.

Kitaro looked aged for 56, but the performance is marvelous. The bass from the his big drum hits the bottom chord of the heart every time. Let’s hope Kitaro will continue to create great music that intrigues us as well as convey the message of Love and Peace to the world for a long long time to come!

Romance

Date: Late Dec 2008

Location: Damnoen Saduak Floating Market, Bangkok

My third time visiting Bangkok’s famous floating market. Was walking alone having lost both of my travel buddies in this busy place. The hoards of wooden boats were causing a really bad traffic jam on the canal.

I was just going to capture a few more boat photos at the sidewalk while a pair of Caucasian couple strolled in front of me and slowed down. Holding hands, he turned around, whispered to her, and touched his nose to her face, like forever. Right here at the busy floating market.

Love is in the air.

Leading To Angkor Wat

Date: 24th Feb, 2005, 7:45am

Location: Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Finally! After 3 weeks’ tiring travel linking us from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok, to Chiang Mai, to Huai Xuey, Luang Prabang, Vientiane, Pakse, Veun Kham, Phnom Penh, we reached the climax of the trip - at Angkor Wat.

This is my favorite photo of the Angkor trip. Not one of those must-have-sunrise-over-Angkor Wat photos - I have those too, but to me, the photo above has something special that I can’t describe. At least it is not one of those.

We made it, finally. Save the best for last.

First Ray of Light on St. John's Peak, Mt. Kinabalu

Date: Mid Oct 2005, 5:57am

Location: Summit of Mt. Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia

The Story: 2nd time is much easier. I was not the first ones to reach the Summit of Mt. Kinabalu that day, but at least I have enough time to capture the moment of the ray of light hits the mountain. A few climbers already sitting down, chilling out (literally). The sun gets out from the thick clouds, paints the left side of St. John’s Peak with orange color. The magic moment is short-lived, though - the sky turns bright soon and before long, the orange color is gone, replaced by blinding glare.

Dusk at Dal Lake, Srinagar, Kashmir.

Date: Oct 2005

Location: From the boat house, the view of Dal Lake at Srinagar.

The sun has just set. Late autumn evening is getting colder by the minute. Dal Lake is as calm as it can be, but can’t say the same to Srinagar, the Summer Capital of Kashmir - the disputed state that has multiple blasts that killed and injured many, before and after my visit. Srinagar is so beautiful at this time, it must be amazing during the Spring time when the flowers blossom. I wish I would have chance to revisit the place again, in Spring. I hope.

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Sipadan Island - Tiny but Famed

It’s been a while - 6 months to be exact - since I came back from my Sipadan trip, but it is just like yesterday, that I can still remember details of the trip. I had my best dives, not saying a lot as I have just over 50 in total, but the memories of this trip will not go away for a very long time. Because the trip is very special to me.

So, I am obligated to write down some notes about this trip, on one hand to record down my memories, but on the other hand promote our own little Malaysian islands - Sipadan, Mabul and Kapalai - to the rest of the travelers and divers. Not that these famed islands still need any more promotion, though.

Some trip information for my 5D4N Sipadan trip last August (8/82008 ~ 12/8/2008):

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Great Barracuda, length of 1.5m or so

Date: 11th August, 2008; ~1pm

Location: one of Kapalai’s dive sites

Equipment: Canon Powershot A620 in Canon WP-DC90 waterproof housing, Inon Z240 single strobe

It was almost 50 minutes into our 2nd dive of the day, at Kapalai (near Sipadan, Sabah, Malaysia). 6 of us together with our dive master ascended to ~7m, getting ready to do the safety stop and call it an end to another great dive. Thus far, the dive is excellent - among other sightings, I saw my first ribbon eels - 2 adults in blue and yellow colors, and one pitch black juvenile. I spent quite some time with one of the adult ribbon eels, trying to get a good shot of it but not really successful. My buddy Bill was not helping at all in that regard, but that is another story.

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2008: Personal Expense Breakdown

Had some time on hand during the weekend, and thought I would go through my last year’s spending to see how I can do better in year 2009. Well, the numbers are staggering - I wouldn’t have imagined I spent that much! Not ready to disclose the actual amount, but here are some numbers:

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I use Lightroom2 extensively in my Raw digital workflow, including:

• import photos from camera
• organizing photos
• assign flags and ratings
• adding titles and captions
• processing
• export to web gallery

Well, basically I use it for everything, except occasionally for some photos that I will use Photoshop to process and apply sharpening using Unsharp Mask. The introduction of Lightroom has streamlined my Raw digital workflow tremendously. The only problem is, I would like to have the photos exported to iPhoto too. You might ask - Why would I do that? Well, the iPhoto is good in a few areas:

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