A Life Less Extraordinary

Taiwan Trip - Day 5 Evening

2009-12-31T23:25:00.003+08:00

We've come to the last post on our Taiwan trip. Day no. 5 - evening schedule. Having done with the hot spring we moved on to Danshui, an old fishing village.

The aim there is to catch the sunset. The place is the Lover's Bridge in Danshui. As the sun sets fairly early in the autumn and winter months, we barely made it in time. After dashing off the bus and onto the bridge, I managed to get a few shots in before the sun disappeared. All in all, around 10 minutes was all the time we had to catch a glimpse of the sunset.

Below is the Lover's Bridge:

And a few shots of the sunset taken from the bridge.

With the sun gone, it was time for another night market foray. The Danshui night market. You'll find similar scenes is other night markets. Below are some shots of the Danshui's and the Shih Ling night market trip.

A Playboy apparel store in Danshui.

The busy street of Danshui at night.

'Ah Chung Mein Sien' stall. Famous noodle stall in Taiwan. Look at the crowd...

An interesting novelty store.

A fishball stall. Fried fishballs and squids on a stick. Pretty tasty.

Preserved fruits. Lots of people, especially the ladies likes these. Not me, though.

Escargot, anyone? Forget the fancy restaurant, just eat 'em by the roadside! Don't ask me how they taste. I didn't eat any of 'em!

Shih Ling night market scene.

A maid's uniform for you cosplayers. There are more 'revealing' ones in the background.

Miniature dragons figurines.

High fashion for pets! Yup! These are for your dogs.

And finally a shot of the Shih Ling's neon jungle. All these night markets are packed with tourist and local Taiwanese as well.

With that we end our tour of Taiwan. Hope that you've enjoyed looking at the pics as much as I have enjoyed taking them.

With this post I say farewell to 2009 and wish all you guys and gals a HAPPY 2010!!

Thanks for viewing!!

Taiwan Trip - Day 5 (Taipei)

2009-12-28T23:43:00.002+08:00

We've come to our last day of the organized tour for our Taiwan trip. Places of visit around Taipei area. Our first stop for the day was the National Palace Museum. Too bad cameras were not allowed inside the museum so no pics there. Our itinerary was also too packed to allow us time to go out to the museum's courtyard for photos.

Our second stop was to the Martyrs Shrine. A brief stop to watch the changing of the guards. Did not even go inside the shrine. Some pics taken are as below:

The entrance to the shrine's arch.

The shrine inside the compound. That was the furthest I got. Did not even set foot on the steps.

The changing of the guards. It's quite a feat for these soldiers to just stand there like statues for an hour each shift.

The changing ceremony with the arch in the foreground and the shrine in the back and the crowd all around the soldiers. This was the second changing of the guards ceremony we saw. the first was at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial.

Then we headed for lunch. Our venue for lunch was peculiar to say the least. If the tour guide hadn't told us that the place was a restaurant, I would have thought that we have entered an art gallery.

Where else would you see something like:

With post modern art deco on walls and boats and carved pillars and water and what not...

It was only the tables that had been set for guests that gave an inkling that food was served here.

Heck, even the bowls and cups were artistic. No boring chinawares here!

What was this art gallery cum restaurant called? It's the 'Wu Jiao Chuan Pan' restaurant and it's quite famous in Taiwan. heard that the owner has a few branches scattered across the country. You can read the name in the picture below.

After lunch it was a trip to Yangmingshan. We got as far as the parking lot. Did not go all the way to the upper levels as tour buses were not allowed up and we had to take some other means of transport.

A couple of shots here:

Since the parking lot did not hold much interest, we continued our journey to a hot spring spa. I was not very keen on dipping myself into hot, sulfurous waters so I decided to skip the dip and walked outside the bath house instead. Below is one shot of the area where the hot waters flows from. The river on the left is not hot. The hot water actually comes from the rocks on the right hand said. In some places the rock faces has been colored a bright yellow from the escaping steam.

Next up, the evening where we saw a sunset and more night market forays. Stay tuned!

Are your digital photos safely stored?

2009-12-28T13:48:00.001+08:00

Nowadays, most people are using digital cameras. For travel and other occasions. Since the prices of memory cards like SD and CF have been plummeting, most people will have one single huge capacity card in their cams for all their needs.

Capacity like 8GB and 16GB in one single card is becoming common and the prices are affordable. Thus most people will have a memory card that they will likely never, ever fill to capacity stuck inside their cams (digital compact cameras, most of the time).

Although the idea of having near infinite memory space for you to shoot to your heart's content is great fun, in practice it is a not so great thing.

Why is this so? There's a couple of reasons:

1. Most people never empty or download their digital photos from their memory cards.

You shoot pics of your baby. You shoot your vacation. You shoot your cousin's wedding. You shoot just about everything but you almost never take the time to download the photos to your computer. It's one of those things that you will do when you get around to it.

So the pictures pile up in your memory card but you hardly feel the need to offload the card because it has so much space left. You click the shutter and each time the picture just get saved. Gone are the days when the cam will beep and flash the error that the card is full.

Memory cards can and do fail. Even brand new ones. So if you have a habit of letting those photos pile up in your card, you had better develop a habit of downloading them to you PC or other digital storage media. If you have just one card and that card fails, you will probably lose all your pics. In this era of high capacity cards, the loss can number in the thousands.

You'll kick yourself for not downloading the pics for a long, long time to come. There's virtually no way to re-capture the hundreds of priceless 'Kodak' moments that you lose.

2. Never put all your eggs in one basket.

It's a hassle to carry around multiple memory cards. It's also a hassle to change the cards and you may end up with the situation where you just don't know which card you've used before. Then you will have to stick the cards into your cam and see which one has no images in it. It's a work that most people would rather do without. The cards are also small in size and they can be easily misplaced.

In spite of the above, you would be wise to heed the age old saying at the start of this point. In the days of film, you can never put all your eggs in one basket. One roll of film will have at most 36 exposures. Thus you will bring more than one roll of film.

Likewise for this digital age, you should have more than one memory card. Ideally, you should have at least a couple of moderately sized cards. If you want 8GB go for 2 pieces of 4GB cards or even 4 pieces of 2GB cards.

If one card fails, you will still have a backup at least to keep shooting. Having half the amount of pics is better than having zero pics any day should a card really fails.

The hassle for carrying multiple cards is small compared to the repercussions of having no pics to show when you have been designated the 'family' photographer at your cousin's wedding because of a failed card. You can forget about ever being invited to any events that your cousin will be organizing.

With that said, how do we minimize the damage apart from having multiple cards? Below are some methods:

1. Buy reliable memory card brands.

Most of the time, the freebie memory card provided you by the retailer is a low cost generic card. You should replace it with cards from more reliable brands. If you can, you really should opt for premium brands like Sandisk and Lexar. They may be a bit pricey but they are more reliable. One should avoid generic, obscure made in China cards. No matter how cheap they may be, the failure rates are just too high to justify the low price.

2. Always backup your digital photos.

As soon as you get home, download your pictures to your PC. Then as an extra pre-caution you should make a backup copy on a CD or DVD.

3. Spread the load.

Since you have multiple cards, spread the load. Don't wait till one fills up before switching to another. If there are 2 sessions, put each session on a different card. Cycle your cards. If you shoot using card A for one outing, use card B for the next outing and cycle through your cards. If you keep using one card, that card will have a higher chance of failing due to normal wear and tear.

4. Print out your pics.

If you don't print out your pics, they are not gonna to get viewed much. Period. There's something about flipping through photo albums with physical prints with your friends and family around. It's much better than viewing them online or on your PC or TV.

So print out your best shots and don't let them be forgotten on your hard disk or on some free image hosting sites. 'Kodak' moments are meant to be shared and enjoyed with the family huddled over a coffee table with physical prints.

Taiwan Trip - Day 4 (Taipei)

2009-12-27T22:56:00.008+08:00

Back to our Taiwan Trip. Day 4 - we leave Hualien for Taipei.

In the morning of day 4, we caught a train from Hualien to Taipei. The journey takes 3 hours and it was a fast train no less. Here are some pics I took from the moving train.

The sceneries of Hualien:

When we left Hualien, the scenery became very mundane and took a few catnaps and the 3 hours slowly faded and we arrived in Taipei. Our first stop is the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial as seen below:

Here's a shot taken from the doors of the memorial showing the entrance arch called 'Zhi You Guang Chang' or loosely translated as 'Freedom Square'.

A closer shot of the arch so you can read the words for yourself...

And what's freedom without flying doves, right? It's an old cliche but freedom is always linked to doves flying free.

After touring the CKS Memorial we headed to one of Taipei's must see landmark - the Taipei 101 Tower.

Two shots of the tower in the dusk

And one shot of it in daylight. Similar to our Petronas Twin Towers, the Taipei 101 has a shopping mall at its base and similar like in Malaysia, the shops there are also all branded and designer stores... meant for tourists but not for yours truly I'm afraid. I'm seriously trying to live up to the mantra - Take nothing but photographs and leave nothing but footprints!

After dinner we hit the one of the more popular night markets in Taipei - Ximending. Where you can find stores and hawkers selling almost everything.

From local food...

To clothing items...

To restaurants... yes, it's a restaurant and not a pet shop...

And novelty items...

It is also where you can find American styled restaurants.. I dunno what it means but I guess the blantant Coca-cola rip off theme qualifies.

Some more novelty items...

And a cabinet full of plush toys, anyone?

A curious thing that I found out is that in Taiwan or Taipei maybe, the younger gals tend to wear a lot of make up as the pic below shows. If it wasn't for the stall, I would have thought the gal (not the grandma) was selling makeup instead of umbrellas and purses.

With that, the first of our 2 days in Taipei ended. Up next - hot springs and more night market scenes!

Up, Up, and Away!

2009-12-09T15:14:00.000+08:00

We are taking a break from our Taiwan trip posting for a movie review. It's been quite some time since my last one but hey, I have not been to the theater lately and this review is from a DVD viewing.

Today's review is on the animated feature UP. I hate calling it a cartoon cause it's far from your typical cartoon in terms of contents. So it's an animated feature from my favourite studio - Pixar!

Yes, I realise that this review is a bit outdated but given the typical scene in Malaysia when it comes to cinema goers, I'll bet that not many has caught this title when it's in the theaters.

If you one of those who missed it, then I would suggest that you get it on DVD. Why DVD? Cause it includes the short film 'Partly Cloudy' that the cinema goers get to see before the movie starts.
Up ranks high on my list of Pixar films because I was moved by the opening minutes of the film. Yes, you read correctly. I was moved. How many times have you been moved while watching a movie? Animated or not is irrelevant. The opening 15 minutes of this film is one of the best moments ever created on film. Trust me.

This Pixar release is not targeted at kids, although kids will stil have plenty to enjoy in this film. It's targeted at us adults. The star of this movie is an old man and the movie details his experiences as he goes on an adventure of a lifetime by literally fying away in his house borne by countless helium-filled balloons. Along for the ride is a over eager 'Wilderness Explorer' (some sort of boy scout) who happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time - the old man's porch as the house goes up, up and away.

Up is one of the year's best movie. Don't let the 'animated' tag keep you away.

Taiwan Trip Day 3 -Farglory Ocean Park

2009-11-26T09:30:00.003+08:00

Continuing our post on my Taiwan trip.

After visiting Taroko Gorge where mother nature presented us her work, we were scheduled for a day of fun at a man-made attraction - the Farglory Ocean Park.

Before we headed for the theme park, we had a brief stop at a beach in Hualien. This beach is not covered in sand but is covered in rocks, stone and pebbles instead. The rocks, stones and pebbles are said to be brought down from the mountain range. I missed the name of the beach but here are some shots:

The beach faces the Pacific Ocean and the waves are rough!

The landscaped garden behind the beach.

As you can see in the shot above, the beach is filled with pebbles, mostly black in colour and most have some white lines running across their surface.
Below : A street vendor selling souvenirs.

And finally we come to the Ocean Park. It's a theme park built into the hills facing the sea. The shot below shows the cable car that runs from the entrance to the upper layers of the park.

There were dolphin shows.

And sea lion shows. All paid for in the entrance fee so you just show up at the designated venues at the designated times and enjoy the antics. Aimed mostly at young children.

Below : Another view of the park from the cable car as we go up.

And some of the rides available there. There were not many people around as it was a weekday when we visited the park.

Spent more than half a day at the park, saw 3 shows and went on the pirate ship ride. The park closes at 5pm and we were among the last the leave. After that it was dinner time and a visit to the night market and a stop over at the famous 'mochi' desert shop. All coming up in the next post.

Taiwan Trip Day 2 - Taroko National Park

2009-11-18T12:39:00.009+08:00

Taiwan Curious Fact : Taiwan is a mountaineous island. The entire middle area is taken up by mountains created by the collision of the Pacific plate with the Asian plate. If you travel from east to west in Taiwan, the roads go through many a tunnels bored into these moutains.

Once the temple visit is over and done with, we continued our way to Hualien. Our destination is the Taroko National Park - home to the magnificient Taroko Gorge.

This gorge is carved out by the rising land mass that towers up to the sky while the Liwu river slices it way below through to the Pacific. Known also at the 'marble gorge' due to the fact that the mountains houses some of the finest marbles in Taiwan, this wild terrain used to be home to one of the aboriginal tribes in Taiwan.

It is said that the name was derived from the aboriginal language word 'Taroko' which meant 'magnificient' or 'splendid'. This was uttered by one aboriginal chap when he made his way out of the gorge and saw the Pacific ocean for the first time.

If you were to travel to Hualien from Yilan by road, please do not sleep in the bus. The road itself offers some truly beautiful vistas as you approach Hualien when you see the mountains meet the Pacific ocean. Steep, towering limestone mountains on one side, the turquoise waters of the ocean on the other and the road you are one is the only thing separating the two.

As we enter the National Park, our tour guide pointed out the 'Chang Chun' or Eternal Shrine to us. The shrine was built to commemorate the soldiers that lost their lives building the highway to traverse the island, cutting through this beautiful place. Below is a picture of the shrine.

Our first sighting of the gorge shown below. There are numerous foot trails that you can take if you are the more adventurous type. In the pic, you can see one of the bridges of one of the trails.

Our bus stopped and we were let out to explore one of the more accesible routes through this gorge by foot. The pic below shows our starting point - the Swallow Grotto trail.

Some scenery along the Swallow Grotto Trail.

In case you are wondering about the size of the gorge, here's a picture to show you the scale below.

As you can see, the road is literally carved out from the side of the mountain. The tour guide told us that the road was built using mostly manual labor. Hard to imagine the magnitude of the task.

Below : A shot of a small waterfall from the cliff side that ends in a curious aquamarine colored pool at the bottom.

A closer shot of the blue pool.

Along the Swallow Grotto Trail, you will come across this site. Can you see the head of an old Red Indian man in the picture below?

If you cannot see if in the picture above, below is a closer shot of the Indian Man. Hint : He is in the lower portion of the photo. You can clearly make out the side profile of his face with his mouth almost touching the river.

More pics from the Gorge.

Below: Temple pavilions and pagoda. If you disregard the bridge and other modern man-made structure, does this scene not remind you of the settings in many Chinese Wuxia movies?

After completing the Swallow Grotto Trail, our guide led us to this suspension bridge. It leads over the river and into some footpath that follows some old aboriginal trails. We just crossed the bridge and came back. Did not have the time nor the local guide to show us the trail.

Below : A pavillion located at one end of the suspension bridge.

Below: View from the other end of the suspension bridge.

More ramdom pics.

Leaving ths suspension bridge, we come to another trail that can be covered by foot : The Tunnel of Nine Turns. From the picture below, you can see that the busses are dwarfed by the immense scale of the gorge. It's a long way down and those cliffs are steep!

More pics taken at the Tunnel of Nine Turns:

Hard hats are provided by the park attendants when you enter the Trail. Falling rocks are a constant danger here. If if has been raining or there is a storm, it is advisable not to visit the Park.

After completing the Tunnel of Nine Turns, we left Taroko. Mother Nature's art stroke here in the gorge is simply breathtaking. Given the chance, I would like to return to Taroko and venture out into some of the more off the beaten path trails and maybe climb up to some the peaks that are accessible here.

Upnext : From a completely natural to completely man-made attraction. Fun in the sun with dolphins and sea lions!

Taiwan Trip Day 2 - Hualien

2009-11-11T23:01:00.008+08:00

Taiwan Curious Fact : It's a bit difficult to find dustbins in Taiwan. Even in tourist hot spots! When you want to throw something away like, candy wrappers or used paper cups after buying drinks, you'll be hard pressed to find a dustbin. The reason offered for this lack of dustbins is that they want to encourage re-cycling and want to discourage wastage and the habit of generating too much thrash. It's a noble cause but I don't see any re-cycling bins either in place of dustbins!

The second day of our tour saw us heading to Hualien after spending a night at a leisure farm in Yilan. Before we reached Hualien, there is a stop for us. It's the Nanfang-ao port in Su-ao. One of the bigger fishermen ports in Taiwan.

Of course we are not there to specifically tour the port but rather to visit a temple where the deity statue is said to be completely made of gold. The bus dropped us some distance away and we took a walk to the temple. Along the way, we saw many of the fisher-folks selling their sea bounties - like salted fish in the picture below. While Malaysians are used to having their salted fish looking rounded, the Taiwanese salted fish are long and skinny!

Among the salted fish, we found a shark's jaw hanging there. I am not too sure if it was for sale or for show.

The Temple of Mazu, the goddess of the sea is located at the end of a peir where many a fishing boats are docked. Below is a shot of some of the boats docked there.

At the end of the pier, just across a road is the temple. It is not one of the more famous Mazu temples in Taiwan but it is one that houses a golden Mazu deity statue. The picture below shows the entrance to the temple.

Below : A view of the Nanfang-ao port with its numerous fishing boats from the third floor of the temple.

The golden statue of the goddess Mazu shown below.

A close up shot of the dragons on the roof of the temple. I don't think I've seen so many dragons squeezed together in such a small space!

Above: The lion and the dragons. After a brief tour of the temple, we continued our way to Hualien where the magnificent Taroko Gorge awaited us in the Taroko National Park. Pics and post coming up next!

Taiwan trip - Yilan

2009-11-08T22:44:00.004+08:00

Curious Taiwan Fact : The days in Taiwan during autumn is fairly short. The sun starts to set around 5pm and is gone by 6pm. Coming from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where the sky is still bright at 7pm, I find that I like longer days.

Back to our trip - After walking among the rocks in Yehliu, we headed for Yilan. Our stop for the night is at the Shangrila Leisure Farm. The drive there is quite a long one and along the way we passed through a lot of tunnels.

One of the tunnels is 13.7km long! It is the longest tunnel in Sheh-shan. When we arrived in the Yilan county, the sun was already setting and that's when I snapped the picture below from the bus.

Yilan presents quite a stark contrast to Taipei. While Taipei is all modern with high rise buildings, Yilan is all rice fields with few tall buildings.

The bus then wound its way up some hill. Frankly I find Taiwanese roads to be much too narrow for my liking. Looking out the window to see the bus inches away from the sides of a downhill slope is not my idea of a nice ride. Fortunately the tour bus driver is very skillful and we reached our destination safely.

The picture above shows the block where our rooms are located. It was quite a distance away from the main building where we are supposed to have dinner. We were given half an hour to freshen up after our bus ride and meet at the dinner hall shown below.

To get there we passed by some other blocks shown in the pic below. The place had a wooden theme that goes with the concept of a farm much better than concrete I guess.

Once dinner was over and done with, the Farm had some programs arranged for us to keep us entertained. Part of it was a top spinning competition.

They had small ones and big ones like the one shown in the pic above. The workers there gave a demo on how it's done and then the competition was started.

This young lady in the picture above was from another tour group which was from Malaysia also while the elderly gentleman in the pic below is from a tour group from Hong Kong. Despite being 77 years of age, he is very sprightly and competitive.

Apart from spinning tops, we were also giving 'Kung Min' lanterns. You write your wish on the lantern and then let it fly away to the heavens. It's claimed that your wishes will come true. I don't know if any of the wishes did come true but the lantern did take to the skies quite easily. Some shots of the lanterns floating away:

Below :Ducklings race about to start - yet another program at the Leisure Farm.

There were also fireworks and below are some of my shots. If you're wondering why the pics are so narrowly frame it's because all shots taken with a 50mm lens and handheld -Now isn't it obvious why it's recommended that a wide angle lens mounted on a tripod be used for fireworks? Since I did not have any prior notice that fireworks was in the itinerary the 50mm will have to do. Besides it was the only lens I had with me at the time.

After the fireworks, we were left to our own designs and some of my tour mates tried their hands at this peculiar bowl. I don't know what it's called but if you rub the handles the right way, the water in the bowl will jump out like shown in the pic below. It has something to do with resonance but I do not know how it works exactly.

It was fun seeing all those who attempted to get the water 'jumping'. Some can easily do it while some fail to even create a ripple! No matter what, it's guaranteed to create laughter.

After mingling around for a while, I thought it was quite late into the night already but when I checked the time, it was just about 9pm. Since the sun went down before 6pm, the long hours of darkness created the illusion that it was late into the night.

The next morning, we were scheduled to leave the farm and head for Hualien after breakfast. Before we got on the bus however, we got a brief tour of the farm/orchard there. Below are some shots from the walkabout:

Above and below : What the place looked like in daylight. The above is the main building where we had dinner the night we arrived.

The Forest House - just opposite the main building, across the road that led to the farm. Below: What the Forest House looked like as seen from the main building.

Above : The path leading to the orchards from the Forest House. Below: A view of the plants in the orchard. No fruits at the time unfortunately.

Below: A view of the town from the hill slope where the orchard is located.

And finally - steps leading to a hut in the orchard. Since there were no fruits on the trees, we did not spend much time there.

After the tour, we were once again herded onto the bus and off we go again to Hualien. On the way, we stopped by a temple - coming up in the next post!

Taiwan Trip Day 1 - Yehliu

2009-11-04T23:41:00.005+08:00

Taiwan Curious Fact : There's a lot, and I mean A LOT of 7-11 outlets in Taiwan. You'll see one at the start of a block and another at the end. Just like Hong Kong has its Watson's stores, Taiwanese have their 7-11's!

Once we leave Jiu-Fen, our next stop is the Yehliu Geopark in the Wanli district. This geopark is located on a beach filled not with sand but with peculiar shaped rocks. Known as hoodoo rocks, their odd shape is the result of erosion from the wind and sea.

The pictures below will show you some of the scenes in Yehliu but before we visit the park, we stopped for lunch. During our walk to the restaurant, I took this shot of the harbour where the fishermen dock their ships.

This is the entrance to the Yehliu Geopark.

After a little stroll through the nicely landscaped garden, you will be met with the sight of the 'Mushroom Rocks'. As per their namesake, the rocks do look like mushrooms with a somewhat rounded top. Mind you these rocks are big - taller than an average human for the most part.

Below is a shot with some people standing beside some of these mushroom rocks to give you some comparison scale. The top of the rocks that are darker colored are dotted with honeycomb shaped holes.

The light yellow colored ground is not sand. It is also of a hard rock like substance and you can see shapes like the one in the pic below scattered across the area. The place is like a big canvas where Mother Nature lays out her artwork.

Another interesting sight are the Candle Rocks pictured below. The waves has shaped these rocks to resemble small candles with a round rock jutting out on top as the wick.

Another shot showing how the waves relentlessly throw themselves against the rocks.

A wide shot to show how how big the place is. Of course this is just one small portion of the whole park.

Another major attraction of the Yehliu Geopark - the Queen's head rock. Her majesty is a no doubt a royalty in the place because the people that you see in the pic are lining up for their turn to have their picture taken with it!

Another shot of the a different area of the park.

The best shot I could manage with my tele lens of the Queen's head. Can you make out the profile?

The sea and the rocks - you can see some formation similar to the 'Candle Rocks' here also.

A rock with a hole in the middle and what's that you see beyond the hole? It's this bridge in the picture below.

Due to our schedule, we could not visit all of the areas in the Yehliu Geopark. We only managed to cover a rather small area before we were ushered back onto the bus for a long drive to Yilan where we are to stay at the Shangrila Leisure Farm.

What did we do there? The next post will reveal our activities!

Taiwan Trip Day 1 - Jiu Fen

2009-11-04T00:04:00.006+08:00

So, this is the first part of my recent Taiwan trip. How many parts to follow, I am also not sure but there are sure a lot of pics taken and it will last a while.

The first day is practically just fly in to Taiwan and that's it. The flight was at 6pm from LCCT and the day was already at an end when we landed in Taipei. The flight is 4.5 hours and being on an AirAsia flight, the hours seemed even longer. Budget airlines have nothing for you on board that you don't need to pay for. The seats can't even recline! Movies need to be rented for RM30 and since I have seen most of the titles being offered (and also being a cheapskate) I passed on that.

Any of you planning to fly long distance on AirAsia had best get a good book before boarding or else you'll be bored stiff!

We landed in Taiwan at about 10.45pm and by the time we claimed our luggage and headed to our tour bus, it was past 11pm. It took around 45 minutes to get into Taipei city from the airport. The itinerary for the day was supper at a local restaurant and then to the hotel to crash for the night.

As we neared the restaurant, I took my first pic of Taipei city. It's just a shot of the street with some construction work going on in the middle. It's nothing to look at but I like the colours so here it is:

After that it's off the bus for 'supper' or rather a very, very early breakfast (tehnically it was morning the next day). On the menu was porridge. Plain white porridge but with some dishes to go with it. It seemed more like a proper meal as we had 7 or 8 dishes to go with the porridge. We dug in as we were hungry. The nasi lemak served or rather bought, on the flight don't last you very long. Here's a shot of some of the dishes:

After that we had 'Portugese egg tarts' as dessert.

From the looks it was not so 'Portugese' but they were fresh out of the oven and thus tasted nice. With our belly full, we headed to the hotel and that marked the end of our first day in Taiwan.

A few hours later, we awoke and hauled our bags and ourselves up the bus once again. The tour has finally started. First stop for the day - Jiu Fen or 'Nine Portions' in english direct translation. It's a famous street bazaar in Taiwan located in the town of Jing Shan. What's unique about this bazaar is that the town is located on a face of a steep hill and the Jiu Fen tourist area is spread across a few levels of the hills. Small lanes and steep stairs weave their way across the face of the hills overlooking a harbour with shops selling all kinds or trinkets and curiosities dotting them. I'll let the pics do the talking:

Above: Entrance to the Jiu-Fen Old Street - the most fomous of the streets there.

A shot of a temple there. I find the Taiwanese temples to be quite elaborate no matter where they are. Basically the town is situated like what you see in the shot. One level after another - all built on the steep hillside.
Some shops selling souvenirs in Jui-Fen area. It's a highly commercialized tourist spot but still worth a visit.
Things for sale range from the usual trinkets to some more 'kinky' stuff (below).

A shot of the harbour in the background from one of the many vantage points as you explore the area. The weather is not so good as you can see and makes for a rather drabby shot.
Also dotting the landscape are numerous restaurants, the one in the pic below is one of the more elaborate ones.
You will find many a stairs like this one seen in the pic below, leading you to the different levels of the town.
Another shot of the habour and parts of the town from the end of the 'Old Street'
The end of the 'Old Street' as seen if you turn around from the vista above.
Shops line both sides of the Street and sells various kinds of food and other stuff.
You can have a sample before you buy. In the above shot, the open containers in the foreground are free samples that you can help yourself to. Almost 99% of shops selling food will have samples for you. If you take a sample from each and every shop selling food and/or drinks, you can literally fill your stomach and you won't have to pay a single cent!
Apart from food, you can also find clothes and stuff. As the street twist and turn, you can easily lose track of where you are, just like the kid in the shot below.
Sweets for my sweet, sugar for my honey...
Little cloth owls of various sizes. Perfect for souvenirs. The seller claims that all the owls have a different motif on them. I did not check to see if it was true.
Lots of drinks and tea - alcoholic or otherwise for sale also.
More fancy sweets.
You can find many restaurants with fancy themes like this one that has a fancy window display as shown in the following pics.

And a final shot of the crowd in Jiu-Fen. Many Taiwanese come here too.

That's all for our Jiu-Fen stop. Up next is the Geopark in Yehliu. Stay tuned!

Taiwan Trip

2009-11-03T11:06:00.000+08:00

A couple of days ago, I got back from a holiday trip to Taiwan. After spending about a week there, I am back in Malaysia and now have a better idea what Taiwan is about. Well, the northern to northeast quadrant of Taiwan, at least.

Overall, Taiwan is a beautiful country with nice weather - apart from the occasional typhoon that comes in and wreaks havoc. It has numerous scenic places where nature shows it's beauty at its finest. The mountains that line the middle of the country from tip to toe hosts many a natural park. One such is the Taroko National Park where the beautiful Taroko Gorge lies. The park ranges from one of the highest peaks in Taiwan right up to the coast where the cliffs drops down to the blue-green waters of the Pacific Ocean. In between, the Liwu river carves it way through the limestone and marble mountains to give us the unique vistas of the Taroko gorge.

There is also the Yehliu Geopark where one can see some hoodoo rocks that gives the seaside location an out of this world landscape appearance.

Taipei offers you all the sights and sound of a modern metropolitan city and is home to one of the world's tallest towers, the Taipei 101. Apart from that it is also the host to some famous night markets such as those in Xi Men Ding and Shi Ling. The night markets are where you can find a vast variety of hawker's food to tempt your tastebuds.

From the modern city to the laid back farmstays. From man-made wonders to the grand beauty of nature, Taiwan has it all and is worth a visit. In my following posts, I will break down the trip and include some of the pics that I have taken there. Stay tuned.

Exams and Their Results

2009-10-08T14:01:00.000+08:00

I am sure that most of you know that academic examination results ranks very high on the typical Malaysian parent's list. They use it as a benchmark of how 'clever' their offsprings are.

Some have even gone as far as to make it the sole reason for their offspring's existence!
You know the drill - go to school, come back home and it's tuition, tuition and tuition some more. Then it's homework, homework and more homework both from the school and the tuitions.

I think all that obsession with good results is really unneccessary. Yes, it's well and good to have a good education but are good results in examinations the only yardstick to measure that?

In the end it's just a piece of paper with a bunch of alphabets corresponding to some subjects. Nothing more than that. Our education system is not the best in the world. There's too much 'spoon-feeding' going on and one known formula to get good results is to 'regurgitate' all the facts from the textbooks. 'Regurgitating' does not need understanding. All it needs is a good memory.

So in essence a mediocre student with a good memory can obtain fantastic results in examinations if he/she can master the art of 'regurgitating'. So what does the result tell us? Can we really say having a string of A's means we have a good student? Not really.

Also, we must know that in life there are days when you are up and days when you are down. If it so happens that an examination is held on a day when you are down and you get poor results, does that mean you're a bad student? For all we know the student might just be having a bad week or month for whatever reasons.

Exams results can only tell us so much. It's not the only factor to consider. I would want my children to first of all understand the lessons taught. I would want to have critical thinking skills rather than just getting good results from 'regurgitating' facts. And I wouldn't mind them failing one or two exams along the way either. Failure is a part of life whether we like it or not. Learning how to deal with failure and learning from your failure and moving on from there is much more important than scoring a string of A's at the price that one is unprepared to face failure of any kind.

Also, apart from academics, children also need to learn other essential skills. Skills such as communication skills, social skills like how to mix and deal with people. They are never going to learn these things if we keep them locked up in the house or academic institutions with all sorts of tuitions most of the time.

So give the children a break. Let them be children sometimes and encourage them to go out and play with other children. Studying, classrooms,books and exams are not all they have to deal with when they grow up. As parents we must equip them with all the necessary skills that they need to face the world on their own. That is not limited to just getting A's in examinations.

What I Have Learned Taking Up Photography.

2009-09-28T23:40:00.000+08:00

It has been 2 years plus since I first bought my very first DSLR. In fact my very first camera. Along the way, I have taken around 20k worth of pictures, gobbled up almost 100GB on my HDD and most of the pics are now just sitting in the hard disk taking up space.

I admit that the number of pics is not really high. Some photography enthusiast can knock up that amount in about 3 months. Nevertheless, it has given me lessons that I will not have come across otherwise. Lessons that many a casual camera users may never realise.

Below are some of the things I have learned:

1. Photography is an expensive hobby!

That's the first thing that will strike you. Photography is expensive! Digital camera bodies are expensive! Lenses are expensive! The only comforting thought is that digital allows you to ditch the processing costs of film. Imagine developing over 20k worth of pictures! What's even more mortifying is that you will end up throwing most of those pictures!

On the other hand, most hobbies will rack up considerable costs if you're serious about it. Take cycling for example. The bicycle and it's equipment can cost quite a lot if you want decent gears! Fishing don't come cheap either. Good rods can cost up to four figures. And you have hooks and lures and lines and what not to consider. That's all BEFORE you even set one foot in a river to actually start fishing.

Heck! Even collecting toy figurines is not cheap! Do you know what a limited edition 'Gundam' mecha action figure can cost you?

2. There are 2 types of users out there.

In photography, you will come across 2 types of users - the gearhead and the photography enthusiast. The most obvious indicator is their pictures. Gearheads are obssessed with gears and their specs and what not. By just listening to them talk you can easily mistake them for being a guru in photography! That notion is quickly dispelled when you look at their pictures. Most will not have many for you to see. That's because they are more interested in discussing specs and functionality rather than taking pics.

The photography enthusiast can seem a little lost when asked about technical specs of cameras and lenses but when you see their pics, it's clear where they spend most of their time - out there taking pictures and improving their shots.

Of course there is the small percentage of users that are both gearheads and photography enthusiast. These are the people you would want to be close with as they are a source of technical and technique knowledge.

3. Taking nice pictures is hard work.

It is rare for a viewer of a pic to realise the amount of work that has been put into a particular shot. Even if the shots look like they were taken with minimal effort, looks can be deceiving. The amount of preparation needed for each shot may not be apparent in the final product but you can bet that it's nothing like taking a casual shot.

For most people, taking a picture means whipping out the camera, pointing it in the general direction of the subject and clicking the shutter button.

The photography enthusiast does way more work. He first have to acertain the correct settings for each location. The settings are NOT the same indoors as compared to outdoors. Heck, the settings are different when you're under shade as opposed to under sunlight even when you're outdoors and the locations are mere meters apart!

Then he has to frame the subjects in a nice way. He has to ensure that the background is pleasant and not distracting. He has to give instructions to pose the subjects (if they are humans) properly. Lock focus to ensure a sharp picture and then only click the shutter button. And he has to do all the above WITHOUT taking too much time that the human subjects begin to tire of the whole process. How long will it take you to start feeling impatient with a person pointing a camera at you trying to take your picture? 5 seconds? 10 seconds? That's the time frame the photo enthusiast has to work with.

You start to realise that every shot becomes very deliberate. Do you want to include the background? Do you want a full body shot or half body shot or a close-up? Which angle will be better? How would you light the subjects? Will you use artificial lighting with flashes or just use the available light? How do you want to pose them? All these questions and more will race through your mind as you are taking the pictures. You will need to be always on your toes to get good shots during a session especially if you're dealing with normal people and not models who are used to being photographed and knows the process somewhat.

After the session, the photographer's job is not done yet! You will have to post process the pics. By post processing I do not mean subjecting the pics to 'photoshopping' like adding in captions or removing blemishes and such. It's the basic adjustment of the digital 'negatives' after the shoot. In film you will have to develop the film negatives in a darkroom. In digital, the workflow is still there. Only difference is that you work using a computer rather than in a darkroom.

After this 'darkroom' post processing is done, you will have to sift through the stack and throw out the bad shots before you can start putting in special effects or 'photoshopping' the pics.

Sounds like a lot of work? You bet! Then why is it that normal compact cameras users don't go through this process? That is because the normal compact cameras has automated all the steps. It gives you the most common settings for all your shots and the development is done in camera using also the most common methodology without any user inputs and gives you the end product straight away. That's why most people tend to get 'funny' results when pictures are not taken outdoors under bright sunlight.

4. You decide where your photography level lies. Not your gears.

It's common when a bunch of photography buffs sit down together and look at each other's gears, those with 'lesser' gears will lust after the better gears. Those with entry level models will wish they had higher end bodies. Those with normal lenses will wish that they had 'pro' or 'premium' lenses.

Although the higher end gears does play a part in the pictures, it is a small part. Lots of time, people have to be aware that no matter what gears you have, it is possible to get great pictures. Your skills are much more important than any gears available. So rather than lusting after 'better' gears, you should be working on your skills instead. Improve your composition. Improve your lighting techniques.

If your picture composition skill is not up to par, you will still take badly composed pictures with the most expensive and most technologically advanced gears. If your lighting technique is bad, you will still have a lot of under or overexposed shots. So if your skills are lacking, upgrading to better gears will not be of much help.

5. When you have a passion for it, you won't mind the hard work.

It's unfortunate that not many people recognise that taking beautiful pictures needs a lot of hard work. To get one beautiful sunrise pic, you may have woken up way before the crack of dawn on many a days and forced yourself to go out there and wait for the sun to rise. Some days, the sun just won't co-operate and you come home empty handed. Some days, the sky may be just too dull or empty. Just the sun and no clouds or just the clouds and not enough sun and you come home empty handed. But there will be a day when all your patience and discipline will pay off and you bag your picture.

What irks me the most is when people take one look and say something like, "Wow! That's one lucky shot!" or "No wonder! Just look at the camera you're using!" Waking up before the crack of dawn for countless days waiting and preparing for the conditions to be right is lucky? Or maybe just buying the most expensive camera gears will get you those shots? Hmph! I would like to see them try to be lucky with expensive equipment!

But then what pleases me the most is just the flip side of that same fine line. You have worked your butt off and someone takes a look and then comments, "That's a great picture! I love it!" That one comment will send me off to the heavens! All the hard work now seems justified. All the money spent on gears now seems worth it. And I'm raring to go out there again to get another shot that will garner similar comments.

But often times, comments like that are few and far in between. What keeps you going in the meantime is your passion for it.

So I have learned much and there is still much to learn but the biggest thing that photography has opened up for me is my eyes! I have begun to see things that I have overlooked. I can now see the beauty that lies hidden in the mundane and the familiar surroundings.

How many of us take the time to look up into the morning sky on your way to work? How many of us really notice the colors that the sunset brings, even in the city? There's beauty everywhere. All we need to do is look. We need to learn to let go of the ugly and take in the beauty. Forget that traffic jam and look at the beautiful sunrise. Don't mind the crowd and see how the sky changes its color when the sun goes down. Look out for the smiles in people faces rather than the frowns. The world is a beautiful place. Learn how to look out for it. For that I will be eternally grateful.

Wedding Shoot - Teaser

2009-09-23T22:56:00.003+08:00

Late July, I was invited to a wedding of a former colleague. So I packed my camera and went there and shot some pics.

Below are some of the pics taken on that day. It was my first Malay wedding shoot and since I was not the official photographer, I just managed to get some shots in the Dewan where the reception was held.

Some shots of the decorative items in the hall:

Custom made chocolate bars where the bride and groom's pic are on the wrappers. Very nice!
What the goodie bags for the VIP table has inside:
And of course the bride herself.
There are some other pics but the bride herself has not even seen them yet so I am a bit reluctant to post them all here. Let's see if she will want to see the rest of it before I post them in future.

Beware of Scams

2009-09-08T17:23:00.001+08:00

With the economy in the toilet, there has been a rise in cases of scams and fraud. I'm sure you've heard of most of these shady deals but it can't hurt to be reminded again.

I just got an email detailing another scam. Though it's not new in any sense, it's quite well planned out and this is how it goes:

1. You get an SMS saying you've won a big amount of money. There's no contact details in the SMS.

2. Scammer calls and asks if you've received the SMS. Then scammer asks you for your bank account number so that the money can be deposited to your account.

Now, this is where it gets interesting. Scammer never asks you anything more than your account number. No passwords. No credit card number or anything. Everyone knows that with just an account number you cannot do anything much other than deposit money into it.

3. Scammer calls again later to say that your prize money has been deposited and asks you to verify it. The amount WILL show up on your account. You will be estatic and thinks that this is all well and good and that's the end of the story.

4. Scammer calls again later still and says that he/she has made a mistake and has deposited the money without first deducting a certain percentage as tax or whatever fees. The amount WILL be significantly less than your total winnings and the scammer begs you to return the amount or his/her company will asks him/her to compensate the amount.

What will you do? Most if not all people will think nothing of returning the amount. Since you already have the money listed in your account why not do the right thing, isn't it? Even though you return the requested amount of money, you'll still have plenty leftover right?

Well, this is where the scam will take place. The money that has been deposited into your account will be in the form of a cheque from a different bank (you WILL NOT know this piece of information unless you specifically check that transaction and request for the information).

Although the number SHOWS UP in your account, the real money transfer HAS NOT TAKEN PLACE yet. The money will NOT be transferred until the cheque CLEARS and that will usually take 3 working days. Within this time period, the issuer of the cheque can still very well CANCEL the cheque and the transaction will not take place at all. If you make any transfer to other accounts, then this transaction will be a totally separate case and if you transfer cash, the money WILL be deducted away from your account.

Thus the scammer will indeed get your money and then cancels the cheque and you will be left poorer. The scammer just exploited a known 'not-so-good' practice in the bank's procedures when clearing cheques.

So be wary. IF you do intend to return the money in the off-chance than the winning might be real, then wait at least 3 working days to confirm that you really have the money before refunding anything.

Scammers has exploited this procedure since a long time ago. Back even when the internet didn't even exist, this technique has been used. A popular technique was to buy lots of stuff and pay with cheque on a Friday or Saturday. The seller will then see the 'money' as being deposited and release the stock. Buyer will disappear with stock and cancel cheque thus seller will get no money but will have lost his stock. This 'new' scam is merely another version of this technique.

The Horrors of J-Horror Films

2009-09-07T15:25:00.002+08:00

J-Horror. The label given to Japanese horror movie genre. Some or should I say most people are real fans of this genre. I dunno which film started the craze but my guess is 'The Ring' or 'Ringu' in Japanese. The movie where the all too famous ghost crawled out of the TV and terrorized the star of the show.

For me the scariest thing about J-horror films is that it does not scare me but confuses me no end instead. I have not watched too many J-Horrors but those that I did watch and managed to finish left me with only ONE question is my mind after the show ended. It happens every time! Honest! No matter what the film is. The question? It's "That's it?!"

Invariably I feel cheated when the show ends. It felt as if the story was not finished and I was left hanging. So yes, there's this ghost that terrorises people via a video tape or a house or cell phones or whatever. And people die in various grisly manner but then what's the conclusion? Most of the time the ghost or evil spirit or whatever it was continues to terrorise people and there's no end in sight.

Seems like J-horror ghouls and evil spirits are just plain unstoppable. Once unleashed, it's here to stay. At this rate, I think the end of the world will be caused by these malevolent spirits rather than anything else. Eat your heart out you Mayans and your calendars!! The world will not make it to 2012! People will die after watching a video (The Ring) or receiving a phone call (One Missed Call) and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it.

I cannot but wonder why the movie makers go through the trouble in the first place if you do not have an ending. The protagonist of these films go through hell to try and stop the curse but in the end the curse just continues. Even after a few sequels and maybe an odd prequel! So why bother? Why not just accept fate as it is and die quickly and get it over with? Don't need to hunt high and low and dig out historical reports after historical reports trying to find the source. Having numerous brushes with death along the way to finally reach the source and then just when you think it's over, it starts again!

Call me old fashioned but I like my movies neatly tied up by the time the credits roll. I can suspend disbelief and take in all sorts of weird scenarios and ideas but please let there be an ending after it all. Just don't drag me through 2 hours of cheap visual and auditory shock treatments and tell me that nothing was resolved and the curse or evil spirits still run loose.

It's like reading a book only to find the last page was torn out! Imagine the frustration! So no, thank you. J-horror films can find their fans elsewhere. I much prefer horror films from Thailand or Hong Kong. Not that I think that they are cinematic masterpieces but at least in the end, things are resolved. If the ending was crappy and the plot is full of holes, at the very least you could say, "Well, that's lame!" For J-Horror, all I could manage so far is, "What th...!???"

P.S. The movie that prompted me to post this entry - "One Missed Call-Final" that was shown on TV (thank goodness I did not have to buy a ticket for it) a few days ago. Needless to say, the 'Final' was not final at all.

September

2009-09-01T15:23:00.000+08:00

August is gone and September is here. How time flies. I have not been updating my blog as regularly as I should. I have been a bit busy lately and feeling a little blue. A little depressed. Don't ask why. Just feeling a little down I guess.

Feel like I need a break from it all. I dunno. Hopefully, this spell will break and things will get back to normal.

How to Be A Good Boss

2009-08-24T15:07:00.000+08:00

I dunno about you but I've seen many an occasion when the boss will totally screw any semblance of a private life the employee has. What gives? Does being a boss gives them unlimted rights to their employee's time? Do they have no respect for a person's private life? Don't even have basic courtesy or do they choose to ignore it and throw their weight around?

So in the off-chance that bosses regress to a level where they lose all common courtesy and simple respect for another individual, I have put together a list of what NOT to do to piss off your employees:

1. Do not call and ask about work as and when you please after office hours and weekends.

How would you like it if some smart aleck likes to call near midnight, during dinner or lunch hours on weekends and talk about work. It's okay if it is for a quick status update but not when you want to communicate your latest idea and talk for an hour or two.

Incredible as it may seem, your employees do have a private life. However inane it may be. It'll do you good to keep in mind that your employees do not actually sit by the phone waiting for you to call on them as if it is the highlight of their after work hours.

2. Do not expect that employees will always want to work on weekends or public holidays.

People need to have a break from time to time. If you fill up weekends with your projects and events that requires employees to attend, do not be surprised that your staff turnover rate is high. Not everyone enjoys working 24/7 and 7 days a week. Besides being your employee, people will still have to attend to other parts of their life e.g. being a son or daughter, being a girlfriend or boyfriend, being a mom or dad, etc.

Signing on the employment contract does not mean you own all of your workers hours. Even if you offer extra monetary compensation, it is always the employee's perogative to choose whether to work or not on off days. Nowhere in any logical contract does it state that one has to work whenever required to on off-days.

3. Never think that you know it all.

You may be the boss but you're human too and prone to mistakes. If you force your way on the employees and always think that you are right and never listen to any advise, then you may find that you will be surrounded by complete morons and yes-men only for workers. If you're lucky, you way may work but more often than not, you will find out that you really do not know it all - the hard way!

4. Don't treat your employees like you treat a dog.

People will make mistakes. They are only human. In the event that they do and you feel the need to reprimand them, do so in private. Hollering at your employee from halfway across the office and for all and sundry to hear is a surefire way to kill morale in the workplace. Not only is the one being hollered at lose morale, those within earshot will also suffer from low morale as they know that they may be at the same receiving end someday when they make a mistake. You cannot strip away a person's pride and dignity and hope to get good productivity from same said person. A dog may still wag its tail when they see you coming even after you holler at them but your employees are not dogs.

5. Don't expect your employees to be able to read your mind.

As much as your employees are not dogs, they are not mind readers in the least bit of sense. Never bark out cryptic and unclear orders and hope things will get done. Spell out what you want done precisely or at least give a clear outline. Don't say, "Get it done at all cost!" and then yell at the high cost the event incurred. If you have a specific budget, say so. Your employees cannot mind read and pluck the figure from your head.

Also don't expect your employees to be able to figure things out when you yourself do not have the faintest idea on how to accomplish it in the first place. If they are able to do so then they would not no longer be your employees. They would be your boss. At the very least, you have to point out the direction for them to get the necessary resources.

6. Never steal your employee's credit.

If you are fortunate enough to have bright people working under you, give credit where credit is due. Remember, if they are smart enough to solve problems for you, don't you think that they are able to tell when you steal their credit?

The above list is not exhaustive, of course. There are many other things that one need to be aware of if one wants to be a good boss. If you really want to know if you are a good boss or not, then ask yourself - If you had a boss like you, would you be happy working for such a boss?

Is Our Life So Cheap?

2009-08-21T14:06:00.000+08:00

Earlier this month, on the 2nd of August, a young man passed away. Though it may be normal for people to die on any given day, this one death was preventable perhaps.

Gary Leon Robert. The name may not mean anything to you but he was someone's son, someone's brother and someone's friend. On 2nd of August he participated in the Adidas King of the Road 2009 marathon. He was at the starting line and he finished the race. Then he disappeared and was found dead one day later.

What was most saddening is the fact that he collapsed in the stadium on the finishing line and was seen and recorded on video as being carried away in a stretcher by supposedly 'medical' personnels for the event. If that was the case how in the world did he end up dead and the organizers knew nothing about it?

The slip shoddy way the whole event was organized and the apathy shown by both the event organizers and the authorities in handling the case is a shame to us all. We are infamously known for our 'tidak apa' attitude. Well, in this one case, this 'tidak apa' attitude cost a life! May we all learn our lesson for it.

More information can be found at:
http://justiceforgaryrobert.webs.com/

If any of you guys want to participate in any sporting events, make it a point to take good care of yourself. You can't rely on the organizers to provide the necessary for you. For all you know, a case like this could happen again. If you care enough to want to make a difference, do register yourself at the website and spread the word. I did.

Pay TV

2009-08-06T15:36:00.001+08:00

Recently, Astro, the sattelite pay TV channel has increased its subscription fees for its sports package. Following this increase, there have been an outcry by some of its subscribers saying that it's unethical for Astro to do so.

Well, I have an easy solution for these complaining users. Just terminate your Astro subscriptions! When Astro sees that it's subscribers are turning away in droves, they are bound to sit up and pay attention.

Astro has monopolized the pay TV market in Malaysia so any complaints will just fall on deaf ears. If you don't like the fees, then stop subscribing. Unfortunately, most of those who complain will not do so. They will not back up their protest with action. They just like to sit there and whine while watching their favorite sports channel on Astro. If that's the case then why complain? You want to enjoy live broadcasts and exclusive sports offering but you don't want to pay the price. This is like you wanting your cake and eating it too. It just ain't gonna happen.

Astro knows that most Malaysians are football fanatics. For what reasons, I don't know. They will just lap up anything that's football related. The English Premeir League, the Euro Cup, the Champion's League and what have you. Show it and people will want to watch it.

The second most subscribed package will be the Dynasty package, I presume. Wah Lai Toi and TVBS and what have you. Astro has known this a long time ago. That's why they started to break up the channels and put them in separate packages. They say that they are giving you a choice to pick which package you like and save on the packages you don't like.

Truth is most will end up subscribing to most of the packages. Sports and Dynasty are quite ubiquitous. Those who have children will have to subscribe to the Cartoon package. Do you really think parents will just subscribe to the cartoon network and leave out the Discovery package? You're already paying for junk so why not pay a little more and get the 'educational' channels and at least the kids can learn something useful watching TV!

So that leaves the minority that may just want to watch some movies from time to time and don't do sports and are still single. In the end the fees will probably end up higher than when all the channels were lumped into one single fee. What has Astro got to say to this? They will say that they have added other channels into the mix. Yeah, right - channels that most people won't bother subscribing to if they were not bundled together with the popular ones.

So now, every so often they will increase the price or restructure the channels. Everytime they do that, most will find their subscriber fees on the increase. Service will remain as bad and you will still be left watching a blank screen when it rains heavily. The users will complain but there will be little action from Astro. After a while the complains will die down and Astro will be ready for the next round of channels restructuring.

How to deal with this? Like I said, just terminate your subscriptions. If enough people do this, Astro will be forced to take some remedial actions. Then you will truly be showing them who's boss.

FYI, I do not subscribe to Astro. I barely have time to watch TV, let alone pay to watch it. You do not need Astro. Astro needs your subscription fees more. Trust me on this.

Cherating Trip - Part 2

2009-08-05T11:21:00.004+08:00

Back to my Cherating Trip. This post will be on the last day of the trip. Spent most of the second day attending one of my ex-colleague's wedding and shooting there. Will post up the pics later.

So, this is the view outside our room's window. There have a small sofa there that you can sit and enjoy the view outside. Beyond the palms is the ocean - just a short hop from the room. In Impiana Cherating, all the rooms faces the sea!

After breakfast and a bit of lazing around, we checked out and headed back to KL. We had wanted to buy some fruits and saw quite a lot of pineapples being sold by the roadside. We stopped and bought some and so happen the next stall was selling fresh young coconuts. We headed there and bought one each. The seller hacked open the coconuts right there and you can then drink the juice straight from the fruit.

The taste was refreshing and not like the ones we get in KL where the juice is sweetened by some unknown substance. Here's as pic of the one I had.

After the 'air kelapa muda' treat we headed down to Kuantan town. It was lunchtime and we hunted around for a place to eat and settled for this shop called 'Kemaman Kopitiam'.

It's a quaint little place that lookk like a cross between the modern cafes and the old style kopitiam. Here's how it looked like from where I sat.

The layout is like the old style kopitiam but the tables are small and ornate. Not like those plasticky types you find often in normal kopitiams. The floor is clean unlike those greasy floor that kopitiams have. It's not crowded despite it being a Monday and lunchtime. Probably because the price of the food is not that economical for everyday consumption.

What di we have for lunch? Well, since my wifey is a coffee lover and this place is called Kemaman Kopitiam and serves the famous coffee from Kemaman, she ordered a cup. To go with it she ordered the nasi dagang. I had a taste of the nasi and it was good. Here's the pic:

I had the nasi lemak ayam rendang and it wasn't half bad. Surprisingly, the iced lemon tea came in a sealed plastic cup. Pic like below:

Apart from the 'main course' we ordered some side dishes. Like the pulut ayam below,

and some keropok lekor. The keropok were good and freshly fried.

Apart from the food, the shop was also decorated in an unconventional way. It had an old record player and I mean old! It was on display along with a record by it's side. I don't know if it still works but it's not everyday you get to see something like this:

Just beside this diaplay was an old, old poster of 2 Chinese girls. The colours were all faded and when I got closer, I realised that it was an advertisement poster for cigarrettes!

Noticed the ciggy dangling from one of the girl's hand? The was a box pictured on the bottom right corner of the poster. I did not catch what brand it was but it quite a surprise. Tobacco manufacturers had targeted women smokers even from way back then when smoking and women were not things that you would link together. Back then, only 'bad' girls smoked. You get my drift?

The shop also had quite a few coffee cups on display on the various shelves in the shop. I don't know if they are for sale or not. The above pic is one example.

After lunch, the trip was officially over and it was a long drive back to KL.

Movie Review : Transformers : Revenge of The Fallen

2009-07-30T17:48:00.001+08:00

So I finally went and saw the movie. I was really put off it but the circumstances came together and I found myself in a cinema hall waiting for it to start. How was it? Well, let me put it this way:

1. If you are just looking for a way to kill some time and have no expectations whatsoever and is content to be dazzled with special effects and explosions, then this movie will trill you no end.

2. If you have any expectations whatsoever and hoping that this second installment would somehow be better than the first one, then this movie will do nothing but disappoint you.

Unfortunately I ended up in the latter statement. Yes, I was quite disappointed with it. That was even after I knew that it would be disappointing. So here's my rant on this movie and how Micheal Bay managed to destroy the Transformers image with his latest movie. SPOILER ALERT ahead! Stop reading if you have not seen the movie.

Things I will hate Micheal Bay for:

1. He destroyed the noble image of Optimus Prime.

If you are a fan of the Transformers cartoon series than you would know that Optimus Prime is the noblest of the Autobots. That he will always uphold justice and see to it that everyone, humans or robots will be treated fairly. Micheal Bay's version is just like Dirty Harry. He has no qualms about blowing the head off a down and out Decepticon. He even made him say, "Any last words?" before pulling the trigger. That one scene is just wrong! It seems like the Autobots and the Decepticons have just traded roles. You would be forgiven if you label the Autobots as the villians if you just saw the part where they are in Shanghai and have no prior knowledge about the giant robots.

2. He ripped ideas from other movies for this.

Micheal Bay blatantly ripped off ideas from Star Wars, The Terminator and Stargate. The part where the Fallen and the newly resurrected Megatron converse can be lifted straight from Transformers and planted into Star Wars with the Fallen playing the role of Emperor and Megatron playing the role of Darth vader and it would not seem out of place at all! I just went like, "Hey! How come I'm watching Star Wars all of a sudden!?"

And you won't believe how he ripped off the Terminator. You can't miss it. It's just so obvious. Watch out for scenes when Sam is in college and don't tell me you didn't feel a bit surprised.

What about Stargate? Like the idea that the Pyramids were built by aliens is entirely original! At least Stargate had a great backstory to justify it.

3. He thinks his audience is stupid.

Bay expects us to buy his idea that while the Transformers battled it out in the heart of a city at the end of the first movie, this incident is now all covered up and no one believes that giant alien robots exist regardless of the fact that the giants robots destroyed almost half the city in the first movie.

Bay thinks that we cannot count. In one scene 5 Decepticons went down into the ocean to retrieve/resurrect Megatron from the bottom. A submarine sonar tracked 5 objects going down. While down there one of the robots produced a small 'doctor' bot, no bigger than an octopus, to repair Megatron. In resurrecting Megatron, one of the Decepticons were destroyed for parts and when they went back up to the surface, the submarine registered SIX contacts. Hello??!! 5-1+1 is still FIVE! And don't tell me the 'doctor' bot is being tracked as it was not tracked going down and sonar do not pick up objects the size of an octopus. It they did then sonar would be useless and the screen would beep non-stop as fishes and octopusses pass by.

Bay wants us to believe that NONE of the Autobots can read Cybertronian - a language from Cybertron, the Transformers' home planet! Only the Decepticons can read it. So what freaking language did the Autobots use back home on their planet?! English?!

The soldiers in this new movie still shoot at the Decepticons with their puny machine guns. Haven't they learned from the previous encounters in the last movie that their assault rifles hardly even tickle the Decepticons? Have it not occurred to them to try something bigger, like a bazooka or something? Or were they too dense to notice that the enemies are at least 18 feet tall and made entirely of alien metal?

Bay also wants use to believe that Transformers can breed. These hulking metal beasts need stuff like scrotum and apparently Optimus Prime is a, get this, DESCENDANT of the original Primes of which there were 6 or 5, I'm not sure but it doesn't really matter. The Fallen is one of the original Primes and as to why he did not breed and create a host of evil descendants, only Bay knows!!! Also when the Transformers die, they ultimately either go to Transformer heaven or rot in Transformer hell (they didn't show this but hey if you already have one then why not the other, huh?). And if you're really, really, really lucky like Sam, you just might end up there when you die but you'll get rejected coz you're not a robot and come back to life!

Also when you're being chased by a jet plane and being fired at would you rather stay in a car and speed to your destination or would you leave the car and run on foot knowing that your destination is only a couple of miles away? Well, according to Bay's logic it will make more sense to leave a car and run to your destination, prolonging the journey and danger unnecessarily. Brilliant!

That's only some of the things that I care to rant about. The movies is full of plot holes the size of the moon and is just an excuse to show the special effects. The story does not make sense but hey you have things blowing up every other minute!

Rating : Negative 5 stars if you're a fan of the original cartoon series. If you're not, then you're free to rate it any way you like.

Practise What You Preach...?

2009-07-23T15:35:00.001+08:00

What has the world come to? Yesterday, on my way home from work I saw the most incredible thing. Not even in my wildest dreams will this image appear but there is was in front of me as I was making my way down to the LRT platform.

Wanna know what I saw? An iPhone! You may say that's not so incredible but what if I told you that the owner was a buddhist monk dressed up in a complete saffron robe garb? And what's even more suprising is that this monk had his headphones firmly plugged into his ears. He was young and if you took away the robes and dressed him up in normal clothes, you would have no way of telling that he is a monk.

I was on the escalator heading down when this young monk dashed past me. I did a double take. iPhone? Monk? The two words just could not mix in my mind. Heck! I thought buddhist monks were supposed to have denounced all worldly material possessions and their main purpose in life was to devote their time to cultivating the 'middle path' and spread the teachings of Buddha.

What pressing needs does this young monk have to justify the possession of an iPhone? I could understand the need to easily reachable but an iPhone??!! Wouldn't a simple basic feature phone have sufficed? An iPhone off all the phones??!! Heck! Even most normal people would judge the iPhone as a luxury item by their standards. Why would a monk need a luxury item? It goes against all their teachings!

I have seen some senior monks brandishing Rolex watches and wearing gold rimmed glasses of such refined standards that would put them into the category of jewellery more than eyewear. Similar to the iPhone carrying young monk, dare I say that these people are the ultimate hypocrites? Do they even remotely try to practise what they preach? Are they aware that simply by donning a saffron robe and living in a monestary does not qualify you as a monk if you do not take to heart the teachings of Buddha?

To end this post, I will re-tell a story that I have come across and found to be very meaningful. Hopefully some of us may learn from it and not be like those iPhone and Rolex brandishing monks!

*** Start of story ***

A long time ago in a remote Indian village there lived a prostitute and a monk. The monk lived just opposite the prostitute's house.

Every morning the monk would go outside his house and sit in his humble courtyard to recite his prayers. Every morning the prostitute would come out of her house to sweep her courtyard.

Without fail, the prostitute would see the monk there and smile at him and without fail the monk would return a disapproving glare at the prostitute, lamenting his bad luck in living opposite her.

This went on until one day, both the monk and the prostitute was killed in a big fire in the village. The monk and the prostitute found themselves upon the gates of heaven, awaiting their final judgement. God appeared and upon seeing the prostitute, quickly welcome her into heaven. When God saw the monk, he was just as quick in banishing him to hell.

Confused and dissatisfied, the monk called out, "Dear God! Why do you banish me to hell to suffer whereas the prostitute who sold her body for money is accepted into heaven? Have I not prayed to you all this time? Have I not tried to spread your teachings to the people with dedication? Is this the reward that I get? This is so unfair!"

God replied, "You know not why you are sent to hell? Then truly you need to be punished. Every living day when you set your eyes upon the prostitute, what goes on in your mind? You only think about how dirty she is. How abhorrent it is that she serves so many men that visits her house. Your whole mind is filled with impure thoughts about this prostitute that you so despise. Instead of spreading love, you harbour hate in your heart each and every day. In contrast, the prostitute thinks so highly of you. Each and every day she thinks how great it is that you can serve God and how great it is that you can spread the teachings of God to others and how noble your job as a monk is. She holds only the highest respect for you and God in her heart and prays for you. So now you tell me, is she not more worthy of a place in heaven than you are?"

*** End of story ***

The Rosy Picture in your Memory...

2009-07-21T15:18:00.003+08:00

Continuing the post on my Cherating trip. As you know, the last trip I made to Cherating was more than a decade ago. Back then I stayed at the Legend Cherating and during that trip I was first introduced to the famous 'stuffed crab' dish. It was the dish to order when you are in Chukai, Kemaman. Chukai is about a 20 minutes drive from the Cherating area.

I remember that it was delicious. My wife, then girlfriend, agreed. The 'stuffed crab' was really good. I had forgotten which restaurant we went to but the taste was just fantastic.

This visit, eating 'stuffed crab' was in the agenda from the start. So we drove to Chukai and began hunting for the restaurants there. I remember that there were a few shops there and although the roads have changed to a one way street, we found the shops after a while and looked forward to tasting the delicious crabs again.

We selected a shop at random. So happen that the shop we chose was Tong Juan, the one that all the people agreed served the best stuffed crabs. The restaurant's reputation was only known to us after we left Cherating.

We ordered the crabs and the dish came. My wife dug in and was utterly disappointed! She said that the taste is no longer there. I took a bite and it was confirmed. This 'stuffed crab' tasted nothing like the 'stuffed crab' we had over a decade ago. The taste was flat to be honest and the crab meat even had a little smell, indicating that it was not so fresh. What a letdown!

Apart from the crabs, we also ordered a fried chicked dish for dinner and the fried chicken tasted much better than the crabs. Imagine! A run-of-the-mill dish outdoing the highlight dish of the restaurant! The standard of the crabs had taken a nose dive straight from its high pedestal into the drain. I would not even recommend anyone to order the 'stuffed crabs' after that meal.

My wife was visibly upset over the crabs. She had expected the standard to have suffered but did not expect that it would drop by this much. I suggested that we come back again the next evening and try another restaurant. Eventually, we dropped that idea and did not try the other restaurants. If Tong Juan is the best that Chukai has to offer in terms of 'stuffed crabs' then it truly have very little to offer.

I know that perhaps the rosy picture in my memory may have been spiced up by sentiments over the years but the taste of the crabs we had was really too much of a letdown and the gap from reality and memory was too wide to bridge.

Here are some pics:

The restaurant we went to.

The view from our table looking out. It was quite empty as it was around 9pm. Quite late by a small town's standards I guess.

My drink - 'lo hon guo & longan'. Pic lighted using wireless flash with flash from camera right.

And the famous 'stuffed crabs'... that tasted flat to me... maybe it's just bad luck... I dunno...