Another Week Has Zoomed By

Rusty zoooming at the speed of light... 1/400 of a second that is..

Wow... Time certainly has zoomed right by us!

I can't believe that it's now the middle of April.

Wonder if there would be good news at the end of April.... Hmmm..

Have a great weekend folks!

Have a Great Weekend...

Hope that everyone will have a relaxing weekend. It has been pretty hectic with the CNY holidays...

For me, things were pretty crazy just before the CNY break due to some software platform release my team was involved in. We're relieved that it's now done but now, the old cycle of innovate, improve, fix and deliver a working software platform is back.

We or at least, I should learn from both Rusty and Snoopy... They always take time out for an afternoon "siesta". They only bark when necessary and only exert energy when it's really needed (like chasing squirrels or birds).

Why don't I ever learn.....

Did Someone Mention... FRIDAY??

Yep, the weekend is just around the corner. It's so close that I can feel it.

Both Snoopy & Rusty also sense a BATH is heading in their immediate direction this weekend too.

Have a great weekend. Hope that your Friday is as productive as possible... Yes Yes... Football this weekend too. ;-)

Weekend Brunch.... @ Dome

What I enjoy during the weekend, besides the pleasure of waking up an hour later, is scoffing down a delicious breakfast/brunch.

Some weeks back I accompanied EV to brunch at Dome. She had the desire of trying out the breakfast menu ever since we dropped by the place for coffee one day.

Meeting @ Noon...

I seem to have stumbled upon an afternoon meeting. I didn't mean to interrupt it...

Haha! It is a rare sight to see both Snoopy (on the right) & Rusty (on the left) sun-bathing so close to each other. Usually Snoopy will lean against the wall to catch the rays, while Rusty will be rolling around on the grass.

Yes.... The brown spots you see were contributed by both dogs'..... urine! Their urine kills our grass. So, there are brown spots all over the garden.

Anyway, ever since the weather has gotten too hot or has been raining too often, both dogs don't sunbathe on the grass. They sit on the porch to catch the rays.

Makes you wish that you can do something fun for the rest of Friday, huh?

Have a good one folks!

P/S: Docs' appointment went pretty well. One doctor was happy with my progress, while the other was not happy that my bp shot up a little bit. Got to visit one of them again next month... *sigh*

Fishing...

There are days when you wish you can get away to "fish". In other words, we wish to just take some time off to relax....

Anyway, Friday is fast approaching and I'd guess everyone is just waiting for the weekend to begin!

Hope that everyone will have a great weekend ahead... (^.^)

It's FRIDAY!!!!

Smile folks!! It's finally FRIDAY!!!!!

Hope that you folks will enjoy the weekend. Well, it's about 1 month to CNY and so, I'll be going around to take photos of those lovely decorations again. Hmmm.. Wonder if I should get a new lens first before I go around shooting.

Anyway, have a great weekend!!!

Photography Excursion @ Sekinchan Part 3

After a great lunch, we all had quite a number of hours to "kill" before we could head towards our final goal - to have a great dinner at Ijok. So, based on the directions of the restaurant captain, we set off to find a lovely beach nearby.

We drove on and finally heard the sound of waves hitting against the shore... We were near a beach!

It's a slice of photography heaven as the beach was quiet and the sky was clear of any clouds... We jumped out of our cars and happily snapped away.

My only regret is that I don't have a lens hood and so, some shots appeared to have quite a bit of lens flare. However, I managed to incorporate that effect nicely...

When we walked on the beach, we noticed that we were not walking on sand but on shells!! Shells were just scattered around the beach.

Most of the shells were intact and absolutely beautiful. For those who loves to collect shells, it was a great find. Luckily, I brought some additional plastic bags to pass around everyone who were collecting the shells as the photographers were busy with their work.

We also saw that there were a few fishermen by the shore. We're not sure if they were locals who just came to fish for pleasure but this kid sitting by the beach offered a great subject for a photo.

I converted the photo to black & white for more impact... Luckily, the boy and the fishermen were not bothered by us. They were busy with the business of catching fish.

As I walk along the shoreline, I noticed a great tree which became a perch for some sea eagles flying in the area. I wished that I had a superzoom to capture their majestic flight around the beach. They did not approach us and as I neared the tree, they hid in the mangrove plants nearby.

We spent close to about 2hrs around the beach before moving on. We had another location to shoot before we headed off to Ijok for our dinner.

Photography Excursion @ Sekinchan Part 2

A friend just commented about why I didn't post any good close-ups of the rice plants. So, here is the best shot I have so far...

We were really grateful for the wonderfully hot weather we experienced during our trip. It had been raining for quite a bit since it's the wet season.

The blue skies against the green/yellow paddy fields painted a beautiful picture. Too bad that I was only armed with my kit-lens & 50mm only. I would have loved to have a wide-angle or zoom lens to capture some details. Anyway, I'm shopping around for a reasonably good zoom lens with a reasonably good speed so that I can do some low-light photography too.

Nevertheless, I am grateful that I did bring my external flash to take photos of the people who posed amongst the fields. The itty-bitty in-built flash would not have been strong enough for such work.

We started our session a bit later than planned, so, lunch was around 2:30pm. We shopped around for a good place to eat, where we wanted to try some specialties like shark meat but the restaurant we wanted to go to had closed down. In the end, we opted for some simple seafood...

I won't bore you with the details of the type of vegetables we ordered. We opted for seafood since we're supposed to be near the sea... The size of the mantis prawns was just shocking! The meat was sweet encased in its seasoned shell. I just had to have a couple of those prawns despite the diet restrictions.. Kekeke...

We didn't really wanted crabs as we were expecting to have a bit of seafood later that night but after the captain's sales talk, we bought into ordering about 1.5kg of crab. It was very fresh and was not salty as I expected.

I enjoyed the steamed clams in Chinese cooking wine. The clams were succulent and not at all rubbery. The sauce went very well with the rice.

No meal is complete without another round of prawns. LOL!

Again, we did not want to order this but after seeing plates of large prawns being sent over, we just fell into the temptation of ordering it. It was the best decision made that afternoon! I took just one prawn for taste and it was heavenly. Except for the head, I gobbled up the entire prawn - shell and all. Yum.

Once we were well fed, we decided to head to the beach. We asked the restaurant captain about any nice beaches around and she pointed one out which was just down the road.

So... once we got our camera settings ready, we were off to our next photo shoot location!

Photography Excursion @ Sekinchan Part 1

I apologize for my belated post. It's been a hectic couple of weeks for me.

As well as wrapping up some documentation for the project before the end of the year, I had to get some stuff ready for Christmas.

Anyway, some ex-colleagues and myself decided to embark on a trip to Sekinchan for a photography excursion. Now, my geography isn't so great but Sekinchan is northwest of KL, towards the border of the state of Perak.

When we arrived at Sekinchan and spotted the lovely fields of green paddy fields, we didn't know what to do... We stopped the car at the side of the main road and had a short discussion to see where we can go. So, we drove into the fields and began our session.

As we drove into the fields, we noticed that it was close to harvest time. Lots of other friends have mentioned that we may not be able to photograph the lovely fields during this time of year. But, luck was on our side - we had fantastic clear weather and GREEN fields!

As I looked around, I noticed that there were no scarecrows (contrary to popular belief) but there were plenty of grey buildings dotted all around the fields for the swallows to nest. These buildings are where people can harvest birds nest which is great for Chinese herbal medicine and delicious as a dessert.

We were lucky to still spot that some parts of the fields were harvested, which provided us great photography opportunities to capture the entire process.

Rice is a grain and once the rice is extracted from its husk, it needs to be polished. So, what we have on our table is essentially processed rice.

We drove deeper into the fields and managed to capture some very good shots of some people at work as well as a rare sight of the harvester coming around to harvest the rice. Can u imagine the amount of effort it took to harvest a large paddy field of rice?

We were backing out of a small lane when we spotted the harvester from far away. Not wanting to miss this opportunity of watching the machine at work, we stopped to take lots of photos. This shot was taken through the tinted window of the car, which acted like a "filter".

It was cool watching the machine work. In the distance, other parts of the paddy field were already harvested and they had done some back-burning to prepare the soil for another round of planting.

We also spent some time around the fields taking lots of different photos. I brought my 50mm lens and was quite happy with the effect. As for the exposure settings, since were under direct sunlight, we were using f/stop f/22. When we photographed our "models", we used a fill-in flash to illuminate the face. Thank you Digital Camera magazine for those tips!

Psstt... I'm not at liberty to post pictures of the "models"... So, it'll only be pictures of food and rice fields for now. LOL!

The Last Day @ Meng Kee, Jalan Tengkat Tongshin

Talk about "The Last Supper"...

Just last week, I went with a group of friends to have brunch at one of KL's old eateries.. Meng Kee @ Jalan Tengkat Tongshin.

This place has been an institution of food in the Bukit Bintang area for a great many years.

It just so happens that the day we all decided to meet up at Meng Kee was to be the last day the shop would be opened at its current location at Jalan Tengkat Tongshin. When the shop finishes its business at around 3pm, it would be closed for good.

However, it won't be closed for long as the stall would relocate to Jalan Alor, which is just behind its current location. The shop would reopen in about 1-2 weeks time.

We chatted with one of the aunties and she mentioned that the stall did not want to pay the exorbitant rentals which has kept increasing year upon year. It seems that the rental of the shop was RM20,000 per month!

Being in a nice location with some pretty interesting decorative architecture, this shoplot would soon be converted into something trendy like some of the restaurants down the road, i.e. Changkat Bukit Bintang.

Now, time for the food... :-)

Yes, we had to have some vegetables... Although it was supposed to be a day of celebration for some of us carnivores but the balanced omnivores wanted some greens/fibre...

The steamed chicken was yummy. I think it was kampung chicken or free-range, as the fat was quite yellow and the meat especially sweet. The farm-reared chicken tends to taste a bit bland, which means that when steamed, the meat is not as sweet.

Meng Kee has some really delicious char siew or honey BBQ pork which just melts in your mouth. The pork is BBQ to perfection where the dark bits are sticky and sweet, without leaving the meat hard and dry. In short, each mouthful tastes succulent and moist!

As usual, there are no photos of my friends pigging out as they are shy to be in front of the camera.

I think I will pay Meng Kee a visit at their new location (near Nova Hotel at Jalan Alor) when they reopen in about a week's time.

My Weekends Have Meaning Again!!

Ok Ok... It's another 5/6 days before the new football season begins...

Yes, my Sat/Sun nights have meaning again.

Meanwhile, bookmark this for BPL fixtures --> here.

Weekends are for...

What does one do during the weekend?

DEFINITELY NOT WORK!!!! If you can help it...

Like Snoopy, these days, my weekends are used for me to catch up on the following:

• Sleep (as I sleep between 3-5hrs per day)
• Photography & Photo editing
  
• Blogging
• Watching lots of TV
• Spending time with my Terror Terrier Rascals - Snoopy & Rusty
• Shopping... (if I need to)
• Yum Cha/Lunch/Dinner with friends
• ... Anything-else-I-can-think-of

Hope you folks enjoy the weekend before we head back to the madness which we call our working lives...