Photo Sharing

Monday, August 24, 2009

My Trip To Ipoh - Perak - Malaysia

Hello my friends, it has been a really LONG while since I last updated my blog. I am not so much a photography enthusist that always carries a camera with me, but I try to practice my skill as much as possible mostly when I travel.

So because of the AH1N1 situation world wide, I have finally cancelled my trip to Bali, Indonesia last August. It was really sad not because I have lost the paid fare, it is more like I have lost an opportunity to travel to foreign country, which I normally do once or twice a year.

But with my very strong interest in travelling, I just gotta go some where, and that some where, happened to be Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia. :)

I left Penang island on 22 Aug 2009 at around 9.30am from my house. Since I am travelling via Jelutong Highway, I stopped by to take my breakfast with my wife. We ordered our usual Fried Koay Teow, and a Wan Tan Mee. We took around 2 hours+ to reach Ipoh by car.

This trip was supposed to be an easy, and relaxing trip. It involved trying out delicious local food and also visiting some of the local attractions there. We finished our lunch somewhere in town, and we went to a few caves and temples. After that, during nite time, we went off to find a nice place for our dinner, it is a placee called Kok Thye Restaraunt somewhere near Jaya Jusco. The restaraunt was recommended by my friend so we dined there ordering 4 dishes : Steam fish (700g), salad pork rib, XL prawns, and a big bowl of see weed soup. :) It was a nice dine, but we ended up too full with the food we ordered. :)

Ipoh also has the ever famous (it is sweet and delicious) pamelo. The price ranges from RM6 to RM12 each, depending on the size. Not to forget the Green House tofu fa. Note that it has moved to a new shop also at town central. We did not try any of the hor hee, hor fun, chicken rice, and stuff because we have taken them before. We did try a few other dishes like sweet and sour prawn rice, pork rib wan than mee, roasted pork chee cheong fun etc. They are all near town central. Also, you may find the portugese egg tart at Genting (not the casino :)), and also the normal traditional egg tart at town central. Next time, I will take a few photos of the food there so that you can have a nice "finger licking good" feeling...hehehe...:)

OK, let me stop here. I am enjoying my cup of Coffee Bean hazelnut latte now, dont want to waste that moment to write too much...hehehe...hope you like the photos. I upload just a few first, will upload more later. See ya and do drop by again and leave me a comment.

I presume this is the "Jiang Tai Gong fishing"

Nice scenery @ Sam Po Tong

Sam Po Tong scenery

Sam Po Tong side entrace of temple compound

Sam Po Tong rear garden

Sam Po Tong entrance walkway...must be a nice day for nap :)

Stone elephant on both sides of the walkway

Aiks...dont remember which temple this is...

My wife...:)

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Deep Sea Fishing

Hi I am back. Must be the fishing trip that made me "fishy" in blogging. :)

Alrite, this time, I would like to share with you the experience we had for a REAL deep sea fishing last Friday (10 Apr 2009).

My last post was about the fishing activity we had on Monkey Beach. It was fun, since I have not done fishing for ages. But, nothing is as good as the deep sea fishing experience I just had. So my friend Hock Khim used to say, if the last fishing trip was considered "fishing", then it was not so real since we went out to the sea to catch fishes that were just 3-6 inches long. So this last one was REAL, real in the sense that we caught fishes that were close to 2 1/2 feet long.

OK, 4 of us in total, took a day off from work last Friday to do deep sea fishing. Of course, that included Uncle Hooi, who owned the boat, steered the boat, and guided us thru the trolling activity. The rest were Hock Khim, my twin brother Alvin, and myself.

We departed from Balik Pulau beach at around 10.30am, and it took us about 30-40 mins to reach the island called Ho Lo Su (in Hokkien). On the way there, the weather was just nice (a little cloudy), and the sea was as calm as a mirror. We could see quite a lot of jelly fishes floating in the sea. Before we reached the rocky island, Uncle Hooi and Hock Khim got the 3 trolling rods ready, and started to drop the lure into the sea, and there was our first round of trolling (wiki : Trolling is a method of fishing where one or more fishing lines, baited with lures or bait fish, are drawn through the water behind a moving boat). And walaa...we got a big Baracuda. :) Everyone was soooo excited, of course, we couldnt stop thinking that it must be our lucky day!!

Alrite, a little side track, Alvin and I dont have any fishing gears. We just brought sandwiches for lunch. :) So all those gears belong to Hock Khim. This guy is a pro in deep sea fishing. He brought 3 trolling rods, and 3 normal rods that we can use for fishing smaller coral fishes.

OK, back to the fishing piece. After we got our first catch, we went to some other spots to get smaller fishes, not because we hoped to get all small fishes, but the rubbish and trash coming down to the sea after last nite heavy rain spoiled all the fun for trolling (we got our lure hooked on rubbishes, which we had to pull the lure back, clear the rubbish, and start the whole trolling activity all over again).

So we did get quite a lot of smaller fishes. You know, Hock Khim gave us the rods tied with 3 apollo hooks each (we used prawn as bait), just enough to get all the smaller coral fishes. Hock Khim reserved himself a rod with big hook, with the fresh Kembong fish meat as bait. And surprised surprised, he got a 2-3Kg Pek Cho (in Hokkien). Damn, I wished he gave me fishing rods with bigger hook. :) Anyway, it was that bad for us with apollo hooks, we got some coral fishes that I brought back to rear in my aquarium now. :) (Yes, that was the whole idea, Hock Khim explicitly said if he did not let me get a few coral fishes to rear, I will kill him!)

Lets cut the story shot, we got 7 and 1/2 big Baracudas, 1 Pek Cho that weighed around 2-3Kg, and loads of smaller fishes, some we let them die in the ice container, and some we let them live in a buckle of sea wather with oxygen pump. :)

Are you curious about the 1/2 Baracuda? Let me tell you what happened. In our process of trolling, we got 1 big Baracuda hooked, we pulled all 3 rods back (1 with the Baracuda, and the other 2 empty), and while we were pulling the hooked Baracuda closer to our boat, there were two more BIGGER Baracudas in flanking position, and walluped 1/2 of the Baracuda body that we caught. By the time it reached our boat, and I was about to pull it up, there were only 1/2 of it left, but it was alive still.

So now you know how fierceful is a Baracuda, if you look at the link I put up there about Baracuda, you can see how big is the jaw and mouth of Baracuda, and they came in school. I cant imagine if I was in the sea, and what the Baracudas will want to do with me. :) Scary eh?

Alrite, just to wrap up, we started sailing back around 4.40pm, because from 3pm onwards, the sea started to be wavy, and wind approached, tiny rain drops washed our tireness, but did not wash away my dizziness. :) hehehe...it was because of the constant focus on cutting the prawn into pieces, putting the bait on hook (remember, 3 hooks per rod), so that really put me close to nauseas. :) So it was time to go home.

Overall, it was a FANTASTIC experience thanks to Hock Khim who arranged this whole thing. I never did this kind of fishing before, and it was my first time seeing 2 1/2 feet fishes on the hook, and yes, I did contributed to the catch. Alrite, let me end this topic with some photos I took with my useless HTC Tytynn II handphone camera. Very bad quality photos, so please do not expect much except the memory and essence. :) See ya again. Do drop by often.

He looks the same like Alfie, sounds the same like Alfie, but he definitely is not Alfie...:)

Hock Khim on the left, and Uncle Hooi on the right. See the rod for trolling...

Hock Khim the fish butcher!! He whacked the Baracudas with wood...

Sitting and posing with STYLE! I mean the stylish hat...:)

Look at the Baracuda we got...nice and yummy...

The first 2 hours of catch...

The 1/2 Baracuda I talked about...poor thing...

Finally, one of the victory catch! :)

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Long Silence

Hello my friends, sorry for the long silence. I have to be honest that the past 3 months or so I have been busy, and of course, there is always a tiny little secret more than just being busy. Yup, I was disappointed, disappointed with the photos I took during my trip to Penang Heritage sites back in Jan 2009. OK, I took pretty lousy shots on that trip, and that demoralized me a lot. Anyway, my friend Arden once told me that there will always be ups and downs in the journey of photography, and I should not give up. Probably today's talk by Arden at his office did wake me up a little, so that I continue my passion in photography and blogging. :) Thanks Arden.

Anyway, last Friday I went fishing with a group of friends. We departed Teluk Bahang, Penang at around 10.30am in 2 boats, went to the middle of the ocean for fishing. The weather was cloudy, and it took around 1 hour before the sky became really dark. We sailed back to the Monkey Beach, just to hide under a hut, waiting for our lunch to be served. To me, the lunch was good, maybe it was due to my hunger. :) We had BBQ chicken, fish, prawn, sausages, and salad. It was raining, and I did a few shots that were very much underexposed. When the rain stopped and everyone got back to the beach, that was when I took most of the candid photos.

Frankly it was my first time to try out taking candid photos. I stood pretty far from my friends, hoping that they would not realize that I was shooting on them. Anyway, with the lower than normal lighting condition, plus the long focal length, ISO 100, plus a little shaky hands I guess, a lot of shots were pretty blury. Quite disappointed actually, but thats what motivate me to start brushing up again and take photo more seriously next time.

Hope you enjoy the following photos. And please dont forget, come visit my blog often, I will try to keep it as alive as possible, and your visit and comment really motivated me A LOT. So you know what to do next rite? :) See ya! -alfie

Little kitty at Teluk Bahang harbor

Finishing bite

Enjoying solidarity...

Wah more food on the table...Come on, eat your watermelon la, dont be greedy :)

Listen guys, here is a BIG PLAN for Malaysia...He likes to tell story :)

Ha...so Malaysia is not that promising huh? :)

He is one happy guy...

Look what we have got!!

Hi Foong Hooi...

I wish...

It must be my lucky day to get this guy to smile...:)

Waiting for boats

Listening...

Going Home...finally

Friday, December 26, 2008

Common Metering

Hi my friends, I am back again. This time I wanted to write something about the common metering used. I have wanted to take a shot of a room without any light but just with a lit candle for some time. :) And my time has come, 2 days ago on Xmas eve, at around 7.45pm, TNB (Tenaga Nasional Berhad - the electricity company in Malaysia) decided to give us a great dark Xmas eve, so my whole house and the neighbouring houses were in total darkness. My grand mother lit a few candles, and she has also passed me one for my room. I took this opportunity and tried out the 2 metering features : Evaluative and Spot, just to show what I have learnt.

Evaluative metering basically is an assessment of the exposure of the whole surrounding that your camera has in scope, it is calculating an AVERAGE exposure of the scene. The candle light is bright by itself and that requires limited exposure hence faster shuttle speed (with constant F3.5 and ISO100), while the surrounding scene is dark. An average evaluation will give longer exposure time (slower shutter speed), and a little overly exposed candle light.

Spot metering assess the exposure required for a particular spot in focus, so when I focused on the candle light itself, since it was bright enough, it did not need long exposure time, hence a very well exposed candle light, but of course, darker surrounding.

Lets take a look at 2 sets of comparison of the below :-

Spot Metering - F3.5, ISO100, 1/3 secs (well exposed candle light)

Evaluative Metering - F3.5, ISO100, 1/2 secs (A little over exposed candle light)

Spot Metering - F3.5, ISO100, 1/30 secs (well exposed candle light)

Evaluative Metering - F3.5, ISO100, 1/10 secs (A little over exposed candle light)

Hope this helps to shed some light to someone that is as new as me, who is just starting to learn more about photography principles. :)

Gotta go now, am enjoying a glass of ice blended coffee at Coffee Bean (R). Merry Xmas & Happy New Year! :)

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Some Old Photos - Sabah (Sept 08) Part I

I was going thru some of my vacation photos this year, and thought it would be a good idea to share with you about my Malaysia-Sabah trip last September 2008. It was a fruitful trip with my wife, and my parents-in-law. Nothing fancy about photography technique, as I was using Auto mode then. :)

We took Air Asia flight from Penang to Sabah-Kota Kinabalu, and from there, we had our day 1 city tour, followed by day 2 islands hopping, and day 3 Kinabalu Park + hot spring. Day 4 was all about Monsopiad (an ancient Kadazan warrior) Cultural Village tour and a little shopping before we flew back to Penang.

Sabah Manukan Island - look at the fishes