Dragonfly

Dragonflies are everywhere, especially near bodies of water – a pond, lake or river. Take a trip on one of Bangkok’s floating market and you’ll come across lots of dragonflies.
They’re one of the hardest to photograph because they move so fast and so small that you actually would do better with a macro lens. But with some help of the crop tool and after a million photos, I finally got a nice one. (well, could do better with the composition, but happy that this turned out pretty sharp).
Here it is.

Guess this contraption

Guess what this contraption is?


Post your answers in the comments section (click on footprints left behind). And the winner will receive a postcard from me!

I C Drugs

The name of a pharmacy in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Mooncake Festival

Mooncake festival, or what is better known as the mid-autumn festival, was on 22nd September this year. It is traditionally the harvest festival in China, but also celebrated by many Chinese descendents overseas. Read more about it in the link provided.

It is a time to eat mooncakes (hence the name of the f estival). The classical mooncake is one made of lotus paste, but now I’m surprised by the many varieties out there in the market, including the popular durian version in Thailand. The traditional ones are becoming rare! And I miss my mum’s homemade ones too.

It is also a time to hang lanterns. A popular thing with kids. While I was young, I remember playing with paper lanterns and some cartoonish ones made with wires and coloured plastic paper. Also a time to play with candles – an excuse to play with fire. These days, lanterns come in so many varieties including battery operated ones!


When lighting lanterns, be careful not to cause fires!

But above all, it is an excuse to get together with family and friends.

Greenwich Meridian (0°)

Greenwich meridian is the start of how we calculate longitude. It may not sound important, but without that we won’t have time or your GPS would not work. This Greenwich is in London and I went there for a visit last month.

Its cool to see where the line begins. It’s marked on the floor (unfortunately there’s a stupid long queue just to take pictures of yourself standing on the line).

Anyway, its still a nice visit as there’s the planetarium, the nice view and nice cool buildings too.



 
 
 

And you can touch the oldest thing on earth! 

I’m in Xinjiang, China

It’s weird that just a few days ago I was enjoying myself on Perhentian Island and driving along the coastal road on the East coast of Peninsula Malaysia. Then I ended up here in Xinjiang province of China, the area that is most remote from any seas or ocean! What next?
Oh, by the way, there’s still no way to get to Facebook or Blogger in China (have tried proxy – but didn’t work!). So, I don’t know if this will get posted. Hope so.

Day trip to Malacca

Malacca (or Melaka in Malay) is a nice place for a day trip. And, of course, as a Malaysia, we travel for food!
First stop, chicken rice balls. There’s always a long line here.

But it was worth it. The place was cool, food was good – even though there weren’t enough “balls”.



After that, some chendol with gula melaka… mmm… what else is better on a hot hot day?

At that time is the ‘chung’ festival too – so the nyonya kind is available.
 
Then you probably see trishaws quite extravagantly decorated (and some with very loud music too) everywhere!

Then you have the creative ones who actually sell advertising space (think of the apprentice!). Smart move.

Wassup meets VatSop!

Finally found a Wat for this blog… meet temple Vat Sop!!

Visit it in Luang Prabang, Laos. :)

Warning, no photos!

A warning sign outside a temple in Laos. Its more than just a sign, look what they threaten visitors with!

That Dam!

There’s a thing called “That Dam” in Laos. I kid you not.

Its a stupa of some sort. “That” means stupa, so its literally called a “Dam stupa”! Anyway, its not a remarkable monument. In fact its just a small roundabout.

Is it day, is it night?

There’s something I like about this picture. First time really trying to play with camera settings to make the afternoon sun look very dark :)

5-star hospital

Medical tourism is a big thing in Bangkok. So, you get a lot of posh hospitals around. Bangkok Hospital is one of them.

 

A fountain greets you when you arrive at the hospital. And you go straight to the International reception where they speak all sorts of language. And there’s even special section that caters for foreigners – like the whole Japanese section (even the TV is playing Japanese shows).

Bell boys help you to carry your luggage.

If you don’t have enough cash, don’t worry, ATMs are available everywhere.

Cafeteria never looked so good.

And if you don’t like cafeteria food, no worries. There’s Starbucks.

Its so big, you may need a tour to see the place.

And if you’re still bored, there’s always other things – museums, art gallery, or even live entertainment!

And if that doesn’t suit you, maybe you can do some exercise and count how many calories you’ve burnt.

 

Wonderful waterfall in Laos

When you go to Laos, particularly at Luang Prabang, you must go to the Kouang Si waterfalls. It would take some bargaining with the tuk-tuk driver, but its well worth spending half a day there particularly on a very hot day. Ok, I don’t have to say anything more, the pictures will convince you better.

Cool eh?

Work work work

I am browsing through the photos taken during the 10-day trip to Kathmandu, Nepal last month. Took 430 photos altogether. Only now I just realised that they’re all work-related photos!

I wanted to take at least some photos with the new lens (uh huh – ultra wide lens), but didn’t have time. Or maybe I just didn’t put in effort to go out. Its been so long since I just take photos that I like (and actually have time to process them). Maybe that is why this blog is slowing down too. Haven’t even been downloading, sorting and filing photos too.

Gotta start doing it sometime… maybe next week.

Here’s a work-related photo from Nepal. Animals, of course.

Not rice fields

Living in Malaysia, you can see rice fields everywhere (maybe not much these days though). So you take it for granted when you go somewhere else and see fields of green. Automatically you think its rice. But then you realise there’s something different about it.

 

 

Its wheat! (in Nepal)