Part 3 - First night in Taiwan

Many friends asked how my trip to Taiwan. I would said good but can be better. The idea of DIY Taiwan trip is a good idea. No doubt joining tour package would ease your worry as the whole trip itinerary is pre-planned in advance and just need to follow. But hearing from many friends and my personal experienced, package tour is very rush and they are trying to achieve too many things with limited times.

A friend jokes with me, there is one saying in Chinese but I translated in English, hope it doesn’t deviate from the original meaning. It is how they describe a package tour:-

“Move faster than the horse,

Wake up earlier than the rooster

Eat worst than the pig,

Sleep late than the ghost”

LOL … It means, tour package is very hassle as you need to move around very fast, True!! A friend joined a Taiwan package tour last year and he told me that every single place, they won’t stay more than one hour. They woke up very early in the morning everyday, True!! His trip is the round island tour whereby every night he is sleeping in different hotel, need to packed and unpacked daily. Food is something you canot control, if you are lucky, you would have offered tasty food. Everyone would be exhausted with hectic moving around, sleep late and wake up early on the next day…. hahahaha …

Doing DIY trip yourselves, meaning you dictate what to do next. Time is in your hand and you decide how long you would stay in one place before move on to another place. I notice there is limitation too. Like I said in the beginning, our trip is good but can be better. What I means we may lost track of the time. As we have a free flow itinerary but when we were too enjoy, we have forgotten of the time and run out of time to visit a few important places.

A good example was the viewing of Sakura Flower at Yong Ming Shan, we some more got time to buy hot coffee and snacks at 7 Eleven and doing a picnic at Yong Ming Shan, without noticing the time, by the time we want to take some nice photo, the sky becoming dark. We missed the golden time to captures those beautiful flowers…. doom!! We left with limited times to capture those nice flowers before the sunset. Nevertheless, let me share with you some of the beautiful flower shots.

One of a pre-requisite of a DIY tour is that you must have a local to bring you around. Basing on public transport is not impossible but time consuming. As I go with my whole family and friends, 8 of us, the best way is to hire someone to drive us around. Luckily, I was introduced a local friend, Mark, a driver in Taipei, he is doing “baucer” services, which means chauffeurs.

After we arrived to airport, Mark sent us to a 3 bedroom apartment in downtown Taipei. It is located at Linson Road which is in the heart of the city, few minutes walk to the MRT. I would consider the rental rates are quite reasonable and economical, we stayed there for 5 nights and it only cost us approximately NT475 per person per night.

After check-in, we immediate went out for some nice dinner. That night, the weather at Teipie was so so so cold, it is about 12 degrees Celsius and very windy. We went straight for hot soap dumpling, a place called Ming Nyat, according to Mark, the chef is from the famous Din Tai Fung Dumpling Restaurant, but the price is half of it. So we decided our first dinner in Taipei.

Indeed, the food is so yummy, look at these photos, they are simply delicious.

 

 

Before I went to Taiwan, I'm prepare to enjoy all sort of food there. Partly blame the famous Food T.V programs in Astro, highlighted so much of good food in Taiwan. So, after dinner, (we purposely ate lesser), we then wanted to visit the Shilin Night Market which is famous with all sort of local hawkers food. But Mark suggested the Shilin Night Market is too commercial and really for tourists, it is going to be too crowded. He then brought us to another Night Market that most locals would go, near the TongFa Road, called Lien Jien Night Market. I guess need not to tell, we continue our dinner at the Night Market …… wow!!

One food that we heard so much but hesitate to take is the fermented taufoo, Chow taufoo, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stinky_tofu. As a food adventure, nothing fighting me off, so, the first buy in the market was the chow taufoo. I had eat this before in other place, I remember I can take it, but this round, the odor / chow is very strong, the smell can be sense miles away. Wow … let me eat ,,,,,,,,,, em…. eMMM~!! … ERRR!!

I rushed to one corner, lucky that is a quiet corners and I throw out the taufoo from my month. Walau-eh, so “chow”, the toufoo tasted like longkang (drainage) water. After that, I try again with some of its sour vegies … so beh tahan. I share some with my friend, Ho who later he did the same, oh goosh!!… hahahaha ….. Both of us had a good laugh .. Despite that, we still continue eatting a bit more. Looking at the big bowl of chow taufee, deep inside my heart said, “SeiLoo!! How to finish it”, I wanted to try other food, how can I holding something so chow in my hand and eat other food!!..

So, very rudely, I returned back to the same store owner, tell him that we are foreigner and can’t take the smell, so get his to throw the whole bowl away for us …. What a release!! Get ride this disgusted food … Hahahaha … Nevertheless, I still want to recommend to you, you never try, and you never know … at least I know now how “chow” is it. hahahahaha.

Part 2 Taiwan Trip - Cold weather in Taipei

I was concerning about the weather in Taiwan. Although Taiwan is in Spring season but I Google for it and found out that the temperatures can go as low as 10 degrees Celsius. 

Being a person who stay in a hot humid weather country such as Malaysia, the coldest place is in Genting Highland or Camera Highland ... other than that is my air-conditioning room. Therefore, prior to the trip, I brought my family to buy extra warm clothing.

Extreme cold wings were blowing heavily toward us when we touched down at Taoyuan Airport. Luckily, I have my private transporter (Baucher), Mark who brings us around, he has heated air conditioning in the car, we felt much better staying in a warm car.

Throughout the trip ... as you can imagine!! We continue to experience the cold winds, we have no choice but to buy extra warm clothing. It was reported in TV that there are "Hang Liew", some cold winter air flowing from Northern part of Taiwan.

The temperature in Spring time were up and down with a wide scale, according to Mark. It can goes ass high as 20 degree Celsius and go down as low as 10  degrees Celsius and below. This the reason many people would get flu easily during this period.

Anyway, it was good experience for us .... we were having fun despite the cold weather.

Part 1 - On the way to Taiwan

I was at 40,000 feet up in the sky on my way to Taiwan. The cabin was fully packed with many passengers. I guess is school holidays period that many peoples are joining tour groups to Taiwan. Unfortunate, me and my family were separately seated, my two kids are seated with their mum but I'm was assigned on the other side of the plane ... 

"Ah yoi, it is going to be lonely journey being seating alone." Nevertheless, the young couple seated next to me was friendly and we shared notes about Taiwan. They informed me this is their second visit to Taiwan and they planned for 14 days .. wow! it is long holidays!! I plan for 6 days only.




I chat with them in the whole journey, they DIY their trip, but they were going to the central and southern part of Taiwan. I was more focus at Taipei and the its surrounding places.

We exchanged travel information, thank to them, I managed to get some more extra information for my trip. With good company, time fly without notice, we were reaching Taiwan ....

I am starting visioning what to do when touch down in Taiwan ... hahahaha..

Taiwan, here I come ....

Another one week time I will be visiting Taiwan … It feels great when has opportunity to travel. Being busy with my works and high expenses, I don't have spare time or cash to travel frequently.

I wish I could pack and go anytime because we sometime get irresistible low fair promotion from Airasia or MAS.

With kids around, need to accommodate their schooling, we can only travel during school holidays or public holiday. Generally, these period means extra surcharge and expensive trips. 

Neverthless, I am taking the opportunity to bring my family to Taiwan in this March school holidays.

Well, I am counting now, another 6 more days .... Taiwan, here I come !!! …hahahaha…

Photo Walk at Putraya and Night Photography

Finally, I managed to squash some time off to write something about my T.T on March 5, 2011. After a solid 12 hours journey of photography T.T, I am damn tired and exhausted. My friend, Yeow proclaimed he felt sick on photography and seeing photo, he felt like vomiting, walau, so serious ARrrrr… !!? I think he got himself over-dosed and having indigestion of photography. Hahahaha ….

I started the T.T as early as 12 pm, then at 5 pm, the workshop started and the session ended until 12 am midnight, a solid 12 hours non-stop in T.T … What a record breaking for me!

In my earlier post, I told you I'm attending a Night Photography Workshop at Putrajaya on March 5, 2011. The workshop is starting from 5 pm at Maritime Restaurant, Putrajaya. But few of us, Yeow, MK, DLC and I decided to do some daytime photo shooting. So, we meet for lunch at Gong Xi restaurant at Puchong, after lunch we started our journey.

The first place was the famous mosque at Putrajaya… the place crowded with many people especially tourists. As we wore the typical T.T dress code - T'shirt and tiga suku short pant, without proper attire, so we cannot go in. Any, I also don't feel like going in too. We just hanging around the entrance and took some nice photos.

Yeow, being the street photo expert, was paying more attention on the people than anything else. He and DLC, were having fun times "interacting" or "chasing" after some kids at the entrance. Luckily, they meet a super friendly parent; they were okay to let the two KOKOs to play with their kids ….  

Then, we walked around despite under hot sun, It was a mistake as we forgotten to bring sun block lotions, we all ended up suffer sun burn for staying too long under the sun.

We drove surrounding putrajaya for photo shooting. One thing about Putrajaya, you can find many beautiful buildings. Some of the shot turn out to be awesome …..

At 5 pm, we went to Maritime restaurant; it is located at the lakeside whereby you can find people having boat ride and water sports. You will find a jetty and noticing some small yachts parked there.

Toward the evening, other Pen lovers were slowly showing up. The workshop sifu, David Chua started off the session. I basically did not pay too much attention, because feeling tired and hungry. I think I remember a few important pointed for night photography. The most important thing is to do a lot of practice. BTW, at least this time, Olympus is kind enough to provide dinner and I found the food is acceptable.

After dinner, the climate of the session was the practical time. We all gather in small group and giving opportunity to practice some night photography techniques that we learned from David… it was fun especially when we try the light painting …I truly enjoy the shooting despite I felt tired.

Generally, I consider someone so called "elder" (I don't use older .. LOL) and started feeling tired, I guess sometime when you went out with younger people, you need stronger stamina to "tahan". Despite getting late at 12 am midnight, they wanted to have supper, walau, so we went together to cyberjaya for food, afterall, I was feeling hungry too… After food, they stayed on to chi-chat but I went off earlier to rest. I cannot fight with these young people liu, they are so energetic … J

If you want to see more, please click at my photo album at flickr :

Putrajaya, I am on my way ...

I am looking forward for my Saturday off tomorrow because I have signed up an Advance Night Photography workshop with Olympus. The workshop sifu is my friend David Chua, who is quite well known in the photography cycle. The venue of the workshop is at Putrajaya, which I believe is an excellent location for night photography.

Malaysian Government had spent millions of Ringgit to build up this township because it is the central administration of all government offices, includes the Prime Minister's department. The landscaping and building architecture design were beautiful constructed due to the important of this place.

Although I have been to Putrajaya a few times for business matters but never had a chance to see this beautiful township due to my busy schedule. I was basically rushed in and out …

It would be a great opportunity for me to see this place in detail (and through my camera viewfinders.. hehehe), especially at the areas for leisure and tourist attractions.

To get a better look at Putrajaya, a few friends and I will go there much earlier, after lunch, we will be there to capture some daytime photos. I believe the daytime photo as compare to night would give a different prospective. So, I am planning to be there a whole day.

Okay, wait for a couple a day later, I will upload some photos for you to view if you are interested.. stay tune and let keep in touch ~~

Bye.

Photography at KLCC

Last month, I went for de-stress shutter therapy at KLCC. KLCC / Petronas Twin Tower is the landmark of Kuala Lumpur, it used to be the tallest building in the world but over taken by Taipei 101, Taiwan. However, I think it's remained as tallest twin towers in the world.

It was my first time taking night shot on KLCC and I kind of happy with the result.

This photo is one of my favorite, it was taken before dawn whereby the hour just about the sunlight went off but remaining some light over the sky... The colour of the sky becoming very dramatic tone and the building light was just on. I was using Olympus Pen EPL-1 with kit lens 14-42mm. The photo was taken with Pin-hole Art Filter which made the photo like seeing through a hole.

Almost every evening, people crowded in KLCC Park, the park consists of jogging and walking path. The surroundings were planted with many trees. There is a pool with water fountain and light show at the park. I can see many people especially those "love-birds" love hanging around and seated surrounding the pool. 

Well, it is a wonderful place that can chi-chat with friends or loved ones. I saw many people were having enjoyable time relaxing at the pool side.

I notice two unique person with beautiful dye hair calour, I think they are fan for the cosplay or costume play that dress up like the cartoon or comic characters. They were friendly and allowing me to take their photos.

Finally the sun went down and night approaching, KLCC becoming the centre of attraction for the whole KL due to its lighting. From far end, we could see the building, it was stunning to stand near below and look up. It was so beautiful and I notice many other photographers were busily capturing the building.

The shopping center at KLCC has becoming lively. Shoppers are everywhere busy buying their favourite goods. The light reflection from the pool was simply wonderful. I purposely turned the photo up side down so that you can see how beautiful the reflection of the KLCC .

It will not deem complete if you visit Malaysia without seeing this awesome building.

CNY Photography Session

Today is my last working day before the Chinese New Year .. Hey, I said is last working day before CNY okay!! Not just last day hor. I need to clarify before some genius might think that I'm leaving the company LOL ( >< !!)

Everyone in the office (especially Chinese) is showing sign of relaxation and already no mood to work. Body is still in office, but the mind and soul have gone someway far far away ...

For those who need to balik kampong, by now, they either on their way home or have reached their kampong already. With all these people exodus from Kuala Lumpur, people like me would have a wonderful time in KL because not many cars around. It is going to be smooth drive in KL for at least one week time ...

We Chinese take this auspicious occasion seriously. About one month ago, you would see many CNY decorations on the streets and shopping malls. Peple love buying things relating to "good fortune", such as red lantern, flowers, picture of fook (is a mandarin word similar meaning of prosperity) or some charater of "Chua San" (god of prosperity)....

Even banks were crowded with people, people are rushing to bank to exchange with new currency notes for Angpow ... I also got difficult to exchange note whereby I need to visit another bank ..

Despite my busy schedule for the preparation of CNY (actually nothing much), I took time off to snap some photographs on CNY surrounding KL....especially the shopping complex....

Poeple love this character ... they believe money will come from him as he is the god of richness...

This is for Lion Dance ... the head was beautiful decorated ....



Look at our Malay friends, they too are enjoying in this auspicious festival.



This year is the year of rabbit ... for those who believe in it will definately find out what is their fortune in the year of rabbit.



Many red lanterns were hang at Pavillion ...beautiful.




Sunway Shopping Mall decorated with Chinese Opera theme.



Eveywhere were decorated with red color.



Check out the miniature people ... the diorama Art Filter had made the top and bottom part of the photo blur ...  



To view more photos, you may click on the photo and it will link you to my flickr.

T.T Session with PEN LOVER group in KL

Time passes very fast. Another 9 days before Chinese New Year. People are busy doing shopping in this festive season. Shopping malls are crowded with people. However, my company hasn't declare Bonus, so I have to wait a bit longer (or patient) and do last minute shopping. I'm still sing the song, "right here waiting ~~".

Recently, I joined a T.T outing on 22 Jan 2011. This group called PEN LOVER, a social group in facebook. The outing trip is not for sightseeing or eating, but is for photography outing. We called it T.T session because the word was originated from teh tarik session but now it has becoming a name referring as photography shooting session.

The PEN LOVER group consists of talented photo enthusiasts who love photography. The prerequisite condition to join this group is to own Olympus Camera, mainly the Olympus PEN series, i.e, model EP1, EP2 and EPL-1, and now the newly launched EPL-2 had also joined in recently.

After I bought my new toy, Olympus EPL-1, I took the Olympus workshop and meet up with the trainer - David Chua, thru his contact, I knew a few other photo enthusiasts in the group and now they had becoming my friends. I was also being “poisoned” by them, from a normal camera user becoming a "so called" photo enthusiast.

T.T session is organized on a regular basis. I missed the last Pulau Ketam T.T in December 2010 due to work commitment. Henceforth, when they organized the T.T outing on 22 January 2011, I told myself "mati-mati" must find time to attend. So, I scheduled my alternate Saturday off day so that I could attend the session.

Finally the day had arrived …. Early in the morning, we meet up at Sadium Medeka car park at 7.30 am, Walau!! that means I have to wake up as earlier as 6.30 am, this is crazy because even my normal day, I don't wake up as such time, it is dam early .… Anyway, if this is not called enthusiasm, I don't know what else should I called ...

For the first time I meet up with other PEN LOVER gangs. Although we used to chat with them on fb, but this was the first time we meet face to face. Needless to say much, with similar interest and common subject matters, we were becoming friends easily, check out the photo taken in Stadium Medeka.



David was giving briefing. He was kind enough to lent out his lenses to every body.





KY, TJ and Yeow were busy discussing their favourite topic - Camera!!



First thing, we need to do is to look for breakfast, so we took a group photo before we went and look for food …

 

Group Photo taken by David Chua.

Since among our group has Malay, so we are looking for halal mama shop nearby Petaling Street. The journey from Stadium Medeka to Petaling Street (Chinese Town) was quite nearby but we have taken a long time to reach there. It is because we all busy shooting photo on the journey. We stop and shoot, then shoot and stop..… anything along the way had become our victim, be it a tree, people, building and even a leaf etc .. .they all becoming our target… LoL.



Just a simple tree along the tree but turned out refreshing in an early morning.





With Depth of Field between blur and sharp - made the photo looked nicer.



Even in the restaurant, we are having fun. David had a friend who joined us, the only different is that he is a Canon user, as if the only human in the alien Planet Mar, he obviously being the victim target by all the aliens…

Look at his poor Canon, being surround by the enemies, Olympus cemeras. I think this is the first history in Malaysia that the Canon was out number by the Olympus. hahahaha..



Photo taken by Robin Wong



Even the owner of Canon, being surrounded by the Pen lovers … He became our shooting target…. LOL. Look how enthusiastic and patriotic about the brand name.. haha. BTW, we do enjoy each other company and just a few "kids" are having fun there ...

After the breakfast, we have broken into smaller group to walk around KL. I joined Yeow’s group that covered the Majlis Jamek routh… Yeow was a nice guy, he lending his beloved panny lens to me, the Panosonic 20mm f1.7 pancake lens. And he change heart his belove (pass it for me to molest... ><"). He was using his new love (see how fast man change heart), the Pentax Lensbaby of 25mm f1.4…





wow.. The Panny is really a good lens with wide aperture. The subject is sharp and clear. Because of the larger aperture which is f1.7, the bokeh (background) of the photo is excellent, it becoming blur blur feel….

They all tease me for being poison by Yeow … because I felt like buy one for myself…

If you own a mirco four third camera, you many consider this lens. Although it is Panosonic, but it work well with Olympus Pen camera. You may check some of the photo in flickr that to see how great is the lens.

The journey is very fruitful, I have too hundred over picture and I have selected to post in the flickr. If you are interested, please just click one of the photo up there and it will link to the site.

Enjoy!!

My Mother - My Love.

Today is 13th day of January 2011. Time flies and will not reverse anymore, no matter how hard you try! My last blog post was in Christmas and then everything seem to be THE END for me. I don't feel like writing a single word. Although deep inside me keep telling me to write something, .... take action and don't just thinking about it.... But the other me keep telling me not to do so, why boarder to write, anyway, nobody will read my blog!!!

From the time of Christmas until now, an event had happen, that cause me great pain and sadness.....even until now, my heart still mourn and grieve. I lost someone special - my Mum. She rested in peace with the Lord, she leave us on 30 December 2010, one day before the end of 2010. For a Christian, we have HOPE, bible clearly tells us that she has gone back to the Lord, she just asleep and one day, when Jesus comes back, all who have asleep will be called and wake up and meet Him in the heaven. I believe one day I will meet her again in heaven. That the promise of God for those who believe in Jesus and accept Jesus in his/her life.

But some how, pain remained there.... Although I no longer cry but tears remained in the heart because I really miss her tremendously. Especially at night when no one around ....

Anyway, life goes on .... if your mum is still with you, don't take for granted, love her as much as possible while you can.

Can I have a second chance?