Welcome to Malacca

Whenever I visit Malacca, there is a phrase that always comes to my mind and it is "Let's paint the town red!” During my secondary school days, my friends and I love to go to Orchard Road on weekends to have fun and we always tell each other "let's go and paint the town red!” I guess someone in Malacca probably have that in mind too therefore he or she gave the order to paint some of the prominent buildings in Malacca red or reddish brown!

Malacca is a total contrast from the earlier town we visited. It is a more vibrant town, full of tourists and interesting sites to visit. I love the Jonker Street where there's a lot of good food and pasar malam (night market) selling all kinds of interesting hats, shirts, footwear, arts, antiques, toys and so on! There are so many photo opportunities for the shutterbugs.

I took many pictures in Malacca itself and I have a difficult time picking up the pictures to showcase. Even though, I tried my very best to eliminate lots of pictures, I still ended up with 20 plus pictures to share with all of you. I hope you will enjoy viewing the photos I have taken.

Muar, Malaysia

Recently, thanks to my uncle's suggestion and my cousin as a willing driver, I get to go on a day trip to Malaysia - Muar and Malacca! Even though, we set off at 6am, we were caught in heavy traffic for about an hour at the 2nd-link causeway because it was a long weekend. Once we passed the Singapore Custom, it was a breeze going through the Malaysia custom and thereafter it is blue skies and wide open highway all the way to Muar.

We drove slowly and making numerous stops at the R&Rs along the way for drinks, light snags and some photography. It was already 2pm when we arrived in Muar and the town looks pretty deserted even though it was a Saturday! There were shops selling toys that I used to play back in the early 70's and many push-carts and tricycles selling all sorts of cooked food and fruits. Stools and tables were setup along the five-foot way for patrons to enjoy their meals out of the scourging sun.

While we were walking along streets, I realised there were many pink coloured pre-war houses, even the mannequins were dressed in pink outfits and a Malay lady passer-by also wearing a pink tudung! There is a man in pink shirt that came by and told me the building I was photography is more than 80-years-old and sadly I forget to take a picture of him to add to my pink colour collection of my Muar pictures. The bus-stop is very interesting too because it resembles a trishaw and there are traffic lights with count-down display letting the driver know how long more to wait before the light turns green. Oh, how could I forget to mention - the wanton noodle, the otak and the satay are very delicious there too, yummy yummy!!

















Malacca will be featured in my next blog : )

Olive Backed Sunbird

Recently a pair of Olive Backed Sunbirds keeps visiting my neighbour's plant because the flowers are blooming and it gives me a lot of opportunities to photograph these swift birds. Usually they very sensitive, here one second and gone the next. I had often missed them in the past because they always flew away before I could even raise my camera to my eyes. This time round they were so engrossed in the flowers and they simply ignore my existence! Hopefully the flowers will not wither away quickly and the birds could keep coming back! It is a pleasure to watch them in action - hopping from flower to flower, hanging upside down to reach a flower or fluttering their wings and hovering over a flower.

Labour Day Blues

Today is 1st of May 2008 - Labour Day. It is a holiday and a resting day for me. Lately I have been very busy at work so I decided to spend a quiet day at home to catch up with my readings and listening to my favourite country music. The day pass by very quickly and soon it was already 5pm in the evening.

After spending the whole morning and afternoon lazing around I thought to myself that I need to go for a walk to get some exercises. So guess where do I go?

Yup, as some of you might have guess, it's back to my favourite haunt - the Lower Pierce Reserviour. As usual, I packed a camera with my 75-300mm lens and a flash with the tele-extender and off I went. My main purpose is to exercise and not photography so I kept the equipment to the minimum.

I'm glad that I went for this walk because it provides me with the exercises I needed so badly and yet I still managed to capture some pictures and sunset along the way. It turns my Labour Day Blues into a fulfilling day!