Chinese New Year '09: Ipoh

I am back to Ipoh for the first time in 3 years to celebrate the Chinese New Year. For the past 2 years, training had brought me to faraway Aussie land and I was unable to celebrate with families and friends. This year, my training is over and coupled with the unfortunate economic downturn, I am on standby for a long long time before being called up for the next phase. I took this opportunity to meet up all my long lost friends. Little did I know this year is the 10th gathering anniversary for my Form 6 buddies, many of whom I have not met since we left school. Some are attached or married now and some grew from vertical to horizontal size.



Ipoh is a great place for photography. It has many natural limestone hills and unique old colonial/pre-war buildings. One of the famous building is none other than my own school, St. Michael. My photographer buddy Jonsern came down to visit me and he brought along his DSLR. That gave me more reason to head out for some happy triggers. Unfortunately the sky was not so friendly. We woke up to a morning rain showers. Add to our misery, the guard did not let us in. If there's any Michaelians reading this, please help me ask the school admin why old boys are not welcomed back to the school. I purposely chose the weekend so as not to disrupt any school lessons. I explained and even offered my identification card to the guard, yet she chased us out and locked the gate. Oh and she was sleeping initially. We could have just walked in but I chose otherwise and approached her. If tourists and even old boys are not allowed to visit this great building, then I suggest the school being stripped off its Heritage Building status. Why promote the building as tourist attraction when tourists are being turned away at the gate? All my other school friends told me the same story. Not content to leave empty handed, we lurked outside the fence. Amazingly, the rain had given us a rare photography opportunity. The field was flooded and it created a mirror perfect reflection of the building. What an amazing sight!





The Ipoh Padang opposite my school now has a giant flag pole. Otherwise, it looked much the same field I used to play on 15 years ago.





The Kinta River beside my school has now been turned into a riverfront with cafes. I was surprised to find the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge here as well. Wow, super budget holiday to Frisco and Sydney.



The Ipoh railway station offers great pre-war era photo opportunities. It has been featured in many dramas and movies. It was my first time visiting the building interior, after all the years I lived here. What a shame.










The City Hall is as attractive as the railway station. Shooting across from the park, Jonsern managed to capture a superb shot of the building through the water fountain arch. That has got to be the best pic of the day. I had a wonderful time taking pictures here as well because there are many flowers with beautiful backdrop.






Last stop of photography in Ipoh has got to be one of the limestone hills. Didn't want to be trapped with the crowd in common tourist limestone caves, we headed to the more secluded limestone hill + lake + wild greeneries; Gunung Lang. Well, if China has got their Gui-Lin, Ipoh too has got its own. At some areas, it looked almost similar to the real deal.

Mini laptop/Netbook: The Future of Mobile Computing

Gone were the days where consumers have to pay premium price for a small and mobile laptop. Intel has revolutionized the idea of mobile computing when they introduced the Intel Atom. A cost efficient CPU powerful enough to do common tasks. For a mere $599, I can get hold of a mini laptop which is small enough for my convenience of travel and powerful enough for all my mobile computing needs. I've just used it for an hour and I was already impressed with this little gem. Watch out for the upcoming 2nd and 3rd generation of Atom powered mini laptops/netbooks. It will set the future and trend of mobile computing. Out with the big and clumsy laptops.

*Probably the last blog entry before my long Chinese New Year holiday. "Gong Xi Fatt Chai"! Have a prosperous New Year.

US Airways' Miracle Ditching into the Hudson River

This morning, the news flash about US Airways crashes into the Hudson River certainly got my attention, if not the whole world especially pilots themselves. This is because as far a we know, there is only one successful ditching in the world for (modern) commercial airplanes in the history of flying (even then, that Garuda Flight 421 resulted in one death). Most of the rest resulted in disastrous and horrifying crashes. When I read the rest of the news, I sighed with relief that all passengers are safe with only one suffered 2 broken legs. That is really a miracle.

The news reported the A320 suffered total engine failure after takeoff on suspicion of birdstrike. With just 1 minute into the air (total flight time to splashdown was 6 minutes) and reported altitude of no higher than 3200ft, the pilots faced with a daunting task of bringing the plane down safely. For sure there are critics out there asking why the pilots never turn the plane back to the airport. Mind you that they were flying over the New York city and densely populated area. With such little time and low altitude, it could be a repeat of 9/11 crash. I say the pilots did a good job going through the emergency drills in so little time and avoided the populated area. And the ditching itself into water is no small feat. I believe this will make it the 2nd successful ditching of a modern commercial aircraft in the world with all passengers safe.

Now let's just wait what the investigators have to say about this crash. Hopefully there will be an episode in NatGeo's Aircrash Investigation series. Already there are skeptics out there saying this is a conspiracy trying to cover up an attempted terrorist attack. Reason given is there is no bird flying in such cold temperatures; so it could not have been a birdstrike. What's your take on this?






News report: All 155 survive as pilot ditches plane in Hudson
Wikipedia News: Flight 1549

Cycling @ Pulau Ubin

One fine afternoon, we decided to escape the concrete jungle into the real jungle in Pulau Ubin. It was supposed to be a leisure sight seeing cycling trip. Feeling adventurous, we chose the double black diamond track instead; which is the extreme mountain biking track. Our cheap rental bikes couldn't handle the steep track. Ended up pushing the bike uphill most of the time. Then the brakes and tires couldn't handle the downhill as well. And we fell all over into the bushes and off the hill. Came home with a very sore butt, cuts and bruises everywhere and blisters on the hands. The consolation is the breathtaking views of natural jungle and mangrove. Also close sightings of aircrafts taking off from the main island.