The Forgotten Life

Redang Island 2011

2012-01-30T11:28:00.000+08:00

Wow, this is old. I went to Redang Island last April 2011 but only to post about it now.

I do miss Redang. How can I not enjoy something so beautiful? See it for yourself below.

Hopefully we can make it to somewhere this year.

For full story, visit part 1 here, part 2 here and the final part here.

Friends' Weddings

2012-01-27T21:06:00.000+08:00

I've attended quite a number of weddings in the past months. Only a few that I have captured them in picture as a memory. The rest? Maybe because I'm just pure lazy or the condition doesn't permit to.

Since I'll be attending a few more weddings in coming weeks and I think there'll be more photos to capture, here goes the previous weddings photos. Hope you like it!

Life, How I See It At The Moment

2012-01-25T17:50:00.000+08:00

My last post just a short one about the return of my camera from repair. Since then, lot of things has changed.

CAMERA

Let's take a look what left of the camera.

I've sold off my SB900 speedlight.
Also sold off 18-200mm lens.
Left with D300 body & 50mm lens.
And beloved Manfrotto & Canon tripod.

Hurm, I think that should be just enough to take a good quality of picture for the time being. Sold the 18-200mm because aren't satisfied with the image quality. Yes it might be very useful for the whole range of zoom, but I can't be bothered anymore with the zoom. I just can't stand to see bad quality of image being taken with it.

As of for the speedlight, day after day it's hardly comes into good use. Might as well put it off first before the price dropping further. I found the love for natural light even more. That doesn't mean my purchase comes to a waste. I learned a lot about lighting when it's around. Something that I won't somewhere else.

LIFE

But then, things that has changed are not just camera, also life as a whole. Priority, responsibility, hobby, interest and so much more.

Take a look at the ticker at Mari Et Femme, it's been a good 1 year & 4 months of being married. It surely are not the same as before.

Before married, I consider myself as one of the particular person in managing self. But at some point of time, it seems that I've quite lost at managing self. Perhaps because of the excessive gaming.

Alhamdulillah, it's never to late to realize things. Hope I can rearrange everything back to track. Because something BIG is coming.

InsyaAllah.

Currently, I'm learning to play guitar. I do feel good to be able to learn playing guitar properly. It's been in the wishlist since forever.

And few things that I wish I could spend more time on

ibadah
exercise, sports
racing simulation (cars)
photography (capture, editing)

The Camera: Return

2011-08-07T12:36:00.004+08:00

Finally, kamera dah pulang dari SPA yang mahal gile. Tuan punya pun tak pernah pegi SPA mahal-mahal.

Tapi, nampak gayanya a lot of new things have been replaced. Yang pecah last time pon dah diganti. *Sparkling brand new* LOL

Malfunction Camera

2011-07-04T10:24:00.000+08:00

My camera did dropped last two years during a friend wedding and cracked but nothing happen to him. Still working strong and being kind to me for more than two years!

But one fine day, just after an outing the day before he decides just to not functioning well. I don't know what happen but all of sudden the aperture doesn't seem to behaving properly.

Sent to shop for a service, charged rm45 for check up. Still no news of what will happen next.

Dear camera, please be kind to me. Pergi SPA tu jangan mahal-mahal ok.

Kuala Lumpur Lake Garden

2011-05-26T10:50:00.000+08:00

I'm not a frequent runner, just casual. But time to time, I do loves to spend time at a park for its comforting scenery with some light running. Lake garden is located at the heart of Kuala Lumpur. I do find it much more interesting compare to Titiwangsa Lake.

There's a lot of things to do from jogging, playground for kids, parks, variety of gardens, memorial, etc.

The jogging track is not that large but just a little bit larger compare to Titiwangsa Lake, around 3km perhaps. Most of the route is shaded with trees. That's the best of it, especially when there are breeze of winds.

As for gardens, they have tons. I lost count on how many they have and don't even finish tour all of it. If you feel tired to tour on foot, they provide carriage but I'm not sure if it's charged or FOC but I believe it's the later.

At one of the secluded area, to my surprise they have a memorial of Tun Abdul Razak and it's well taken care off. It's a nice Malay heritage house setting.

Perhaps I'll cover more picture of the area on my next visit. There's too much things around there which I think every each of it deserve own place in this blog.

At the moment, please head to my Flickr HERE for more photos.

Model & Portraiture Photography - The Reality

2011-05-20T10:41:00.000+08:00

Nowadays, I'm kind of sick of people that took model / portraiture photography and claim it as an art when in actual, there's no art in it. All I can see is an abuse of a beautiful lady posing sexily. It's hard to find a true gem that really take a good model / portraiture photo.

Worse, other people will enthusiast to comment, "Great photo!", "Nice!".

I'm not saying I'm good in those, that's the reason I'm not claiming of any model photo shoot. I'm embarrassed even to show it to public.

Anyway, here are the first ever that I dare to give it a try. Appreciate some positive feedback :)

Hope you guys enjoy this. Thanks!

Don't forget to visit my Flickr HERE.

Revamping The Blog

2011-05-12T16:36:00.000+08:00

Below is my most interesting photo according to my flickr here. It's hard for me to digest how interesting that photo is. I for once thought that was the worst photo I ever captured.

Any opinion?

I think I'm quite near to finalize my blog layout, theme, and content.

Still considering to add few more things at the side.

Appreciate any comments / feedback from design expert out there on what can be improve further.

Just for the fun of it,

please vote two polls at the side.
star rating at below of each post.
or just leave a comment

Thanks a bunch!

Kuala Lumpur Bird Park

2011-05-06T12:25:00.003+08:00

"World's Largest Free-flight Walk-in Aviary" is not just a hype. The bird park is large!

It took us 3 full hours of casual walk around the place. I'm quite impressed, sore feet and tired.

But there's a limited variety. Our entrance is greeted by a group of peacocks.

We walk across the pathway and can see lots of free flight birds, but there a group of peacock.

We walk around a little more and there some peacocks AGAIN.

I can say you can spot a peacock around half of the park area.

Never the less, it's a good place to visit. The surrounding is comforting and calm. All the stress that we gathered over the week is easily drained away.

For more photos, please click HERE

Teluk Batik, Lumut (Manjung), Perak

2011-04-24T23:52:00.004+08:00

I'll be missing this place soon. It will be less reason for me to visit it as my parents won't be here anymore.

First time I've been to this place perhaps in the year 2001. That's when parents move there. I'm impressed with this town. It has a beautiful landscape and comforting feeling, compare to my previous hometown.

But I'm not that much impress with the beach as I've seen a lot better. But Teluk Batik is surely the most famous attraction around here.

In the early time, there's really nothing in Teluk Batik. People just went there to have a swim, relaxing and spent time with friends and family. I seriously can't think of anything to do there. No water sports, no games, no snorkeling. Oh, there's camping site or maybe beach bury but that's all.

And that's the reason I'm not an avid visitor to this place despite friends around me do visit it quite frequent.

I gave a visit few months back and to my surprise, a lot has changed since my last visit. The already have offering of some water sports activity (banana boat, flying fish). Baywatch tower for security. Increase in visitors.

If any of you ever come around there, make sure to drop by. Your time will definitely worth while spent.

So long, till we meet again Teluk Batik.

For more photos, please click HERE

Twin Towers @Live 2011

2011-04-11T12:16:00.000+08:00

Do I always listen to music? Yes.

Do I love music? Yes, so much!

Do I always went to concert? No, this is my first time. Just to get a hang of it.

Do I love concert? Maybe. Not so much. And that depends.

What kind of concert it that might get your interest? I don't know. But the thing is, maybe I really don't belong to the crowd. Everyone is singing and jumping, and jumping, and jumping! But I'm there static trying to enjoy the music. Totally not suitable and definitely not belong to these crowd and these kind of concert.

Perhaps some more relaxing concert just to enjoy the music more suitable for me.

Here the only thing that I found a bit interesting that night. Bunkface surely a good performer.

Had a great time spent with wife! :)

Kellies Castle, Batu Gajah

2011-04-11T10:21:00.001+08:00

I have a vivid childhood memory of a Kellie's Castle and guess what? It's reading a ghost story book title Kellie's Castle. What a good memory.

The story is not that horror though.

I live in Perak for more than 10 years already.

I studied nearby there for 4 and half years. Passed by the road for quite a lot of times. Heard from friends about their good time trips to the castle. And guess how many times have I visit the place?

NONE!

I can't believe myself I never visited the castle all these while.

But I had a chance to visit the castle last December. That's because I'm attending a friend wedding which is nearby and also on my way back to my parents home.

The architecture is nice. No horror feeling of being there. Perhaps because I visited the place in a broad day light. LOL.

But aside from the architecture view and the so call history it left, it doesn't interest me that much.

Oh but wait. Maybe it can be a perfect spot for a outdoor photography sessions. I'm encountered with three newly married couples doing outdoor photography during my stay there.

Here another picture of the fine building.

For more please click HERE

Wireless? Maybe not

2011-04-07T09:55:00.000+08:00

We've been told that today is a world of wireless. No more tangling of wires.

In reality, how is that any true?

Every morning I come to the office, I would start to power up my laptop.

Guess how many wires I need to plug in?

One? No. Two? Nah.

Three? Stop guessing.

I need to plug in freaking FIVE cables every morning. Plug it out every freaking evening after work.

And that for my laptop only. Should I count for other device? And for other time? Let's say I need to take my laptop for a meeting. Hurm. That will double it!

How is that for wireless?

p.s. Maybe life is not meant to be wireless. Our mind is always wired. Bad things happen when the wiring goes haywire. No?

Blogging engine, Blogspot or Wordpress?

2011-04-06T16:31:00.000+08:00

It's been for quite a number of years I stick to Wordpress platform for blogging. That's all thanks to how flexible the platform is and how easy it is to manage your post and all.

And after all these years satisfied with Wordpress, I changed to Blogspot again.

The only contribution factor for my migration is only because Blogspot has a very good template management. You can customized the layout, the color and almost anything out of the fly in a very simple way.

Contradict to Wordpress. Yeah, some would say Wordpress template engine is powerful, but that's it. Too many hassle. I need to dig the code just to change how many column that I want.

With Blogspot, I just need to give it a click and done!

I'm really surprise how far Blogspot have gone since I left it few years back.

And to make a comparison between these two engine, I do feel like Wordpress is kind of bloated with plug-ins to get things done and hard to manage especially if self hosted (if you want to have your own domain).

With Blogpsot hosting, you can freely select your own domain without even have to worry about hosting and the technicality side of it.

Am I getting older that can't dive much all these technical issue or am I losing interest in it?

Guess that having a lot to do and less time to worry about things that suppose to just work really explain it all.

p.s. Sometimes, we need something that just work.

Jeans Wear, Seriously?

2011-02-25T18:41:00.000+08:00

In a meeting few days back, volunteer for company team building. Somebody throw a question, “What is the attire? Can we wear jeans?”

I’m shocked. It’s like, “What?! Are you serious?”. Yeah, I didn’t ask that.

But then, are you people serious?

I’m not sure what is so great about jeans wear. It’s tight, uncomfortable, heavy, hassle. Do you think it’s kind of stylish to wear jeans?

Come on people.

Do you really think that it is so stylish to wear jeans wherever you go? It’s totally not stylish. Not when everyone wears jean. It’s so.. Hmm what do we say.. COMMON.

Okay, style might not be the reason.. What exactly makes people really LOVE to wear jeans wherever they go like that’s the best attire in the world. Sometimes I do feel like there are some cults for jeans.

Talking about jeans even make me vomit when to know that there are people who never wash their jeans, ever!

Anybody care to enlighten me, please?

p.s. There are lot to learn in life. At some point when you think you know it all, in split second you’ll know you aren’t when you turn you head around.

Sekali Sekala Kebosanan Melanda

2011-02-24T18:35:00.000+08:00

I don’t know what happen. The wave comes and goes. Sometimes it’s hard for me to digest.

To say that I’m super busy is totally not. In the office, spent most of my time thinking, or maybe dreaming. And there is just a little things here and there to do.

Lack of motivation to do something? Nope.

Just lack of proper things to do.

And at home?

Recently, spent a lot of time playing games at home.

I used to write more and this totally feels like not me. (I think I’ve said this quite a lot in this blog)

p.s. Life might seems like easy but it’s not. On the contrary, life might seems like hard but it’s not.

Gaming Experience - XBOX 360 Slim 4GB Kinect Bundle

2011-01-28T20:00:00.000+08:00

I never buy any gaming console and in my life, I never really a gamer. In the old days, as far as I can remember I did only play Warcraft on PC (still not console). Specifically DoTa map and that’s all! That was in 2005 – 2008. Dated earlier, I really have no experience with game console or gaming in general.

In 2009, I got a PSP courtesy to lucky draw during one of company dinner. I got stuck to it for a while and that doesn’t last long. I just play PSP casually.

For quite a while, my wife always mention how great is her experience playing Wii. She would love to have Wii but I just keep silent. I’ve tried Wii once in 2008 when a friend bought it. I don’t think Wii is any better compare to Kinect as Kinect don’t require any remote control. Full body tracking is so much better, right?

With surprise, I bought this from Play Asia last December for my wife birthday (yeah, together for me to play) and it comes well packaged. As I don’t own any previous console, my first impression is that it’s quite big for such a ‘Slim’ name.

As of now, we only has Kinect Adventures which comes in the package and additional Kinect Sports.

I find that I love Kinect Sports so much and realize I’m the one who ended up play it more compare to my wife.

Still waiting for Dance Central and Your Shape: Fitness Evolved to arrived. This really take a long time. :(

For more photos of XBOX 360 Slim 4GB Kinect Bundle, please click HERE!

Friend’s Weddings

2011-01-27T19:29:00.000+08:00

Last year mark as the year most of my friends getting married and most of it clashed with each other. I had the chance to attend only a few.

All the weddings that I attended are really lovely. Each of them are wonderful!

Khairil & Zaiti – The couple looks really like king and queen of a kingdom on the day! All hails!

Fiza & Spouse - The wedding really shows the tradition with martial arts and the striking red theme. A warrior indeed.

Fadhil & Intan – The wedding is soft, easy to the eyes and calm.

Amirul & Nadia - The most unique wedding I ever attended. The color combination is rare! I hardly find any wedding with nice brown theme.

Pending Edit and Publish

2011-01-25T06:57:00.000+08:00

Finally! I just finished browsing through the stack of photos shot past few months. With that I realized there are too many sessions still pending for edit and publish.

Let’s listed them down first (without any particular order)

Weddings (I’ve attended quite a number of friend’s wedding namely Kerel, Intan and Fiza)
Kellies Castle, Ipoh
Teluk Batik, Lumut
XBOX Kinect
KL Bird Park, Kuala Lumpur
Lake Garden (Taman Tasik Perdana), Kuala Lumpur

Phewwww! That’s really a long list to complete, but let’s see how fast I can do it.

Oh, which one should I start with first?

p.s. Life is just so wonderful, but you won’t know about it until you found some misery.

Beginning of 2011

2011-01-08T03:35:00.000+08:00

Is it something to look forward to? Sure.

How was is so far? Not so good.

What do you wish for? I hardly have any new year resolution thingy.

____

That’s all a little update for new year. And again I changed back to previous theme. Old habit hard to let go right? I still fond to the concept of ‘one column big picture’ layout.

It’s easy to the eye, attractive, and self satisfying! And the most important of all is the last one. :P

I guess I’ll start over (not so much of start over, just to be more active) in photography. I found that I’ve left it for quite some times. I still hold my camera once in a while, but nothing serious.

And with this come back of previous theme, I hope I can post more of a quality pictures.

And let’s hope. Amin.

p.s. Generally there’s no such things as bad job, only bad attitude. But then the job still sucks rite?

Bali, Indonesia Trip – Day 4 & Day 5

2010-12-07T19:50:00.000+08:00

Here comes the best part of it. Or maybe the worst part of it? HAHA!

On the forth day, we spend the day doing water sports. We did parasailing, flying fish and snorkeling. In addition to the package, there is so call glass bottom boat tour and turtle island visit.

It’s my first time for all the activities and I would say it did turn out so bad. Parasailing and flying fish is all great but my day just ruined because of the snorkel. I had hard time snorkel as the wave is quite harsh and the water is not clear.

I ended up feeling dizzy. And that’s all for my day. But the trip actually didn’t end just yet. We still has glass bottom boat and turtle island visit in schedule.

Glass bottom boat and turtle island visit is really frustrating. The so call glass bottom boat is actually the same boat that we ride for snorkel. Yes, the bottom of the boat has glass that can see through but thanks to the bad water, we hardly see anything underneath it.

The turtle island is nothing spectacular. It’s actually not a landing spot for turtle to hatch their eggs. It’s more of a place artificially made to exhibit turtle for tourism sake. I don’t know if others really believe in that crap or it’s us who don’t know how to appreciate things.

I believe turtle center in Malaysia do provide much more REAL experience than here. Furthermore, it’s not really an island of turtles! They just take us on a ride with boat to the other side of the land. What a scam!

Okay, I really don’t have any photo to show you all. Thanks again to the dizziness after snorkeling.

Overall? That’s not a good day for me but parasailing definitely GREAT! Just that I wish it can be longer. A very short fly.

And I guess that sums up the trip to Bali. Day 5? We spend the day at the villa and relax before check out. :P

p.s. I’m not sure if I ever want to go there again. Maybe not.

Bali, Indonesia Trip – Day 3

2010-11-24T19:03:00.000+08:00

I’m getting lazy to update about Bali trip. But here comes the installment number 3.

On the second day, we decided to hire local tour guide for tour to Kintamani Volcano. They claim it’s something not to be missed once in Bali. We thought, why not since we already here and don’t know what to do right? So here we are on the third day. Touring Bali.

For USD30, we got private tour local tour guide, private car, with everything covered includes parking, fees, etc. In addition it’s not just Kintamani Volcano tour, it’s also a lot of stop by to Barong & Keris Dance, visit to silver and gold processing village, wood carving village, luwak (fox) coffee processing village, terrace paddy sight seeing and Obyek Wisata Temple.

In each village there are lot of same processing center next to each other. When they say it’s wood carving village, you really got to see wood carving center everywhere along the road.

Barong & Keris Dance

We have to pay some extra fees to enter here because it’s not included in the package. Just because it’s on the way and we thought maybe we give it a try since Barong & Keris Dance quite famous here more or less like Kecak Dance famous.

I don’t find it amusing at all but my wife like it. She says that the costumes are cute! Definitely not to my liking and furthermore it’s actually their religion and ritual dance based on Hindus myth, Ramayana something I guess. The performance story about good and evil. How should I appreciate something that is totally different from my faith?

The stage is open air and it’s kind of hot. It’s not comfortable to be there for an hour especially with a premium entrance fee we have to pay for.

Here comes the good and the evil which I can’t remember their name. Which one is good which one is evil? Can you guess?

Silver & Gold Processing Village

I don’t have anything to say as there is really nothing to say! There are not much information on how they process the silver and there are nothing about gold processing at all. They only have vast selection of finished silver product for sell which is finely crafted. Too bad we don’t fancy silver that much. So we leave after about 5 minutes without nothing, not even picture :P

Wood Carving Village

Up to this point, we already get tired of seeing Hindus statues. Not, not that I’m racist, hate them or anything. It’s just too many and everywhere. It’s like when you have sandwich for every meal, you somehow get tired of sandwich right? We don’t have the heart to see further but I would say Balinese is really an artist. It’s beautiful and fine.

Kintamani Volcano

We stop here for buffet lunch facing Kintamani Volcano. Food? Not good, not good at all. Super expensive. The restaurant pretends to be exclusive but in actual it’s not. The view? Okay lah.

Luwak Coffee

I’m surprised here. I don’t know that luwak coffee is such a phenomenon. It sells for more than USD1k for a hundred gram. A small cup of coffee cost freaking USD5!

The coffee fruit is selected by luwak (Indonesia language for fox) and has gone through their digestion system. The coffee been cannot be processed by luwak digestion system and excreted. It’s then processed normally as other coffee.

The luwak coffee taste less bitter and much more richer. If you ask me either it worth the premium price tag, I would say normal coffee is fine by me. I can’t really feel the different.

At the center, they also served visitors free variety of drinks to taste.

Terrace Paddy

For this part, I believe words won’t do any justice. Photos will describe it better.

Obyek Wisata Temple

In the temple, there is pond said to be the source of holy water.

Then we stop for solat. Our tour guide is very understanding and really doing good in providing place for us to perform solat.

Don’t be fool by the small entrance. The masjid is actually very comfortable and proper. But it’s hard to find masjid around here.

We end our trip for the day doing some shopping for souvenir at Ole-ole Bali.

Clear View

2010-11-19T08:36:00.000+08:00

I like it after rain. The view from my office is very breath taking. I can see to the farthest possible view.

Otherwise it will always full of fogs and dust.

Bali, Indonesia Trip – Day 2

2010-11-10T19:32:00.000+08:00

There is no time zone different between Bali and Malaysia but it is earlier by approximately an hour. It get darks at easily around 6pm in the evening and already get lights around 6am in the morning. Still, business starts after 8pm.

We still spend our time in the villa in the morning as the villa has private pool. Only near the afternoon we decide to go out and take a walk around the area.

In the area which we stayed, there’s not much of a shopping place. It’s more of exclusive area for designer shop. We didn’t enjoy walking around there that much as there’s so little place that we interested to get in.

We only stop at a DVD shop but end up discuss about tour package with the shop owner as we think that we’re going to be bored if we just stay at the area doing nothing. As it’s the first place for us to get to know about the tour package offered, we didn’t take any.

We walk again and found another tour package offer. This time around, the price is a lot more cheaper, reasonable and sound convincing yet we didn’t take it. Just because we think there might be another better offer.

Turns out, that’s the only offer we stumble upon during our short walk. Because of the sunny afternoon, we rushing back to villa just to lay down in front of the TV. At the same time, we considering on what to do for the next few days. From so many tour package that is offered, we decide to go to the second provider for Kintamani Volcano Tour for our third day.

In the evening, we went to take a walk at the nearby beach. It’s just around 10 minutes walking distance. We expect to see some nice beach and a good sunset but it’s either the weather aren’t on our side or that is just how the beach is. We somehow feels that Malaysia can offer something better. That might just be our biased preference.

We even did spotted pirate ship! :P

And this is the sunset we get that evening. Kind of cloudy. Pulang dengan harapan yang punah.

But not to worry, the swimming pool still can cure the broken heart. That’s really the best of all. HAHA!

Bali, Indonesia Trip – Day 1

2010-11-09T19:23:00.000+08:00

It is my first passport. It is my first international trip. It is my first non business trip with flight. I don’t know where to park, what is the procedure for travelling, what is to expect at the airport, etc.

Our flight board in LCCT. We had a lot of discussion on either to go to airport by either public transport or car. Considering the expensive parking rates, obviously public transport is much cost effective but we end up went by car as we already kind of late for bus. As we’re not taking public transport, we left home quite early in the morning. Arrived at the airport just nice for check-in.

We then enjoy our breakfast at Oldtown White Coffee. We had nasi lemak, half boiled egg and toast. People always touting about how expensive is the food at airport but this might be an exception. It cost the same.

This is also my first time fly with AirAsia. I’m quite amaze to find the seat is not that small. I would say it’s kind of spacious. Maybe because it’s an international flight.

We arrived at Denpasar airport safely ahead of time. Good job AirAsia! On arrival, there suppose to be pickup service from our villa but I can’t find any sign of it. It’s my fault not inform them about the change of itinerary and to make it worse, I don’t save their contact number!

Luckily the concierge is helpful. They make an announcement and a representative from the villa came. They are very friendly people.

It took about 20 minutes from the airport to our villa. When we reach there, we went to local mart to shop for some food. And the rest of the day, we just spend our time in the villas.