The chilling weather made us want to have something that can keep us warm. Steamboat dinner was the best choice! Steamboat here wasn’t eat-all-you-can, it came with a fixed portion. The price at Restoran Highlands was RM16++/person.

Waiting is always the most painful moment, especially steamboat, still need to wait the soup to boil. I’m hungry!

Maybe just my habit? For steamboat, I surely will need all kinds of sauces, here they provided only 2 kinds, chilli sauce + soy sauce.

Steamboat restaurants here were using charcoal. But this is not grilling, the food didn’t contact directly to the fire. So I’m not very sure whether the purpose of charcoal was to make the soup more tastier or just cost-cutting?!

A lot of fresh Cameron highlands veg was underneath the meat. This make the steamboat which I consider it as a diet balance meal and won’t feel so guilty.

We went to two tea plantations on our 2-days Cameron trip. The visit to Cameron Bharat Plantations was on the first day. This plantations was well-known for their Orange Pekoe tea. They have their website and now you can order online! http://bharattea.com.my (not good, a heavily flash site)

This was also the first time I put my Colkin Gradutaed Neutral Density filter to field test. It mainly reduces the light transmission and darken the sky instead of getting a overly-bright sky.

The tea plantation was opened generously to the public. Visitors can just directly walk in the tea plantation, but beware how steep the slope is.

Marshall’s new super wide angle lens! Expensive expensive… But it is good for taking a group photo!

After taking photograph, time to enjoy a good tea break.

One jar of Honey Lemon Tea cost RM20. It was able to pour into 7 cups.

But seem we made the wrong choice – Honey Lemon Tea. I couldn’t tell the original taste of tea, it was totally covered by the sweet and sour of the honey and lemon. Anyway, you can later buy the tea bags at the store next door to try it back at home.

By the time we reached our hotel – Strawberry Park Resort was around 3pm. We took the route from Simpang Pulai. It is much wider than the original Tapah way. At least there are 2 lanes for up hill and road is less winding.

At the very last minute, we adding in 2 more persons, but the hotel have run out of room, so we need to squeeze 7 persons in an apartment. Luckily the apartment was spacious enough, 2 big bedrooms and a large living room with 2 additional mattress.

I guess morning glory is the most easiest growing plant in Cameron, can easily spotted anywhere.

For this trip, the night before, we bought additional 2 bottles of cheap unknown brand whisky and vodka. Yeah, amazingly cheap alcohol from Jusco, 2 bottles for RM100. We pray ourselves not get alcohol poisoning.

The goal for 7 of us was to finish these 3 Bottles in 2 Nights.

During the Singapore National Day long weekend, we went up to Cameron Highland. 7 of us taking 2 cars. I was with EngChin new French car Peugeot 308.

We woke up in the early 6 am and went for Dimsum at a kopitiam in Johor Jaya and then started the long long 7+ hours journey to Cameron Highland.

By the time 8:24am, we were already on the highway.

This Peugeot 308 does have a moon roof, which mean there is a slider to view the sky above of you. Totally make the car spacious. And unlike the sunroof, you will not worry of leaking once the seals are worn out. heehee. Argh, too bad I didn’t take any picture of it!

I’m still busy categorizing the Cameron Highland photo. More are on the way…

This bunch of photos was taking during last time the NDP NE2. Almost forgot about it.

After the fireworks, we scrolled to the Marina Bay Sand. Part of the Double Helix bridge was closed due to the rehearsal at the Float.

On another portion, still can see the ongoing construction at MBS. Currently only the hotel, shopping center and casino have opened. The most money-making for MBS is given the highest priority to open first. The Art-Science Museum will open by the end of this year.

When walking on the Double Helix bridge, we could see the floor got some coloured letters lit up. I then realized that it is the four bases of DNA. C,A,G,T. Couldn’t they make the design easier to understand? I think most of the visitors come here wouldn’t get the meaning or purpose.

The design of the hotel is based on the floating ship on top of  three card decks. Weird but futuristic design.

The leisure walk in front of MBS, Marina Promenade. The ambient here is nice and chill, not sure is it because not many people know this place yet. Can already foresee in the future, a lot couples will come here dating.

Long and wide promenade. Good place to sit and rest after long hour of gambling?!

For the past 10 years, I have changed 4 wallets. All of them worn out after long hours crushing by my butt .

Recently bought a new wallet on TGSS2010, two recommendations from my friends for Braun Buffel. They said this Germany brand is durable. Well, will update you, if it survives after 2.5 years.

On last Saturday, I went out with Marshall and Elfred for the NDP2010 NE2 fireworks photography at Marina Bay area. This was just a NDP rehearsal, officials said the fireworks on NE is just 10% of the total fireworks to be set off on actual day. Too bad NDP that day, we will be at Cameron Highlands.

In the next few following weeks, there will be still fireworks. So don’t miss it.

• NE3 – 24 July 2010
• Preview Parada – 31 July 2010
• (of course!) NDP 2010 – 9 Aug 2010

We set up our tripod and camera in front Esplanade around 7:45pm. The first fireworks was quite short, just a few bursts. Turn out that we were consider too near to the fireworks! Above photo I managed to get the Marina Sands inside, but the firework was cropped.

At the same spot, after slightly angle adjustment to my camera and we had waited another half an hour. Finally, the final round fireworks started. It was a 3-minutes long fireworks. Hm.. Imagine the actual NDP will have a 30 minutes long fireworks show.

What does this look like? Is this suppose to be mimosa?

For the first time, I have the chance to use my remote shuttle release. Just a few tips I gained from fireworks shooting.

• Use lower ISO – 100 and 200
• My exposure time was around 4 ~ 8 seconds
• Take as many photos as you could in the early time, because later the sky will get smoky.
• Choose a nicer spot! We unfortunately too near too the fireworks scene. Can’t get the beautiful buildings such as Marina Sands into it.
• We found that the Marina Promenade is a nice spot to take the photos of the fireworks and city buildings.
• Ensure you have enough battery. Of course that day my battery didn’t fail on me. But imagine if you are shooting on the actual NDP with 30 minutes long of fireworks.
• Do homework first, know where the fireworks deployed location. Below the NDP2010 fireworks animation. Look out for the fireworks deployed from the top of buildings too.

Guess we will go down again for NE3 and Preview Parade.

Sony announced the newest TX9 and WX5 camera lately. However the EXIF extracted from the whole series of commercial photos show that they were taken using Canon 5D Mark II. This is quite embarrassing for Sony.

Although this is common to engage 3rd party advertising film to do the photography. For Sony, maybe next time you should ensure the photographers are using Sony Alpha DSLR, or even more simple, just remove EXIF before exporting.

This is another déjà vu situation like the last time Microsoft commercial was being processed on Apple.

Visiting Phuket Big Buddha was not inside our schedule. Just because on the way visiting Wat Chalong, we had already spotted the prominent big buddha statue from far far away. This place was still in the middle of construction, it was so new that the database wasn’t even in the GPS yet.

After we left Wat Chalong, we drove into a small road off Chao Fa Road East and all the way leading up the hill. It was a 6km crooked road drive.

After parking, we still need to walk up the few flight of stairs. I didn’t really count, but I guess it was around hundreds steps until to reach right in front of the statue.

The view of 400 meter above the sea was amazing. The hill is located in the middle of the island, from here we could view the Patong beaches, Karon beaches, while another side was Phuket Town.

Right beside the Big Buddha, there was a smaller “mini” statue. The “mini” is 12 meters height. It is the mirror image of the currently constructed Big Buddha.

Not sure whether is there any religious meaning to have buddha statue in red?!

We didn’t ask when is the actual completion date. But for sure by that time, the 45 meter Big Buddha will be the most prominent landmark in Phuket.

A convenient store was just right next to our hotel. 7 days in Taiwan, I had been loitering there daily to check out interesting snacks and drinks. I also noticed that Taiwan carbonated soft drinks are more gas than ours.

Found this 750ml Heineken fat edition is cute, just make me want to drink beer more. Why don’t we have this in Singapore too?