Category: Travels

I’m mildly unhappy at the moment. So I thought, a picture would probably lighten me up.

This is part of Singapore City’s waterfront at night. I’m delighted to see finally see it with my own eyes. However, I was surprised to find out that this section of the city is so far inland. What was more surprising is the extent of Singapore’s land reclamation projects. No wonder the Malaysian government was nervous when Singapore started to reclaim land near the Malaysian Johor – Singaporean line. If it had continued unchecked, there would probably be nothing selat about Tebrau Straits anymore.

This is an edited version since the original was too dark to be appreciated. This one is the original.

I added some contrast and a little bit of adaptive light. Not sure how adaptive light works but it sure makes the picture presentable. To me, presenting an edited photo is almost surmountable to cheating. Alas, most of my Singapore photos suck badly; I have no choice. I have to commit a sin!

Talking about sin, let’s see if this Ramadan witnesses a decrease in terrorism perpetrated by Muslims. I skeptical though. I’ve always held that Ramadan is the month with the most hypocrites around.

p/s – ah, no wonder there is still no update on PPS. It’s down. Looks like DoS attack.

Hah. Continuing a short entry naming tradition initiated by a person stuck on an island down south and taken up by another person that originates from another island in the west. But I love Singapore.

In many superficial ways, Singapore doesn’t look or feel very different from Kuala Lumpur. Both cities have similar old shophouses that date well before pre-Independence period, filled with food stalls selling nothing too alien to Malaysians with modern highrises threatening to dominate the blue sky above while steel lions roaming the streets below.

I mean, c’mon, take a look at this photo.

If somebody else had taken this one, I wouldn’t be able to tell whether this shot was taken in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur. But of course, a visit to a restroom gave me a sudden pang in the head and quickly reminded me that I wasn’t in Malaysia anymore.

I took the photo at Chinatown, Singapore.

The one thing that I regret about this trip is the fact that most of my shots are either spoilt or I don’t like it. The ones that are decent need to be edited. So, I definitely need to pay Singapore a second visit in the near future and concentrate on shooting better pictures.

I also have decided that I need better camera for night shots. Most of the times when there is a lack of lighting, my current camera’s shutter speed is simply not suffice.

And then there were these two veggies.

Passersby were heard of saying an equivalence of ZOMG!!!!!1one, that’s huge in Chinese. By the way, I don’t know these guys. It just so happened that I shared the same table with them.

When I got home, my mom asked, “does Singapore still have trees?“

Dumbfounded by the question, I took a couple seconds to recuperate. I’m not sure why she asked that but maybe she meant green spaces. With regained composure, I replied, “no but they do have plastic trees though.”

My mom, being a loving mother, let it passed.

p/s – World Solar Challenge is on. A remark by world renown team Aurora, winner of 1999 WSC.

The action was really on today at the Hidden Valley racetrack as another five international teams arrived: Two teams from Taiwan of the three entered, the mighty University of Michigan fresh from their win in the North American Solar Challenge, AGU Agilia from Japan, and finally the new team from Calgary, Alberta.

GO BLUE!

I ran a little errand yesterday. My eyes were a bit wilder than usual, ceteris paribus (read: controlling for sexy girls factor). While wandering almost aimlessly, I saw a couple run down wooden squat houses with modern highrise as backdrop.

Two images of Kuala Lumpur in one shot. In my opinion, a good juxtaposition of two realities.

I can’t wait what Selangor – the only self-declared developed state in Malaysia – has to offer. Fantasyland should be better than Kuala Lumpur.

It’s ludicrous for Selangor to declare itself as a developed state. And I still think it’s ridiculous to call Selangor capital of Shah Alam as a proper city. Forgive me for comparing but I think Ann Arbor is larger and more exciting than Shah Alam. Shah Alam doesn’t even have a cinema to start with.

And I think I need a better camera. Or maybe, I just need to stop scaling down my photos for posting purposes. Yeah. Next time, I’ll use 500px for width instead of 400px. Or I just need Photoshop instead of some stupid imaging software.

Argh! I want my old computer!