Category: Travels

Another photo from Malacca. This one was taken at my grandma’s place. It’s an old Malacca-style Malay house. After so many years, it’s a pity that I only began to appreciate the Malay architecture only after I returned to Malaysia from Michigan.

The orange columns used to be less fiery and they were coated with light green. In similar way, the original photo is less striking. Reason is, I did some manipulation in Photoshop; I contrasted the colors a bit. Too much manipulation to my own “purist” liking.

And see the two huge black spaces? They aren’t the result of cropping. The lower space is a wooden beam while the upper one is actually the house ceiling. Not quite a ceiling but I can’t find the right vocab for it. In fact, if you observe closely the upper black space, you’ll see how wooden beams have been laid out to support the house.

The opening is not a hole either.

Still, the whole thing looks a bit too dark. Oh well. Buck the Fuckeyes.

p/s – went through my folder and found a sharper image for yesterday’s subject.

I like yesterday’s orientation better though.

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!