{"id":731,"date":"2006-02-15T11:13:00","date_gmt":"2006-02-15T11:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maddruid.com\/wp\/?p=731"},"modified":"2006-10-09T18:10:42","modified_gmt":"2006-10-09T10:10:42","slug":"729-of-kuala-terengganu-and-raging-south-china-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/?p=731","title":{"rendered":"[729] Of Kuala Terengganu and raging South China Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m not in the mood of blogging but I still wanted to post something nonetheless. So, photo time!<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"1\" alt=\"Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maddruid.com\/Graphics\/kualaTerengganuWave.jpg?w=580\" \/><\/div>\n<p>I caught this at Kuala Terengganu <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/Terengganu\">(tag)<\/a>. Batu Burok beach if I&#8217;m not mistaken. The wind there was so strong that there were small waves forming in a pothole filled with water. Nevermind the sea waves!<\/p>\n<p>I had great expectation for this photo when I first shot it. I actually invested more or less 15 minutes to shoot that particular wave. Yet, once I got back to my desktop, it&#8217;s hard not to feel disappointed with the result. Too much noise; dull colors. Sigh&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Despite that disappointment, Kuala Terengganu is a cool little city. Not quite large, enough people and has a pretty slow lifestyle. More importantly, it&#8217;s way more walkable than Kuala Lumpur.<\/p>\n<p>A lot has changed since I last visited Terengganu more than a decade ago. A turtle sculpture that used to symbolize the town has been replaced with a giant replica of <em>batu bersurat<\/em>. What is <em>batu bersurat<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not sure what its equivalent English noun for it (inscripted stone?) but I have a picture of it. I saw it at a museum here in Kuala Lumpur a couple of months back. It&#8217;s the oldest artifact with <a href=\"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/wp\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jawi\">Jawi writing<\/a> on it.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"1\" alt=\"Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maddruid.com\/Graphics\/klMuseumBatuBersurat.jpg?w=580\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Suffice to say, it&#8217;s an important historical artifact. But I still miss the giant turtle sculpture.<\/p>\n<p>New development projects are also in place. I strongly feel that some of the projects should have been done years ago. But PAS government that controlled the state apparently didn&#8217;t do their job when they had the chance to prove themselves. Despite my reservation for Barisan Nasional, at least, BN is doing their job to promote economic growth.<\/p>\n<p>Also, huge barriers are being constructed at the mouth of Terengganu River. I had a chat with a local about it and he said the project is essential to protect the city from sea surge<sup><a href=\"#729.1\">pp\/s<\/a><\/sup><a name=\"729.1a\"><\/a>. I was so interested in the barriers that I climbed up to Bukit Puteri, a hill near the river mouth and observed it from above.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"1\" alt=\"Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maddruid.com\/Graphics\/kualaTerengganuBarriers.jpg?w=580\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Though it can&#8217;t be seen from the photo, the barriers are in great length. The river mouth right now is almost completely covered. I think there is a better way to protect the city but since I lack knowledge in hydrology as well as civil engineering, I shall refrain from criticizing. I&#8217;d sound like a fool if I were to comment too much on it.<\/p>\n<p>But in all, I like Kuala Terengganu, especially the wind. The people there are a bit conservative for my liking but I&#8217;m convinced the wind could blow the conservatives away from me.<\/p>\n<p>p\/s &#8211; Newmont <a href=\"http:\/\/today.reuters.com\/business\/newsarticle.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&#038;storyID=nJAK201706&#038;imageid=&#038;cap=\">gets its way<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>JAKARTA, Feb 16 (Reuters) &#8211; The world&#8217;s biggest gold miner, Newmont Mining Corp., is paying Indonesia $30 million to settle a civil suit over pollution, but will still face criminal charges in a case closely watched by foreign investors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The episode first started <a href=\"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/wp\/?p=453\">way back in 2004.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a name=\"729.1\"><\/a>pp\/s &#8211; I might have meant <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Storm_surge\">tidal or storm surge<\/a>. (<a href=\"#729.1a\">Back<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m not in the mood of blogging but I still wanted to post something nonetheless. So, photo time! I caught this at Kuala Terengganu (tag). Batu Burok beach if I&#8217;m not mistaken. The wind there was so strong that there were small waves forming in a pothole filled with water. Nevermind the sea waves! I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,20,17,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-history-heritage","category-photography","category-travels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}