So after our trip to Sepetang Charcoal Factory we had some totally awesome Mee Udang Banjir then headed onto Penang.
We took a rest for a while and had a BBQ in the evening to celebrate Shutter Asia‘s 2nd anniversary.
Next morning it was up bright and early for a breakfast of Roti Canai at Transfer Road (superb and cheap!).
After that it was off to the Penang Heritage Trail, it was a beautiful sunny day.
The first stop was Masjid Kapitan Keling (Kapitan Keling Mosque).
Taken from here – https://www.quizbox.com/personality/test82.aspx
Your view on yourself:
You are intelligent, honest and sweet. You are friendly to everybody and don’t like conflict. Because you’re so cheerful and fun people are naturally attracted to you and like to talk to you.
The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking for:
You like serious, smart and determined people. You don’t judge a book by its cover, so good-looking people aren’t necessarily your style. This makes you an attractive person in many people’s eyes.
Your readiness to commit to a relationship:
You are ready to commit as soon as you meet the right person. And you believe you will pretty much know as soon as you might that person.
The seriousness of your love:
You like to flirt and behave seductively. The opposite sex finds this very attractive, and that’s why you’ll always have admirers hanging off your arms. But how serious are you about choosing someone to be in a relationship with?
Your views on education:
Education is very important in life. You want to study hard and learn as much as you can.
The right job for you:
You have plenty of dream jobs but have little chance of doing any of them if you don’t focus on something in particular. You need to choose something and go for it to be happy and achieve success.
How do you view success:
You are confident that you will be successful in your chosen career and nothing will stop you from trying.
What are you most afraid of:
You are afraid of things that you cannot control. Sometimes you show your anger to cover up how you feel.
Who is your true self:
You are full of energy and confidence. You are unpredictable, with moods changing as quickly as an ocean. You might occasionally be calm and still, but never for long.
For the Shutter Asia 2nd Anniversary we decided to head down to Penang, with a stop on the way at Kuala Sepetang to visit a charcoal factory.
We arrived there at about 10am, leaving KL about 7.45am – not too bad. We were met with some majestic scenes with lightrays, dust and a lot of hard walking folks.
There was quite a group with members converging in Kuala Sepetang from both KL and Penang, just under 30 I think.
This is Mr Tan our gracious guide who took some time to explain to us each step in the charcoal making process and the timescales and temperatures involved.
Ah back from Penang, it was raining all the way back and Jammed but it was worth it for the splendidly sunny 2+ days in Penang. Plus the food of course, and the heritage trail was interesting and photogenic.
I hope to get some pics up soon, but for now here’s a sunset shot from Ferringhi beach.
We made a trip to a charcoal factory on the way there too near Simpang, which was fascinating.
More coming soon!
I’ve been thinking about backup for quite a while, I’ve been considering online – but I have too much data (photographs in RAW format are BIG) and it’s still too slow (we don’t have fibre to the home like Korea).
Up until now I’ve been using a normal 2.5″ external HDD to backup all the important stuff, but it’s only 120GB and it’s run out of space – so my backups have been on hiatus for new photographs.
Which bothered me. And I’ve always preached the practise of backup, although some people never seem to do it – “It won’t happen to me“. I did lose a HDD a while back, but seen as though I haven’t missed anything – and really can’t remember what was on it, it can’t be that important. But well the other HDDs contain extremely important data.
I’ve been watching out for proper backup solutions for quite some time as the price of storage dropped it started becoming feasible to have a serious external backup solution, from reviews the Western Digital My Book series seemed like the best option. I did look at the Buffalo TeraStation and LinkStation but they just didn’t seem so good, they are quite hard to get here and more expensive.
I had my eye on the My Book Studio 2TB edition as it supported RAID 1 (mirrored) and had eSATA for fast copying.
It ended up though no-one had stock, nor seemed to be getting stock. It was priced at RM1299 for the 2TB version (that gives 1TB of storage with complete redundancy).
I ended up getting the My Book Mirror Edition 2TB – which is about the same but it doesn’t have the other connection options, only USB 2.0 – it still supports proper RAID and gives 1TB of fully mirrored storage. I picked it up for RM999 at Digital Mall.
This one has been going round Facebook too, so I stuck my Winamp on Shuffle with 4194 songs and results are below.
RULES:
1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
4. Profit !
1. IF SOMEONE SAYS ‘ARE YOU OKAY’ YOU SAY?
High Contrast – Racing Green
2. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
Dreamdiver – Ocean of Love
3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GIRL?
Rass Kass featuring The RZA – Wu Chronicles -The End
4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Dieselboy – Eclipse
5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
The Whispers – And The Beat Goes On
6. WHAT’S YOUR MOTTO?
Norah Jones – Not Too Late
7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Sweet Female Attitude – Flowers
8. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Moby – I Like To Score
9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Joss Stone – Holding Out For A Hero
10. WHAT IS 2 + 2?
Eminem – My Name Is (Drum & Bass Remix)
11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Lemon Jelly – His Majesty King Raam
12. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Sunship – Try Me Out
13. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Joss Stone – Proper Nice
14. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Pulp Victim – The World
15. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
U2 – With or Without You
16. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Madonna – I Deserve It
17. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
John B – Move Your Body
18. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
Madonna – Live To Tell
19. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Jakatta – American Dream
20. WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW
High Contrast – Return Of Forever
21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Madonna – Bad Girl
22. WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
BT – Satelite
Some interesting answers eh? Some of them made me laugh out loud, especially #16 – morbid eh?
Also I have a secret American Dream and I’m Holding Out For a Hero!
Plus of course I want to be Proper Nice when I grow up 0_o
And #8 my parents think I’m a druggy?
We set off early in the morning to meet at around 8.30am for breakfast, we took our time and ended up leaving nearer to 10am – off we went on the highway stopping off at Tapah services for some Baskin Robbins.
After that it was time to turn off and start the winding journey up the old road to Cameron Highlands! It’s actually the first time I’ve been there, I’ve been meaning to go for ages but didn’t have chance yet.
Anyway there was 3 cars with Me, Kim, Suan, KY, Mellissa, Fireangel, Rachel, Horny and Carol!
Horny drove quite steadily all the way up the highway, but as soon as we reached the windy road he shot off like Michael Schumacher. We caught him up a while later and carried on up the hill when an unfortunate incident occured. Some mini-van drive cut into our lane on a blind corner (rushing some middle-eastern tourists back down the hill to KL) and Horny banged into the side of the van causing some irrevocable damage to his power steering hose.
As we couldn’t get up the hill with all the luggage and all the people we had to have a makeshift picnic at the side of the road whilst we awaited the tow-truck guys (bear in mind it was now about 1pm and we were ready for lunch!). All we were armed with was some mineral water, a Chinese language newspaper and 5 umbrellas!
Just a couple of short mentions of 2 things I think look interesting and are good uses of time.
First up is Earth Hour Malaysia!
At 8.30pm on 28 March 2009, cities and towns across the world will turn off their lights for one hour — Earth Hour — sending a powerful global message that it’s possible to take action on global warming.
In what we hope will be the world’s largest mass participation event, Earth Hour 2009 will be the culmination of one billion people around the globe, in more than 1000 cities from business, government and the community turning off lights, and sending a message to world leaders in the lead-up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009 that we need a commitment to actions that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the short and long term
benefit of the planet.
Taking the first step is as easy as turning off a light.
Please help spread the word: https://www.earthhour.org/news/my:en
Shutter Asia will be fully supporting Earth Hour!
——————————————————————————————
Second up is Obama Magic in KL!
Roger Fisk will be speaking along with a panel of other respected business men from Malaysia. Roger Fisk was hired as the National Director of Special Events in what would become a history making Finance Department. Here he managed a nationwide grass-roots fundraising team that revolutionized modern political fundraising, totaling $100 million in 11 months while building the largest donor base in American history.
Details
Venue: Kristal Ballroom, Petaling Jaya Hilton
Date: 2nd March, 2009
Time: 8.30am — 5.00pm
Dress: Formal
Entry: RM850 (HRDF-Claimable via SBL scheme)
There will be some very interesting topics discussed, I’ll be there for sure – Book Now!
Find out more here: https://www.obamamagickl.com/
As of February 11th 2009 I’ve been living in Malaysia for 5 years, that’s quite some time. Although due to my accent people tend to think I’ve been here much longer.
Yes I never had a Hugh Grant accent in the first place, actually only a minority of English people actually have what we call the Home Counties accent known around the world as the Queen’s English or BBC English (the technical term for this is Received Pronunciation or RP).
I always had quite a mixed accent due to moving around England a lot when I was growing up and having to ‘fit in’ lead to my accent naturally changing a lot.
I first visited Malaysia in 1999 with a friend of mine when I was studying during my summer break, he was working in his Uncle’s Chinese Takeaway which was being renovated so we both had about 3 months to spare.
We did the normal SE Asia thing, visiting Thailand and checking out places like Malacca and Penang and the normal KL sites like KL tower, KLCC, Batu Caves, Templars Park and so on.
This was us in Thailand, yes I was a skinny whip then and I had hair on my head!
My friend Chiu on our rented bikes (yes I have an amusing story about those bikes I may tell another time).
After the trip I went back to UK and decided I really liked Malaysia, I loved the food, the melting-pot culture, the weather (the grey skies of UK get very depressing after some time), the friendly people, the beautiful beaches and the abudnance of nearby locations to visit (Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam etc.).
In the interim I visited Malaysia 2-3 times more and got to know and love the country even more.
I finished out my studies (in between which I worked in London for about a year), after graduating I worked for about 18 months back in my hometown of Worcester (I had 3 jobs to pay off my credit cards and get everything settled) then I sold off my car and on February 11th 2004 I moved to Malaysia.
One of which was working in a Chinese Takeaway delivering food.
Worcester was flooded to hell when I left, a grim reminder of how miserable the weather was in England.
I sold off my car and everything I could on Ebay, packed my life into 6 huge boxes, took what I need in a suitcase and off I went – this was my parting shot from Birmingham International Airport.
I took up diving almost immediately and went very often, I loved Tioman – the basic accommodation, the beautiful beaches and the exotic diving sites.
Which reminds me I haven’t actually been diving since 2005, which is very sad – time to revisit the wonderful past-time I think (once I get into better shape, and no ROUND is not a valid shape).
I got myself an apartment in October 2004, which was sparse – but I filled it up with some furniture slowly piece by piece and it became home.
From there on you can really read what happened in my blog archives, as that was around the time I started blogging.
Life from then on had a lot of work related trips, Brunei, Colombo (Sri Lanka), Manila, Singapore, Dubai, Jakarta, Riyadh.
All in all Malaysia like anywhere else has it’s positives and it’s negatives, I really don’t see what the fascination is with migrating to the west and making your fortune.
You’re far more likely to stand-out here than in Europe or USA, if you’re happy to be average, a Dilbert in a cubicle then yah by all means head over there and pay 25% of your salary in tax to support a bunch of immigrants from Eastern Europe.
But for me? No thanks, I prefer it here.
You can say it’s corrupt, but to me it’s more transparent that way – you know exactly what’s going on.
You can say the currency is weak – but if you earn and spend here you can live much better than you can in the UK with an economically equivalent salary.
You can say the weather sucks, it’s too hot and it rains too hard – try living in a country where it’s grey and drizzling for almost half of the year.
You can say it’s backwards here, but do you really want things to be so developed everything is bound in red tape and shrink-wrapped. It destroys the character and soul of the human essence.
You can say it’s racist or biased here, but that’s just a bullshit excuse – if you want to make things happen you can.
Basically you can say what you want, but I love Malaysia and so should you.
I’ve met a lot of people, some I liked and some I didn’t. Some I’ve kept in touch with, but most I haven’t.
I’m most grateful for my close friends, most I knew before I even got here through the wonder that is IRC – they have been with me through thick and thin and supported me when I needed it. I admit I may have been a bad friend at times, but I realised that and tried to change. I hope it worked.
And of course to that one special person who has made everything worthwhile – thanks 🙂
I’m sure most of you know by now, but it seems Rihanna got into some domestic dispute with her significant other Chris Brown and her concert here tomorrow night has been postponed. Here is the official release.
So far it hasn’t been cancelled, so hold onto your tickets. The organisers will make sure everyone knows when the new date is scheduled (within 2 weeks).
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