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Asia on Sale

Once again the airline price war is on.  Yesterday, Malaysian Airlines has announced it’s MAS Travel Fair where you can get cheap tickets to selected destination.  Coincidently the budget airline Air Asia had also announced it’s Asia on Sale campaign where you pay from RM29 for selected Asian destination.  Now anyone can get a bargain if you start to click here.  It used to be very difficult prior to having online services; one needs to wait in line just to get to the counter.  I remember at the MAS office, there are not enough seats while waiting for your number to be called.  Sadly that is still the case at the MAS office.  As far as I know….there are no seats available at Air Asia reservation office also.

Chinese New Year - Annual Bazaar

Every year the Chinese New Year night market is held at Sinsuran, Kota Kinabalu usually a day before Chinese New Year day itself.  It’s an opportunity for celebrants to buy last minute products and also for most to just go there for the atmosphere.  The night market opens early in evening, about 5pm and lasts until about midnite or early morning hours the next day.  Usually the crowd begin to thin around 10pm or so.   I was there till my son became bored, that was about 12am midnite.  I was there more for the sights and photo opportunity, and this time I called up Tim to join for the outing.  As always the sights and colors were to look for.  There were a lot of stalls selling many products - even beauty products at night such as hair loss treatment products.  Maybe the vendor was banking on people who have shed lot’s of hair due to the stress of previous year.  Nevertheless it was always fascinating to see these stalls selling strange items.  Here are some of the photos taken.

The famous Pepsi the Daschund with her theme costume

This band gave a powerful and mesmerising rendition of Dio’s Holy Diver

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My New Toy

Recently I have acquired a dedicated macro lens to add to my photography arsenal.  I opted for a third-party lens for it’s affordability.  After reading the reviews, I decided on the Sigma 150mm f/2.8 macro lens.  Now I have the option to capture things so small at 1:1 magnification.  So far the reviews for the Sigma 15omm has been good.  I didn’t regret getting it.   The results so far has been amazing that you might even be able to capture acne nodules on one’s face.  Anyways that’s not the reason why I got it.  I’ve always been fascinated with close-up or macro photography.

Sigma 150mm Macro f/2.8 fitted on to a Canon EOS 400D

Sigma 150mm Macro f/2.8
with lens hood

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Dive dive dive….

That’s what you do if you are a submariner and when your submarine is diving.  Some time ago I was playing Silent Hunter 4: Wolves of the  Pacific, in which you get to command the USN submarines against the Japanese fleet.  You really get to learn a lot on how to operate a submarine and even navigation.  Even in attacking fleets you may wait to ambush or hit and run.  It was really fun letting loose your torpedoes at battleships such as the mighty Yamato and Musashi.   Unlike a surface ship, one can appreciate a submarine to be more delicate and more complex to operate especially in a sub-surface position because if there’s something wrong with the ships ballast system, you won’t be able to surface.The early subs of WWII were not airconditioned so you can imagine the young sailors developing some serious acne problem.  I bet one of the SOP is to make sure you have proper acne solutions.   Perhaps thats why most submariners have grown beards.

Coming back to our KD TAR, the defence minister announced that he will be joining in the operational dive after fixing the our ONLY sub.  I find it very amusing.  Is he really going to put his life on the line?  What if the sub can’t surface?  Perhaps the dive is only 20 metres….okayla.  Anyways I do hope they’ll have the sub fixed and get it “tropical waters friendly” so that it can defend our waters.

Tip of Borneo all to ourselves

Yes that’s exactly how it felt like.  Last Tuesday, our family decided to drive north to Kudat to visit the Tip of Borneo at Simpang Mengayau.  Since both my wife and I were off work the whole week we also wanted to get away from KK and other family (:-) )  and just be ourselves.  However we did not anticipate sleeping over, but since there are chalets available just a few hundred metres from the Tip, we decided to pay the RM100/night fee for a cosy chalet.  We opted for Chalet No. 3 as it has the best view of all. Apart from the awesome view, the air is so mesmerisingly cool and fresh - nature’s best anti aging product. The amenities available were quite spartan, but for us that’s alright.

The entrance to the chalet area

Our Chalet no. 3

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