I took a few days off work in April and went on a holiday to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. It was just a short 3-days getaway. I must say Kota Kinabalu isn’t much of a city compared to the bursting scene of Kuala Lumpur but I guess that is what good about it. Its wide-open landscape and waterfronts are such contrast to the concrete jungle of Kuala Lumpur that it was quite a refreshing experience being there.

These are some of the photographs I took during the trip.

Day 1.
About to take off from the Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT).

While on the way to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.

Destination: Sunday Market. Definitely a place to check out. This is only available on Sunday. The market stretches 2 to 3 blocks long and fill to the brim with stalls selling almost anything like food stuffs, clothing, hardware, souvenir, pets, and much more.

Some blind folks trying to make a living at the Sunday Market.

Me and my girlfriend.

A series of photographs of the sun setting.

Day 2.
The view from my hotel room window. The hotel is called Promenade and is located very near (walking distance) to the city centre. Right next to it is a seafood restaurant that according to locals, have the widest choice of seafood.

The tallest building in Kota Kinabalu.

One of many suspension bridges you’ll find in the area. By the way, we are on our way to the Kinabalu Park, the base camp of Mount Kinabalu. Mount Kinabalu is the tallest mountain in South East Asia.

And this is Mount Kinabalu from afar.

This board shows the winners of the 2006 climbathon and the times they took to run up to the peak of the mountain and back down.

In case you wonder how long is the run. The runners start at the gate of the park (lower left corner of map) and ran all to the to the top (Low’s Peak) and back down to the gate.

I did not climb the mountain but did take a little walk along the mountain trail. I had to turn back after reaching ‘Pondok Kandis’. These are the photos taken during this short adventure.

This is Poring Hot Spring. Beside hot spring, there is also another attraction here that is called Canopy Walk. Canopy Walk is actually suspension bridges that hang 40m from the ground. There are altogether four of these suspension bridges but three were closed down for maintenance so I only get to walk on one.

More trekking to get to the suspension bridge.

The suspension bridge.

Looking down from the bridge.

The tree that the bridge suspends from.

Unfortunately, ugly behavior of people exists everywhere. Notice the empty plastic bottle?

This is the hot spring area. It feels really good to dip your tired feet into the hot water from the hot spring after all the trekking.

A small stream.

Some locals having fun.

Managed to snap this while on our way back to the hotel. Just minutes after I took this photo it started to drizzle and the whole mountain was quickly covered by thick mist.

Day 3.
I’mmmmm leaving… on a jet plan… don’t know when I’ll be back again…

On the flight back to Kuala Lumpur.

This year Le Tour de Langkawi was held from 2nd February to 10th February 2007. This annual bicycle race start from Langkawi island in the north and takes participants throughout almost the whole of the peninsular Malaysia and ends in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia.

Stage 10, which was the last stage of the race was held right smack in the city centre of Kuala Lumpur. I took this opportunity to try out some photography techniques that I learned from a photography magazine. These techniques were to freeze the motion of the subject to a certain extend while still maintain some sense of motion. They are pretty simple. First, set the camera speed to a relatively slow speed. Then capture the subject while panning the camera along with the subject when it passes by. For a better freeze effect, use the camera built-in flash or an external flashgun.

By the way, stage 10 race was won by Alberto Loddo, second was Nikolai Trusov, and Maximiliano Richeze came in third. The overall champion of the entire tour was Anthony Charteau.

All the pictures were captured using my Fujifilm Finepix S9500 and a Vivitar 728 external flash. Click on a picture to view a larger version.

ISO: 100, Speed: 1/28, Aperture: F4.7

ISO: 100, Speed: 1/80, Aperture: F3.9

ISO: 100, Speed: 1/80, Aperture: F5.6

ISO: 100, Speed: 1/50, Aperture: F5.6

ISO: 100, Speed: 1/50, Aperture: F5.6

ISO: 100, Speed: 1/50, Aperture: F4.5

ISO: 100, Speed: 1/50, Aperture: F4.5

ISO: 100, Speed: 1/50, Aperture: F4.5

ISO: 100, Speed: 1/50, Aperture: F5.6

ISO: 100, Speed: 1/50, Aperture: F4.5

ISO: 100, Speed: 1/50, Aperture: F4.5

ISO: 100, Speed: 1/50, Aperture: F4.5

Floral Fest is a monthly event held in January 2007 in conjunction with visit Malaysia Year 2007. The Floral Fest consists of numerous events including a photography contest, a florathon, and a floral parade. The floral parade is an annual event and this year event was held on 27th January 2007 in Putrajaya, Malaysia’s administrative capital.

There were 19 floats decorated with fresh and colourful flowers and 18 marching bands in the parade and reports had put the number of spectators in the 50,000 range.

The atmosphere was joyous and children and grown ups were visibly excited of the whole affair but I guess some are a bit too excited and had become an annoyance. During the parade, these overly excited people started to get over the barricades. They would craw, climb, jump, roll, and do whatever is necessary to cross the barricades to be as close to the floats as possible and this has annoyed other rules abiding spectators like yours truly and not to mention they also hindered the movement of the marching bands and floats.

Another unpleasant encounter at the parade was the invasion of photography enthusiasts. They, like the other overly excited spectators, would get as close to the floats as possible to take pictures and in the process block the view and shots of other rules abiding spectators. They do not have the common courtesy to at least get out of the way after taking their shots but would instead just hang around the floats and continue to block others’ views. These people might be professional photographers (probably self-proclaimed), they were surely using some professional gears, and the pictures they captured could very well be of professional quality but their ethnics were far from one of a professional’s.

Below are the pictures I tool at the parade. Don’t be surprise to see these ‘professional’ photographers in some of the shots.

There are 40 pictures in this post. All pictures were taken with my Fujifilm Finepix S9500.

Kuala Lumpur is the capital city and heart of Malaysia. It is a modern city with high-rise buildings and colourful lights and the best places to see the city skyline at night would be on top of the KL Tower or on the Petronas Twin Towers.

My office was located on the 50th floor of one of the twin towers before it was moved to another building in the city. I knew that once we move out of the twin towers, I would not be able to go up the towers anymore, as I have to turn in my access card. So before we move out, I made sure that I take some pictures of the KL skyline and below are some of the better quality pictures I had taken both on the 41st and 50th floors. As I do not carry my tripod to the office, some shots were taken handheld and some with the camera resting on ledges of windows.

All pictures were taken using my Fujifilm Finepix S9500. Click on an image to view a bigger version.

I was at home working on my Gundam RX-78 GP01 and notice that the weather was quite nice and a great sunset might be on the horizon. I quickly grab my Fujifilm Finepix S9500 and a tripod and went to the ground floor to wait for it to come. These are the pictures I took.

All pictures were taken with the Fujifilm Finepix S9500. Click on an image to view larger version.

	ISO: 80 Aperture: F8.0 Shutter Speed: 1/105 Focal Length: 14.0 mm Exposure Mode: Auto Metering Mode: Average White Balance: Auto
	ISO: 200 Aperture: F8.0 Shutter Speed: 1/100 Focal Length: 39.4 mm Exposure Mode: Manual Metering Mode: Average White Balance: Auto
	ISO: 200 Aperture: F10.0 Shutter Speed: 1/80 Focal Length: 66.7 mm Exposure Mode: Manual Metering Mode: Average White Balance: Auto
	ISO: 200 Aperture: F6.4 Shutter Speed: 1/5 Focal Length: 7.6 mm Exposure Mode: Manual Metering Mode: Average White Balance: Auto
	ISO: 100 Aperture: F6.4 Shutter Speed: 8 sec Focal Length: 25.0 mm Exposure Mode: Manual Metering Mode: Average White Balance: Auto