And A Happy New Year!

Taken on December 25, 2008
Taken by Someone

Last post of the year!

I wrote so less recently that I'm amazed. I should have a lot of things to talk about yet I do not feel like telling anyone. Tsk...

And Yes! I've a fisheye no. 2! Gotta finish the first roll of the film... Who knows that 36 photos gonna take so long to finish... Really need to develop the film... Can't wait to see the result... and ERRGH... yes...

AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

p/s: Photo was taken inside Star Hill during Christmas, it seems like the decoration this year wasn't that Ummh...

A little about Tam Coc (actually more about youtube)

Tam Coc River Ride

Youtube changed its look!
Now all videos will be in 16:9! At least at the frame...

Not sure when Youtube came out with some new features, now the users can put annotations on their videos. A pretty cool feature where it saves users' time from explaining what are on their videos.

Always want to try this feature but lack of time to do it. Now I gonna use the video that I've taken during my trip to Tam Coc for a little experiment.

Lazy to explain about trip, let the video clip explains itself.

Mono

Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd, 1/420, f/4.5, 4.7 mm, ISO 100
Taken on November 9, 2008

Wanted to try something different in taking field trip photo.

This time I want my photo to be black & white, and see how does it gives the impact to the photo.


Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd, 1/210, f/8, 84.2 mm, ISO 100
Taken on November 9, 2008

The photos were taken during a one day trip to Perfume Pagoda, 2 hour distance from Hanoi.

By taking photos in black and white, it discards the colors and reduces the information one's eyes can capture. Hence one could focus on one part of the photo which should make that certain part stands out. And of course it adds more serenity into the photo.


Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd, 1/2000, f/6.3, 4.7 mm, ISO 100
Taken on November 9, 2008

And all of that is just my thought.

I just made that up while I was typing this blog.

But I still very satisfy with the photos I took.

p/s: Is it me or anything else that I am kinda lack of words to use? Hate it.

Big Boys Playing Water

Last week Hanoi was raining non-stop for a few days, and what you get was flood everywhere.

Area around my working place was flooded, area around my hotel was flooded. Taxi's starting to refuse to go to these two areas and we were stranded in our own office...

But... big boys are always big boys... we decided to walk back.

And therefore, a 2km journey has begun...


The starting point.


Marcus.


Everyone's excited.


Victory to the rain.


"Malaysia has this smart tunnel...blah blah blah"


Knock knock, who's there?


Oh, it is me, me and me with victory.


Heading to the unknown.

The journey so far, everyone's wet and no matter how hard we tried to get the taxi, no taxi driver wanted to go to our hotel.

What to do? Continued walking lo...

And here we met the biggest challenge of all.

There was a very serious flood along the road. So far we tried to prevent our shoes to step into the water, but the flood was at knee level...


It was actually very deep.


But we conquered it.

And officially got wet from head to toe.


Helpless guy.


Arif.


I gave this rain a 10 points.


Nowhere is safe actually.


The 3 wet musketeers.


It was unwise to drive through the flood.


Look at the water level.


Another spot that was flooded.

This part of the road was beside Hoan Kiem Lake, which was flooded very badly. Cars were stranded on the road.


Hoan Kiem Lake overflowed.


Everyone needs a picture like this.


Jump.


The journey ended here.


The cameraman, Chee Yuen.

It was fun to walk in the rain, funner in the flood, but stupid to walk for 2km.

Anyway, thanks a lot to Chee Yuen for the wonderful pictures by using his non-water proof camera and only appeared at the first and last pictures.

What is ngsehlim?

Google Pinyin Input.

While trying to key in my email address, I accidentally activated the Google Pinyin Input.

This was the Chinese characters it suggested according to my name...

Come on, Google... you can come out with better suggestion right?

p/s: 脑梗塞换里面 literally means "Cerebral infarction, change the inside", which is totally not a good thing at all.

My Whole Day

A day in Vietnam.

Tsk.

What am I doing in Vietnam?

Tired.

This is What I Felt

3 weeks in Hanoi, Vietnam.


T

I

R

E

D

Is the only thing I felt.

RIP Britney

Oops!... I Did It Again

Tomb craft in Hanoi, Vietnam.


紫薇

It's a very bad idea to become spokeswomen of such business.

Funny Vietnam Menu

I do know Vietnam has very exotic food before I came here and I don't fancy those.

So there's nothing like those food in this post.

But they sure have some funny menu.


Pigeon? Chicken?

Kinda confusing when I wanna order...


I thought tortoise is 乌龟?

Maybe is just typo.

Either way I do not eat 乌龟 or 甲鱼.


Bombed rice.

I wonder... Don't they have copy and paste function?

Fried Rice with Chicken and Fish has been translated to Bombed Rice with Chicken and Fish.


Money wrapped.

I know their money face value is very small... but la... wrapped with money wor...


Hmm...

Isn't eating cock testicle is kind of extreme... ...ly not enough?

Wonder how many cock they need to prepare such a dish.


Hmm...again...

I have a Muslim colleague.

He was hesitating whether he should order the BBQ Beef or not.


What I had ordered.

So I picked the Bombed Rice with Chicken and Fish along with two other colleagues.

The first bite of the food was weird as the food had a funny taste, but once you get used to it, it was consumable.

Yet I still wonder my taste bud got problem or not, when I was the only one finished the dish while the other two barely finished half of it...

The Another Vietnam Hotel

Due to some unhappy incident, my hotel isn't exactly what I've mentioned in the previous post.


Could be good, if wasn't the service sucked big hell.

After a 3 hour flight on Sunday morning, we were expecting a nice room to rest before we started to work the next day.

It was early when we reached the hotel, before 12pm. All of the rooms were occupied, and since people usually check out after 12pm, we had to wait at the lobby.

We booked 8 rooms and only 4 rooms were available at 12pm. My project manager started to get frustrated and that's when we started our hotel hunt.

And since I am lazy to describe what we had went through for the hotel, I just fast forward to the hotel we eventually ended up.


End up at Morning Star.

So this is the hotel I am staying.

It is 5usd more expensive than the previous hotel. So does it worth it?

Let's check out its facilities.


Their facilities.

Well, it looks OK from the pictures.

Where is it located?


Map by Wikipedia

Also nearby the lake, on Hang Hahn street. Look for yourself in the map.

So how does it look like it reality?

Refer to the pictures I've took.


The beds.

Very comfortable beds.


The bathroom.

The bathroom has everything needed, heater, hair dryer, even a slide door to cover the splashes of the water.


The all-the-thing a room should have.

A TV with more than 20 channels available, it is even the same model with the one I have in KL.

It is pretty decent. Nothing much to complain about.





Erm? Am I sharing room with other people?

No... I sleep on bed A every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Bed B on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. In the middle of the beds on Sunday.

p/s: No more wife free... have to use wired one. And happy birthday to my little brother's 18th birthday.

The Vietnam Hotel

The hotel I gonna stay, Royal 1 Hotel, I think.

I will be leaving to Vietnam in a few days time. This will be a very long trip, a one-month trip to Vietnam.

For work.

But it doesn't mean I'm not excited. My project manager has booked the rooms in Vietnam and I am eager to find out what kind of room I will be staying.

By the way, the first picture is the website of the hotel, the right hand side, Royal 1 Hotel, I think.


I think the facilities are good enough, for a one-month stay.

Honestly, I think the room isn't too shabby.

Well, for me, as long as the room has nice bed and is air-conditioned, it would be OK.

From the picture, it does look great.

And hopefully it does in the reality.


Map by Wikipedia

The hotel is very close to a lake, which I think would be a very nice place for photos.

The hotel is on the Cau Go Road, I leave it to you to locate it on the map above.


See what's the problem?

And the best part is...





...every room will be supplied with a wife, for free!

Don't believe me? Check out the picture above.

Did you find it? No wonder a lot of people like to get a wife from Vietnam.

Some Photos From NVP

Really took a very long time to update my blog. It has been busy since I joined the new company.

But I didn't forget about the old company. Here goes the very last few photos I took before I left NVP.


Click on the image for bigger resolution

Took some photos of the seats of the persons I had been working with. Thank you for all memories we had!

In case you are wondering what am I posing, it's called The Karen Cheng Pose, check out Karen Cheng's blog and her Facebook Group, "Doing The Karen Cheng" to find out more.

It's been 3 weeks since I left NVP, the very much missed thing in the company would be...





...the door.


Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd, 0.5555556, f/4.5, 4.7 mm, ISO 100
Taken on July 15, 2008

Out of this door, it leads to...

... no more 5pm call to ask me to move my car anymore... WAHAHA!!!

And no more electrostatic shock!!

V for A Lot of Words

V for Vendetta

Probably the best line ever created for a movie.



"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate.

This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant and vanished.

However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition!

The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.

Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V."

– V's introduction to Evey

In the movie V for Vendetta, a monologue for V's introduction to Evey, containing 49 words starting with the letter "V".

It can't get any better when Hugo Weaving is the one who is giving the speech.

One word enough said... "Cool".

Heck... the monologue is longer than what I have written myself here.