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.

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.

Bali Panties

PENTAX Optio S4, 1/60, f/2.6, 5.8 mm, ISO 100
Taken on April 12, 2007

During the Bali trip, we went for a SPA massage.

These were what they asked us to wear for the whole process of SPA.

Air-conditioned room + nothing but pantie + sticky skin scrub = cold-like-hell-out-of-this-world experience.

Not bad at all.

Ichigo Farm

Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd, 1/42, f/8.0, 84.2 mm, ISO 64
Taken on May 19, 2008

Just found out through an anime movie, strawberry belongs to the family Rosaceae, or the rose family.

So Strawberry and Rose come from the same family. Does it mean they share the same characteristic, beautiful but full of thorns?

Hopefully not.

Ya...... Right......

?, 1/?, f/?, ? mm, ISO ?
Taken on between April 9 2007 - April 12, 2007
Taken by ?

I was on the Kuta Beach in Bali.

Can't remember who took the picture for me and all the EXIF data are gone with the resizing & compression.

Anyway, we know that we are prohibited to swim around that area.

The 2 guys far away... I think they were drowning...

Guess I was lucky to notice the warning.

p/s: Anyone knows the one who took this photo?

Variety Show in Bali

PENTAX Optio S4, 1/30, f/4.8, 17.4 mm, ISO 100
Taken on April 11, 2007

Indonesia has some pretty interesting variety shows.

Agree or not?

You have no choice but to agree, this is an order!

Osaka Bakery

Panasonic DMC-FX7, 1/30, f/2.8, 5.8 mm, ISO 100
Taken on May 20, 2006
Taken by ST

We sell the freshest bread and cake in the town!

It was a photo taken by a friend of mine during her trip to Hong Kong.

I love bread and did think of opening a bakery before...

But the name was taken... Guess I have to stick to my current job as a programmer...

Ke Tiao Kia

Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd, 1/5, f/2.8, 4.7 mm, ISO 400
Taken on May 19, 2008

Ke Tiao Kia is one of the specialties in Johor. We won't see it easily in Klang Valley area and most of the locals here don't even know what is it.

During the day returning from Cameron Highlands, we decided to stop by at Kepong for dinner. And that's how we discovered probably the only Ke Tiao Kia stall in Klang Valley.

I lived in KL for 7 years and this is the first time I ate one in KL.

I was crying when I was eating it...... joking.