Short trip to Kota Bahru feat. pit stop at Banding Lake

Salam & beautiful day ,

Almost every school holiday , my father and some of his best buddies came out with a holiday plan involving 4-5 families making roadtrips around Peninsular Malaysia. This time , the plan was to travel to Kelantan and Terengganu. Departed from Penang, we travel along the old roads from Kulim to Baling to Gerik to Tasik Banding then to Kelantan before continuing to Terengganu.

I was 9 years old that day. And was sleeping all the way while my father steered us carefully trough the winding road. Sometimes when I woke up , I peeked trough the car’s window and all I see was a dense forest on my left also on my right side. The trees was tall and quite creepy , looming upwards blocking the sun so the road was always in shades. Nothing else to do and see, I continued to sleep beside my brother.

When I was adjusting my head while battling the sleepiness , suddenly my mother shrugged my legs and said :

“Open your eyes – we’re crossing Banding Lake “

We were crossing a bridge stretching across the lake. I remembered the water was so calm , the sun’s reflection somehow looks like dancing on the emerald water . I was soo small that time and I remembered the lake was soo big and beautiful. And the memories remains in my head until this very day. And I longed to see it one more time someday in the future.

Present day.

We took some day off from work to travel to Kelantan that weekend. Started our journey around 5.30 pm, it was pitch black when we arrived at Banding Lake around 8.00 pm so I cannot see the lake. We then continued to Kelantan , meeting and chatting with my wife’s families and took some time visiting my father in law’s final resting place in Kok Lanas. Al Fatihah to him.

We spend the night in Sudara Beach Resort in Tok Bali Beach , a quite remote resort near the beach . Big rooms , very near to the beach where  we  can clearly hear the waves pounding the beach while we’re resting. The Rhu trees were tall , the beach was beautiful , empty at that day when we walked bare footed and holding hands and taking pictures.

From Kelantan, we started our journey back to Penang at noon. And at around 4.00 pm , we reached Banding Lake.

Banding Lake was still beautiful as I remembered it. Having our late lunch in Sidai Cafe at Belum Rainforest Resort , the view from the cafe was magnificent. So we enjoyed some time there before headed back to Penang.

Thanks for visiting my blog

Salam.

VSCO Cam : My another super app

Salam.

Since the beginning of my interest in photography, I always amazed by the colors produced by film cameras. The tone of the colors for me played a big important role to set up the much needed ‘mood’ in a picture. My favorite iPhone app so far is Snapseed. Love it so much . And I’ve been using it to post pro most of my pictures taken by my phone.

And this time in the journey searching for an app that can simulate the effects of the films cameras, i found VSCO Cam.

The interface of the app is very clean and simple , straight to the point and easy to use. You can master the apps errrrr… maybe less than 1 minute. Yep, it’s that simple. Just choose the picture, post process it and voila! U can also share the image that u just created via some major social network platform.

It is just USD 0.99 for now in Apple Apps Store.

One of my pictures using VSCO Cam featuring my cat Gebu was recently selected in VCSO Cam Weekly Selects along other superb pictures taken using the apps.

The link to the website is http://visualsupply.co/blog/vsco-cam-weekly-selects-03

This is the picture :

Gebu !

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And this is some more pictures processed by VCSO Cam

Ready to go out

Eat as much as u can !! Kobe Nan House

Tok Bali, Kelantan

This shall be my favorite app !

See u guys again

Fly

Inspired by ‘Fly’ by Celine Dion .

“Fly, fly little wing
Fly beyond imagining
The softest cloud, the whitest dove
Upon the wind of heaven’s love
Past the planets and the stars
Leave this lonely world of ours
Escape the sorrow and the pain
And fly again “

Photographed using iPhone kat depan kedai mamak sambil menunggu roti canai siap dibungkus.

Dari dulu, selalu berangan – if ada chance nak choose superpower, I want to be able to FLY.

See u guys again !

Routine change is good sometimes

Salam & Good Morning

If my marking on my calendar were right, today will be my 11th day working non stop , and it’s only half way before I can take my weekend leave.

Routine sometimes bored me. It’s true. What ever i do in my life , i sometimes tends to break the routine , try something new , and proceed with the new thing if it is better than the old routine . Or if things went haywire so there i am back to the old ways of doing thing

I rarely break big lifechanging routine ways of doing things – I prefer the small everyday things done daily in my life . Such as I never use the same road everyday to go to work , and sometimes I just wake up super early in the morning and have my breakfast at my local mamak’s joint before go to work. Or read a different daily newspaper. Or hear a different radio station

Randomness can open new doors in life.

Cigarette after meal

Teh Tarik – usually ‘kurang manis ‘ or ‘less sugar’ for me

Salam

Thanks a million !!

Salam .

Last few weeks I’ve submitted this blog of mine to (try to) compete with the giant bloggers in the Malaysia International Tourism Bloggers Conference and Awards (MITCBA2012) . Like said in the website, this awards mainly to acknowledge and honors the bloggers that was continuously promoting Malaysia Tourism in the blogs .

Nominated in the Malaysia Tourism Photography / Art Blog, my green Fotomamu compete against the top bloggers in Malaysia, and as the time this entry was written, Fotomamu placed 4th place with 69 votes. The link to the site is http://mitbca.com/category.php?id=6 .

The main reason for this Fotomamu’s photo-less entry is to thank to all of my dearest friends that have faith for me and my photography hobby for your precios times send aside to vote for me. To have this 69 votes for me is really overwhelming ! I did not expect to get this much of support from you guys

Special thank to Kak Emila Yusof  http://emilayusof.com/  because she was the one to told and encourage me to submit Fotomamu to MITBCA 2012 and she was my 1st Voter !! Thank u Kak Emi

The voting session will close this night at 11.59 pm and what ever the results , I am happy to get your votes .

Do spend some time to visit all of the fantastic blogs that was nominated in MITCBA 2012 – They were awesome and cool !!

Thank u again my friends for your votes and supports .

Love you guys !!

Memori

Salam,

What will happen , if suddenly we wake up in the morning as usual and cannot remember anything ? Macam mana lah rasanya agak agak ye ? Kita tak ingat nama orang orang di sekeliling kita, kita tak ingat mana kita ada, kita tak dapat nak ingat kerja kita – and worse, we lost all of our lifetime memories. Ye , samada disebabkan oleh brain trauma akibat kemalangan or medical condition seperti Alzheimers ataupun sebab 2 yang lain.

Will life ever be the same again ? Saya rasa tak.

Dulu masa belajar di UTM , rumah sewa di Taman Sri Pulai kami dihuni oleh 15 orang dari kami. Dan lebih separuh dari itu adalah kawan kawan yang membesar di asrama sewaktu umur 13 tahun – 17 tahun. Secara matematiknya we stayed together from 1991 to 2001.

One thing yang we can do over and over and over and over again adalah lepak sama sama cerita kisah kisah kelakar kami sewaktu membesar kat asrama dulu. Memang comfirm agak gelak kaw kaw sedangkan rasanya cerita tu dah diceritasemula for almost 20-30 kali dengan nada dan sound effect yang sama And until now, setiap kali berjumpa time Aidilfitri or terjumpa di mana mana, we can always laugh to those stories.

Those things really matters for me because those MEMORIES were once part of my life. Pengalaman dari memori tu banyak mencorakkan who I am today. Those laughters, pains, sadness, happiness were the real treasures of life for me and I prayed hard I don’t wanna loss those memories by any means.

Lately, if I had any chance bila balik ke Penang , saya akan cuba spend masa jugak untuk tengok / lawat mana mana tempat yang ada dalam my history time line untuk saya refresh semula my memories about my childhood. This time the visit took me back to Pantai Bersih, Bagan Ajam and also Teluk Air Tawar. If those days saya datang dengan basikal BMX dengan kawan kawan untuk lepak sana, this time after more than 20 over years I came back with the love of my life untuk duduk di situ, hirup udara sedar, angin kuat menghembus muka . Tak rasa panas walaupun matahari tetap tegak atas kepala.

Menghadap Penang Island , saya ceritakan pada isteri saya apa yang kami buat dulu dulu waktu datang naik basikal sambil makan Apam Balik panas yang dibeli depan flat Bagan Ajam. The place banyak berubah , saya hanya dapat recalled ada banyak pokok rhu yang berdesir kuat daun daunya bila ditiup angin pantai. Pantainya tak luas sangat, kayu buruk hanyut banyak atas pasir dan laut tidak lagi sejernih yang saya ingat.

But , I’m glad I came back.