The new Gardens in Midvalley. Not so interesting facade just yet.

Does it draw you in?

Most certainly, yes.

Modern and comfy with big plush sofas on the ground floor. I hope they don’t remove it in favor of stalls.

Altimet interviewing some chick.

Good ol’ Sunway Pyramid had an extension. But first, I’ve never seen this kind of flare with my Peleng fisheye!

Pyramid always had a good theme; this is one of the new atriums. The new path lies over where Parkson used to be, with Parkson at the end, and TGV Cinemas moved up one floor.

The other new atrium connects back to the skating rink. Amazing!

Between the blue and orange atriums is a nice Egyptian-styled pathway. I always thought Pyramid was one of the pioneering concept malls.

And of course, the great big Pavilion.

Wide as wide gets, wider than Berjaya Times Square and with much better occupancy rates!

A lot of photographs would show the intense spotlights that light up most of Pavilion, even the outside where there was a car showroom.

Security officers make sure nobody’s going around snapping pictures. I was never stopped.

The center is a giant runway, with fashion-centric tenants. Also notable was that when I saw the crowd, only two words came to mind – fashionable men. No, not homosexual men (although they might have been) – fashionable men. Fashionable men, all walking in pairs, no, not one or three or four, exactly two.

Catwalk! Rawr.

Chimps! *throws bananas at them*

For the non-standing crowd, there’s always a big flight of stairs to make like a cinema.

From this picture, can you tell which item she is modelling?

And of course, the insanely crowded J.Co Donuts. I didn’t go ga-ga over it back when I first had it in Bandung, Indonesia, but the Glazzy Donut that came free with a box of 6 changed my mind. In fact, that was better than the more flavorful donuts!

It was 30th August 2007, Merdeka Eve, and I was going home after work. I just intended to hop on the bus and not join the festivities, but as I passed by Masjid Jamek I heard a commotion and followed it for a photographic journey!

Unlike road signs, some arrows are not so clear.

I followed Alam Flora workers down to Dataran Merdeka. They had a task – to clean up the trash.

Some saturation play will follow.

“Man, I need a new belt.”

There was a row of bikes, old and new.

Soon I found myself deep down in the crowd!

Aha! A platform just for people with big cameras! Spot a Minolta 70-210mm F4 beercan and a Sony 75-300mm F4.5-5.6 up there. Yes, more than one Alpha male there.

Despite bringing the Tamron 200-400mm F5.6 (there, my first official mention of it) I found I could not get anything interesting other than a sea of hands waving flags. Thus, the fisheye or going down to shoot kids with bright prime lenses would be a better idea.

(Okay, fine, the first shot was with this bazooka lens, too.)

An unidentified host. 330mm F5.6 1/15s.

You can’t tell from this picture, but his eyes are open. 400mm F6.3 1/15s.

I then realized I was deep in, and I wanted to get out. I found an outstream of people. However, this outstream had people cutting me and rubbing their sweat against me! So I realized that the instream was dry, and grazed against them to keep myself dry. Heh.

I got home before midnight. Great success!

Rewind to 8th July 2007, when I got on a plane with good ol’ buddy/aspiring pilot JFK!

I brought out the Canon Powershot A520 with Hoya R72 infrared-pass filter for the bright sun.

I also brought out my beloved Minolta 70-210mm F4.0 beercan lens for this…

…and the Vivitar Series 1 28-105mm F2.8-3.8 lens with a Tamron 1.4x teleconverter.

The object of aerial transportation – a Cessna!

Meanwhile, I spied a private flight. This was in the old Subang airport, now known as the Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport.

Nope, no snakes on this plane.

Because the plane was tiny and you could not hear your voice or anybody else’s, you’d need to wear headphones with a mike. Also, you’d need to speak with the mike touching your lips (as it picks up vibration, not sound.)

We have liftoff! Shah Alam Stadium.

Shah Alam Mosque.

Four-leaf clover.

Blue skie… I mean, seas.

Going ashore for business. We hovered around Port Klang and went past a nearby island for a bit.

The original plan was to go to PJ, around The Curve, to check it out; however, weather conditions did not permit this.

Oh, and of course I brought my Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye. Pardon the inconsistent colors; the Peleng has an inconsistent coating which shows in certain conditions. Plus the glass might’ve been smudgy.

Kevin Rao, former Xfresh FM and Wow FM deejay.

Left to right: Kevin, JFK, our co-pilot for this round.

The 27th of July 2007 marked a sad day for me. I was leaving the office of mine for over 6 years; the Xfresh fishtank, in the All-Asia Broadcast Centre.

My desk, which overlooked a glass window which overlooked hot chicks coming in and out of the elevator walking to different departments. I will miss those hot chicks dearly.

I’d miss the Chinese fried rice (nasi goreng cina) and Goodday chocolate milk. Every excolleague I meet asks “does the AABC cafeteria still have nasi goreng cina? Oh man I miss that…“. I fondly say yes.

I’d routinely fish out prawns because I’m allergic to them.

One fine sunny Tuesday morning, I took the bus as usual to AABC. I then walked to the new office in Technology Park, Malaysia. (My original plan on Monday was foiled because of rain.)

An abandoned drink.

An underpass under the Lebuhraya Puchong – Sg. Besi.

Soon, I was reaching…

…passing the guardian of the car park…

…into the new building.

I found a mamak, where I have my fix of Teh Tarik Kurang Manis and Roti Kaya.

The new office.

Ah, sweet new cubicle. Sweet, fast broadband. Not so freezing cold air-conditioning.

I asked for a pool table, but I guess this would have to do.

Because I didn’t want to eat only at the mamak downstairs, I decided to check out other buildings and their cafeterias. This particular building had weird plants growing all over.

Sadly, the grass was indeed greener on the other side; this is the cafeteria at the Recreation Center.

Even construction works looked better than my building!

Patimas. This building was made to look and feel like a resort, complete with greenery, a pool, and a pool table (which supposedly is in a storeroom somewhere now.) The poolside cafeteria was a great idea; however the food wasn’t great.

And now, for the finale of the Bandung company trip; we had to stop by Jakarta while waiting for our flight because we had to check out of the hotel.

But first, a final breakfast buffet.

The Vivitar Series 1 28-105mm F2.8-3.8 lens is blistering sharp at 105mm F8. The bokeh gets better then, too.

A possible gig venue.

Bronze men pump your water.

A&W in Jakarta is weird; their root beer float ice-cream does not float! Very wrongly done.

I tried to make a long exposure on the travelator. While bending down and holding the camera, the travelator stopped! I think it had an optical sensor at a certain height.

My ex-boss, JFK, the guy I owe a lot to. He has exposed me to so many things and continues to pimp me to oppurtunities.

Relaxing in the executive lounge of Jakarta Airport.

Pimpin’. Thanks JFK for getting us in!

Lobby.

Shaz steals my camwhoring moment on the plane.

Spot the air stewardess!

Richard having a quiet read.

50mm F1.4 ISO400 at a whopping 1.3 seconds. Hooray for my Sony Alpha 100’s SuperSteadyShot!

Customs crushed my new Vivitar Series 1 28-105mm F2.8-3.8 lens box. Thank goodness they didn’t take the receipt, and that the lens was with me. No biggie, since I was intending to keep the lens anyway.

Part 4: Bisa Kamera
Part 3: Whirled Canoe
Part 2: Ban Dung
Part 1: On A Plane

In Bandung, Indonesia, food courts are surprisingly clean and have unsticky floors, despite how dinky the shopping mall is!

McDonalds serves meals with rice instead of fries by default. Their cups are also plastic, which is much better for takeaway as it avoids the paper base from melting.

A guitar shop in the shopping mall next to Hyatt Regency Bandung. Spot the Zakk Wylde Epiphone Les Paul! They also had tiny ukelele-sized steel-string acoustic guitars. I wanted to buy one, if only I had a hard luggage bag to bring it back with. 🙁

Soap Bubble Man.

Jonas Photo, in Riau Street. Half the shop was selling photo frames! It seems that the Indonesians are big on photo frames. Every other photo shop was occupied half by picture frames!

The other half had interesting gadgets, like the Lensbaby and Lensbaby 2.0. However, the price was much higher than what you could get online. They had them in Pentax, Canon and Nikon mounts, though an A-mount one for my Sony Alpha 100 could be gotten online.

I held the lens in front of my camera to try it anyway. I didn’t feel like it was that easy to get a strong effect despite tilting the camera up and tilting the lens towards the subject.

Lens prices were somewhat cheaper, but the warranty might be local; hence, it would be more worth getting second-hand old lenses that are sturdier with less internal components (in-lens stabilization, silent focus motors, electronic aperture diaphragms, which are all prone to breaking down.)

Railway blues. The tracks are not covered; it seems that the Indonesians are lightfooted and are able to evade death swiftly.

Catnapping.

A man carrying his huge stash home.

Classic Rock Cafe. I wish I went on the 2:30am bus from Embassy Club to this instead; this was my kinda thing! I only found it the next morning while in Braga Street to visit…

Kamal Photo. They have such old gems! The Canon 50mm F1.2 FD mount (manual focus.)

I found a Tamron 20-40mm F2.8-3.5 for Minolta/Sony A-mount, which surprisingly worked with my fussy Tamron 1.4x teleconverter. It was new but its rubber grip was peeling from ages of being kept, I suppose.

I zoomed the Vivitar Series 1 28-105mm F2.8-3.8 lens all the way to 110mm at 1/10s (to test 4 stops of SuperSteadyShot) and got this crispy goodness. This was at F5.0.

I knew then, that I had to have this lens! This is not even a 100% crop yet.

I liked the gala night, as I could take pictures with random chicks, and dance with them too! The haze on top is some smudge I accidentally got on my kit lens.

Most other pictures will be omitted due to their incriminatory nature. I’m sure this guy doesn’t mind as he has already posted such pictures on his blog. 😀

(And yes, this was shot with my wonderful new 28-105mm F2.8-3.8.)

Part 3: Whirled Canoe
Part 2: Ban Dung
Part 1: On A Plane

Infrared shot outside my hotel window in Hyatt Regency Bandung. This place is hot and sunny, yes it is.

This is how you fly a kite.

Shady business.

No, not Tanjung Bungah…

I forgot to include this in the last set. There are buskers everywhere, and they come to cars waiting in traffic to play them songs. Except that these dudes actually alighted our bus.

They played Peter Pan – Mungkin Nanti. Good effort… if they didn’t forget the lyrics halfway through the song!

Another part of the itinerary was Tangkuban Perahu, a dormant volcano. We took a bus up halfway, and got on open-air lorries for the second half. If you thought Genting cabbies and buses were skilled, wait till you see these! In addition to the turns, they have stalls adorning the roads too.

Going up the turns.

Climb for a better view. Being a volcano, you’d think it would be pretty hot; that was not the case. In fact, it was chilly, because of the high altitude.

The village.

I overheard a tourist say, “Is that Linda Onn?”

Yes it’s true, Ayu, you did look like her.

Hungry?

Our neighbors are pyromaniacs.

Yes, he was actually trying to sell dart guns!

Straight from the horse’s mouth.

Eruptions make for rocks.

Rock makes for an Eruption. (The pun would be cooler if there was a Eddie Van Halen Peavey Wolfgang somewhere there.)

Like a chocolate cone.

Infrared with my Canon Powershot A520!

The biggest crater of Tangkuban Perahu.

All that was left was some sulphur deposits. The gases kept rising and fouling the air, though.

Fisheye me and a really cheap jacket I bought in the shopping mall next to the hotel I stayed in.

smashpOp and the volcano. And maybe some sulphur release, too.

Part 2: Ban Dung
Part 1: On A Plane