Mount Batur, a sleeping volcano. Dare you climb it? We walked to the right peak thinking that was the volcano…. until from far far away, we ate our lunch and saw that we were overlooking the crater!

Have we had the fear it would erupt? Of course! There were billows of smoke coming out of the cracks around the crater. At least we would have died taking nice eruption pictures. LOL. (choi choi choi! touch wood!)

Going back to square one, we are now standing on Mount Badur (a mountain not many will climb because there’s no real solid trail such as those found in Kota Kinabalu).

The tour guides are ‘free of charge’ as they hand hold you up the mountain of loose rocks, ashes and soil, piggybacking bottles of coke that costs RM7.50.

Yes, you will feel compelled to at least buy a bottle from them, though optional, for they will narrate their lives, their families, the school had to attend later after leading you up and down the 6 hour ordeal.

Starting off 5am, we trailed in the dark for 2-3 hours before reaching the lower part of the crater. That’s where most of the bloggers just stop while danielchew.net and chongdavid.com heads up the mountain of ash to the peak of the crater’s ears.

From there, we had free hard-boiled eggs to eat, cooked in the deepest dungeon (1 foot deep) of steam smoke and sulfurous fumes. Put your eggs there for 10 minutes and with an iron hand, reach in and grab them all out. Such is the life of a mount batur tour guide.

From this picture onwards, all are panorama pictures of the Bali Borobodur trip. Scaled down to fit my blog width space of 655px, you may click on the images to see a bigger version of the panorama.

Jessica Lim, blur as ever, blocked my otherwise beautiful panorama pic of the King mountain, created an interesting panoramic picture as shown above. (she’s going to kill me soon). Stitched 4 pictures together creating this flawless image, which I think she would make it her wallpaper for a week.

And I want to thank her for taking pictures of me, creating another wonderful stitch. If you have observed carefully, danielchew.net was pointing at my head… which didn’t get my attention until I made the stitch complete! That fella…. in sweet revenge, no photoshop was done to brighten his face. grrrrr……

Over here, we stood at the peak of mount batur where we overlook the King mountain on the left and the other peak of mount batur.

To the left of King mountain

Top half of the crater

This ‘failed’ panorama turned out interesting. What happened was… I held my camera in portrait fashion so it’s possible to take more clouds and more crater… stitching it together gave some problem to the exposure, developing into this natural gradient effect!

It took a lot of effort to reach the peak as there are no steps, no rocks and definitely no shoe grip. On the way down, we were literally sliding down the slope of ashes… which I bottled up some as souvenir. The only motivation why I was persuaded by Daniel to scale higher was… I’m never climbing that thing again!

Photoshop does wonders, bringing in blue and green makes the place a little too real, to an otherwise monochromatic scene.

My last pic of mount batur. At least making the climb worth it. I want meat!

The padi fields of Ubud was unique. The brown spots are trenches dug to collect water and plant padi in them. It looks like a natural Colosseum.

The last place we stayed at The Oasis. It’s beautiful compared to the rest of the hotels we stayed in. A room costs USD60@day.

Is this Uluwatu? I dunno… but imagine doing a panorama with a zoom lens. How practical is that? LOL

Lastly, color saturation makes the people look like miniatures. Why so many wanna be there beats me but we join them eventually. The temple on the right boasts to have fresh water flowing out of it while surrounded by a sea of salt water. The long queue shows how eager people are to verify that. We pass up the opportunity.

It would have been nice to take some shots of the waves splashing against the rock… if it wasn’t for the concern of wetting the camera. Salt water and metal don’t mix well.

What have I learned from this trip?

1. Bali people treats tourists like kings.
2. Be prepared for Airasia to delay your flight.
3. Bali people have a lot of marketing skills to learn from the chinese.
4. Travelling? Travel light!
5. Buy more memory cards so can shoot in RAW format
6. Bali food is cheap.
7. Bali shopping is cheap.
8. Going with this group is fun!
9. Trips quickly come and go X_X
10. Always change more money just in case you need to spend more. The currency exchange in Bali to ringgit… is horrendous!
11. get a hard case lock bag so you don’t have to wrap your bags into turkey (which  costs RM12 per time)
12. leave a lot space in your bag for stuff you’re going to buy. We 13 people, bought 30 t-shirts in total… and that’s just t-shirts!
13. eat babi guling. eat the pork ribs. 10 times!
14. learn your camera totally well first before going.
15. never ask ‘how much’ if you don’t plan to buy.
16. scrowl at sellers if you don’t want them to disturb you again with their sales petition.
17. have loads of fun!

What is Kopi Luwak?

An except from wikipedia :

Kopi luwak (pronounced [ˈkopi 'luak]) or civet coffee is coffee made from the beans of coffee berries which have been eaten by the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) and other related civets, then passed through its digestive tract. A civet eats the berries for their fleshy pulp. In its stomach, proteolytic enzymes seep into the beans, making shorter peptides  and more free amino acids. Passing through a civet’s intestines the beans are then decaffeinated, having kept their shape. After gathering, thorough washing, sun drying, light roasting and brewing, these beans yield an aromatic coffee with much less bitterness, widely noted as the most expensive coffee in the world.

So, stirred with Cinnamon stick…

ONE cup, shared by TEN people!

And their expressions says it all…

“starbucks tastes better than kopi luwak”

“no lar coffee bean better than starbutts”

“the kopi luwak aroma sniffles my sense of judgement…”

“i better have more of this, i paid to drink this, this, this civet-ingested drink!”

“what’s that funny smell?! where have I last smelled this?! ROAR!!!”

“eerrrrr… best coffee ka?! please lar, I can make better coffee than this coffee luwak”

“I’m probably the only person enjoying aromatic cup. wooohooo!”

“Woohoo! I’m the last one! I can drink it ALL! After all, I’m Mr. Weird right? And weird people drink weird coffee luwaks”

Bali has been a pleasant place to visit. Especially when it comes to food! This flying fish costs only RPH40,000 (RM12)! Tasty crunchy special looking fish, shared by 4, wished I had more!

This food… overpriced, must have profited the tour guide’s pocket!

The all-famous-over-popularized babi guling. This food basically contains few parts of a pig, it’s ribs, meat, fats, intestines and who knows what else. RPH35,000 (RM7) per plate. I think all my friends don’t quite like it anyways.

The food in Bali just seem to miss out one ingredient…. sambal!

At least their satay isn’t all black, filled with carcinogenic burn marks.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PORK RIBS!

RPH66,000 (RM24)

Most delicious suckling piglet EVER! For only RM24?! That’s a steal compared to Tony Roma’s. Man, the taste is heavenly too!

What’s more? RM24 is overpriced. Cousin said the outskirts costs only RM17 for the same thing O.o

Scrumptious appetizing palatable delicious succulent savory tempting titillating delightful exquisite gratifying luscious mouthwatering yummy delectable divine meat!

Two words for every bone!

No one took pic of me enjoying it, but best portraited by Aaron Woolala!

We stayed a various hotels in the course of our journey in Bali. HomeStay was the first!

HomeStay hotel has a tiny pool which I saw no one swimming in it. Alas, our last night there, we deep our feet in and splash a little.

A sun bathing chair for those who appreciate the heat.

And The Oasis was the last. All in between, I really wonder why I didn’t snap any pics of them.

From this prespective, The Oasis hotel would seem to be floating on water! Kewl huh.

The pool in The Oasis stretches across as it’s surrounded by apartments. The water’s depth is constant from beginning to end except for the steps to get in and out of the pool.

I challenged myself to swim to and fro 6 times (to work off the babi gulings and babi steak)… failed, but I blame it on not having goggles! The last thing I want is to hit my head on the wall.

Went a trip to Bali and Borobodur with blogger friends. This is going to be a general post from beginning to end, containing sight-seeing scenes. After that, I will focus on other themes such as FOOD!

Inside each of these cones stupas sits a statue. Stone cold. Supposing to reach in and touch it while making a wish.

At night we roamed the night market, if you see a Balinese selling donut, you can be sure there’s more down the road. All selling the same thing! The Balinese have a thing or two to learn from the Chinese in terms of marketing.

Nevertheless, these hermit crabs have to suffer paint and stickers… and put up for sale! Once again, see one, see all. Same stickers also!

Slow shutter speed on the camera to an otherwise slow ferries wheel.

Following day, we head for a hindu temple. Suppose to have 144 of them until a volcanic eruption caused them all to crumple. Due to the lack of financial support, they have only re-erected 5 of the temples.

It really doesn’t make sense to worship a god who can’t help itself. Nothing like worshipping God whose kingdom will last forever and ever and ever, Amen!

Two of these temple makes it similiar to the KLCC twin tower.

Prancing to creativity, Satkuru’s sunglass make a fantastic wide angel lens! I hope he’s ok with all his pores detailed here.

This is the water palace where the Sultans used to stay. Basically this pool is where potential maidens will bath while the Sultan will spy from the left building’s top floor, to see which ignites his desires.

This is the second pool separated by the mentioned building. Over here is where he mates with the desired maiden/mistress.

Close by the water palace grows a plant where you can use its fruits to become red nail polish.

Balinese woman painting dragon on silk.

While a chicken struts proudly.

Proverbs says, a live dog is better than a dead lion. In this scenario, a live chicken is better than a drawn dragon.

The ‘turkey’ packaging when we travel. Traveling here is so famous for drug trafficking and theft. Therefore it’s just safe to pack your luggage like that everytime.

On our second night, we had to hire 2 of these big van to fetch 10 of us from our budget hotel to the airport. A RM300,000 car with (malfunctioning) wifi, open roof (whose buttons we had abused), ambient lights, good suspension, a funny driver and RM100 rental per trip!

Just about to fly to Bali, this airport had quite a nice reflection of it’s lights on the floor. We had Bread Papa for breakfast.

Arriving at Bali, This Isuzu van is HUGE. Comfortably fitted 1 driver, 1 tour guide, 13 of us, and ALL our luggage into this might van!

Entrance to our first meal in Bali. Food post coming right up!

I think this is Uluwatu. I only brought my zoom lens because I’m scared the monkeys will tear into my bag. Cheh, nothing of that sort.

Dang monkeys. Quick on their feet, if they snatch your stuff, you’ll have to trade it with bananas. His hairstyle has an attitude to it too!

Observing this jeep, one wonders how he will get out of this ‘parking’ spot.

Kuta beach was under spring cleaning. Such a shame for this is the only time we can head for the beach.

Nevertheless there are surfers in training.

If it wasn’t for the man in red behind, he could have been assumed to be a deep sea surfer!

70-200mm! woohoo!! Still looking brand new :D

Finally, the end of the Bali trip, Steven Tan, Jessica Lim, Angeline Tan, Satkuru, Mr. Yoga, Daniel Chew, the driver, Aaron Chua, Emily Chong, David Chong, Ai Ling, Elise blocking Lasker and Ming, William Leong.

This was one of the most terrible timings ever! Set 20 shots with 5 seconds interval, and this is the best there is. My countdown failed.

A trip to Cameron’s was one of the outings throughout the whole month they were here.

Was in the mood of flexing my D300, Cameron proved to be a nice place for nature photography.

A little photoshop and the craps carps could look like a beautiful painting of some sort!

Though dying plants, this perspective seem to make me feel small knowing how small a potted plant is, I could jolly well be 1/2 a foot tall!

Honey bees. This is one of their nests. Mighty dangerous if it wasn’t for my zoom lens. muahahahaha

Cameron Highlands is famous for their strawberries! Once upon a time, you could walk in the park and plug pluck strawberries, eating as you go your merry way while collecting the choicest for purchase.

These days, it’s been rumored that they are injected with chemicals to make them bigger. Such a shame if that’s true.

A beautiful shot by my sister (that is your credit Maelodee) whilst I was heading for the loo.

And so there gathered the Choongs, Chongs, Lims & Sims

Season of the Year has finally ended and so this too will be the last post. Wish I could name all of them but I could barely count them either.

A quick switch to wide angle lens brings in the strobe lights making the whole stage looking just so much more cool.

I think there should be a standing ovation but didn’t have time to look behind. Nevertheless everyone has worked hard and is part of this awesome and humongous project.

Some leftover shots that I just find them simply wonderful. The saloon boys doing their dance that got a ‘woohoo’ from the crowd every-single-show!

The tossing of papers is kewl also. I could photoshop more in if I wanted to. hmmm…..

This is Sam’s spectacles after the breakup. He had to cry every time. And we haven’t counted in the rehearsals yet… salute to him on how he can handle the emotions so well.

After knowing the real Jade, seeing Jade acting something that isn’t her would have been something challenging if it was me. How does one play Cheerful Jade and Scowling Izabel several times a day?! Another salute.

Six directors: Kenny, Juni, Tabby, Pastor Lee Choo, Ronnie and Chris Kirkham

The rise of Hitler!

Eventually torn up…

And I wasn’t spared. HAHAHAHA! Love these people so much!

To the heart break of everyone involved, the beautiful beautiful stage was slowly dismantled. Sigh…

And so, this marks a milestone in many lives.

The casts had to go through 3 auditions, 6 months of practice, 4 times a week at first, then 6 times a week towards showtime!

The sound crew had to mess with wireless.

The light crew had heavy-duty equipments.

The prop masters had to make sure every piece is in place… and quickly replace stuff if they are broken.

Make-up artists have to face-shine all 23 casts every show.

Stage manager Cheryl have the best job… just look worriedly busy all the time.

The directors had the satisfaction to see what their brain juice is made of.

And I, the photographer came in 3 months before the show, shot 12500++ pictures, filtered to 10GB of useful pics, and covered the whole event in only 4 blog post. *shrugs*

I miss SOTY.

Meet Kymberly playing the role of Sarah! She has quite a wits about her. It’s hard to argue and win anything without bursting into laughter at her reply. If you really have to beat her, try maths…

Meet Jade playing the role of Izabel. Sweet personality and just fun to have be with. You should see how her eyes just sparkle every time she smiles.

The sound team. Dealing with a bunch of wires so we don’t have to.

Felix, the main guy to frustrate over all the wireless mess (oxymoronic don’t you think?)

When I first found these boxes, I wonder what props they were?! Even after some hard thinking, I thought the casts needed dieting.

After more thinking, it was to hold the wireless microphones in place… around their waist! ~_~

Heyz, wanna read a joke? What’s the transformer Optimus Prime’s sister’s name?

TRANSMITTERS! MUAHAAA! (old cold and lame, I get it)

Yes, we really did light a cigarette on the actual event.

Love guru checking his ultra signature mole!

Leo Lee and Aaron Ng. “guns” were the word of the day for that week. Go figure.

Mellissa Teh, a.k.a. hamster! really funny girl to know! She even wrote “SOTY I miss you” and webcam it.

These special seats in SIB are reserved for the teenagers who are in their 20s to go into their 70s.

A man totally engrossed by the product booklet of SOTY. The words must have been just as engrossing for he had to take out his reading glasses.

These 2 pages feature Marcus, Kymberly, West, Daryll,  Voon Wai, Isaiah, Alex, May Gan, Jeanette, Samantha, Ps Lee Choo, Kenny, Tabby, Ronnie

The whole place was jammed packed every night!

I’m sure I didn’t have the wide angle lens on but this picture surely brings size and perspective into the frame. Meet Mike, Sasha and Jade!

Isn’t she just a beauty? Meet Joy the beautician. A very down to earth, tolerated with me when I was shooting her make-up equipments, a sense of dressing that is always outstanding…. and she’s also a Chong! woohoo! Chongs rule the world!

The funny thing about taking Joy’s make-up equipments was that when she sees a mess, I see potential pictures.

This was staged. Nevertheless the mess behind makes everything fall into place.

Another section of the ‘mess’.

You have to see the show to understand that this is the abused present. Thrown countless of times eons into the rehearsals.

So much so, they had to have it replaced just for the last show.

Ah me! I’ve a mole above my ear??!!

Problem when you’re the photographer, see everyone else but yourself X_X

Moving on…

Melissa had the job of handling out papers quite literally. And finding out this system actually free up her time to go watch the show outside instead. Smart hamster.

Men’s changing room. Unfortunately (or unfortunately) I can’t shoot the women’s room.

Don’t you wish you were the geeks?

Lunch Party! Michel, Alistair, Eugene, Voon Wai, Aaron, Marcus, Daryll, Jeanette, Kathy, Melissa, Jade Annabel, Jessie, Melissa, Sue Shen, Jade, Pearl, Cindee, Sasha, Wesley, Felix, Kenny, Cheryl

Love letters for everyone from everyone. Some overflowed with cupcakes and chocolates.

If you are reading this post by google reader, do clickthru to see the header of this post. There in contains the full picture of what this guy is writing on.

4 of the 6 directors beaming with joy and tears. Juni! Kenny! Ronnie! Cheryl!

Last of all, check out my photoshop skill! How to convert a hot chick into a hot babe ;)

The strobe lights used for Season of the Year in SIBKL was fantastic! Lights here and there… imagine the buttons they have to push at the right time!

Of course, the exposure on the camera plays a part. With faster shutter speed, the light is less obvious and brings out the figures rather than details.

Backlighting is one of the common ‘accidental’ discoveries as a photographer. Such as when shooting a person whose back is facing the sun, you get a silhouette effect. The subtle lights above, inclusive with the arm wrestling happening on both sides brings a lot of ’storytelling’ tales of this picture.

Just the musical begins, we have Sam who is frustrated that his dad wanted him to take over his rubber company while his dad prides himself that his son will one day take over his company just as he had from his father. Now you can understand why it’s both a contrasting color of red and blue.

The subtle hue of blue illuminates the saloon as the conversation between the datins takes place over who’s the best mom in the world. Money talks!

‘Everything’ is litted up as Sam is about to meet his friend, Keong a.k.a. the love guru. As this is purely conversational, the lighting is constant throughout.

Setting up this romantic mood as Sam meets Sarah was a breeze for the light men, but a huge challenge for photography! Imagine Asian faces are already brown and crispy, add red into the mix and Sam looks toasted like tanduri chicken.

This picture of a fierce breakup is made fiercer by the background shadow. You can almost see the emotions just by looking at the shadows!

Another version of toasted red dragon meat. I think I’m hungry as I write this post. Only excuse now is that it’s Chinese New Year!

A fully concentrated lighting on Izabel as she takes on the world!

Smoke and mist plays a huge role in lighting. It brings out the directions of the lights and makes this picture, smoking hot :D

I hope I don’t get skinned alive but I think this is the best picture of the mannequins. Charlie’s angels can’t beat them either :D

Shot the Datins from near the stage. The blue light almost look like a moon.

The casts had to walk to the stage with an air of frustrations, complains and headaches. Doom and gloom on a Christmas day.

The show ends with the father slumped on his chair with great despondency. Most people wonder why such an anti-climatic ending, is because the musical has just portrait-ed a family without Jesus. You may be able to make-do with Jesus but definitely it’s a struggle on an endless uphill battle.

If only Jesus was there to have been a friend to Izabel.

If only Jesus was there to give Sam some wisdom.

If only Jesus was there to tell mom that money isn’t everything.

If only Jesus was there to tell dad to trust in the Lord and lean not on his own strength and understanding.

Geek props look kewl in this musical.

Frustrated people during a Christmas season. “Pay us!”

4 roses = I love you lots!

A worker smoking away his worries. The picture is actually quite bad in quality, but black and white saved the day! Making him look kewl and mysteriously worried.

“Why is life so difficult?!”

The schedule less than a week before the first show! (on my birthday, woohoo!)

The men look cool white reading the newspaper (should have some coffee with it) and the ladies with their bling bling :D

The focus is really the newspaper… not the guy in the newspaper…

Sam’s romantic side… unappreciated X_X

24 wireless microphones for each of the cast members! That’s a whole lot of radio waves running around that day.

Contrasted the color and this cool picture comes up! The curtains lighting and stance was perfect

There seem to be a problem taking this pic… not aligned? the background was made too small? Couldn’t find the right angle? Still baffles me how to snap this right…

Ladies at the saloon for their beauty treatment.

Meet Sam and Keong.

Keong meets Fiona!

The most heart-breaking and tearing scene of it all. And Sam’s role seem to reflect some part of my life. hmmm……

No headaches here, just the beautiful lightings and beautiful girls ;)

“I’m gonna TAKE THE WORLD! I’m gonna HAVE IT ALL!”…

…ends in despair!

Some skillful maiden made these cupcakes! Totally creative and should be tasty.

Last and not least, my baby! Someone took this with the lights from 8 overhead strobes and WOW WOW WOW!