Still Alive!

For all of you who is wondering if Louis is still alive.

Answer: Yes. Very alive and blogging!

Typhoon Day (Sunday 28/09/2008) started like any other day except for a few gentle gust of winds. But around noon time, things got really bad. We could hear the wind hitting hard against the windows and it was scary at times. By noon, me and my homey had to brave the strong wind aka typhoon to 7-eleven to get our lunch. We stayed indoors after that and keep ourselves abreast with the latest typhoon updates on TV.



But the inevitable happened at 330pm when the electricity supply suddenly tripped. We were all cast into darkness with no news and updates on the typhoon which is looming large outside. Electricity supply only came back at 11pm ++. But unfortunately, the TV and internet did not recover until today.

I went to work for the first time today at AUO (where I'll work for the next 3 months).

Use one word to describe AUO fab:
HUGE

Use one word to describe your first day:
TIRED. :(

Typhoon JangMi 颱風薔蜜

Finally, today will be the day when Typhoon JangMi 颱風薔蜜 will hit the North Eastern shores of Taiwan.


Typhoon JangMi's track (picture courtesy of Yahoo! Taiwan)

Jangmi had a radius of 250 km and was moving northwest at a speed of 24 km per hour, with maximum sustained center winds of 154.8 kph and gusts reaching 190.8 kph. It is predicted to arrive on the shores of Taiwan at around 6pm this evening.

I have prepared some food enough to last me for at least 2 days for this nature disaster. So for this episode of "Twister", I just stay at home and chill...


1:24pm update: Me and my homey just went to the nearest 7-eleven to get our lunch on foot. Gosh, it was indeed a helluva experience. Almost got blown of my feet. Clouds above our heads were really fast-moving.


walking to se-ven (as how the locals here call it)



shopping for lunch

2:54pm update: The winds are showing no signs of calming down. Check out the video below (pardon the silence, cuz my camera does not have a speaker, but in actual fact the sound of the wind increased the drama and effects of the whole scenario).

Take notice that how bad the sugar cane plants are trying to whithstand the wind.

A Place I Call Home For The Next 3 Months

As promised, I will post some photos of where I stay in 台中, 台湾.

This is the road leading to my house.


清泉路，福祥巷6弄


Road leading to my house

From the outside, it looks like any other house.


3-storey house


Brick house


Neighbours

But on the inside, it looks something like this. I know I know, it's a little messy, but what's a little mess by 8 bachelor engineers staying under one roof, right?



I am staying with Lau, Ray, Mason, Leo, Tony, Todt and Robin. Except for Lau (who is from Sarawak) the others are Taiwanese. They are a fun and friendly bunch to be with, so for those of you back home, please don't worry kay? I am good here.

Note: Oh yeah, a typhoon is subject to hit Taiwan tomorrow. Call me crazy but I am actually looking forward to my first typhoon experience. YAY!!!

Leaving HsinChu

Sunset

After staying a night at CSS HsinChu office, I left for TaiChung. My impression of HsinChu is a mixed one. On one hand, it's a big town with many offices and factories, but on the other hand there are still many residents here who are involved in agriculture.


Serene

After dinner with some of the staffs of CSS, Lau and I went to the Taiwan High Speed Rail (高鐵) Station to catch the 8:04pm train headed to TaiChung.


HsinChu


Lau on the left

This was a very unique experience as this marks the first time I sat in a 300km/h top speed train.


Inside 台灣高鐵

Stay tuned for more updates from TaiChung... up next "Where I Stay..."

Beauties in the Air

Note: Here's a post for those who have requested for photos of beauties in Taiwan.

These are the beauties whom I mentioned in the previous post.



They are Eva Airlines air hostess. Most of them are taller than 170cm. With such height advantage, fair complexion, fine facial features, A+ politeness and sincerity... any guy would have their heartbeat doubled.

Nostalgia

This photo was taken in Bintulu 2007 at the Borneo Kite Festival 2007.

Nissan Skyline GTR34 tuned by Nismo

Bad boy GTR

There are many cars nowadays which can portray the personality of the owners. Some cars make the owner look like a big bad wolf, while other cars has the magic to turn their owners into samsengs-wannabe. But here is the car that can bring the word B.A.D to a whole new level unrivalled by any other cars.

Nissan Skyline GTR34.

These photos were taken last year but I only got to do the editing recently. This virgin white GTR34 is specially tweaked by Nismo. Check out the side fender in the following photo and you will notice that the part under the side mirror is twitched.



How I wish I have the moolah to get one for myself... one like this can easily set you back for RM200k++

Boss, so if you are reading this post, please give me a thick and fat pay raise. And I promise to bring you for a joy ride. Thank you boss!

D-Day

Kuching International Airport

I woke up this morning at 6am. After a torturous night deciding whether to bring or not to bring my baby (Canon 400D), I have finally come to D-Day for me to leave Kuching for Taiwan.

KL Express

Flight was so-so from Kuching to KL. Once I have collected my luggage, I took the KLIA express to KL Sentral to meet Mr. Ragu. Who is this Mr. Ragu? He is the guy who will deliver my passport along with my visa from the Taiwanese Embassy.

OK, got my passport. Next stop is the money changer. The rate for Taiwan Dollar against RM is RM0.1135 for $1. Gosh, I feel rich cuz with RM100, I will have ~$1000. Not bad eh?

After that, I hopped on the KLIA Express again to get back to KLIA. The fast and comfortable express train only took 28 minutes to reach KLIA. Since it’s still quite early for my check-in, I took our my baby and started snapping photos around KLIA 5^th floor.

After contented and tired of snapping, I decided to have my lunch at McD cuz I think it's the cheapest in KLIA.

Fast-forward...

3:10pm, time to board Eva Air BR0228. This is my first time flying with a foreign airlines and this is also the first time I am flying with a Boeing 747-400. And the good thing does not just end there. All the air stewardess are tall hot Chinese chicks. I am in heaven....

Stay tuned for more updates from Taiwan

Leaving

I am now waiting to board my flight Eva Airlines BR0228 bound for Taipei.

Woke up at 6am, took my flight from Kuching to KL, rushed to KL Sentral to collect my passport from someone who brought it all the way from Taiwan Embassy, rushed back to KLIA, had my lunch at McD, checked in, and now I'm in the waiting hall.

Take care my frens, I will miss you all...

Only At Night

These photos were taken about a week ago at my house at around 2am in the morning. This flower will start to bloom in the evening and reaches full bloom at midnight. Queer? This is the flower of the Dragon Fruit.


Heart of the flower

New Mall

There will be a new mall opening soon in Kuching. It will be the equivalent (in terms of contents but not size) of Lowyat Plaza in KL


Plaza Low Yat

and Sim Lim Square in Singapore.


Sim Lim Square

It's called One TJ (but of course it's much smaller compared to the 2 shopping complexes above)


One TJ - Powering Up soon

This mall is actually the replacement for Wisma Saberkas, well-known for its electronics and computer gadgets. Wisma Saberkas has been around since the 1980s, so I guess it's time we Kuchingite deserve a better and more decent IT shopping mall in town. One TJ will be officially open on 22-Nov-2008 (thanks to Helen for the heads-up). Too bad yours sincerely won't be in town to give you the latest updates, but do not worry, I will be giving you updates from Taiwan instead.

Did I hear Taipei 101?


Taipei 101

Kuching Festival 2008

This is a loooong overdue post (pardon the pun)

Kuching Festival is an annual food festival where Kuching's very own top food stalls and restaurants gather together at the premises of Dewan Masyarakat to do their business. Business starts in the evening and normally this is the time when the hungry Kuchingites come out to feed! (did some one just say dracula?)

Here I will just let the photos do the talking...


Throngs of hungry people... we just love food don't we?


Nice food gallery


Food galore


Mutton Soup with "kao kao" flavour


They even have bak chang in August!


Southern-Small-Chicken-Drumstick


More hungry peeps...


More food...


Fried Sotong (i think...)


Well decorated stall...


Not steam, not baked....but fried jagung


Thai food hawkers


Crispy Mushroom...


Fried Bird... ???


Fried Oh Jian aka oyster

Buuuuurrrpp....

Me and my accomplice didn't stay too long cuz it started to drizzle. We were so concern about my lil baby aka my DSLR camera so we hurried ourselves to the car before the rain started pouring in. It was indeed a nice experience (any experience with food tagged along is a good experience) but too bad the photos didn't turn out good. I need a Speedlite.... Presto!

Many Faces

I really like this photo (plagiarized from my colleague's Bali trip photo album)

This photo has been edited using HDR technique.

Fly Away

As mentioned in my previous entry, I won't be here when Chloe pops her head out into this world. That's because I will be on a working trip to Taiwan.

If everything goes as planned (visa especially), I will leave Kuching on next Thursday (25/09/2008). I will be working in either 台中 （TaiChung） or 台南 （TaiNan） for the next 3 months. I'm really looking forward to this trip, but I'll surely miss my family and friends and of course the food here.

But don't worry, I will keep you all posted with my life there... teehee!

Latest update (19/09/2008 13:41):
I'll be leaving for 台中 (TaiChung) next Tuesday (23/09/2008), 2 days ahead of my scheduled trip.

HDR - Trial

I'm recently hooked on HDR or High Dynamic Range image processing.

Check out a few of my processed photos.


Top of Mt Singai


Shrine of Mary


A cathedral in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam