Slipping Into 2012

It's the year 2012. The year the Mayan calendar ends. The year the world ends.

Doomsday prophecy aside, it's just another new year. Last I checked, there's this peculiar custom where people go about making new year resolutions, promising to become a better person this new year.

I will stop reliving in the past and start worrying about the future. I will delete my Facebook account and spend more time with real people. I will not pretend to call in sick to work. Not even once. Totally. Honestly...

However earnest you are (or try to be) when you make these resolutions, you're also aware that it's a matter of time before they're swept to the neglected corners of your mind. Then comes the next year, when you'll feel maybe a small pang of guilt that the previous year's resolutions didn't go according to plan and promise to hang onto them for real this year. Then the cycle continues.

It is also the time when party spirit runs high. Right now, there's a growing crowd at the party venue at Taipei 101, as the revellers count down the final hours of the year 2011. At the first struck of 12, fireworks lit the sky for the next 202 seconds. All this extravaganza showing on the TV in my hotel room at the relatively rural Miaoli County, while I'm lying in the bed half asleep, too exhausted for the flurry of live reports.

Catching Sunrise, Revisited

I'm not posting holiday photos. This is sunrise in Penang. If you've spent some time in Penang before, look closer and you'll probably recognize that tiny patch of black trees as the tiny island close to Penang bridge. And on the horizon is Butterworth on the mainland.

Catching Sunrise

It was Deepavali, a public Holiday in Malaysia. But instead of spending the morning in the bed and compensate for the sleep debt accumulated over the working days, we ended up waking earlier than usual. The reason? Some silly promise I made to myself a few days back.

Khoo Kongsi

When the Chinese migrated to Malaysia (then Malaya) about 200 years ago, they formed closely-knit communities. Those who shared the same surname lived together and watched over each other. In the Hokkien community in early Penang, there were Five Big Clans, namely, Khoo, Cheah, Yeoh, Lim and Tan. These communities built their clanhouses and formed settlement around them.

Evening At the Park

It has been months since my last post. Ever since I started working more than two months ago, free time has become a luxury. On the weekdays, daytime and nighttime is but an alternate between work and sleep. Weekends meanwhile, are for slumbering and being unproductive, except for the very few occasions when I'd somehow force myself out for a photo session.

But what's a photo session without my beloved Zhi, who's also my faithful camera assistant (she carries the lenses for me) cum photo model? And so, poor Zhi was dragged along to the Youth Park, on a hot sunny day when stepping out of the house is hardly a welcoming idea for the sane mind.

Thankfully, our session was a fruitful one. We came back with a number of satisfying shots.