Month: July 2017

Dili, East Timor

My friend, Eric Wong a hobby currency note collector is looking for a piece of East Timor currency to complete his Asian collection.

I contacted academician and activist Ying Hooi who travels to East Timor frequently, She told me the budding new nation prefers to use US currency. That cannot bode well, just like Cambodia where everything is quoted in USD. Everything became more expensive not just for tourists but for local consumers as well, A worker and even street beggars will ask for “one dollah” for tips.

Update: Ying Hooi says Timor Leste has no own currency because they are a small economy, They currently have coins though. Eric may have shown us a colonial day note which should be more valuable.

Ying Hooi is seen here in the first picture on top of the hill where the statue of Cristo Rei of Dili (or Christ the King of Dili). Beautiful and model like Ying Hooi is sitting on a cliff overlooking the Savu Sea. She also shared a ground level shot of the popular landmark.Her pic of Tai besi Market of Dili is very interesting too. It was a beans seller. 4th pic is supposedly East Timor money from Eric;s Fb.

Timor-Leste, or East Timor had a long hard struggle to independence from Portugal in 1975 and was subsequently invaded and annexed by Indonesia until it was granted Independence in 2002..
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Find a hotel in Dili here: http://www.mycen.my/dili-hotel-deals-finder/

#dili #easttimor #timorleste #island #portugal #indonesia #maluku #islands #cristorei

Kicking The Bucket At A Bucket List Destination

I remember being hit by a blast of hot air from a MIG 29 Smoky Bandit fighter jet on the tarmac of the Langkawi Airport during one of the LIMA air shows. St Maarten Carribean used to be a bucketlist destination for me. It is part of the Netherlands. Book a hotel there by searching for Sint Maarten in MyCen Hotels.

http://www.mycen.my/

The modern day term bucket list is a list of experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have or accomplish during their lifetime or before dying. You can also call it a bragging list for social media.

According to Phrase Finder, it originates from the notion that people hanged themselves by standing on a bucket with a noose around their neck and then kicking the bucket away.

via MyCen News and MyCen Hotels on Fb

News report: “New Zealand woman dies after jet blast at world’s
‘scariest’ airport”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/14/new-zealand-woman-dies-jet-blast-worlds-scariest-airport-st-maarten

Pic of Airbus A330 of Air Caraïbes at Princess Juliana Airport at Maho Beach, Dutch side of Saint Martin island by Timo Breidenstein via
wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/

#bucketlist #stmartin #carribean #airport #beach ##news #mycxenhotels

A Feel Good Story

Many government departments are making improvements quietly to improve customer service and more. Often and ironically, we do not see it until we compare it with private companies for which they were benchmarked against. Deteriorating quality is creeping up on privately owned telcos, banks, subscription TV and insurance companies, for example.

Notable on the opposite spectrum are customer service improvements and increased efficiency in work processes of certain government owned entities. Some, not all. Leapfroggers are hospitals, police stations, immigration and transport departments which were previously well known for their tardy service and long queues,

I was at the 147 years old KL General Hospital (HBKL,GHKL or HKL) this morning. Not only are the nurses friendlier, but they all seemed genuinely happy and went out of the way to help patients. Even the doctors came out of their consultation rooms to look for patients. Guess what? They even have a Drive Through Pharmacy now

We don’t always need privatization to fix things. We need a change of attitude and guts to identify weaknesses and to find better ways of doing the same things.The area shown on this pic is a wheelchair parking area though the markings on the floor are a little faded, The nurse standing there was like a mobile help counter, aiding and guiding patients who were confused or lost.

She also chatted with solo patients. Seeing her smile made me smile. After all, we go to hospitals to feel better and a few uplifting moments do no harm. The improvement in productivity and efficiency mean the waiting area was virtually empty by 11 am. So what are are private sector corporations good at? Producing feel good PSA videos during festivals lah.

#feelgoodstory #uplifting #klgh #work #hkl

Wooden Chick Is Not Your Frigid Or Unemotional Girlfriend – Part 3.

Photography Tip: Look for a plain chick with a entrance/exit cutout. Use it as a frame but it only works when there is a person behind. I think this was the proprietor of the medicine shop in Bidor.

#chicks #blinds #ruralscape #smalltown #urbex #bidor #tapah #perak #smalltown #history #urbex #series #streetphotography

Wooden Chick Is Not Your Frigid Or Unemotional Girlfriend – Part 2

A Very Old Chick.

A wooden or bamboo chick I saw on the front of a camera shop in tiny Parit Jawa town, south of Muar. The advertisement for a Asahi Pentax Spotmatic camera reads like history. It dates it to between 1964 and 1976, leaving a clue about the longevity of the shop. The model was the then much aspired SLR 35mm film camera because of its compact design, Takumar lenses and TTL needle metering. Then, came the even smaller, analog Olympus OM-1.

I searched Google Street View and was blown away to see Kedai Gambar Wong on Jalan Jabbar, behind the famous Ikan Assam Pedas Chinese corner kopitiam where Muarian Noraini (Yusof Noi) took me to eat.

#chicks #blinds #rural scape #smalltown #urbex #paritjawa #muar #johor #smalltown #history #urbex #series #spotmatic #pentax #slr #filmcamera