Author: tvsmith

Missing Hong Kong Suddenly

Was looking for pics of my Hong Kong trip. Asked Samantha Tan of Bernama, who went with me. She lost all her pics too. It was 2007 and, amazingly, she is still with Bernama today.

At last, I found some pics on my old blog after contacting Sam to get her to recall the year in question and the name of the product launch we attended. We took a hovercraft to Hong Kong from Macau where we attended the product launch.

The other day I was lamenting about losing all my pics from my extensive tour of Vietnam. Was very happy to be reunited Cheah E-Ling, my then travel partner but, sadly she lost all her pics too. She remembers our government minder as Vung. He was in some agricultural or health department. Any friends in Vietnam knows any Vung? Hopefully, he kept some pics.

Think of social media or the web as a very good good backup or cloud storage as it stays there and is indexed by Google and become searchable. All images stored on personal devices are at risk.

Pic of Hong Kong, with high density and tightly spaced buildings, the late afternoon sun casts long shadows, turning a small space into two different worlds of day and night. Eerie but beautiful.

This would have been a tough scene even for a dSLR camera but it was captured with the LG’s Viewty camera just launched then and gifted to lucky members of the media.

LG Viewty KU 990, ISO 53, f2.8, 1/2000 sec

#hongkong #macau #lg #streetphotography

Burj Al Arab Jumeirah

If you think Forest City in JB has too many Chinese mainlanders, wait until you go to Burj Al Arab. The luxury hotel considers rich Chinese tourists to be an important market. The building was lighted up in red during CNY and lion dances were held on the street level for a CNY party.

Many years ago, my friend Tony H M Tan said to me we should aspire to travel and stay in 6 or 7 star hotels.That was the first time I heard of 7 star hotels.

Burj Al Arab is the fourth tallest hotel in the world and is managed by the Jumeirah Group, a Dubai-based international luxury hotel chain. The name means Tower of the Arabs and is not to be confused with Burj Khalifa at 829.8 m or 2,722 ft, making it the tallest building and the tallest structure in the world.

The two buildings are 9.61 miles apart by driving. We were introduced to the spectacular height of Burj Khalifa by Tom Cruise in the action movie Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

A hotel star rating is self-claimed in many countries. The Burj Al Arab hotel’s management claimed to never have claimed itself to be the world’s only only seven-star hotel. In Malaysia we have a cleverly named 7 Star Hotel, a budget hotel in Kota Damansara. Maybe some people stay there for bragging rights. LOL.

Anyway, Burj Al Arab is on the bucket list for the world’s super rich and royalty. Set on an island in a striking sail-shaped building and near Jumeirah Beach. This luxury hotel is a 5-minute walk from Wild Wadi Water Park. It is also promoted as the world’s most luxurious hotel and is described with superlatives for every aspect, from service to amenities to price!.

The Royal Suite is billed at USD $24,000 per night, according to Wikipedia. A standard suite is around RM 9000 or USD 2000 per night. Price can vary according to dates selected. Book here:

http://www.mycen.my/burj-al-arab-jumeirah/

Halo There

The sun rising behind the Palace Of Justice, the Federal and Appeal Court Complex in Putrajaya.

This is the first time I am seeing the three signature domes as silhouettes with a halo glow. The architecture incorporates Islamic, Moorish, Palladian and similar Neoclassicism elements.

The amber colour reminds me of the tobacco colour introduced by the French Cokin Filter System.

Sony Alpha a7R, ISO 100, f8, 1/125 sec.

#landscape #sunrise #dawn #morning #dome #architecture #putrajaya #palaceofjustice #silhouette #halo #sonyalpha #a7r #zeiss

The Smoky Bandit

The Smokey Bandit

Royal Malaysian Air Force (TUDM) MiG-29N are nicknamed Smokey Bandits. One of its more famous pilots is lady top gun Major Patricia Yapp Syau Yin who flies solo. She’s Asia’s first female MiG-29 fighter pilot. The squadron based in Kuantan were at the LIMA Air show.

Aerial display and aerobatics do not necessary require a very long lens, unless you want to lock onto a solitary aircraft. For formation flying, a 70-200mm lens (of 35mm format equivalence) should be adequate. And another common myth is that one must get near or into the airport.

Langkawi’s terrain is hilly and that means you can find better spots on higher ground for a better vantage point. The back perimeter fence of the airport is good too because you can also capture the carnival-like atmosphere created by the villagers.

I must warn you that if you get your schedule wrong or if a session is cancelled, you won’t be able to get out from there. The narrow road will be jam packed with villagers, motorcycles, cars and hawkers.

Morning directional light is a good time for both white and colourful contrails. Even the black exhaust of the MIG 29N looks better. This was photographed during LIMA 2011.

Olympus E-3, ISO 200, f11, 1/800 sec.

#lima #lima2015 #lima15 #rmaf #tudm #mig29 #airshow #smokeybandit #contrail #langkawi #olympus

Why?

If You Scroll, A Thousand Bed Bugs Will Crawl Out From Your Bed And Bite You Where The Sun Don’t Shine.

Some of you may wonder why I am creating so much content related to hotels. Fair question. As I explained from the onset, I decided that becoming a hotel booking affiliate partner can hopefully and God Willing (please type InShaAllah or إن شاء الله‎‎ in comments) – provide a potential residual income. It is not passive but active, as I have to think of ways to market it legitimately and legally within the terms of use.

Anyone from anywhere in the world can be a user. Everybody travel these days and they can use the booking service from anywhere to anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world. For example, it can an be someone in Iceland looking for accommodation in Fiji. Or a local in Ipoh wanting to go to Penang. I have many social media friends from over the globe who followed me for a long time already. So what are the setbacks? People forget. Therefore I have to keep it sticky, visible and fresh in people’s minds regularly.

After my hospitalization, I needed to find a stable revenue stream that is reliable. The advantage is I have plenty of time. I can create content easily from my library of images, I am fairly competent technically, an experienced webmaster and know the in and outs of SEO. I have much travel related content and it meant easier and faster approval when applying to be an affiliate.

I also have many sites to cross link. Still, I need to reach a critical mass of regular users before I can see fruitful results. Many search engines, I suspect, are also affiliates. Why not? They need revenue too and they compete with me. So I try to think of creative ways to value add. Is all blood, sweat and tears, even though it is an online business.

Webmasters will know this. Regular citations mean faster search engine spidering and indexing. It is very hard mental and physical work as I need to be diligent in ensuring specific hotels are correctly linked. I also need to keep an eye on server performance, bandwidth management and hard disk space utilization. There are many more technical challenges and costs to worry about. Not a business, I’ll recommend to the faint hearted or to a newbie.

A sale is not a sale until the money is in the bank. Some people might cancel their bookings. Also affiliate partners dont pay you immediately even though or because the commissions are micro in nature. Have to wait until you reach a certain threshold and time is needed before commission are even tallied and accumulated payment is sent out, if it reaches the month’s minimum quota.

Anyway, in case you have forgotten, my landing page is at:

http://www.mycen.my/agoda/

You can also help me by introducing me to friends who travel frequently. Thank you for your support.

You can share this post too, if you like and I won’t hit you with puzzling fuckery such as “copy and paste, don’t share”

Also no silly WTF conditions like:

don’t scroll without typing amen.
this baby is too cute, scroll if you are heartless.
Ignore if you have no heart or liver.
1 like = 100000 prayers.
Leave this on your Fb for 2000 hours so I can see who my friends are
Ptui!

Picture of hotel guests looking at very scary torrential rain from the lobby. I love this hotel as it is opulent, classy and very grand – The Empire Hotel and Country Club in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei. If I remember correctly, it is near the abandoned Neverland amusement park built for Michael Jackson. I checked the rates today from my provider and it was quoted at around RM 850. Prices may vary depending on the dates you selected.