Christmas

A very Merry Christmas & best wishes for the coming New Year to all my friends!

The little tree at home

Wen Jia & Ah How with their light sabres!

Seafood paella, lambshanks, roast potatoes & brussels sprouts and chicken pies...

Family pic at Christmas Eve party

Unwrapping the goodies!

Butterfly Park

Located also at the KL Lake Gardens area, the Butterfly Park is home to 6,000 butterflies from 120 species. This time the macro function of the Sigma 70-300mm 4/5.6 APO lens was used. Effective from 200mm onwards, the minimum focussing distance is about 36 inches. It takes patience to shoot them things, fluttering all over & precise timing to get them with their wings opened. Maybe I'll need a dedicated macro lens to get sharper pics.....Will be checking out the Nikkor 60mm or 105mm and also the renowned Tamron SP90mm or the Sigma 105mm macro lens soon.

Orchid Garden

The Orchid Garden is located just opposite the KL Bird Park and on weekdays, entrance is free. Most of the shots were taken with the Nikkor 50mm 1.8D lens, some with a close-up filter (+4) attached to shorten the focussing distance.

Artists at work in the orchid garden

Azhar's Photoblog

Just came to know of a photoblog by Photo Malaysia friend Azhar called The Silence Stories. He's more into macro & nature photography going by the pictures posted in his blog. And I know he's gradually stocking up his arsenal of camera stuff, currently using a Nikon D50 & a Sigma 105mm macro F2.8 EX DG lens, among others.

Bird Park

My first time in the KL Bird Park despite being here for so many years. A real cooling & green environment. A pure escapade from the hustle & bustle of city life. Being a weekday, it was relatively quiet & not many visitors. Another chance to test out the Sigma 70-300mm zoom lens.

Colourful mandarin duck

Bluish duck having a nice swim in the stream

Heron

Pretty flamingos

Another dumb ass tourist.....sigh!

Hello Polly!

Peacock kept her full dress closed....pity

Deeparaya at Geot Auto

Geot Auto are the guys formerly from MBf Peugeot, Sec 13 Petaling Jaya i.e. Mohd Sultan & Chandran who teamed up to run this workshop for Peugeot cars. More of a management buyout exercise since the new owners of MBf Peugeot were not keen to carry on the workshop business anymore. A Deeparaya celebration was held last Saturday at the premises in Jalan 223 Petaling Jaya. Thiaga, my colleague who drives a 405 (upgrading to a 407 soon!) was there too. Also caught up with CK Wong whom I had previously met on the Peugeot forum in Autoworld. He's still actively involved with the Peugeot Club of Malaysia. A great gathering of customers & Peugeot owners. Appreciate the gesture from Geot Auto. (weird name actually!)

L-R Abu, Thiaga, Lye Hock, Sultan, Chandran

Daimon

Daimon is a smallish Japanese outlet in Ikano Power Centre located opposite Uncle Lim's Cafe. Was there last weekend for an afternoon snack just before joining the PM guys for a TT session at Starbucks.

Kyoza - japanese pot stickers or "wor tip". A bit burnt on the skin but otherwise tasty. Could have been better to dip it in ginger strips soaked in vinegar.

Kimchi fried rice - more of a Korean dish. Nothing to shout about. Rice was soggy but taste acceptable. Kimchi was just added on top of the rice.

Okonomiyaki - some panfried savoury pancake. Normally they put noodles inside but the lady suggested this without. Lighter version since it was tea time. Quite good with crunchy shallots. Served with some brown slightly sweetish sauce.

Taiping Coffee

My old schoolmate, Cheng Kiat, has started a blog called Taiping Coffee. Looks like he's a coffee connoisseur too! And there is a posting on the rich heritage of Taiping, the land of eternal peace. Have a look!

Congratulations on your newborn!

The stork brought happiness to a few friends & colleagues recently. First off, congratulations to Andy & Jessie whose son Anthony was born on 26 October. Pictures of Anthony & the happy family has been posted on Jessie's blog.

Next, a little girl Nur Juanne was safely brought into this world to Juneeta on 31 October, just in time for a neat Hari Raya gift.

And congratulations to Jo-anna & Nick who were blessed with a son, Isaac on 10 November.

Dinner at my place again

Eventually we envisage a blog just dedicated to Lai Ping's cooking and probably to also share the recipes. But for now, it will share space on this photoblog. This was over the Raya weekend and essentially chinese dishes with rice.

Stir fried asparagus & petai

Thai style squid salad

Steamed garlic prawns with chinese wine

Lotus leaf spare ribs & chestnuts

D70s was fired remotely on a tripod

Polly's Photoblog

Good friend & ex-colleague Polly who is based in Portland, Oregon has started a photoblog called Visual Rendering. She's a self-confessed perfectionist, no doubt her images will be a thrilling visual experience. Take a look!

Lamps

Interesting lampshades at the Colonial Times Restaurant in The Curve Mutiara Damansara.

Colonial Times Restaurant

Serving original North Indian cuisine, Colonial Times has started to offer other Asian fare such as Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai etc. According to the outlet manager, this is to cater to the customer profile at The Curve in Mutiara Damansara. The tandoori chicken was good, freshly roasted & steeped in spices. The briyani rice served with the chicken was fragrant and tasty on its own. We tried some starter items like spring rolls & prawn in sugarcane skewer which were not bad. Overall, the quality of food here is good. Pricing appears on the higher side though.


Tandoori chicken & briyani rice

Windancer

Kites have gone high tech. We were shopping for a birthday gift for my seven year old nephew Wen Jia when we thought he could learn how to fly a kite. Nowadays kites come in durable ripstop nylon (parachute material according to the proprietor of the kite shop), fibreglass frame & interlocking stitches (?) I remember we used to make our own kites fashioned out of bamboo frames & rice paper. Bamboo was abundant everywhere & the paper costs less than RM1.00. The more adventurous would stick the strings with crushed glass & have a go at "cutting" other kites flying in the air. And if a kite was defeated, the kids will run all over to claim the prize.

Colorful high-tech kites on display

Kites & other windancing items in various shapes & designs

KK Chan's Photoblog

Fellow blogger & colleague KK Chan has started a new photoblog called KK's Eyes. Looking forward to seeing some interesting pictures. And of course once he has upgraded his camera to a DSLR, we can even expect some photo masterpieces !

And speaking of which, Lai May who has recently procured her first DLSR the Canon 350D, has also started to make use of photo hosting facilities from Photobucket. She's posting the photos from China and her debut postings on Yi Xing can be viewed here.

Dragon - i

This Shanghainese styled restaurant serves la mian (pulled noodles) and the famous xiao long bao (steamed meat dumpling). Opened recently at the new wing of 1Utama, the outlet has been attracting customers in droves. And it doesn't disappoint. Actually today was our second visit. We couldn't get enough of the xiao long bao, which we think is even better than the original ones from Shanghai! The la mian sifu apparently made it to the Guinness Book of Records for having pulled the longest & most strands of noodles made in 1 minute!




Juicy & succulent xiao long bao (steamed meat dumplings)




Huang qiao shao bing (deep fried minced meat & sesame pastry)




Fried la mian with meat and black fungus

Sheng jian rou bao (pan fried meat bun)


Master chef Sung Koon Sang deftly shaping the meat dumplings

Deeparaya

A very Happy Deepavali to all my Hindu friends and Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri to all my Muslim friends. May you find peace, happiness & enlightenment in this festive season.



A kolam made from colored rice displayed at the foyer of my workplace.




Decorative Raya items at The Curve