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Desa Sri Hartamas is where I live. Hidden from the popular commercial area where all the pubs and eateries are, this residential area is still pretty quiet. Guarded by a secured area, it is still a walk away from the happenings.

If you were to book a land tour which includes transfers and hotel, you would most probably be given a free half day hong kong tour. This is the experience I had. The tour started at 7:30 a.m. where your tour guide will pick you up at your hotel lobby. Then you will be brief that we will be touring Hong Kong for half the day and we will be going for breakfast first and ending up with lunch. Breakfast and lunch meals were not included in the tour so we have to cough up an additional cost of HKD120.00 - we went to a posh looking restaurant (I was pretty excited not having to go by myself to find a dim sum restaurant). Having looked at the dim sum served, I was quite dissapointed. It didnt taste that good either. The dim sum served were a bowl of porridge, har kau, siew mai, chee cheong fun, char siew pow and wrapped glutinous rice. All poorly done and lets not talk about service - they just throw the food at your table. Pretty bad dim sum experience.

After breakfast, we headed to Hong Kong island and to the famous convention center. Group pictures taken and then we were free to snap away at this famous landmark. Camera man snapping pictures of you to sell it to you later.

Not a bad place to visit. After the convention center we were brought to Repulse Bay for some more sightseeing. Ok this is a nice place to visit. 

Entrance of the gateway to all the Gods.

Good place to take your photos.

Nice sea side beach. I am quite impressed at how clean their beaches are. Next on the agenda is an unscheduled stop at a pier for a junk ride for HKD55 per person. The junk ride was quite boring and I would advise to give it a miss. You didn’t miss anything great.

The so called junk ride.

My junk driver. Please ensure that you have small change before getting on else this lady will be scolding you if you give her HKD1000 to change.

Next on the itinerary isn’t that pleasant. We were sent to a HK jewellery shop where we get pestered into buying some jewelery but poor me, I just couldn’t afford to buy anything there so they didnt get anything out of me. That took some time. Some people actually buy these things…

Next was to some ginseng shop. Mind you the time is already about 2 p.m. At the ginseng shop again sales person will be pestering you to buy some HKD 600 per pound ginseng. Unbelievable! But if your skin is thick then you could just politely say no thank you and wait outside but the time wasted is unbearable.

Lastly at the bus, the bus driver or rather the tour guide will persuade you to buy some key chains for HKD60.00 and lastly lunch at a chinese restaurant. Again not so great but what can we do - almost the whole day has been wasted. By the time we finished everything, it was already 4 p.m.

I hate tours and will never follow one ever again - but my most memorable ones would be the posh ones like in New Zealand.

While most of you are resting at home - I work on Saturdays - however most of the saturdays are to catch up on some paper work that is overdue. Saturdays are usually very relaxed at work and I would bring along my camera and snap around KL. KL is pretty quiet on a saturday morning.

Picture of KL Tower which is my usual sight everyday. Its been raining throughout the week but this saturday is fine :).

This is a shot I took while I was driving home. I knew that I had only a few seconds to take it. I stopped my car by the side. Took my camera out and snap snap.

And before reaching home I felt like getting some crap food and stop over the familiar Rojak Van beside Petronas at Sri Hartamas to take home an Indian Rojak without tofu. It taste like crap but it is much better than the ones they sell in the mamak stall and I am not spoiled with food here.

Pre war buildings is what I see everyday on my way to work. I work at one of the oldest parts of KL - though it is not as hipped or glamorous as KLCC area but I have grown fond of this part of KL. Where can you find dark alleys of food stalls which serves the best indian rojak or wan ton mee anymore in CBD, where can you find yourself eating mixed rice upstairs a chinese shop lot that was built in the 1800s.

However not all have been preserved - some are about to be torned down to make way for new development like the picture below. Its sad to see them go one by one. Here is a little write up about pre war buildings.

Making way for new development.

Run down and hang out place of the drug addicts.

The historical buildings in Malaysia are unique and attractive. Their designs can be traced from the Malay, Chinese, Indian, European and Middle Eastern cultures brought by traders who came to migrate or trade in the 16th century. These buildings are valuable assets to this country for their historical values and tourism potential. (Yeah right - tourism potential for club crawlers) Historical buildings in Malaysia may possibly be classified into six categories; namely shop houses, commercial buildings, religious buildings, private houses, palaces and institutional buildings[2]. Most of these buildings are located in the commercial or highly populated areas like major cities and towns in Malaysia.

Studies have shown that the structures of these buildings are still solid and intact, and safe for occupation until today. A survey carried out by Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in 1993 on pre war buildings in Malaysia had shown that there were about 37,000 units of historic pre war buildings built between 1800 and 1948, in which most of the buildings have not been properly preserved.

 When I was 16 or was it 17 years old, I wanted to work for National Geographic (NG). At that time I was at my school library going through the NG magazines and I was amazed at how the NG photographers capture those moments  - they inspired me. At that time I was at a brink of not knowing what to do in my life and I just thought that it was either joining them or the peace corp. But then again reality hit me and in order for us to be hired for them we kinda need qualifications be it a photography know-how or a journalist degree - I was a dumb-ass 16-17 year old trying to pass through exams. Oh well… I scrapped the idea.And just last night I picked up an NG magazine dated in 2003 and frankly the magazine still inspires me to capture whatever moments - its a bit too late to join them but armed with my new DSLR, I decided to do my own NG on this blog. *heh*Here are some inspiration picture from the National Geographic web sites : Photographer : Catherine Karnow Photograph by O. Louis Mazzatenta