Malaysian International Fireworks Competition 2008

The Malaysia International Fireworks Competition 2008 is back again. This the second year that this event is held. The first event started last Thursday with the host nation being the first competitor. Last year, I attended all the events but this year I was hesitant to attend the event after having learned a bitter lesson of being caught in the traffic jam for more than 3 hours after the event. Another reason is that it was held on a week day where I need to get out from my office early to head to Putrajaya where the event was held.

After reading discussion forum from the members of a photography site, where it was mentioned that there traffic condition has since been much improved, I decided to head for the event on Saturday where Team China was in line for the competition. My children did not want to follow me because I would leave my house at 5.00 p.m. to get a nice spot to put up my gears to shoot the event.

So I drove off from my house and reached Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC). At the entrance I was directed to head to the public car park where there are coached there to ferry the public to PICC. I parked my car at the carpark and there were already more than 5 coches on stand-by to ferry the attendeess to PICC.

I hoped on the bus and off I go to PICC. I was very early but there are people who are earlier than me. Tripods have been placed at the balcony area aiming towards the fireworks set-off site. I managed to make friends with a few of the photographers who were like me being early there to shoot the event.

Initially the event was scheduled for 9.30 p.m. ut I was informed that the event has been pushed to 10.00 p.m.. That means I have to wait for 4 hours before I can start to shoot the event. That does not bother me because time flies fast where more and more people arrived and were standing behind me.

The competition started right on the dot at 10.00 p.m. and the fireworks ended within 20 minutes. Immediately when the competition was over, I packed my gear and hop on to the coach which was already waiting and was ferried back to the public parking area. There were so many cars and the roads were packed jam with them.

This time around I was impressed. The traffic managed to move smoothly out of Putrajaya to Kuala Lumpur and I managed to return home before midnight.

The next even will be on 20 August by Team Canada.. I am still undecided where to go or not.

Here are some of the shots and more are available in my Flickr Album and also my Facebook.

Best wishes!!

Just want to add some photos of the lovely bride:

The Wedding of Demudu and Shim Yew Moi

On 7 July, I got a mail from Shim, who was my former colleague/staff in Public Bank attaching with three image files. The e-mails reads:

"Boss Boss……. ; ) ooops…..am getting married! Sent u an e-card, if you prefer to receive by hand, let me know k! Come n snap photos ler"

This is the first time that I have seen her in other dressing other than in a pair of pants

I was surprised when I opened up the attached to find out that the bridegroom if also one of my former colleague/staff Demudu. Why did I say surprise? I did not know that they were dating each other previously because I have not seen them together. At the same time, both their characters are different. Anyway, I am happy that they both have found each other, went through the courtship period and now its time to get married.

The wedding was held at the Sri Moogambigai Temple which was the temple which was "saved" from demolition with the developement of the Mid-Valley Shopping Complex. The temple was tucked away just outside the complex and is very popular with the local Indians.

Many of my former colleagues were invited to attend the wedding ceremony and I am happy to be able to meet up with them and chat with them. Most of my time spent at the cewremony was snapping away photos with my camera. At the end of the 2 hours ceremony, I have shot over 400 shoots.

All the photos are available for viewing at my Picasa Web Album(389 images) - just clik on the link or at my Flickr Album.

The lovely bride

Well I want to thank both Demudu and Shim who have invited me for their wedding ceremony and dinner.

Wishing both of you all the happiness as a new couple!!!

Darren Turned 12 Today

My son Darren turned 12 years old today. I took leave today to arrange to go with him to the National Registration Department (NRD) to do his MyKad. Last minute changes to his school schedule did not allow us enough time to go to the NRD to do his MyKad. We have to do it tomorrow where I would need to seek his class teacher's permission to release him from his afternoon class. Furthermore, tomorrow is Friday the 13th and Muslim's prayers day where the NRD is only opened from 2.45 p.m. to 4.45 p.m.. It will be a rush job going there to queue up to do his MyKad.

Dareen has grown tall since last year. You can see his photo taken 2 years ago on his birthday from this link. He is taller than all the members of the family except me. He has already reached my ears and I think he can be taller than me soon.



Tonight, his birthday was celebrated by the family with a cake and a gift from his mum and his sisters.. a SWATCH watch. Me? Well I have not got him any present yet because I could not think of anything I can get him for now. He has also everything a boy of his age wants.



Finally, HAPPY BIRTHDAY , son!!

Gong Xi Fa Chai

Wishing all my friends, visitors and reader a Happy New Year of the Rat 2008.
May you enjoy good health and prosperity in the year of the rat.

Fun in Manila

After a long six months, my project in Manila is coming to an end. The project has been very successful. To celebrate the success of the project, a party was organised by the office staff.

In the project there were some colleagues who were from Indian, food for the party was a bit of problem becuase some of them are vegetgerian and strictly no meat for their meals. To make every one happy, the party was held at an Indian restaurant called Prince of Jaipur which was located in Fort Bonafacio. The restaurant was decorated with many Indian paintings of Maharaja and Maharanis.

Almost every one who were involved in the project attended the party. Food was a mix of vegeterian and also non vegeterian consisting of mutton and fish. The Indians were the most happy seeing the food which they are familiar to. Whilst the Filipinos and others.. well they are accomodate to have Indian food which is treated as a different cusines from their routine food.

After the food, time for some fun. There was a lovely belly dancer who serene us with the lovely smile and twisting hips and belly. The guys' eye were all on her. There was also free flow of drinks from the bar, tequila, rum and volka. Everyone were having fun drinking. Some went too fast and too furious on the drinks that they were drunk before 11.00 p.m.

By 11.00 p.m. the Indian restaurant was turned into a disco. Music machine was placed on the stage and there was a female DJ spinning dance songs. By 12.00 p.m. I need to leave the restaurant because I still need to go back to the office to continue my work.

I had fun during the party and here are some of the photos taken with the people at the party.

My project team in Manila, From left, Selvi from Chennai and Rika who is working with me from KL.

The lovely Yahoo

The belly dancer

Happy people

I will leave my heart in Manila.. see these lovely and beautiful ladies with me!!!

My first teddy bear

The time of the year is drawing near, and I would not be at home on that day. So I decide to celebrate the day earlier with my family. What am I taking about? Well my birthday is coming soon but I will be in Manila on my birthday. So I decided to celebrate the date with my family before flying off.

I booked a table at Souled Out to have dinner there with my family on 13th October. Luckily I did the reservation early because all the table were packed because it was a holiday.. Hari Raya Adil Fitri.

I was caught by surprise when my children presented me with a brown box with Cool Bear Workshop written on it. They told me that it is my birthday present. I opened it and was surprised that it turned out to be a cool teddy bear dressed up in a cool outfit. They told me that they have commissioned the making of the teddy bear at a shop where you can customised the bear by choosing whether it is a male or female and at the same time choose the outfit for it too. But the best thing was when they told me to press the centre of the bear.. a recorded greeting of the sound of my three children saying "Happy birthday Papa". I was very touched by the gift because it has been chosen by my children and at the same time, this is the first teddy bear that have been presented to me. I love the gift very much especially it was given to me by my children who have taken the trouble and effort to give it to me on my birthday.







I told them that I will bring the bear along when I travel so that I can hear their voices when I am away fr0m home and it will not not make me home sick.

To celebrate my birthday, my wife presented me with a lovely and costly belt. I presented myself with a PSP. Well yeah.. finally I got myself a PSP. This was after consideration of whether to get myself an Apple iPod or not. The PSP is a better choice since I can play games, listen to music, view videos and do much more things than an iPod. At the same time, I also another unit of PSP for my son.. that makes 2 PSPs.. one for me and one for my son. He too was yearning to have a PSP and he was also the one who has influenced me to get one.

Now going to Manila for a long duration of time would not be bored since I will have my teddy bear and my PSP by my side.

MIFC - 30 August (31 August) 2007

Another night again at the MIFC. This time around the event is held on the eve of Hari Merdeka, many people will be there to see the fireworks competition. I took a days leave not because of the wanting to be there but my children are also having their school holiday.

We started our journey to Putrajaya very early.. 6.30 p.m. and by the time we reach PICC at 7.00 p.m there were already photographers placed their tripods at the Mezzanine floor getting ready to photo shoot the fireworks event which starts at 12.00 p.m. Yeah.. you read right 12.00 p.m. 5 hours of waiting before we can start to shoot the fireworks.

The waiting finally ended when the countdown to Merdeka by the DJ and then the fireworks from Team Japan started to fire off. I did not like the photos that were captured, there was too much smoke where it interfered with the colours of the fireworks. At the same time, the fireworks pattern were too constant where the same design were fired off many many times.

After show was over we did not take off strait away home because we knew that there will be a terrible terrible jam ahead of us. So we sat in the leather sofa in PICC for almost 1 hour to rest our legs after standing for more than four hours straight.

In the end we managed to reached home at 2.00 a.m. and I woke up at 9.30 a,m. this morning but the night's (morning's) sleep was not enough I ended having afternoon naps.

Here are some of the shots I took for events.

Two shots taken before the sun sets

MIFC - 25 August 2007

I was at the Malaysia International Fireworks Competition again on Saturday. It was the turn of the Italian to show what fire power they have. This time around my children were also during the show. We left home at 7.45 p.m. , I have the feeling there will be many people flocking to Putrajaya to see the fireworks since it was a Saturday and the news of how spectacular the fireworks has been effectively been publicized. True enough, there were so many cars on the road leading to Putrajaya.

I went up to the Putrajaya International Convention Centre by paying RM10 for the parking. The car [ark was full and I knew that I have to quickly get on to the Mezzanine floor to grab a place to put my tripod and also get a good view for my children. Even though there are already many people there, we were lucky to have a spot where we can get a good view overlooking the bridge and the firing area of fireworks.

The fireworks started at exactly 10.00 p.m. The Italian have a spectacular fireworks that managed to become heart and star shape when it burst in the skies. The ending was an explosive one where all hell broke loose. The fireworks managed to light up the whole sky and the photo captured was only a plain white patch (due to the bright fireworks and long exposure time).

As usual, the traffic jam was another nightmare. This time, the jam was worse. We managed to reach home at 2.00 a.m. after supper at a nearby mamak shop.

The next big bang will be the Japanese Team on 30 August where the fireworks will start at 12.00 midnight to coincide with Hari Merdeka. I would expect a much bigger crowd then.

Here are some of the photos of the show. See many more photos are my Flickr Album.

Foreign Cows in Putrajaya

It was the worse traffic jam that I have ever experienced in Putrajaya last night (25 August) after Team Italy's fireworks display. Tried going to Dengkil.. long queue jam, turned backed to try Kajang way.. again the same result. It was almost one hour of circling around that me and my children finally ended back at the PICC and was driving towards the Government offices. Suddenly we saw a bunch of aliens.. alien cows.

Colourful painted cows at the Ministry of Agriculture. It turned out that there were 28 beautifully coloured "European" fiberglass cows that were part of a tour of Malaysia starting at the Putrajaya.

The cows – known as the European Union Herd of Cows – are painted by artists and school children using typical national symbols for each country in the union. Each cow weighs around 300kg.

We could not help ourselves and stopped at the place for snap shots.

Malaysia International Fireworks Competition - 22 August 2007

The Australian Team took the stage on 22 August 2007 for the Malaysia International Fireworks Competition. This time around I bought a ticket which entitled me to be at the Ground Floor of the PICC which is one floor above where I stood during the first night of the competition on 18 August 2007. There were many people who came to Putrajaya to see the fireworks. Many of them were at PICC but most of them were scattered all over the Putrajaya grounds.

The nice thing about being on the ground floor is that I am able to listen to the soundtrack that accompany the fireworks where the sound and the fireworks would synchronize with each other. The full fireworks show lasted 20 minutes. The Australian team's fireworks was spectacular. I would say that it is better than the Malaysian Team. But there are still 2 other teams (Japan and Italy) to compete when the final results would be known.

Here are 15 of the best shots taken during the event.

The finale of the show where all hell (fireworks) broke loose!!!