Blog of Kim Loon

Penang, Malaysia, is a food heaven. And no trip to Penang is completed without sampling various type of food.

Of course, during my recent trip there, one important thing to do was to makan (eating in Malay), eat, eat and eat!

I managed to try out quite a number of dishes. Although we could find most of these dishes in Singapore as well, these dishes tasted very different in Penang. I am not good in remembering and describing the tastes. (That is why I am not a food blogger.)

Anyway, these are the food which I had tried in Penang.

 

 

Earth Hour 2014 had just passed. This time, they had involved celebrities for this occasion. I saw the Yahoo video on the big bang at the start of the event. As one by one, the buildings switched off the non-essential lights, I did not see much difference in the background.

During the Earth Hour, I was happened to be at a supermarket. In support of the Earth Hour, the supermarket chain switched off most of the lights. The supermarket was still very bright.

So my take back from this Earth Hour is that, we had switched on too much light every day of the year. It was only slightly diner in the supermarket, and I observed that only 1/3 of the lights was switched on. In another words, the supermarket can potentially save 2/3 of the electricity on lights. Imagine the carbon reduction.

As such, I am still thinking, since so many years ago, what had Earth Hour actually achieved? Buildings, companies are still wasting electricity on non-essential lights, switching on too many lights every single day of the year.

The Earth Hour is over, the lights were switched on again, what had everyone learned from the 60 minutes? Is the statement really made? Or back to normal life?

For me, the only take back is, we do not really switch on so much light. Only if, through these 60 minutes, those participating organizations realized that they had switched on too much light in the past and reduce the amount of light from this point of time, then I believe that the statement had been made.

Seattle is the largest city in the state of Washington, USA. I first got to hear about this city was from the movie “Sleepless in Seattle”, although I had not watched this movie. Nevertheless, I find Seattle is a beautiful city with a flavorful history.

Moving around within in Seattle is fairly easy. You can simply take the bus/metro to Westlake Station and visit the Pike Place Market. At the Pike Place Market, you can taste the fresh seafood (with a price) or simply enjoy the liveliness of the stores there. From there, visit the first Starbuck Coffee shop (the queue is very long) or go down to the Alaskan Way. Along the Alaskan Way are the piers with a different kind of energy. The ship to Canada depart from one of the piers.

Alternatively, from Westlake Center (beside Westlake Station), take a train to the Space Needle. Enjoy the show, watching the water dances with the music at the International Fountain.

You can also take a stroll eastward to the International District Station, observing the beautiful buildings, e.g. Seattle Public Library – Central Library. The Chinatown town is just beside the International District Station. On the other side of the International District Station, there are the Century Link Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks American Football Team, and Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners Baseball Team.

Possible short 1 to 2 hours tours are the Duck Tour (starting at Westlake Center) and the Underground Tour (at Pioneer Square). The Duck Tour will take you to some sights of Seattle, including Lake Union, Space Needle, etc. Whereas, the Underground Tour, as its name mentioned, took us back in time to see the old Seattle, where the ground floor used to be.

These are some of the photos taken in Seattle.

Finally, I watched Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera live in a theatre.

It started some time back, when my younger brother loaned me a DVD of The Phantom of the Opera movie.

Sometime last year, I stumbled upon the 25th Anniversary The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall Blu-Ray at a local shopping mall. I bought the disc almost immediately.

Before I realized it, I was captivated in front of the TV screen for the next three hours

When I got to know that The Phantom of the Opera was coming to Singapore at Grand Theatre of MasterCard Theatres at Marina Bay Sands, I bought the tickets immediately. The Phantom was played by Brad Little and Christine was played by Claire Lyon.

It started a few days ago, when I stumbled upon an article about the latest release of the Simcity game. This reminded me the old Simcity game which I played during my much much younger days. It was an interesting, open ended game. The player decided how the game would turn out. I think I should revisit an old game with new gameplay.
I purchased the PC Download version. As it required 12Gbytes of harddisk place, as expected, it took quite a while to download the game.

Initially, I thought there was the only long wait. When I started the game, it performed an update with the server. It took another awfully long time to process “large file”. After that, I had to restart the game to start playing. Over the course of the few days, it had to be updated a few times. Perhaps, it is because it is still a fairly new game. There is much to be updated.
The first ten to twenty minutes was spent going through a sort of “tutorial” on the basics of the game. Although “basics”, it was sufficient to get me get started. Along the way, there was pop up guides to provide hints and “to-do” to proceed with the game.

At the start of the game, I had to build roads, basic infrastructures (ie, water supply, electric power, etc), zoning the areas, etc. The fun part was to slowly, from nothing, seeing a town being form, from hourly deficit to profitable, the expanding towards becoming a city.

Later, I was guided to put public services (ie police station, schools, etc) to increase the land value, so as to attract wealthier residents.

At a certain point of the time, I was prompted that, I need more residents to provide workers for the factories. I kept expanding the residential zone and yet there was very few occupants in the new areas. It took me a 2nd hour into the game, before I was “guided” that, to increase the density of the residential area, I need to upgrade the road. I think it was one of the fun parts of the game, to discover new tricks.

Before I knew it, I was prompted to start another city in a neighboring area.

I found that Simcity is an interesting game. It is opened ended, and I believe I will spend hours playing this game. And I am still learning how to play this game.

Capability of taking 3D pictures is a highly underutilized feature in my Olympus TG-310 camera. One reason was I did not have a mean to display the 3D pictures taken.

Recently, I bought a LG 3D Smart Television. This television has USB ports for me to plug in a thumb drive and has the capability to display 3D MPO files. With a viewer, I now have a sudden interest to take 3D pictures with my TG-310 camera and view it on the television.

TG-310 has only one lens as compared to a dedicated 3D camera which has two lenses. Therefore, to take a 3D picture, I have to take a picture, align the viewer to overlay image and the camera will automatically record the second image to form the 3D image.

Initially, I had problem taking the second image. I would shift the camera to the right or left to align the image, but the camera would not record the second image. Later, I found out that the easiest way to capture the second image fast was not to shift the camera. I just had to rotate the camera slightly to the right. Most of the time, the camera would capture the second image in a split second.

I also notice that, I have to take care on the subject. I had to take special care that, there was no moving object in the picture. I was taking two pictures with time lap. If there is a moving object, this object will appear in two different places. As a result, it will create a flicking effort.

Overall, I find it very interesting to take 3D pictures. If I would to buy a new compact camera in the future, I will likely to find one with 3D picture taking capability like the one I am using now.

LEGOLAND Malaysia was opened for a couple of months, and I finally visited it last week.

When we arrived at LEGOLAND, I was surprised by the long queue at the ticketing counters. Lucky for us, we booked the package from the official travel agent. On top of the transport from Singapore Flyer to LEGOLAND, we already had the physical tickets on hand. We did not have to go through these queues. Furthermore, due to the large turnout during the December peak holiday session, they had put notice that they limited the number of visitors.

There were a few roller coaster riders in the LEGOLAND theme park, e.g. the Dragon at the LEGO Kingdoms. Due to the peak session, the wait for each of these rides was expected to be around 45min to 60min. I am not a fan of roller coaster, so this did not bother me at all. Furthermore, I was not keen to get myself wet at the Dino Island.

Even without going for these rides, LEGOLAND was still an enjoyable trip for the whole family. There were many family orientated games and rides. And the queues to these were much shorter.

Personally, I quite enjoyed the 4D show. We watched the “Spell Breaker”. The show was designed for the 3D experience. When the hero was stretching out his hand, a few children actually stretched out their hands, too, to reach for the hero’s hand. The wind and the water effect enhanced the overall experience.

I was also fascinated by the models in the Miniland. They had built these models which looked so much like the real landmark. On top of that, they had made wonders on making these model cars and ships moving in the scenes. We could also fire water jet from a pirate ship model. I think I spent at least an hour there just to take pictures of the models.

Overall, I found that LEGOLAND was a giant playground for the whole family. Spending a day at LEGOLAND may not be sufficient for us to fully enjoy the theme park. To fully enjoy the day at LEGOLAND, I would suggest purchasing the tickets prior to going there, reaching there when it opens at 10am, if possible.

Maybe, we shall wait till the LEGO theme resort beside it to be opened, and we shall spend a few days there, enjoying ourselves.

I received my Star Wars Stamps Collection from Singapore Post.

There are two sides of the collection book – the Light side and the Dark side. Of course, the Light side refers to the Heroes, the Jedis, the Alliance, etc. And the Dark side refers to the Sith, the Empire, etc.

In each page, there is at least a stamp featuring a major character in the Star Wars movies. There are also 2 sets of middle pages, featuring the blue prints of the vehicles from the movies. There is also a very long poster included.

I have a Data Plan SIM Card lying at home. It was part of the Internet Plan Bundle which I am subscribing to. In order not to waste this 3G mobile data plan SIM Card, I either get a tablet or a 3G Dongle. Getting a tablet was more sounding choice, as I do not have to carry a heavy laptop to make use of my 3G mobile data plan.

I do not like that my tablet is the same as most other people, as such I would avoid the dominating players.
I was not looking for the latest device. I just need a tablet for my occasionally weekend usage, to check mail or latest news, etc. I do not play processing intensive games, for now.

Huawei’s Mediapad caught my attention. Without thinking much, I bought one 7” unit during the recent Tech Show in Singapore.

The Mediapad look very similar to most other Tablet on the market. It came with a power charger and a microUSB cable. I was quite disappointed that, it was not using the commonly used microUSB charger like those in the mobile phones, despite that the voltage was the same – 5V.

The operating system was Android 3.2. I thought it would be Android 4.1 Jellybean. But this does not really concern me, as long as I can use the Apps I need.

My understanding was that, it has phone function. Amazingly, I could not find the phone icon. I checked on the net. I found out that, I need to do a firmware upgrade. Since my SIM card is a purely data plan, and I can use the Apps I need, I put the firmware upgrade on hold. Unless, I want to use the Mediapad as my mobile phone. However, I do not think it would be any time soon, because I found it too big as phone.

Over all, I find that the Huawei’s Mediapad could be a good choice for an alternative from the dominating players. It provided the basic functions required as a Tablet. I can easily download addition Apps.

Last Weekend, I visited the Singapore Toy, Game and Comic Convention 2012. It was held at Marina Bay Sands, 1st and 2nd of September 2012.

These are some of the photos taken during the event.