Brisbane, Australia

I think this would rank as my shortest visit to Australia. Refer to the immigration stamps pictured above. I arrived at about 0700 in the morning and took the 2345 flight back out.

MAS was fully booked so I had to take SIA to Singapore in the afternoon before transfering to the Singapore-Brisbane flight at 2120. Since this was a last minute working trip, I was pretty much caught up working and reading throughout much of the flight. Only managed to get an hour of sleep because I found the cabin had very low humidity. Throat was parched dry most of the time. The good thing about the SIA flight was that they provide us cattle class passengers with a kit that consist of a pair of socks, toothbrush and toothpaste. I remember MAS only providing L'Occitane kits to the business class.


Despite the busy schedule, we were able to visit Mt. Coot-tha on the way back to the hotel. It has a lookout where you can see the panoramic view of Brisbane city. It's absolutely beautiful and I can imagine the night view must be fantastic.
http://www.brisbanelookout.com





A closer look of Brisbane's commercial district.


For dinner, we walked along the Eagle Street Pier enjoying the cool evening breeze. The picture above shows the Story Bridge, a steel cantilever structure built in 1940 that has been one of Brisbane's icon.


Spotted. A group of tourist doing the bridge climb.



This was taken while walking back along the pier towards the restaurants for dinner.

Malacca Chinese New Year Celebration - 24th Feb

This year's Federal Level Chinese New Year Open House was held in Malacca on the 24th Feb. The King, Prime Ministers and other big shots attended. Personally I think it's a big dissapointment for us peasants cause most of the shows and attractions were only for the VIPS and the rest of the people that were not fortunate to have front row seats ended up not seeing anything. We were there just to make up the numbers and made them feel good. I swear this is the last time I would attend any such functions. It's easier to just sit back at home and watch it on TV.

Updates

Have updated the following entries:

http://chongkg.blogspot.com/2006/10/week-in-charleston-21-27-oct-2006.html

Petronas Twin Towers shot from KL Tower.

I had previously planned to visit the KL Towers on the weekend, but since one of my colleague from the States visited, my boss decided to treat him at the revolving restaurant at KL Tower. Ha ha so I saved on entry tickets.

The food in the restaurant is good and the view from the top at night is fabulous. To add to it, there were fireworks display at Lake Titiwangsa. What a bonus. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of it cause I figured my camera wouldn't be up to the task, what with revolving floor and all.

Shot this pic from the observation deck where there are less cutlery to worry about.

In short, this place is worth visiting, if not for the food, then at least for the view.

Memories of 2005 New Year.....

I remember 2004 was a good year. Lot's of travelling and I was closing out the year with a trip to Taipei.

Visited the Taipei 101, which had just dethroned the Petronas Twin Towers as the tallest building in the world. The mood was festive, there was also local elections then in Taipei, and I enjoyed myself.


Hong Kong followed Taipei, and the Christmas celebrations are even bigger here. There were sales and streets were crowded. Did some sight seeing, shopping and pigging out before leaving for Kuala Lumpur for the Christmas holidays - since it was the holidays, no one was working on the project, hence there wasn't any valid reasons for me to remain :(


I remember watching the breaking news of the tsunami in KLIA. Everyone was transfixed by the early scenes on TV. I took the flight out with those early images in my mind.


As days go by, the immense destruction of the tsunami hit home. Donations were going around, celebrations toned down and the HK government were receiving some flak for it's inaction.

On the street, even though the mood of festivities were still present, my heart was blanketed by a veil of sadness. I think most people were too, with the constant heart breaking scenes from Thailand and Indonesia.

I walked the famous tourist belt taking in the scene, but as most restaurants were crowded, I just bought whatever tidbits that catches my eye during my walk.

There were a box from a bakery that has the most heavenly smell as I walked by. A slice of cake for dessert, and some Norwegian salmon with rice in a box!

Thus that was my end of 2004 dinner in my cosy hotel room with frailty of life flashing on the screen.



I left the following day back for Kuala Lumpur with memories of an eventful 2004 that ended with a bang.




Note: Unless if I happen to travel during the New Year, there would not be any special entries during New Year's day. I am keeping personal entries in a separate blog.