Category: Travel

Malaysia MegaFam Chronicles Summary

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Malaysia Chronicles Sumamry

It was 8-days of fun and discovery at Malaysia. I’m grateful to Tourism Malaysia for showing us around and giving us the opportunity to get to know the country more. We were even lucky enough to experience their Merdeka Celebration. While we went to a number of places, I could say we only scratched the surface and aroused our curiosity to explore more. Another reason to trackback on those places in the near future. As my usual practice, here’s the summary for the Malaysia Chronicles from August 28 to September 4 2009.

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Manila: The Dancing Jellies of Manila Ocean Park

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Manila Ocean Park Jellies Display Hallway

When at sea, jelly fishes creeps me out. When beach waters are populated by these I’m hesitant to swim through. Imagine getting scars, itchiness and even fatal wounds from them. Last thing I want is getting myself pee-ed on just to neutralize the poison, or so I heard. I know I try to avoid them when I see them but I also can’t help but be fascinated by them as well. These semi-transparent sea creatures are very graceful dancers of the sea. And I find them even more fascinating when I saw a lot of them in Manila Ocean Park’s separate exhibit, Jellies, Dancing Sea Faeries.

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Malaysia: A Tea at BOH and a night at the Concorde

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The BOH Tea Plantation at Cameron Highlands

It’s only fitting we visit one of the biggest tea producing companies when we were in Cameron Highlands. After our visit to the Rose Center, we headed to one of the large tea gardens from BOH Tea Company, the first tea company that set up a highland tea garden in Malaysia in 1929. We were supposed to visit this garden near Rose Center but it was closed so we had to drive a little longer south to where their BOH Tea Factory is located.

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Catanduanes Chronicles Summary

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Puraran Beach Catanduanes

Often battered and in the front-line of incoming storms, Catanduanes has often been out of the radar of most travelers in the Philippines. But this island province, unbeknown to many, holds a lot of natural wonders and activities that would keep adventure travelers occupied. Staying there for 4 days and 3 nights led us to discover wonderful beaches, nice waterfalls and old churches. Here’s a handy summary of the trip.

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Batangas: Exploring the Heritage of Taal Town

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Interiors of Taal Basilica

Often mistaken as being part of Cavite or Tagaytay than Batangas because of its name, Taal Town is a heritage town, much like Vigan that showcases heritage houses and structures dating as far back as the 1800s. I’ve been to this town south-west of the Taal Lake before but have never really explored the place yet. So when an invite came to tour Taal Town again with Nokia and test out its latest Nokia N86 8MP on field, I thought it would a great time to explore further. It’s a full afternoon of exploration and all photos and video here are taken with Nokia N86’s 8mp camera-phone with a whopping 28mm wide angle Carl Zeiss Tessar lens.

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Malaysia: Cameron Highlands and the Rose Center Valley

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A sunflower at Cameron Highlands Rose Center

It’s basically our last full day in Malaysia. We arrived in Cameron Highlands late in the afternoon the day before so this day would be our only time for exploration and at the same time we’ll be on our way back to Kuala Lumpur in the afternoon. It’s a tight schedule honestly but I must remind myself that this is a familiarization tour and if I ever like the places, I should just go back and explore further.

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Manila: Loving the Night with Sony Cybershot TX1

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Love the Night in Manila

Sony Cybershot TX1 is one of the top of the line compact point-and-shoot from Sony and is one of the first digital cameras to boast a back-illuminated CMOS sensor which Sony called “EXMO R”. So what’s so special about this sensor? To make it short and easy, most sensors are designed with wirings at the front of the sensor photodiodes cutting off light passing through. With back-illuminated sensors, the wires are behind the photodiodes which makes them more sensitive in capturing light. With this increased light sensitivity the Cybershot TX1 boast impressive low-light and ISO performance for a compact point and shoot.

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