Buzzing with FOOD

I have always been facinated about the land of the rising sun. The culture, the people, and the land itself. I feel lucky too to have had some first time experiences when I visited this country on three different occassions. First time winter snow experience, first time skiing adventure, and also first time Disneyland exploration…all in this country of Japan!!

The Sakura Charity Festival was held not long ago at Trader’s Hotel@Georgetown. I came across the event poster shown outside one of a Japanese restaurant at Krystal Point. So I was excited to go and have a look since anything to do with this country never fail to mesmerise me!! The last Bon Odori festival in Penang was the only Japanese event I went before in this island. 

If you have missed this event, let me take you on a ‘virtual’ trip and see what this festival was all about. 

There were a lot of Japanese people who came to this event. Young and old, all came to support their festival in this foreign land! What a lively festival it was. And it’s for charity…

Only RM 5 entry fee per person.

(More photos and photo captions ahead) 

Goods on sale to raise fund for charity purposes. 

Exhibits such as Japanese traditional costumes were displayed. 

Origami goods. Very beautifully hand-made. 

Origami lessons

Hand painted greeting cards 

Ikebana Exhibition (Floral) 

Kimono for RM 5?????? Don’t get a shock. It was suppose to be a Kimono try-out!! For a RM 5 fee, you will be dressed up with the help of Japanese ladies and you can have some photo session while wearing it.

Japanese Tea ceremony demonstration. 

I like this photo below.. 

Japanese traditional items  

Japanese ladies dressed up in traditional outfits. They were teaching the child about table manners and etiquette.

Hina dolls (for Girl’s Day) 7-storey high 

Japanese traditional wedding dress

Japanese kite and wooden toys 

Popular food from Japan. The display are not the real stuff..but looks very real though!! 

Minature build-up of Japanese sites which are recognized as a UNESCO heritage.

By the time I finished snapping photos of the exhibits, the food section on the lower floor was almost empty already. All the sushi were gone.

There were even local dance performances by the Japanese dance group!! How often do you get to see jaoanese dancing to malay and indian tunes?!?!?!

Some origami items I bought

The coin tied below is a real japanese coin! 

Prizes for lucky draw winners

Prize give-away (I won an electric jug kettle…how lucky!!)

That’s about all I can fit into this post, although I took many more photos. Hope you enjoyed this short ‘virtual trip’.

Shorttalk: I will be away for 3 weeks (overseas). So I’m unable to post anything and can’t reply to any comments too…but please do continue to give your comments I’ll be back and reply when I can. Have a good week ahead everyone!! 

Is there any difference in the photos shown here recently?

Well if it does, (and for the better I hope) that’s because I’ve got my hands on this point-and-shoot camera!!

sneak peak…

My new gadget to explore my photography (amateur) skills!!! Shock that I bought TWO???? Hahahaha. I did order two, went to the shop and collected two, bring back two BUT….(read on)

I’m loving it day by day…the casing is very elegant, synthetic leather and with a magnet to keep it closed.

The LUMIX word is everywhere, from the box to the casing, the camera, the stripe…everywhere! But I’m not complaining…it’s the brand-name recognition. And I’m proud to have my very own LUMIX since years and years of dreaming about it.

The Leica lens is the main reason of this beatiful camera.

The whole package includes the camera of course and freebies such as mini tripod, screen protector, 2 GB SD card, a neckstrap.

Now don’t get jealous that I have two cameras to play around with. Hahahaha. I only own one of them though.

She: I’m gonna name mine Blinky. So what’s yours gonna be??

Me: Errrr……ermmmm

She: What?? Nameless??

Me:

Name-less or Blacky or Spooky or Lumix-ky or whatever….I don’t care…as long as the photos I take comes out nice and non-blury!! This is thanks to the great image-stabilizer and the IA (Intelligent Auto) which detects the scene and picture mode you are shooting if you didn’t set it. It can detect a mode from its preset of macro shot, scenery shot, potrait shot, or night-scene shot and change its settings automatically. The IA is really quick in detecting and is great when you are on-the-go with lots of shots to make but little time to switch settings manually.

I guess the timing is right as I’m going for a holiday to neighbouring country soon. Hopefully I can snap some nice photos to share it here. For now I’m contented with this…as getting a DSLR is way beyond my budget now.

And why I love taking photos? Because it keeps the memories alive as time ticks away. When we can’t freeze the time, why not freeze the moment and look back decades after, knowing that you’ve been to somewhere, done that or be with someone some time before.

Memory might fail us…but photos will remind us!!

*phew..took me hourssss to finish this post coz the line is so slow that I can hardly load my flickr page* 

I’m always amazed by the nice and unique structure in new complexes. The recent new shopping complexes opened in KL namely MidValley The Gardens, Sunway Pyramid (New Wing) and Pavillion are really very pleasent to the eyes of shoppers. I was practically snapping away like a tourist to Malaysia when I went to the three shopping areas when I was down in KL. People there are really spoilt for choices with so many places to shop isn’t it?? Penang has like only two main shopping complex which is still popular among Penangites while others just quietly dies of and become a white elephant.

Of the three, I like Mid Valley’s The Garden’s interior design and class.

I love the design of the criss-cross bridges in middle of each floors. It’s beatiful and also very practical for shoppers who wants to go to the opposite side without walking one big round towards the end to cross over.

Undone bridges (glasses not installed yet). Still not fully completed yet the renovation. 

There it is…the classy (and pricey) ROBINSONS Departmental Store. By the way, the cafe just outside Robinsons is The Zen Cafe (by Secret Recipe).

Brands here are of international standards, so most stuff here cost hundreds each.

And while walking around in The Gardens, guess what I saw? GURNEY DRIVE!!!!…..errr gurney drive is suppose to be in Penang Island but why is it here?!?!?! Well here, it is "Delights of Gurney Drive"

I took one of their brochure and read that it has a total of 15 chefs specially from Penang to whip out delicious and famous food from the island itself.

It has a really attractive entrance with the trishaw, antique bicycle and all…but of course I didn’t go in. What are the odds of a Penang kia going into a "so-called" Penang famous food restaurant in KL??

Most of the food recommendation written in their brochure/menu has the names of the town or street in Penang where it is famous. Some are not really heard of though, which raised an eyebrow of whether they created the info or was it really compiled from somewhere. 

At the lower ground of The Gardens is the where the food outlets are located. I went there quite early…so it’s quite deserted and I managed to snap some photos without the problem of people passing in front while taking my shot.

This shop looks very interesting. It sells all kinds of foodstuff, all japanese. Love those round light balls on top!! 

Some photos of Pavillion (Bukit Bintang entrance)

The main lobby of the complex 

Pavillion is very huge and has a unique concept of street cafes near one of the side entrance (actually there are many entrances to this complex which makes it quite confusing). Looking down to the ’street cafes’ alley.

One thing worth mentioning about Pavillion is the food court. Food Republic is the classy name they put it.

The view is only part of it….so it’s quite a huge food court, serving all kinds of food from western, korean, japanese to local dishes. However, my friend commented that the local food such as the Penang Hokkien Mee and Laksa is not very nice. (of course la…where can compare with the authentic ones?? )

One popular stall selling tarts and ’siew pau’. It has quite a long queue so I guess the tarts must be good!?!?! 

And finally, about Sunway Pyramid’s new wing….I didn’t get a photo of the interior I have something else more interesting to show there. 

Sunway Pyramid’s new wing is not as nice as the two complex above. Their concept of Arabian style is something unique but does not look class and modernly designed. 

The interesting thing I found out is about the parking area. Not that it is beautifuly design or watsoever la….but it’s the technology that is simple but never been used in other complexes/buildings that I’ve been to before.

Realise anything? It’s the lights (green and red) just above the front of each parking bay. It shows whether each bay is occupied (red) or empty(green) which makes it very easy for people to judge at the junction of each lane whether to turn in and find for empty bays. Usually we will just take a chance and try to turn in at a lane which we feel will have some empty parking space. But with this lights indication, just look for the green ones and there’s sure to be an empty slot there. Easy peasy isn’t it. Safe all the hassle of turning round and round and sometimes even get cheated by the tiny cars which park too inside and give the impression that there’s an empty lot from far!!

Each parking bay above has a sensor which sense whether anything (in this case, cars) is below it. The light turns from green to red once we park our car on that particular spot. Very neat huh!! Seen any of these elsewhere?

Will write more of what I ate at The Gardens in the coming post. The line is too slow now to continue!! 

Happy Weekend everyone!