Last night in London

My trip to UK started on 9th July 2011 and completed on 31st July 2011. In the short span of three weeks, I took 4000+ photos and drove 2300 miles. Petrol along costed more than RM1000 (GBP254) as each litre of petrol cost an average of GBP1.35, ie, RM6.50! Fortunately, the car we hired are economical (mostly motorway driving). My calculation shows that each litre of fuel can cover 12.2 miles, ie, 20 KM to a litre! Anyway, I am suppose to talk about my last day in London here!
We set off from Leeds at 4:30PM, Friday, 29 July 2011, on time by Megabus and arrived at Victoria Station in London just after 9:00PM. We missed the 9:00PM National Express bus to Heathrow Central Bus station and the next one will depart at 10:30PM. After boarding, they found that a few people had no seat!! They had oversold the ticket! The bus company offered an alternative which will depart at 11:00PM arriving at 11:35PM.
I checked the connecting free bus (service 555) and the last one was at 10:00PM! However, a policeman told us that if we were "fast enough", we may catch the underground to Terminal 4 (T4). Not knowing the schedule is tough! We ran as fast as we could and arrived at the gate ....

... just to be told that we missed the last train by 5 minutes! By the way, the underground pathway is so long that it never seems to finish! What we didn't know is that the Central bus/coach station is actually at T3! An attendant told us that we could go to T3....

.... and so we did! To our surprises, there were a lot of travellers actually sleeping there and we were not alone! I slept on these chairs for three hours....

... and went back to the underground around 4:45AM. There were a few people waiting for the gate to be opened.

The train arrived spot on time at 5:05AM. We were off to T4 to catch Royal Brunei Airline which will depart at 8:35AM.

Internet at T4 is expensive! GBP1 for every 10 minutes!

When we arrived at T4, there were not many people. By 7:00AM, there were lots of people!

Drink is definitely expensive at GBP2 or 1.60 for a small bottle of Vitamin Water or coke.
I always thought that Heathrow operates non-stop. They actually shut down at midnight and reopen at 6:00AM. During the shut down period, there are a lot of activities going on.... cleaning, moving of things, etc. And the place is quite noisy!
By the way, the underground and bus transfer between terminals is free. Underground is a lot faster.
Ok, so much for this entry. I will post backward from now. Excess photos will be on my facebook.

MNS Miri Branch New Committee for 2011-2012

MNS Miri concluded their Branch AGM held at Baraya Laut Resort, Kpg Baraya, Miri, Sarawak 30th July 2011 with the election of fresh faces for branch Committee. The AGM went smoothly with twenty-two stalwart members attending the event.

The new committee,

Chairperson : Peter Pillai

Vice-Chairperson : Musa Musbah

Secretary : Joyce Sivalingam

Treasurer : Amer Matridi Mansor

Committee : Miriam Chacko, Marlene Lim (Co-opted)

Immediate-past Chairperson : Anura Dason

Those in attendance were later treated to an early dinner consisting of kelupis and satay ordered specially for the occasion. Dinner was then followed by a short firefly cruise along Sg Raan for members and their family.

Special mention goes to Committee members from 2010-2011 who made this event all possible.

Here's to another productive year for MNS Miri!

MNS Miri

I am now in UK

My apologies for being so quiet for so long! I am now in UK attending my daughters, Esther's and Janice's graduation and also to tour UK. I am staying at Stephanie's apartment and there is no internet yet. So I can't go online. Occasionally, I visited Esther's flat where there is internet. So, I will upload photos on facebook. Please do visit my facebook for all the photos. I am far behind in updating the photos.
Anyway, click here for their graduation album.

Dr. Stephanie, Dr. Janice, Dr. Esther

My first albums for my UK trip, click here.

KFC Malaysia staff in scandalous videos

This article appears in Yahoo.com.sg news. After watching the video, do you still dare to eat at KFC or for this matter, any fast food restaurant? I think I will still eat but less.

Please do not play the video if you are eating your meal!

Many moons ago, I went to the KFC near Public Bank in Miri town. The place smell disgusting, like a place infested by cockroaches. Ever since I don't eat at KFC! I don't know whether they have improved or not. Anyone knows?

My UK Trip

I will place my photos on the facebook for my UK trip. Just click here.

 RBA Boeing 777-200

 I amuse myself in the long trip

Sunrise from the sky 

View from Stephanie's Apartment

Garden birdwatching at Miri Marriott Resort and Spa

A male Oriental Magpie Robin, he's already exercising his little lungs by 6:30AM.

Oriental Magpie Robin in the parking lot.

It's the weekend, we decided to allot some time for a relax and leisurely birdwatching while being pampered by the facilities offered by a premier resort in Miri, the Marriott Resort and Spa located not 15mins from the city center just a hillock away from our home.

While the children while away their time splashing the pool, there's plenty of time to checkout the common garden birds in the compound. Though most of the area seemed dominated by casuarinas and plams, there are pockets of flowering trees especially around the parking lot. The garden chalets are surrounded by palms, some fruiting and mature causarinas. The garden is compact with neatly placed plants.

The most common birds here has to be the Oriental Magpie Robin, the early risers if not the earliest. There were several pairs around our rooms on the upper floors. The advantage of the upper floors is that you'd be watching the birds at eye-level. From our room we could hear nesting munias and even saw a pair of endemic Dusky Munia busy transporting dried grass from the garden to build a nest somewhere between the fronds of plam trees several rooms away from ours. We also saw a nesting Yellow-vented Bulbul from our verandah.

Common Iora.

Olive-backed Sunbird, male.

Yellow-vented Bulbul, several nesting in the resort compound.

Black-headed Munia, flitting about in the grass amongst the casuarinas. These also nest in the resort compound.


Pied Fantail startled by the camera flash.

Zebra Dove, the ones in the compound seemed familar with people and were not at all skittish, foraging in a group along walking paths.

A pesky squirrel that stopped by our verandah on the way to his second breakfast.

Other garden birds we saw while at the resort:

White-breasted Woodswallow (nesting), Collared Kingfisher, Little Green Pigeon, Pink-necked Pigeon, Asian Glossy Starling, Dusky Munia, and Sunda/Pygmy Woodpecker.

Miri Marriott Resort and Spa is located 15mins from Miri town. Shuttle service to town is available at regular intervals provided free by the resort. Excursions to nearby national parks, Lambir Hills NP and Niah Caves NP, for more serious birdwatching can be easily arranged. You feel more adventurous, grab a taxi to the town's central bus station and hop on a bus to take you to Lambir Hills which is only 30minutes from Miri. There's the Mandara Spa, the perfect place to unwind sore muscles at the end of a hard day's birdwatching.

Nazeri Abghani/Miri.

Germiest public places

We all know that paper note or coin are very dirty. But what are the other places consider just as dirty or even dirtier? The following is the list:

1. Restaurant menus
2. Lemon wedges (Slice of lemon with your tea)
3. Condiment dispensers (Those ketchup dispenser you find at fast food restaurant)
4. Restroom soap dispensers
5. Grocery carts (The cart that you push around in supermarket)
6. Airplane bathrooms (Restroom in airplane)
7. Doctor's office

Surprised by the list? Read the detail here.

Reduced to clear

I just realised that in Giant Miri, they also have their pastries "reduced to clear" after a day. So, if you are not too concerned about these things being a day old, they are really cheap!

In many hotels, they also offer their cake at half price, ie, buy one free one, after a certain time of the day.

Photo Exhibition at Bintang Megamall

Miri photographic society organised a photo exhibition showing the work of its members.

If you are in Miri, make sure that you go and see. You will also be able to see some of my work there.
Venue: Bintang Megamall, 1st floor
Date: 4 Jul to 15 July, 2011
Time: 1-AM to 10-PM

World's longest bridge

Amazing!

This photo taken Wednesday, June 29, 2011 released by China's Xinhua news agency shows the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province. China opened Thursday, June 30, 2011, the world's longest cross-sea bridge, which is 42 kilometers (26 miles) long and links China's eastern port city of Qingdao to an offshore island, Huangdao. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Yan Runbo)

Brilliant Sunset

It has been a long time since I witnessed a really nice sunset. Perhaps I have taken it for granted as we often have very nice sunset. These pictures were taken last night at Eastwood Valley Golf and Country Club.

I took RAW and I realised that Nikon ViewNX is pretty good. It provides some basic adjustment. All I did here were some adjustment to Colour Booster, D-Lighting HS and Shadow Protection. Immediately the sky look prettier and the otherwise darker building became visible!

This one was taken from the toilet window at the first floor of the main building.