I went to Cambodia & Vietnam with Mike, Caroline & Siew Yean in the beginning of this month for 10 days. It was an amazing trip & all of us were enjoyed each single day, from one location to another. It was a great experience travelling in backpack with all these folks.
I'm in the progress of filtering thousands of photos in my harddisk & share them out. Feel free to view the photos taken in my Flickr Photostream or Facebook Page.
Enjoy!! :-D
Cambodia + Vietnam Travel Diary
Posted by kelvin-tan | Filed under travel
Pulau Payar Marine Park
Posted by kelvin-tan | Filed under going places, landscape / cityscape
On 14 November, a few fellow bloggers (Ray, Wai Hoe, Kean Hooi, Calvyn, Sherming) & I joined a travel exploration trip to Pulau Payar Marine Park. The trip is arranged by Criz Bon Appetite & fully sponsored by Langkawi Coral (Langkawi Saga Travel and Tour Sdn. Bhd.) under the “Travel with a Green Heart” campaign.
The trip started with great weather ahead. We took a ferry ride at 8am from the Swettenham Pier, Penang to Pulau Payar. The journey took about 2 hours.
Heading to Pulau Payar Marine Park on Ferry
We reached at Pulau Payar Marine Park at around 10am. There is a spacious reef platform stationed on the marine park which housed various corals and underwater attractions.
Here We Are!!
On the Reef Platform
At the marine park, basic snorkeling gears (masks & snorkeling vests) are provided for visitors to enjoy the beauty of the corals and various fishes which are available around the platform out on sea.
There are rows of metal seats for visitor to get close with the fishes during feeding. Do bring some bread if you wish to feed the fishes.
Below are some of the photos taken from the reef platform.
Besides that, an observation chamber is available under the reef platform for visitors to enjoy the beauty of the corals and fishes without getting wet.
On top of the snorkeling & fish feeding activities around the reef platform, visitors are taken with short boat ride to the beach to enjoy more snorkeling, swimming, sun bathing, shark feeding and beach walk. Scuba diving courses & packages are available as well with separate charges.
Short Boat Ride to Pulau Payar Beach
Pulau Payar Beach
Wooden Walking Path next to the Beach
Baby Shark Feeding
It is a great place for family & friends to spend a short weekend to do snorkeling, fish feeding, swimming, sun bathing, having some beach walk and scuba diving besides experiencing the wonderful getaway & learning the wonders of the sea. All of us enjoyed the day at the marine park.
Langkawi Coral also provides sufficient shower cubical for visitors to wash up before heading back. Buffet lunch is provided with variety of food, fruits and drinks.
Interested to have some fun at Pulau Payar Marine Park? Grab your tickets now at the ticket counters near Swettenham Pier, Penang!! Prices & itinerary for the snorkeling package are as follows:
Prices:
Adult - RM300
Children - RM200
Infant - RM50
Itinerary:
0715 – 0755 Hotel pick-up from scheduled pick-up points
0730 – 0800 Check-in at Swettenham Pier, Penang
0815 - 1015 Depart for Pulau Payar Marine Park by ferry
1015 - 1230 Marine Park Exploration @ Malaysia’s 1st & Only Reef Platform & Beach
1230 – 1400 Buffet lunch on table sharing basis
1530 - 1730 Depart for Penang by ferry
1730 - 1800 Arrive at Swettenham Pier, Penang & return pick-up to hotel
Contact for More Information:
Langkawi Saga Travel & Tours Sdn. Bhd.
16, Jalan Tanjung Bungah, 11200 Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia
Tel : 604-899 8822
Email: sales@langkawicoral.com
Website: http://www.langkawicoral.com
Photoset: Pulau Payar
Weekend Break
Posted by kelvin-tan | Filed under going places
This weekend, we went for bowling at Premium Lanes, Sunshine & play-play at Altera Club House. Here are some of the photos taken. :-D
Bowling at Premium Lanes
Chill Out at Altera Club House
Photoset: Weekend Break
BlogFest.Asia 2010 (Day 2)
Posted by kelvin-tan | Filed under events
The 2nd day of the event was held at Wawasan Open University. It's fully packed with talks, sharing sessions & workshops with different interests that are very informative & useful in helping the blogger community to improve from where we are now in microblogging.
We arrived at the university at around 9:00am & straightly went to register ourselves. All participating bloggers were getting a BlogFest.Asia 2010 T-shirt, certificate of attendance, name tag, booklet, notebook & other goodies in an environmental friendly shopping bag.
Registration Counter
Once got ourselves registered, we headed to the lecture hall. The event started with warm welcomimg speech by Jeremiah Foo, representing the organizing commitee of the BlogFest.Asia 2010. He & all of us, the Malaysian bloggers welcomed all the participating bloggers from Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Philipines, Singapore, Taiwan & India (Hope that I didn't missed out any country here).
Welcoming Speech by Jeremiah Foo
Next, the invited speaker, Prof. Peter Herford gave the keynote speech. He started his speech with the first presentation slide showing the number of active bloggers in China. He explained how technology was created by human being from their scientific discoveries & then brought up an open question to us on what is the future of human civilization. From day to day, more & more advanced technologies are applied to ease our daily life & improve our quality of life such as in medical, automobile & comsumer electrical appliances but at the same time they are widely applied for military use as well. Remote military aircrafts & nuclear weapons are good examples. Thus, are we bringing our civilization ahead or we're in self-destructive mode of bringing it backward?
Keynote Address by Prof. Peter Herford
Next, we had our tea break before continuing with a forum-like discussion on Microblogging versus Facebook. There are 4 invited panels. They are the representatives of the participating bloggers community from each of the country: Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia & Myanmar.
Forum: Microblogging & Facebook, Synergy or Threat?
Each panel started to share on the current microblogging trend & situation in their country and give their personal feedback on whether the existence of Facebook is a synergy or threat to microblogging.
There are a few topics that caught my interest in. One of them was a point brought up by Jeremiah that those people who are writing about their daily life, on small-small personal event e.g. his / her neighbour's dog is pissing is not considered as bloggers. Hmmm, I'm not sure whether I tend to agree with his point.
Everyone has different purpose & expectation on microblogging. Some people handle & maintain their blog in a professional way, providing regular quality updates / posts and maintaining their blogs very well. There are people who use their blog as a personal diary, writing every single little thing that crosses his / her mind while some use their blog as a private space just to write to express their feeling. To me, whether you're a blogger is not important. So, just be yourself & write in your way. Internet is about freedom. :-D
Besides the invited panels, members on the floor were participating actively in the discussion as well. Some were seeking for clarifications while some sharing their thoughts & experiences.
After the session was lunch time. Everyone was hungry. We enjoyed our lunch before going for the workshops. Here are some photos taken during tea break & lunch time.
Lunch Time
After lunch, we went to 2 workshops. The first workshop was Commercial Blogging - How to get your blog noticed by Alvin from OMY Singapore & the 2nd one was 部落掘墓，电台超渡 by 张吉安 from i-fm.
It was a great experience & fun joining this event. The workshops are very informative. It served as a place to gather all the bloggers across different countries to share thoughts & experiences as well. We should bring more this kind of activities / events to Penang / Malaysia. :-D
Photoset: BlogFest.Asia 2010
BlogFest.Asia 2010 (Day 1)
Posted by kelvin-tan | Filed under events
On Friday night, Kai Chieh, Stephanie, Valerie and I was excited to join the Welcome Dinner of the 2nd BlogFest.Asia festival, BlogFest.Asia 2010 at QEII. We packed our things up & rushed from the office at around 5:40pm. Luckily, traffic condition on that day was good & we managed to reach there for registration at 7:00pm.
By the time we reached, some bloggers are already there. The view of Tanjung Marina from QEII was nice during the sunset: yatches with blue sky and puffy clouds. I managed to captured some shots here.
The buffet dinner started at around 7:30pm. We all enjoyed the dinner, drinks, meeting & chit-chating with my fellow blogger friends.
Buffet Dinner Servings
Bloggers Gathering @ QEII
We went home at around 10:30pm to get a good sleep & get ready for the next day event. Stay tuned for the 2nd day post & do visit my photoset for more photos. :-D
Photoset: BlogFest.Asia 2010
