The Setting Moon

I went to the Tanjung Aru Beach this morning with my daughter. She was taking some photographs of the sunrise for her class photography assignment.


I too brought along my camera. The setting moon at 6.34 am caught my eye. Those nearby islands are very popular with the tourists for swimming, sunbathing, and snorkelling.

Today's Weather - South East Asia Satellite Photo

The satellite photo looks clear over Kota Kinabalu. Clicking on the Title will bring you to the latest photo at the Japanese website "weather.is.kochi-u.ac.jp". It should be another hot and sunny day.



Thought For The Day -

Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose. (Hsieh Teh Yi)

He was a Chinese author, orator, and diplomat (born 1884). He wrote a number of articles and books on the sayings of Confucius. The articles appeared in the Reader's Digest in the 1920s. One book was titled "Confucius Said It First". Apparently he spoke very good english and was well thought of on the speaking circuits in America at that time.

Here's a link to the MIT newspaper "The Tech" of 6 March 1922 covering his appearance at a talk there. "The Tech" is a pretty modern sounding title and the newspaper was established in 1881!

Servay Supermarket Penampang

I was at the AA Stationery Store in Penampang to do some report binding. Nice place with a good range of stationery, and a good binding service on the second floor. Easy parking, but that's only because the Servay Supermarket is no longer there across the road.

The Supermarket burned down on August 21 2008. You can still read about the event by an eye-witness at Papajoneh.com. I saw that they have decided to re-build the building (probably by the insurance company). I have no idea if Servay Supermarket will re-open at this location (the construction sign did say re-construction of a supermarket).


With the nationwide chainstore Giant opening stores in Sabah (and the impending opening of others like Carrefour), a local supermarket may not be such a good business anymore.

Today's Weather - South East Asia Satellite Photo

With the usual disclaimer, the satellite photo looks good at the moment for Kota Kinabalu. It should be another sunny and hot day.




Thought For The Day -
"We cannot insure Success, but we can deserve it" - Joseph Addison.

Joseph Addison wrote a play called Cato in 1712. It was about someone called Marcus Cato (Roman statesman). I take the saying to mean that we must strive to do our best. Although it cannot guarantee success, we will have prepared ourselves for the chance to achieve it.

Note that Nassim Taleb's Fooled By Randomness puts it slightly differently. I would generalise one of his conclusions as "Success is random, but your education and experience prepare you to grab that opportunity when it presents itself".

Chinese New Year 2010 - Year of The Tiger

Chinese New Year (also called The Lunar New Year or The Spring Festival) falls, in 2010, on 14 February. That day is the first day of the new year based on the lunar calender. The Year used now follows the international convention of the Gregorian Calender (started by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582). So it's 2010 instead of the old format, which was along the line of "The Xth Year of the Reign of Emperor XXX". That old way was apparently abolished in China in 1911 after the Revolution (Overthrow of The Emperor Puyi). Apparently Dr Sun Yat Sen had then tried using a continuous year-count starting from the first emperor. The Yellow Emperor was born in 2698 BCE. It would make this year starting 14 February the Year 4708!

For us, being later generations of Overseas Chinese (Huá qiáo), many of the rituals and traditions have been forgotten or cheerfully amended/ignored. Thus leaving mostly the enjoyable aspects relating to eating, wearing new clothes, and collecting AngPows (for those unmarried boys and girls).

There is an effort made to "spring-clean" the home, decorate with the usual Chinese New Year (CNY) stuff and to turn up for the New Year's Eve Family Dinner. I noticed in recent years that many many families are holding their dinners in the local Chinese Restaurants (totally avoiding the sweat-work in the kitchen and the subsequent washing-up).

Decorations include scrolls and posters (in red and gold colours, with chinese characters saying luck, fortune, prosperity and good health, abound). Flowers, fruits and foods are included in the marketing ploys where their names are pronounced similarly to those auspicious characters)

I went to one of our local "chinese supermarket" ThaiSeng Supermarket for some CNY Goodies. In the old days, they were one of those who imported direct from Hong Kong and Mainland China. Nowadays, I only visit ThaiSeng for those things from China that are "non-halal" (non-kosher to muslims, mainly stuff with pork or lard).

You should note from the photo taken today that their only attempt at CNY decoration is the sad row of lanterns across the front of the shop. Its not much better in most shops. Festivals are no longer that "special" I'm afraid. But we still make the best of it.

Apart from the usual mandarin oranges (China), I usually look for something that is new for this year or that are slightly different from those items last year. I bought some Almond cookies (Macau) that are slightly different by having a salted egg yolk filling. The eggrolls (Hong Kong) are slightly salty (plus chives) and so somewhat different from the usual sweet ones.

Today's Weather - South East Asia Satellite Photo

Looks like slightly scattered clouds over Kota Kinabalu. Still a fine day with possible showers in the afternoon.

Thought For The Day.
I remembered a quotation from Mahatma Gandhi, so I googled for it.

The Seven Sins

Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Knowledge without character
Commerce without morality
Science without humility
Worship without sacrifice
Politics without principle

I guess that this "modern world" has ignored most of the above. The main reason is the pursuit of profit and business. When the world strays from the path, there will come a time when it all corrects. It will come back to the mean, brought about by a black swan (Nassim Taleb).

View From My Window - Mt Kinabalu

Mt. Kinabalu viewed from my window. The photo was taken at 6.40 am. Mt. Kinabalu is about 90 km from Kota Kinabalu. Its height is 4,095 m (13,435 ft) above sea level.

The Kinabalu National Park is at about 1,500 m. That's where the summit trail starts. The climb (or rather mostly walking up steps) starts in the early morning with an overnight stay at the lodge at Laban Rata (3,270 m). The balance of the summit trail is done in the early hours of the next day timed to reach the summit at about sunrise.

My last climb was way back in the 80s. There is now an alternate route (Mesilau Trail) and also a much more adventurous side route via the Iron Road (Via Ferrata in Italian). At between 3,200 m to 3,800 m, it is the highest Via Ferrata in the world (A Guinness World Record).

Its interesting what can be seen outside your window.

Today's Weather - South East Asia Satellite Photo

Looks like another fine day for Kota Kinabalu. Slightly scattered clouds, probably another scorcher.

Book Musings

I usually read two books at once, one fiction and one non-fiction. The fiction read is for escapist fun (fast read) and the non-fiction is for thinking development (very slow read). I usually make notes and thoughts on the non-fiction book I am reading, so they may as well go on this blog.

The two books I am currently reading are "Pursuit of Honor" by Vince Flynn and "The Evolution of God" by Robert Wright. The books were bought from Harris Bookstore at 1Borneo Hypermall in December 2009.

The Evolution of God is a good read so far (I read a few pages each sitting and re-read often), very thought-provoking.

The book starts with primitive religion (defined as the religion of non-literate people or so-called savages). If you noted the words non-literate, you would realise that that the lack of words - written (definitely) and spoken (maybe limited range), would mean that these primitive "religions" are but only certain rituals followed.

Primitive man, as a Hunter-gatherer, would be concerned about the things around him that related to his hunting and gathering (a life and death affair). Also the family unit was small and members were closely related. So the rituals all related to the objects around him (whether animate or in-animate) and were aimed at ensuring survival.

The small number meant that they all lived in close proximity (eg a cave). Therefore, as an example, no rule (law) on stealing was necessary. How are you going to use the item you have stolen if everyone is living in the same cave?


Food For Thought - All Laws and Regulations are brought about by humans grouping together in large numbers forming societies.

Today's Weather - South East Asia Satellite Photo

First of all, a disclaimer, I am No Weatherman / Meteorologist. I just like looking at the satellite photo. This is from a Japanese website with the "latest". It is usually an hour or two behind (so not real-time). It has Borneo near the middle of the photo.

For Kota Kinabalu, a slightly cloudy day. So fine weather and will be hot. Wind still seem northerly. Clear night so it should be cool.