"Book Fair" September 2012

There was advertised, a book fair (September 1 - 9). I paid it a visit, though without much expectation.

There was a stall from the publisher of legal books ...

... Moy, a publisher of comics ...

... the usual Grolier stall (my parent spent some of their hard earned cash buying the encyclopedias from them in them old days) ...

... an organisation trying to preserve the native Kadazan-Dusun language ...

... the Sabah State Library encouraging all to read (one basic feature of a library is that we BORROW the book ... so why would all the stalls SELLING books want the library stall here???). I know that the state library was one of the promoters of this book fair.

  

Another organisation preserving the Kadazan language ... are they competing?

The Times Bookstore had a stall; its better to visit their shop upstairs or at 1Borneo. A good selection of books in the shop, but books are cheaper at Popular or Harris. There were a few other stalls selling textbooks and stuff; so you can see why I had low expectation of such "book fairs".

The other stalls mostly had nothing to do with books (though all had their purposes) ... here was one helping those in Palestine ...

... a coin saving box for RM5 ...

... those toys must be very SMART! They ran away! Who would want to work on a sunday? ...

 

... a beauty college? ...

... Celcom! Mobile phones with their games and songs and sms and mms and ringtones and ... must be better than books! ...

... here you could learn hair removal! Perhaps you could read during the removal procedure?

The two end stalls were used for a blood donation drive.

Anyway, I did buy 1 book from the legal books publisher in the first photo above. The book "Your Rights and The Law" is written for the layman and answer those questions a member of the public would ask when they get into unfamiliar "legal" situations. One such situation mentioned in the introductory chapter was "If you are stopped by a person claiming to be a policeman in plainclothes; what are your rights? Can you ask him to show some kind of authorisation?".

The tag "18" was for the lunch I tapau from Kuo Man at the Food Court.

The beautiful day in Kota Kinabalu viewed from the balcony at the Food Court.

Turning round to the adjacent Jesselton Mall development (last photo taken was the last photo in the 26 March 2012 Posting) ...

... no a lot of progress visually. It looked like piling was in progress.

THAT SLOGAN! - on a taxi in Kota Kinabalu

Going down-town to the book fair, I found myself behind this taxi and ...

... it had THAT SLOGAN!

August Photos with the Lumix FZ35

Early morning mist in the distant hill, taken last Friday in Nabawan.

Having on hand my trusty Lumix FZ35 and the Teleconverter DMW-LT55 allowed me to take a series of shots showing what the combination can do. This is the wide-angle shot at 27mm (35mm film camera equivalent). We will be zooming in on the distant area marked by the red circle.

At 18X full zoom (486mm equivalent), we can see the people at the constructed terrace ...

Using the Teleconverter DMW-LT55 gave a 1.7X magnification (about 826mm equivalent). It made the people 1.7X bigger than the photo above.

Selecting the camera's Digital Zoom feature (basically it selected and enlarged the middle portion of the image ending with a larger zoom but at 3 megapixels only), gave approximately 60X (about 1,600mm equivalent). It was like we were there with them on the terrace.

An unusual tree (or should we say trees).

If you do the road first ...

... then you will end up with a nicely terraced hill.

Ramadhan Bazaar - Sembulan

I last did a posting on the Ramadhan Bazaar on 21 August 2010 (the bazaar in Asia City). Yesterday afternoon I went to a nearby one in Sembulan. For the non-muslims, the month of Ramadhan is the chance to enjoy the spectacle of sights, sounds and tastes of the food sold at these bazaars.

The bazaar at Sembulan is smaller (compared to the one in Asia City). Since I walked there, the traffic jams and lack of parking did not affected me. I could see that the number of stalls had increased from last year and were better arranged.

The usual stalls were there; ikan bakar ...

... and the briyani fella (guy in the gren apron) ...

... though this stall tried to differentiate itself with the "fishy" signboard.

I had always bought the grilled fish from this stall in the past; so I continued the tradition this year ...

... this year they had expanded the menu to include grilled chicken and lamb; so I bought the lamb chop (update: very nice).

This kuih stall caught my eye as they had used the rattan tray to steamed the ricecakes (update: nice and not too sweet).

This stall promoted their ayam bamboo (said to be a Sarawakian recipe). Its those bamboo tubes in the blue box lah (update: not that special).

More stalls were extending down the road each passing year.

I did not forget to buy the air tebu.

Sembulan River Park

I paid a photographic visit to the recently completed Sembulan River Park. The lack of traffic on a sunday morning made it an easy visit. During working hours, this whole place is a nightmare; traffic jams and the totally inadequate number of parking spaces.

I did a posting on 24 October 2010 when they had just started the beautification project. This was the view this morning from the end nearest to the Sembulan Kampung (approximately the same view point as the second photo in that Oct 2010 posting).

 

This end had the public toilet and the Police Pondok.

The boardwalk wound round the backs of the buildings in the Karamunsing warehouses district ...

... some portions were without railings (for boat rides in the future?) ...

... and metal posts to demarcate the roads ...

... the Sembulan River is actually joined by the Karamunsing River at The Stage.

The boardwalk is very wide and a lot of seating available.

ALong the Karamunsing River; Ming Garden Hotel in the distance, Sabah Oriental Hotel (previously Beverly Hotel), the Indonesian Consulate, and Maybank out of the picture on the right.

The view towards Karamunsing ...

... and the park administrative office ...

... at the entrance to the park ...

... where there was an "info display board" with the history and other stuff about the area.

This is a modern park with CCTV (24 hours!!! don't play play) and anti-littering (RM500!) ...

... warning signs (no swimming, no skateboarding, no littering and no sitting on the railings) ...

... but if you did dive into the river (totally not recommended ... see photo much further below) ...

... direction signs ...

... yet another warning sign (it almost sounded like its too dangerous to visit this place) ...

 ... the "You Are Here!" map ...

... not forgetting the very nice police pondok.

There was a boy fishing; how long ago did we last do that?

Those fishermen selling their catch on the river banks (see the Oct 2010 posting) had built their new "Fish Markets" on the river!

Not just for their human customers!

I wondered what stuff he sold???

Off to a Secret Rendezvous perhaps ...

... ugh! motor stalled; restarted ...

... and on his way.

I wondered what was the story here?

A close look at the rubbish in the river and the "smell" told all that its best NOT to go into the river. I remembered reading that our Mayor said something about the many old cesspits upstreams not functioning, so raw sewage ended up in these rivers. Repairs to be made when funds available in the future.

Anyway, the one thing I was very happy to see were all the old trees retained.