East vs West

So how do you spot an East Malaysian at the KL LCCT Airport? Easy, go to the LCCT Emporium and check out the Gardenia buns section. He/she will most likely have a shopping basket full of buns.

Ok, maybe that was an over-generalization. That person could've been buying for an East Malaysian friend he/she was visiting. The first time I became aware that Gardenia don't sell their buns here was when my wife asked me to get her some Gardenia Ikan Bilis buns when I went over to KL. I also found out that the best place to get the freshest stocks is at LCCT, having spent quite some time looking around in various locations. The LCCT Emporium knows that they are catering to the East Malaysian market and makes quite a lot from this. Gardenia sells their plain bread here, but why not the others (I don't know if it's the same for Sarawak) ?  Oddly enough, I've never had the ikan bilis bun till I moved over to Sabah from PJ so maybe Gardenia knows what they are doing...

There's another thing I've missed since moving here. The KFC stores in Sabah don't offer Thai Chili Sauce (TCS) to their customers, relying instead on ketchup and normal chili.

The first few times eating KFC without TCS was terrible. I considered buying one bottle from the supermarket and bringing it with me everytime I go to KFC, but common sense told me to suck it up and deal with it. 4 years later, I can't remember how fried chicken tastes with TCS anymore... *making a mental note to eat KFC next time I go back to the peninsula*

And McD's...huh! No free refills! The first time I asked the cashier for a free refill was also my last time. I might as well have asked if her mom had a hairy chest because she would have given me the same look.

After 4 years here in Kota Kinabalu, I'm not so bothered by these minor differences in products and services offered by the big chain companies like I used to be. But hello KFC, I really really hope you will listen to what I'm saying. Ahem.

FED 5C: A Review of the Soviet Rangefinder

There was no doubt about it. This was an impulse buy. The sensory stimuli that began from cells in my eyes sneakily bypassed my brain and led my hands straight to my wallet. Thankfully I only had to fork out RM190 for this. Dirt cheap yes?

The FED 5C is a rangefinder camera made in the Soviet Union. The company initially started off by making copies of Leicas in 1932 as was evident in their earlier FED models. They then started mass producing the cameras and for such a cheap price, they were notorious for their shoddy quality control.

I had to wait 3 weeks before my camera arrived from Russia. When I took it out from the package, my first thoughts were 'Wow, this is heavier than I thought'. If it turned out to be a dud I could always use it to pound chili or something.

What I love about this camera is the metering. And that it doesn't need batteries. It uses a selenium cell light meter (as you can see below) and I must say that I'm pretty fortunate to get a working copy. Indoors it may get a bit tricky, but outdoors it works like a charm. If you have a camera that has this type of metering, always remember to keep it in the dark when not in use. This will help you to preserve the life of the light meter.

Another concern about this camera was the lens that came as standard on this model. The Industar I-61 L/D lens is not only famous for being sharp but radioactive as well. This is because it contains the the rare Lanthane in its glass elements. After doing some research, I found that the radioactivity emitted by the lens is negligible. You'd probably get more radiation from sunbathing than by carrying this around.

The bottom line is how will this camera perform? Is it just a looker but empty on substance? Is this rangefinder going to be a Kournikova or a Sharapova?

I'd say Sharapova without the grunts. This is probably the start of something beautiful.

More FED 5C pics

Vegenomics 101

A very common gripe among those involved in retail is the constant threat of a price war with your competitors. On the short term this may benefit the consumers and those who gladly cut their prices, but on the long run this may make the business too competitive and many players will exit altogether. The retailers who remain may find that while they have the volume, their margins are so pitiful that they wonder why do they still want to do whatever they do. It is usually the retailer with the deepest pockets that will survive. As for the consumers, there are less shops for them to choose from and maybe they have to drive further to find the things they want.

But wait...if you think retail is tough - have you been to a market?

I was at the Kundasang Market a few days back and it really got me thinking - how do they survive? If you see the picture below, the 3 red arrows are the same items being sold but by 3 different stalls. The same goes for the blue arrows. Yes - the stalls are really that close to one another.

So lets say the average space between two tiangs (columns) can accommodate 2 stalls. From the picture all the way to the end I can see around 8 tiangs. Given that I took this photo somewhere in the middle of the long market, there are probably around 25-35 stalls in that one long stretch of road. All selling more or less the same thing. *Gulps*

To their credit, most of them offer the same pricing. There were some who after peeking over their shoulders to see if their neighbors were listening, quoted slightly below market rate. There were a few that were more enterprising and sold additional items that the rest did not - flowers, cacti, etc.

However, I should not judge them based on all my preconceived ideas. They may seem to have many challenges, but who knows they do make a lucrative living and are very happy with what they do. The latter one being what I consider as an invaluable resource.

Dark Ages

If there is any disadvantage in staying in Sabah at all, I'd say its the constant power cuts that spoils its utopian charm. Sabah's electricity woes are so legendary that Lim Kit Siang has hit out at SESB (Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd) in his book 'The Cries of Sabah'.

“Talking about power supply in my hometown, on average in a month, we will be in total darkness for at least 72 hours; the highest record was no power supply for 8 hours a day for 1 whole week!! If there is no power disruption in Sabah, then it’s not Sabah, SESB confirms to this, where SESB stands for SABAH EVERYDAY SURE BLACKOUT. If there were no power supply for half an hour in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, tomorrow it will be the top news in the media, but for us Sabahans on the other side of Malaysia, being drenched in total darkness for few others, causing traffics to go haywire, no one even bothered about us.”

- “The cries of Sabahan”

I can assure you readers from West Malaysia that, YES, its that bad. Everytime there is a power cut, it will undoubtedly affect my workplace - how else can I key in sales transactions when the monitors are all blank right? So we have to rely on manual written transactions that will be entered into the POS once the power comes back on.

This is really bothersome, especially if you have multiple customers waiting and you are copying down all the barcodes, prices, items and whatnot furiously while trying to counsel them at the same time.

Looking through all of last year's transactions, I've counted a total of 42 power cuts during office hours. Thats like almost one every week! Mind you, this is not including power cuts at odd hours of the night that wakes us up in a pool of sweat, only to get back to sleep by losing consciousness through extreme heat exhaustion.

As much as I hate power disruptions, there are times when I long for it. Oh say when the telly is showing Sir Alex like this...

Sir Alex's nasal follicles are longer than my beard!

Having nasal hair that shows is a greater sin than having inappropriate relations with your pet dog. I find it difficult talking to people who have such a substantial volume of hair in the nose that wave to you everytime they exhale. What's worse is that they seem to be proud of it. I've always believed that it takes a great deal of apathy towards personal hygiene and grooming for it to ever reach such a level.

Speaking of apathy, that's the general feeling towards power cuts now in Sabah. Talk to any man on the street and yes he will be pissed at SESB but the conversation will always end with 'What to do? Don't get electricity from them, who else can you get from?' We've all learnt to adjust and live our lives around this terrible inconvenience. Apathy has become acceptance in a way.

Maybe I should start getting used to nasal hair as plan B in case I can never grow a moustache.

Everclicked

Last time I wrote about a certain Tmn Seni Bena in KK. This time, its another weird road name.

Yaaaa... Lorong Everclicked. What a name...

This one even more ridiculous. Lorong Caps Lock??? What the..?

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Ok, I was kidding about Lorong Caps Lock. Teeheehee....

...but not about the Lorong Everclicked. There's even an Everclicked 2!

Bena Arts Park???

I've been staying here in Kota Kinabalu for almost 6 months now and I must say I do enjoy the life here. Things here are different from KL/PJ. No kidding. When I drive around I do have time to look at my scenery and enjoy the view.







Yeah....that's when I noticed this.



Taman Seni Bena??? After consulting the sifu, Seni translates to Art in english and I'm pretty sure most of you will know that Taman means Park. So what about Bena? Hmm...the sifu has never heard of any BM meaning to the word and neither have I. However, the first thing that comes to my mind when I saw that sign was this...

Yea! Bena Expectorant for chesty coughs. Sorry about the blurry image, I got it off the XSP website and they only have a low res image. So that means Taman Seni Bena loosely translated to english would be...Bena Arts Park? The Art of Bena Park? Sounds like a very sick place to be no? A Taman filled with sick people with chesty coughs...Maybe the road was sponsored by the drug company itself?

In fact that's not a bad idea! Sometimes you know the roads in our Taman or vicinity is so poorly maintained you must wonder whether the Majlis Daerah has any $$$ or not (I'm sure they do lah)...but lets just say that they really are strapped for cash. Why not? I mean just rename the roads a bit, sign a contract... let the name of the road be chosen by the drug company.

Heheh...mali mali

Power cut

Its quite surprising that in such a 'developed' country like Malaysia we still have very frequent power cuts. Experienced it twice already since I've been here in Sabah. Oh well...good time to test high ISO shoots...

More sunset

More sunset pics from Tanjung Aru Beach at Kota Kinabalu. I think these are better than the last ones that I took.

All in all, it took a grand total of 3 mins for the sun to go from the first pic to the last... I spent 3 days chasing the sun again as I always showed up too late. On the third day i finally got what i wanted.

Sunset

I've always said that KK has one of the most beautiful sunsets. You don't get this over in KL or PJ... Been raining a lot recently and it took me one week to wait for the right time to capture this.

After this was shot, it started raining heavily again. Got to learn to shoot rain...