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Lion and Dragon Dance Festival
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Tag Archives: Kota Kinabalu
Mangrove Forest (Part I)
Kota Kinabalu City Bird Sanctuary (KKCBS) is a must-go place for nature lover and photographer. At KKCBS you can see many weird wildlife and plants that are very different from the rainforest. I have been there for many times, and each time I would see new animals (yeah, new photos for my collection).
I have been trying to trace some hard-to-see wildlife such as mud lobster, water snake, monitor lizard, certain rare birds, and sting ray, but still cannot get their pictures. They are either moving too fast or hiding very well. Until now, I think my photo collection is still not complete enough to give you a full picture of what are there. Actually the photo gallery below was already complete last year. I will go ahead and publish them first. Hopefully very soon I can publish part two. BTW, there are 2 panoramic views that allow you to see the Mangrove Forest in 360 degree.
See 82 photos of Mangrove Forest >>
If you want to do bird watching, try to be there at 8 AM, when the park opens, or between 4 PM to 5 PM. I heard that they will open as early as 6 AM, in the future, the time which has the most birds searching for food in the mangrove forest. One of the main attraction is the fiddler crabs. They are very sensitive and alert. You need a lot of patient to take pictures of them. The male fiddler crabs got a huge claw as weapon and sexy symbol. The fiddler crabs are so colourful and special that I decide to put up another photo gallery just for them. It is the same gallery that I published last year (but didn’t blog about).
See 72 photos of Fiddler Crabs >>
Fook Tet Kung Temple Parade, Donggongon
I read the news about the parade of celebrating the consecratel of new Fook Tet Kung Temple in Penampang Donggongon. (Please pardon my poor English in describing the event coz there are too many religion terms that I don’t know.)
The main highlight was the parade on Jan 2, 2006. You could see the colourful event formed by various lions, dragon, god statues, flags… from over 20 temples from Sabah (Sipitang, Kudat, Tuaran, Kinarut, Papar, Labuan…). It is not too much to say that it is one of the most colourful (also the strangest) events that I ever saw.
To make sure I didn’t miss a thing, I was already at the temple at 7:30 AM. There were two sessions that day. In the morning, all the god statues from different temples arrived Fook Tet Kung one by one. The comers didn’t walk in directly to the temple. It seemed like they followed a protocol. If the visitor lions came, the temple would send the lions to welcome them at the entrance. If the visitor was a dragon, then it would be welcomed by the dragon from the host temple.
Picture 1 & 2: Anyone knows the names of these dragons?
Picture 3: Visiting dragon was welcomed by the dragon from host temple
Picture 4: Long line of parade in Donggongon town
Picture 5: Kids love these stilt men who also gave candy
Picture 6: Dragon: “It is a rainy day lah.”
Picture 7: Charge!!!
The 2-hour parade started at 1:30 PM and passed by all the shops in Donggongon town. Many Chinese shops prepared the table with burning joss-sticks, candles, fruits and food to welcome the blessing from the gods, lions and dragons. The loud gongs, drums, dancing lions + dragons, and hundreds of people made a really noisy opening for the new year 2006. This was the first time I seeing such religion parade, and I thought I was in a China town. It rained heavily at 3 PM but everyone’s spirit was still high. Quite an unforgettable and exciting experience… at least this is something new to me. For those of you who never see such event, I post 70+ more photos here for your enjoyment.
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On Top of Tun Fuad Hill
This morning I went to Tun Fuad Park and walked up to the top of the hill. Why I was going there? This morning I saw a lot of dense cloud floated across lowly on top of KK, so I wanted to see if I could get a nice shot from the top of the hill.
On the way up to the hill, Tun Fuad Park also got some small animals and bugs that can be interesting photography subjects. I remember I saw 1 inch big ants there 2 years ago. I returned to Tun Fuad Park a few times and could not find them again. It is quite hard to take macro shot, as the bugs would run like hell when they see me. Some even bite me.
Gaya Street Christmas Carnival
Yesterday I didn’t blog coz I was not at home until 11:30 PM. I went to the Gaya Christmas Carnival (Dec 19 – 23) at Gaya Street. I got there around 7:30 PM and the traffic started to jam. More and more cars coming in. Luckily I was not too late to find a parking nearby. Later the street was crowded.
There were a number of stalls along the street, just like the Sunday Gaya Street. But the difference was that everyone’s face was full of smile and look so happy. I am glad that our country is still a “worry-free” zone to travel. No big natural disaster, no H5N1 bird flu, no terrorist bombing… And people from different cultural background, religion and races could happily celebrate the Christmas together.
The highlight of last night was the Bamboo Orchestra. You could see a group of performers using traditional instruments made of bamboo, to play Christmas songs. For the picture above, in case you wonder, the people at the left were playing Sompoton, a famous bamboo pipe musical instrument in Sabah.
And the big bamboo tubes in the middle is the Bamboo Drum. There was a donation box in front of them, for audiences to donate $ for charity. Though I am jobless, I contributed RM10. Since I am so kind, I won’t be sent to hell, right?
Hehe… I noticed a young girl who played flute among them. She was so focus and concentrated, so that expression was really nice. Plus – her sweet look made her look like a little “angel”. I tried to take a few of her pictures to capture that moment (see the left). FYI, tonight (Friday) they got firework for the closing of Gaya Christmas Carnival. Do not miss it if you haven’t been there.
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Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo
Funfair
I noticed there were some people busy setting up a funfair at the parking space next to Wisma Sabah, KK. Don’t know where they are coming from. I read the newspaper but didn’t see any news about them. They just arrived quietly.
Anyway, it is good to see some interesting happening in our city. I took a few photos of their site. see the photo I got below. It is kind of funny. The Big Wheel looks like a big fan that blows the cloud away. It would be really nice if the background is a sunset. I waited there until 6 PM, then a dense and dark cloud came and covered the sky. Well, no luck today.. 🙁
Kebaya Beauty Pageant, Putatan
The Kebaya costume beauty pageant is something new to me. The Kebaya dress is so elegant that it has a “magical” effect of doubling your femininity. Unlike the Chinese Cheong Sam (Qi Pao), if you don’t have a “Oriental” face and slim figure, it will look funny on you.
Click Here to see the Miss Kebaya Photo Gallery now >>
🙁 I got heavy flu and has been sick since last week. Actually I wanted to go home already when I arrived Putatan, coz I felt a bit dizzy and weak. I am recovering and feel better, but still got running nose problem that makes me breathe with mouth. I always rely on my natural immunse system to fight minor sickness. Tomorrow I got work to do, so I have to surrender my “pride” and take medicine. I am going to bed now..
Photos taken in Putatan, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo
5th Sabah Open 2005 Dancesport Championship
Another reason – got pretty liang moi perform hot dances, so no reason to miss it. Just kidding. Actually I joined ballroom dancing many years ago, so I have the interest. Last time I didn’t have a permanent dance partner so I quit. It is tough if you keep on changing partner coz both sides need to re-learn how to interact with each other in order to dance well.
Ballroom Dancing is a very vigorous exercise. It is very very tiring. And the dancers have to maintain a smiling face during the contest. Not easy man. It is a serious sport. If I shake and twist like them, it would hurt me so bad that I have to crawl for week.
During the event, I took so many pictures that their committee suspected I was doing video recording, which is not permitted. I hope it is ok if I post 180+ of their photos online. 😛 You could see classic ballroom dances (Waltz, Tango, Quickstep, Foxtrot) as well as sexy + hot Latin dances (Cha Cha Cha, Rumba, Samba, Jive). You also see kids, juvenile, adult and seniors on the dance floor. I like to watch Rumba. It is a very romantic and expressive dance, but not too naughty. This year they also got hip-hop dance competition, a good news to our local hip hop dancers.
Phew… it has been a long time I didn’t post that many photos. And taking their photos was so tough coz their move is fast and hard to predict. In fact, I used up more than 10 batteries coz I was there for 10 hours. The Sony Cybershot DSC-H1 is hungry for power. If the battery is slightly weak, it will refuse to take it. But these “weak” batteries got a 3/4 full bar in my old DSC-S40 camera. Sigh… it ended up more than 70% of the photos were taken by this old cam, which has weak flash and no stabilizer…
Ok lah, Click Here to see all the photos >>.
Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo