Canadian Bird Stamps

From Christina Doan

Czech Birds Stamp

From Ida Coombe (#89837-CCCC)

My Mongolian Covers

My New Zealand Covers

Swedish Bird Stamps

From Margareta Ostberg

Gepai Waterfalls

Nov 2008 - After our Geruntum Waterfalls trip, we dropped by this accessible waterfalls near the town of Bidor, Perak. The route to the falls or rather cascades, was an easy one if you paid attention to the directions given by Jan from waterfallsofmalaysia. Its not situated in a reserved forest, but probably on private land.. I think visitors were requested to pay a cover charge, but since we arrived quite late.. nobody asked us any money. When we were there, there were no huts and other public facilities, and watch out for potholes..

It was already raining when we got there and it looked like the Nov skies were about to pour its heavenly contents on earth again.. as it was near 6.30pm, many visitors were packing up to leave. I was not impressed at all by its first sight, and there were stray dogs and piles of rubbish around the river banks.. :(

Where's the waterfalls? I was getting impatient because it was getting dark and rain started to drizzle. There were still a few picnickers around so I guess bringing the kids do a little bit of exploring would be ok. This was a view taken from near the iron bridge and weh! That looked very deep, those daddies better be good swimmers cos those children looked way too young to be good swimmers!

Aaahhh! There it is! Small and uninteresting actually. But the surrounding rocks and boulders were quite nice. Those boulders with water erosion marks is a good indications that water levels here could reach very dangerously high and swift.

Very deep and quite a turbulence down there..

Full view

I don't know why, but that calm pool gave me the chills that day..

As there was nobody around to ask, I assumed the pool is VERY DEEP! Not tall, but water volume was quite impressive!

Zachwan playing in the clear water.. 

It's very beautiful and inviting.. but it was getting very late, rain has started falling. By the time we reached back to our parked car, a few picnickers who were obviously locals, warned us that its very dangerous to swim here when it rains.. "Air dah deras ni..bahaya!"

dragon?..gargoyle in the sky?

By last Friday, I was bored to my forehead and the thought of another tripless weekend + Al's coming 3 day trip to Kelantan on Sunday really made me feel worst. But the skies during the week was spectacular.. I wished we could've made a couple of trips to Pantai Remis to catch the sunsets. But it was weekdays.. too much to be done plus kids got schools and tuitions.. :( Anyways, I snapped this interesting cirrus formations at around 3pm and thought I should blog more about my hobby in cloud gazing :) I was pretty annoyed at first that I could not take a clear shot of this formations, tried going downstairs in the lawn but view was blocked by a tall tree and snapped this photo from window at tv area upstairs. But the coated glass acted like a filter and the cloud looked so much better. So what can u see here? I can see a giant flying serpent puffing smokes :)

Cool Blogs and Cotton Candies!

On our day-visit to Batu Pahat last week.. OMG panasnya!! Bukan lah nak merungut sangat, tapi memangggg! After lunch, bahang kat luar da mula masuk rumah and by 3pm it was getting worst and while the entire house hold (Al.. mom-in-law..nieces..nephew..cousin..maid) were happily having siesta, the four of us yang x berapa biasa tido petang ni were very much in hyper mode.. so what to do???? Nak tengok TV cuma ada citer kartun jer... errmmm nasib baik jugak rumah parents-in-law ni in the middle of town and just 3 mins away from Summit Parade Shopping Mall. At least its cooler and biasa ler.. shopping! Manalah tau, kalau nampak DVD ke.. t-shirt ker.. and o yeah, the boys needed to get their sneakers..

Mmmm.. dari jauh macam R2D-2.. rupa2nya cotton candy machine.. oopss.. macam jaks sket, and boys beriya2 nak cuba.. kena beli token RM3, pilih paket2 berisi gula bermacam2 flavor~strawberry, manggo, peppermint.. we chose peppermint :P Macam best jer ka..

The lady from the store gave us our token.. and a piece of stick.. put in the token and the machine starts.. so easy. But the whisking required skill and Zafree broke the stick halfway..nyeh! ;P~

Sorry boys! not the best looking cotton candy.. and it was harder than u think, really!

Bubble tea! Bubble tea! Kenapa lar susah sangat nak dapat bubble tea nih kat Shah Alam??!! I think it was just about 6 months ago since I visited Summit Parade, and the place now have a few bubble tea..blogs..whatever u wanna call it booths! They're so much fun to drink and chew, I think rather than have those yucky coffees at BP's many so called 'trendy' kopitiams, I'd rather have these chewy and superlicious blogs-bubbles anytime!

This time my very brief trip to BP was highlighted with these chewy-bubbly goodness.. and I'll probably won't dread following hubby to his hometown anymore ;P~ BTW, that's the Yoghurt Passion Fruit Blog and the kids had Oreo Blog :D

Bamboo..belum?

Tak taulah nak cakap.. Al's quite obsessed with bamboos and he plans to fill the entire garden with them.. and all I could visualize is a garden filled with dried leaves.. :(

I have to agree with him though, that now our garden is shady an quite lovely.. especially in the mornings and windy days.. there are at least 5 species of birds visits Al's bamboo 'forest' and it turns out to be a perfect playground for Lego.. :)

Batu Pahat.. blazing HOT!

We've received a call from Al's mom the other day.. his dad's office was broken into and lost quite a lot of office stuffs :(  So we rushed back, and thought of giving the fam some support and that's the least we could do. But o wow! Blazing HOT in Batu Pahat! Now, being at home in Shah Alam with the sun shining outside.. its a bliss compared to BP..

Al and his sister, Radiah who's also working with the fam's company. 

Just across the street, is dad-in-law's river side restaurant.. specializing in Mee Bandung Batu Pahat, and there are also a few satay hawkers

It was still early and opens at around 5.30pm-11pm daily.. opens even on hari raya and raya haji.. And that canvas covered thingy in the background, that's dad-in-law's soon-to-be completed waterfalls and aquarium for an extension of his riverside restaurant..specializing in seafood..ikan bakar..thai delicacies.. :P~

Its quite lively here in the evenings..

Indonesian boats bringing in their trades..

3 generations.. Haji Jamil (dad-in-law), Zafran, Al and Zafree

LOL! an angry looking local resident of the scaly kind crossing the street in the middle of town!

Well, plenty of ways to quench the thirst on typical hot day.. Cendol! Not as good as Pak Akop's on Shah Alam but hey, it's only RM1 a bowl!

Engineering Excellence in Nation Building

Stamps

Stamp Value : 30 ¢ (2 Designs) ; 50 ¢
Sheet Content : 20 Stamps
Paper : SPM Watermarked, Phosphor Coated

Printing Process : Lithography
Printer : Percetakan Keselamatan Sdn Bhd 
Stamp Designer : Designer :Reign Associates Sdn Bhd 

First Day Cover
First Day Cover Value : 30 ¢

Folder
Folder Value : RM 5.50

Date of Issue : 20-Apr-2009

Save Our Waterfalls@Kanching Waterfalls

We were there on the 18th to check the place out and see if we could help setting up the registration booth. But it was early, though still have not recovered 100% from last week's fever, the kids could not resist the clear and cool water.  Zafran, unfortunately went back with feeling more sick and on the gotong-royong day itself, we did not bring the kids and left early.

metropolitan monkey with her morning tea ;P

cool water.. but Zafran still caught the fever.. but he's ok today

the leader of the pack.. very fierce!

these bits and pieces of broken glasses were all over the place!

look ma! they're following the leader crossing the stream!

19 April 2009 - A historical date for the Waterfall Survivors. Our very first clean-up the waterfalls campaign and we had an unbelievable response from over 400 participants! It was officiated by the State Tourism Executive Chairman, Datuk Subahan Kamal and  was officially endorsed by Selangor Tourism Action Council with supports from Tourism Malaysia, Tourism Selangor Sdn Bhd and Malaysia Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA). 

setting up the registration booth~the hole on the roof was not there yesterday!

busy preparing the booth for the arrival of the volunteers and WS members

Datuk Subahan Kamal interviewed by Ms Puspa of TV3

Joe was giving her first speech to a crowd of volunteers

It also received cooperation from other organisations like Jabatan Kesihatan Negeri Selangor, Jabatan Hutan Negeri Selangor, Jabatan Pertahanan Awam, Jabatan Bomba Dan Penyelamat and Polis DiRaja Malaysia. The SOWs Kanching Waterfalls campaign was sponsored by KEEN Footwear as its OFFICIAL Footwear, World of Sports, Lafuma, Bacfree, Mahumas Sdn Bhd and Pansing Marketing Sdn Bhd.

Overall, I was so touched by the turn out of the event, especially when Datuk Subahan announced that he and his family would be joining WS and its trips. The highlight for me, of course, to see the logos and t-shirts that I designed being worn that morning by so many kindred souls. I used to design clothes to make people look pretty and feel good about how they looked, but nothing beats seeing all the volunteers in the plain t-shirts and getting ready to get dirty, for a good cause of course. For the first time in my life, I design a clothing that goes beyond the purpose of self adornment and vanity. I was staring at many chests and breast (at the SOW logo actually!), and I hope nobody was offended! 

heh heh.. stumbled on a few lines ;P

I was appointed MC for the Bahasa Melayu version, in which I had no idea why they thought of me at the first place. I struggled not from being shy or afraid of the crowd, but was more about my coughing and sore throat. But I braved through it, and I think it went pretty well.. after all, it was only a few minutes talking. And I didn't have the heart to say no to Joe, and another way of making sure that I'll get my lazy self at the event. Which turned out that I was SO GLAD I was there, part of the committee and witnessing my logos all over Kanching and on the people who unselfishly went there that morning.. :)

sea of volunteers wearing SOW t-shirts :D