19 going on 18

well its the 27th of december which basicly means that on paper im 20 years and 2 days old.

gone are the days when i can still be called a teenager,
gone are the days when the age group i belong in would be an explanation of crazy stupid things i do,
gone are the days when responsiblity is just another word in the dictionary,
and gone are the days when i can still think of what to put in this senseless rant which would cause it to become a super long senseless rant which looks ultimately cool becuase it makes my blog look like ive got loads to talk about.

but you know what i think, im still 18 dammit! 18!!

18 is the age when highschool was over (well for me, being born late in the year, i was still 17 then),
18 is the age when all i basicly did for 6 months after finishing highschool was work and climb,
18 is the age when i had a carefree time,
and i cant think of anything else anymore to put in here as im 20 and 3 days on paper.

but i mean think about it, when everyone was younger, i bet you always had this thing in the back of your mind saying "if only i was older". i mean why not be older? when you are older, you can do so much things that other younggens cant.

but when you do get older, reality kicks in. you start to realise that you arent as energetic as before. you are able to do everything that you arent able to do when you were younger but are probably sick of doing it as you have done it so many times that it has started to become a bore. this is when you finally start to think of "if only i was younger".

i mena think about it, when you were younger, even though you are not able to do certian things or go to certian places, you still try your best to do things that you arent supposed to, and when you accomplish it you would be like hell yeah that was fun.

gone are the days when i used to be kicked out of bars and clubs and what-ever-you-call-its becuase i looked young. gone are the days when being able to beat the system was a fun thing to do as teenage rebelion was a fun thing. but not anymore.

its kinda boring now.

but oh well. life goes on. meet new people, try new things, see new places.

go listen to 18 till i die by bryan adams.

out.

looks like this christmas is going to be another boring one.... off to johor again this year. nuff said...

Moonshine 3rd Aniversary

so something totally unrelated to the post title. looks like ive finished moving into my new place. there are boxes everywhere, my room still looks like a store room as there are boxes lying around. still waiting for new furniture to put my things in them. oh, and i just got the internet connection yesterday. so no more going up to the balcony to steal the wifi from the neighbours :D


anyway, back to the title. went for moonshine's 3rd aniversary in laundry almost a month ago. and as i do in most gigs i attend, i got some pictures. here are what i took. ill start with the mono tone pictures first.


this one if a guitarist from forty winks. i think they are a cool band. they have trumpets!!





this one is from tempered mental i think.





this is tempered mental.




and yet another one.





oh the concentration.





i have no idea what else to put as a caption.





he looks like he is enjoying it.



now on to the shots with colour!




this one is one of my favourites from the session. i like how only the hand is in focus and everything else is a blur. but then again, it could still be better.






i kinda like this one too. alittle editing with one of my lightroom presets to make the picture look better.





decided to try something new this time with my shots. that explains the headless musicians.





not sure if this silhouette worked.





another headless picture.





this ones not too bad too.




a violinist!



and lastly.



two artist at work. well thats if you classify photography as art.



well thats it for this set.

if you wanna look at a bigger picture, do click on the picture and you should be able to view a larger one. sometimes i hate it when i upload pictures from flickr onto blogger. like the second picture, everything becomes pixelated. gahhh!! oh well. till next time.

christmas is around the corner :D

the big move

well im busy moving house now. the old house which i am currently in, is in a huge mess. everything is everywhere!!

whats worst is that there is only another 7 days more before we have to hand over this house to the land owner.

that means we have about 5 days to move!!! GAHH!! good thing im moving about 50 meters away :D

it just struck me.

christmas is just around the corner!

the day that i look forward to every year. not only because its my birthday, but because its just christmas. so hang on thight, christmas carrols and christmas trees will be heard and seen soon :D

An Article

no idea if i have posted it before, but this is an article which was writen quite a while ago in the star newspaper. me and boss jeremy took some of the camp5 memebrs for climbing, i took some photos and they were used in the article. quite crappy photos if you ask me. anyway here goes.

Saturday July 12, 2008
Climbing at Batu Caves
By LEONG SIOK HUI


Bored of the climbing gym? Go for nature’s own at Batu Caves.

Clammy, my hand thrashes desperately about to find a hold. The other one is jammed into a crack and clinging on for dear life, and my legs are beginning to wobble like jelly on the tiny ledge.

Suddenly, I lose my balance and — whoa!— I’m airborne and falling.

Luckily, I am tethered. Sitting on my harness and swinging like a pendulum, I take in the hills yonder which are like dots on the horizon. Yeah, it’s great to be outdoors again.

My friends and I are at the Nyamuk climbing site near Batu Caves, Selangor. Camp5, the largest climbing gym in Asia, runs an outdoor climb every third Sunday of the month for members.

Regular Camp5 climbers at Nyamuk climbing site.

A mere 15 minutes’ drive from the city centre will take you to these craggy limestone hills in Kg Melayu Wira Damai, Gombak. On weekends, you’ll see human spiders clinging onto the rock faces 30m high. The cliffs are popular with local and Singaporean climbers.

Camp5 director Jeremy Peet and staff Noel Yung set up the routes for us on the day of our climb. Today, there are 11 climbers, most of whom are familiar faces from the gym. It is like a picnic outing with time enough for socialising and lunch breaks in between climbing.

There are more than 60 climbing routes in Nyamuk, ranging from beginner-friendly 5B to expert-level 8A — the hardest route found in West Malaysia. This is based on the French grading system, which starts at 4 (beginner’s level) to 9B+, currently the world’s most difficult routes, located in Spain and Mexico.

The Camp5 pioneers make it a point to preserve the rocks and natural environment as well as respect the rocks’ natural lines. That was why we had to scramble over rocks and lush vegetation just to get to the climbing site.

Nyamuk’s long, steep routes vary between 12m and 33m. You get a good blend of jagged edges, cracks, overhangs and big rock slabs.

“The outdoor climb is an extension of Camp5 and gives our members an opportunity to enjoy the natural climbing sites in KL,” says Peet, 35, a climbing instructor and outdoor guide from New Zealand.

The climb here is free for term members while “casual” members pay RM24 a day (general entrance rate at Camp5).

“It’s more like a social club’s atmosphere as opposed to an instructional course or guided climb. We expect the climbers to have the prerequisite skills to look after themselves,” says Peet.

Since Camp5 opened about three years ago, the gym has trained thousands of beginner climbers.

Jeremy Peet, operations director of Camp5.

“You get a more well-rounded climbing ability by combining indoor and outdoor climbing,” explains Peet, who has more than a decade of mountaineering experience behind him.

“The techniques differ. For indoor walls, the holds stick out from the wall. On an outdoor rock face, it’s the opposite — the crack or ledge goes into the wall. You can easily tell if a person is an indoor or outdoor climber from his climbing style.’’

If the popularity of the outdoor climb increases, Peet says, Camp5 will consider doing it a couple of times a month.

A family affair

On our climb, we meet a family of Dutch expatriates, the Latours. Though the family are regulars at Camp5, this is the first outdoor climb for Marc, 13, his sister, Sophie, 11 and their mom, Ineke. Father, Henk, is an experienced climber who has scaled Mont Blanc in France.

“It’s a pity there weren’t many children climbing, it would have been more encouraging for our kids,” says Ineke, 48.

“Yeah, it’s boring because I had no one to talk to,” Marc agrees. Despite his first time on a rock wall, Marc found it “pretty easy.”

“You don’t always have to find the same colour footholds (like in a climbing wall); you can choose from hundreds of possibilities,” says Marc who also surfs, scuba-dives, plays golf, baseball, soccer and softball.

“It challenges you to do more with your strength and tactics. I have to find the easiest ways to get to the top without tiring myself out. I guess you have to have the right people in the group to make it fun, but overall I like it because I get to be very strong,” he adds.

“It was tricky finding the holds and scary to climb a real rock,” his mother chips in. “But I felt safe because the route was set up by Camp5 staff, and my husband was belaying me.”

Yup, for those of us who have yet to learn lead climbing and how to set up our own routes, Camp5’s outdoor jaunt is the next best thing for now.

o Camp5’s next outdoor climb is on July 20. Early reservation is advised as space is limited to 20 people.

-End-

kinda sucky that they didnt credit me. damn...

just some pictures

well since ive got no idea what to blog about and actually feel quite lazy but bored, im going to entertain you guys with some pictures...

with comments of course. :D

so some of the photos i might have uploaded it before, or maybe its new on the blog, i dont know. this computer doesnt have the software to properly edit new photos and im actually feeling quite lazy to do so right now. but anyway i just picked them out from an already edited library of photos, or photos which are unedited and look good as it is.

ok la, actually its not that they have to be edited, its just that they are in the wrong format, and i cant convert them on this computer. so anyway back to the pictures.

gahhh!! ok so those that i tried to upload didnt managed to get uploaded onto flickr. oh well.



so this one was taken during the summit climbing gyms last competition titled "the last summit" it was also the last day that they would be open. quite a sad thing to happen for the first climbing gym to ever open in malaysia.



this one is of the well missed mr thomas deiny. the crazy french dude that proved to us that french people in general are pretty crazy people. this photo was taken of him in the summit competition.



this one was taken quite a while ago from the huge glass enclosure of camp5. this was probably taken during my first few months with my new olympus E 510 DSLR camera. i quite like this shot. click on the photo if you want to view a bigger picture, same goes for the other photos too.



i have a feeling that i've posted this before, but oh well. this picture was taken during a walkabout around petaling street. happened to pass by this dude with the crutches, so i just snapped a picture. i feel that this picture would look better if it was converted to B&W to reduce the distractions and also maybe add some vignetting. will experiment with that some time.

oh i think thats it. enjoy

hmm...

its been a while hasn't it?

well let me try to sum up everything that has been happening lately.

so just last night i had an all-nighter with a take home test. gahhh!! only got like 3 hours sleep and i cant believe that im still awake 12 hours later. anyway, semmester is ending :D only have 3 more papers to sit for before im free till february.

hmm lets see, what else... ohh!! ohh!!! i've suddenly got into the crazy of wanting a LOMO camera! all thanks to sister christobel which got me to do some reasearch on them.

so lets see, the camera which i want is the LOMO LC-A+

looks like a crap camera doesn't it? but its just so freaking cool!! dont know if i can afford one of these. searched online and the price for one is about 900 ringgit. crap... gonna go to wondermilk some time soon to check out the price for this camera and other LOMO cameras that they have.

so if you guys are thinking of what kinda present to get me for my birthday, a LOMO LC-A+ would be great. my birthday is on christmas btw, loads of time to save up cash :D

hmmm... lets see... oh yeah, my new abode is almost ready. will be moving in at the end of nov. shitty thing is that we have to move out of the current house by the 30th of nov. thats cause the new tenants are moving in on the 1st. well thats not that shitty part yet. shitty thing is that the house isnt even ready yet. and by the looks of it it will only be ready around the 20th or later of november. so that leaves us with very little time to move out.

so if anyone wants some free junk which my house seems to have plenty of, you can come help me with the move. there is sure to be something interesting for you to take home as my home is filled with things in the store room.

ok i think im bored now. bye!

the cut

guess what.... yours trully has finally got a hair cut after 3 freggin years!!

i chopped off so much hair that i think i feel dizzy now. blog about this when i feel better or have the time too.

looks like i've got some free time.

well i've recently managed to go through some photos that were taken recently. here is one of the pictures which i thought looked good. changed to B&W.

changed it to B&W cause i thought that the colours from all the holds on the wall was kinda distracting.

yes, i do still climb, tho not as often as i used to. oh, one thing i realised from this picture, I HAVE REALLY LONG HAIR!!!! too bad its getting cut within the next 2 weeks.

assignment season

well it seems like this month is assignment season. 4 huge deadlines within the first 2 weeks of this month. lucky thing im going to perhentian to let loose some steam :D

freedom!

dont you just feel like leaving your current life to head to a paradise beach and just bum around without a care in the world?

well it would be great fun it that could happen. hmmm... when can i go for my next holiday...

its been a while

yes it definetly has. when was the last time i made a post? 1 month ago? heck its ages ago.

well things are getting bussier everyday. or maybe its just becuase i seem to find everything to do but sit in front of the computer to type out a blog entry. i mean there is so much to see outside of the computer screen!

recently i learn't how to snakeboard. what is a snake board you ask? well its simillar to a skate board, but the wheels can turn.

yes thats a snake board. how does it move? well it works like the same principle as how snakes moves. in a 'S' shape fashion. takes some time to master, but its fun. i now use this to go to work, instead of using a car. much more environmentaly friendly :D

besides the snakeboard, i also recently accuired something new.

yes, i got myself a freggin slackline!! yeah!! now i dont need to wait for every wed, fri, or sundays to slackline in camp5. i can do it in any park that has trees! so if you guys wanna try out this ever so cool sport, do let me know. ill come over and set it up if i have the time. for more information on how slacklining goes, go to youtube and search up slackline.

so anyway, enough of random pictures taken off the net. its time to post up some photos that ive developed.

these are a few photos which i have no idea if i have posted it up before, but anyway, its of a local band, seven collar t-shirt. taken in laundry.

ok, i think thats it for now. lets hope that my next post would be much much sooner.

just a picture

this is just a picture.

took this quite a while ago.



besides the picture, im heading off to summit climbing gym for the roxx competition. its going to be the last day the gym will be open and after today they will be closing down... sigh... now we have only one gym to go to in kl...

shit...

one of the shitiest thing that can ever happen to a photographer just happened to me.

no, i didnt drop my camera onto a busy highway which caused it to be run over by 3 cars, 1 van and a HUGE ass lorry, which would eventually turn the camera into a useless piece of scrap.

this is something way worst than that!!!


i lost ALL the pictures from my phuket trip!!!

NOOOOOOooooooooOOOOOooooOOOOOoooOO!!!!

there were still so many pictures which i havent looked through yet. damn. i think i lost it when i was reformating my computer. must have forgotten to back it up. anyone have an idea of how to back up massive amounts of pictures without burning it onto a CD everytime?

please leave a comment if you do. cause i dont think i can take loosing another set of pictures again.

kuching!

this is just something to fill in the time. decided to go through some of my pictures from kuching. so here are some photos of the rainfirest world music festival 2008 and other pictures from running around kuching.

there are 2 batches of pics. one from the first half of my trip when my sister was there and the other half when she left. these pics are those of the second half which also contains the rainforest world music festival pics. the first half are yet to be uploaded.


firstly the one and only group picture in this post.


from left to right. me, ayu, denise, cletus, sid and lorraine.

i mostly hung out with ayu, cletus and lorraine during the rainforest event.

this one is a picture of the kuching waterfront. it was supposed to be a panorama shot, but i was too lazy to stitch it together. stay tuned for the full panorama picture.


this next picture is taken on the beach of damai puri resort. this is the resort which i "sort of" stayed at during the rainforest event.


here is a random shot i took. on the right side would be some rocks which would lead down to the beach. i had to crop it out as when i took the picture the horizon wasn't straight, and it looked awefull.


so from here on the pictures are from the rainforest world music festival 2008.


this is the main stage where most of the better music comes from during the night.


as you can see, the grass is all nice and green. little would you know that on that exact same night, it would eventually become a mud hole.

this is a photo of a dude making a sape. i think that the white partition board on the left of the picture really ruined the shot. dammit....


this is the view from the same house i took the picture of the man making the sape. what a great view.


and this here is the picture of the house i was on when i took the photo of the man making the sape which i afterwards took the photo of the great view. i know, i'm trying to confuse you on purpose.


this is of a totem pole. carved out of a tree and it was about 7 meters high. sadly it was plagued with a few nails popping out from its side. had to photoshop it out. can you spot the changes?

quite hard i think...


this band is one of the coolest bands in the whole festival. each member can play about 3 instruments. coolest stuff and most fun music.


more pictures of the band. i think its called bezentine or something like that.


i quite like this one. i even cought the broken hair of the bow.

yet again, another editing mistake. the colours of the picture doesnt seem that nice. i forgot to bump up the colours after changing the white balance. was kinda in a hurry when i was editing them.

this band was kinda cool. their first song went "SMOKE WEED EVERY DAY!"


this is one of a sape player.

yeah man!! electric sape!!! behold how modern technology has effected traditional instruments. then again, isn't all instruments so called traditional to a certian culture?

oh well...

anyway, if you would like to see a bigger version of the photo, just click on them. more should be yet to come.

last week end i went down to singapore. why? well its cause my dear sister was heading over to the land of the roos. what is a roo? its a kangaroo.

so looks like its me the oldest kido in the house now. sigh....

more on kuching when i have the time.

2 articles

well im back from kuching. i had a really great time there. met alot of new people and ate all sorts of food!

anyway more on that in a later post.

i stumbled upon one of the articles in the star which had my photos in it. it was one of camp5's outdoor days and i took some pictures. click here to read it.

the article was writen by one of the members in the gym and the photos are taken by me.

next is another article that i found on the latest climbing gym in malaysia! well it isn't really a climbing gym, but more of a competition wall. it is called the challenge park, which is located in putra jaya. this climbing wall boasts the largest competition wall in the world, if im not mistaken. there will also be a mountain bike track and skate park. click here to read the article on routesetter.com.

haven't visited the gym yet, but i would love to check it out some time soon. when i do, i'll post the pictures of the place.

over and out.

rainforest!!

well the time for the rainforest world music festival 2008 is almost at hand!

tomorrow ill be heading down to the cultural village which is in damai for the event. whats cool is that there are actually a few people that i know from KL thats attending the event.

so enough about the damn concert. bet you are wondering about kuching.

been in kuching for a little more then a week now, and how is it you ask? well its actually not bad. its great to be away from the hustle and bustle of the freggin city. it only takes 10 minutes to get anywhere! im not kidding. no traffic jams, no serious noise polution, and also no light polution. that means that you can actually see the stars when you are in the middle of the city!

how cool is that?!

more of the trip when i get home.

noel out...

Slack Line and Cats

as said in a post before, camp5 now has a slackline!

here are some pictures taken yesterday.


here is one of me.



this is one of kammy



and a last one of andrew



cool eh? it isn't as easy as it looks. actually takes loads of practice. the pros can even do summersaults and land right on the slackline. but sadly noone in camp5 has reached that level yet. its only been what? a week since it was first set up?

for those of you who are interested in trying out the slackline, camp5 sets them up around the end of the day if people want to do it. but they will soon set up a set time when they will set it up.

next up, is about cats. well more of kuching. i leave for kuching in another 6 hours time. and will only be back on the 15th of july.

i'll be going for the rainforest world music festival!!

besides the music festival, ill also be going to kuching to visit people and get intouch with my roots... lol! i like the sound of that. well its cuase i haven't been back in like what? 7 years? around that i think. so its about time i went back for a visit. for those of you who didnt know, i was born in kuching and lived there for about 6 years before i moved to KL.

anyway, im also hoping to do some climbing there. managed to get a contact from a friend of a climber in kuching. hope all goes well and i can go climbing.

gotta start packing now. till the next time i post! hopefully with more pictures and more photos.

p.s. my sister will be leaving for perth on the 20th of july. she will be the first bird leaving the nest. hope all goes well...

bored?

no idea why, but i seem to feel really bored lately. all i did yesterday was just sit in front of the computer playing flight simulator. HOW LAME IS THAT?!

whats even better was that i didnt have a joystick, so it made flying an airplane even harder. i think i crashed about 20 planes yesterday.

anyway im going to buy my fingerboard today! dont know what a finger board is?

well its something like a pull up bar but even better. it not only works out your biceps, but also your fingers. its a tool some people use to better their climbing skills.

ok this is just a post to waste some time.

out...

the incubus pics

here are the final set of pictures from the sunburst music festival. but before i go into the pictures of incubus, i'll post some of the leftover pictures that i missed out.


here is one of incognito.

next up i have a picture of john legend. it isn't really a good picture, because i wasn't really interested in his music. i think its more for the girls. anyway, here is quite a gay picture of him dancing with some 'not so attractive' chick.

alright, so here are the long awaited pictures of the incubus bands. a few ppl have been bugging me to post these up, especially this girl who keeps coming up to me asking "where is the brandon boyd?!"

so here goes!

this is one of the first shots of em that i got.

this is one for the brandon boyd fans, taken at the press conference.

i kinda like this one. had to do some editing to remove those darn red hairband horns that ppl were waving in the air.



here is a new version of one of the boyd pics that i posted up a while back. and now the pics will not be centered cause im really bad at HTML and i cant seem to put it so. plus it takes so long to upload the pic onto blogger. so im just grabbin it off flickr.



here is another one with a wide view of the stage.



more boyd pics.



marxha says that the guitar doesn't suit him...



another reedited new version of a previously posted picture. i like the shadows on this one. but i feel that the screen killed the picture.



another "light shining on the guitarist" picture.



another new version of a previously uploaded picture. note, the really irritating red horn head bands.



a "spotlight on the vocalist" picture



this was one of those photos that looked really good on the camera LCD, but when i uploaded it onto the computer, i was extremely disappointed. there were ppl's hands sticking out from the crowd and stuff. looks like i need to buy a ladder for taking shots in concerts.



this one is alittle blurry. had to crop the picture to get a tight composition. yet again this picture was also plagued with the hands waving in the air and sorts.



this was one of incubus' last songs. aqueous transmission if i'm not mistaken.



more boyd...



i think i posted this up in my previous post too.

looks like thats all.

gotta go meet the marxha for climbing now, and im late...

oh btw, camp5 has a slack line now. only set up on some days :D