mindBloggling: Event

1st Putrajaya International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta 2009. From 19th to 22nd March, balloonists from around the world come to Malaysia to... erm... fly their balloons! This is the first time Malaysia is organizing such hot air balloon event. We Malaysian seldom got the chance to see these balloons. So I've decided to go.

I woke up 6 something this morning just to go there hoping to take some nice pictures. Reached Putrajaya around 7:15am. Already saw 1 balloon setting up. And it's the Nescafe balloon. Talk about branding huh.

Flame shooting into the balloon's belly to warm the air inside.

Here's the 1st balloon i saw. "Become a morning person" and they're the earliest to setup their balloon. Good advertising!

Who did i met again during this photography session of mine? Is the lovely Fidella again. This is the second time I bumped into her during my photography sessions. First time was Sungai Lembing (scroll down to view the previous entry). We just love taking photos. :D

Although is quite early in the morning, but there's already crowd crowding over the fences near those balloons. And there are damn a lot of photographers there!

Still pumping flame into the nescafe mug to keep warm.

What's a fiesta without clown.

The full view of the Mug-shaped Nescafe balloon.

Looking into one of the balloon.

Team Netherlands.

All the teams are preparing their balloons for the short flight. Colourful!

The sun just came out and seems like Mr. Clown doesn't like it.

Photographer risking their camera getting so close to the flame.

Almost finished setting up!

The Netherlands.

And they started to lift off. :D Wish is can go up there.

Wonder how they steer the balloons.

This is the chopped-orange balloon from Belgium.

Oh no! It'll rain orange juice!

Team New Zealand started their journey.

Wonder what size is this mug. Super Venti?

Photographers busy shooting the balloons.

One by one they took off.

The clown still ain't happy after it started flying.

Pink elephant! This is the balloon Fidella was here to see. Haha...

Colouful~

There there after reaching some height, Mr. Clown started smiling. :)

Giant cock in Putrajaya! Peacock la.

This peacock got bling-bling.

Team Belgium.

Haha, the further balloon looks like it's still sleepy.

Dumbo flying away.

A picture for Fidella and Zeejay before the last balloon flew.

It's the CAT Zeppelin. You know why it's the last to fly? Cos it's Team Malaysia!

After all the hot air balloons flew away, para-gliders started to glide around the skies.

Looks like quite fun also.

A glider flew-by us.

The last balloon left here is for pay-per-ride. But you don't go anywhere, just go up, and then come back down.

Didn't bother to go to the fun fair and carnival sections cos I think it'll be the same as the others. So packed up and go home~

Went to Singapore last weekend to attend this convention called SIGGRAPH which held in Suntec City. 7 of us, me, Brian, Sue-ann, Tony, Jook, Tiffany, and Chinling, went down to Singapore by a night train on Friday night 9:30pm. But the train was delayed for half an hour. No biggy tho. Experienced night train (those with bed) once in 2005, so it's nothing fresh for me.

Can't really sleep at night, took my camera out and snap some motion of the train.

This is my space. With my bags, can't really consider comfortable. But I'm guessing it should be better than those sitting ones.

After many hours of train ride, procedures, and walking, finally reach where we going to stay at around 7 something in the morning. The thing is we can't check in yet so early in the morning. So we put our luggage there at the lobby, then went to wash up a bit and get ourselves moving to have some breakfast. This place that we stay is just off Orchard road, behind The Paragon shopping mall. So it's really convenient.

Walked to this place under Paragon to eat our breakfast. It's a small shop called Ah Mei Cafe. The toast there is really good.

After the breakfast, walk some more to the nearest MRT station, got ourselves tickets to City Centre station, where the convention is held. In the photo you see Tiffy waiting for the MRT.

Not too cramp inside the train. Too early to be packed on a Saturday. We reached our location around 10am. Registered ourselves, and prepared to walk in and see some interesting things. The bad thing was no photography are allow. So... no photos lar from the convention.

After we finished the 1st part of our convention/exhibition, we went down for lunch before continueing our 2nd part. This is the food court at the ground floor of the convention centre. It's called Food Repuplic. The theme there is really nice. Looks like from some Harry Potter movie.

The food court were pack with hungry people. Luckily the food there was not too expensive.

The 2nd part of the schedule was just animation watching. Got some nice animations we watched. And there's a Korean animation that made me fell asleep. Even the guy behind me agreed with his snoring sound. Watch around 6 or 7 animations, we've felt that it's enough, so we left the place and go walk walk around Suntec City. Here's a shot of Tony and Jook waiting for Brian and Tiffany while they checking out some gadgets.

Much awaited place to be since we're all damn tired. We've booked 2 service apartment units to cater for around 13 persons, but only 7 of us turn up. So that means we can sleep better with more space to "look" around. Hahaha. Above shot is the living room.

This is the master bedroom.

And this is where i slept. Simple and nice.

The dining table became our place to put our stuffs.

This is the view from my room.

After some resting, is dinner time! Walk our from our room to eat around 7pm.

Dinner was on Brian, thanks dude. He brought us to this place call NYDC inside this mall which i forgot the name. The food there was nice.

Brian and Sue-ann ordering food.

Tiffany reached the place a bit later.

After the dinner, I met up with Ailin. I asked her to bring me around to do some shooting. I still got a lot to learn in shooting street at night.

This shot and the above shot was shoot by 50mm. Gotta like the bokeh!

After Orchard road, we took the MRT to City Centre again. But this time we walked to another direction. Here you can see a very nice skyline of Singapore. Above is a picture of the 1st Singaporen Casino in the making.

Ailin on the bridge with the Durian and Singapore largest ferries wheel.

This is part of the skyline in Singapore. Very nice.

Finally a picture of me posing in front of the famous Singapore Merlion.

Helped Ailin took 1 photo with the Merlion because this is the 1st time she's here also. Hahaha. We chit-chat at this place for some time, then we headed back to Orchard.

Buffet breakfast included the next morning.

We have to check our from the service apartment before 12pm, so after our breakfast, we went back to our room, pack up, and go to the lobby to put our stuffs. Because our bus back to KL is at 5pm and we wouldn't want to carry all the luggage with us. After everything done, we went walking... again.

Jook, me, Chinling, and Tiffy is in this picture. :) Merry Christmas everyone.

Lucky Plaza. A place where most foreign workers like to hangout. Damn a lot.

It rain and stop and rain and stop on that Sunday.

After Orchad road, we went to Peninsular Plaza to look for some camera stuffs. But then you can see from the picture, they close on Sunday. WTF!

A very pretty church on our way back.

After some hours of bus riding, we've finally reach KL. And that concluded our little trip to Singapore. It was tiring because of all the walking. Didn't manage to meet up with some other friends due to the tight timing. Next time... next time...