Of Many Months And The Moon In 18 Minutes

Hello World,

It has been more than just quite sometime that I have not made any new entry in this blog. There are a couple of reasons why but of course, as they say, we are not quite interested in reading reasons. Since my last post was quite a few months back, may be it would be quite decently appropriate if we are to just read quite a bit about the moon. Yes, the moon, as it slides down and moves away with grace and grandeur from the horizon in approximately eighteen minutes.

Since an astronomer that I am not, may be sharing a few images of what I digitally captured of the moon is humble enough I suppose. Below are fifteen plus one images of the lunar beauty on the eighteenth calendar date as it gives way to the more majestic luminance of the sun to flood its light for another twelve hours in the writer's part of the planet earth.

(Date and time watermarked on each image; the last image was shot about almost two hours before all other images)

Among the earlier shots.


























No more moon, only the top part of a mountain.


Bonus image

H2O Is Water In English, Air In Malay, Ai' In Salako

H2O is the physical properties of water. In Malay water is air and please do not confuse this with the English word, air. In Salako (my language/dialect) water is ai'. I do not intend to lecture readers what water is because kita semua tahu apa itu air. Kita' am pane kata Salako pun nahui' amia ratie ai' koa. Are you English speakers confused? Need not be because all the sentences in Malay and Salako means exactly the same even if it is written in Swahili or Esperanto language.

Musim landas both in Sarawak Malay and Salako means monsoon season. In our part of the world musim landas occurs in the months of November up till February. This is the time when it rains cats and dogs almost every other day. What is raining cats and dogs if you are not familiar English phrases and you ask? Well, the phrase simply means raining heavily.

But I am not so concerned with language terminologies. You can learn that from somewhere else. In this entry I just want to share with you some pictures of rain water gushing out from a (broken, unattended) gutter, one morning sometime ago in my work place. The different shades of the pictures are the results of them being shot using different camera modes. The only editing done to these pictures are by adding watermarks and downsizing. Otherwise, all you see are as original as they can be. Hope you like them.

Lundu, My Home Town Is Flooding, Part 2 (And No Ghost Caught On Camera)

I was really hoping that there would be no need for me to update my previous post about the flood. But alas, the water level is raising again and true to prediction, this time around, the flood water swelled up even more and made worse by the king tide. A consolation though, the weather was relatively fine today, interrupted only by intermittent light rain. Had the rain were like the previous couple of days, the town folks especially the shop owners would have a lot to worry about.

However though, the lowest grounds of the town area were again visited by a larger volume of quite an unnecessary amount of water. While it seemed good to immortalize the event on camera, still the shopkeepers need to move their goods to higher points. Those unaffected like me may enjoy the work of nature as such and so do some curious onlookers including boys and the not so young as manifested in the pictures below.

Luckily, or the reverse of it, this time around there were no more shots of ghostly cycler(s). And in spite of that, today, I managed to take more pictures as compared to yesterday because it did not rain as predicted by the weathermen.

The signboard says Selamat Datang or Welcome. Does that include welcoming heavy rains and floods? That we have to ask folks at the Lundu District Council Office.

Flood or no flood, scavenging must go on.

When the water bloats, the rubbish floats.

Unlike the shopkeepers, these boys are not worried. Even the rising flood level is a sign of peace as shown by one of the boys.

True to wise men saying, water cleanse; and this owner of the only newspaper outlet in town took the opportunity to clean the wall of her shop. By the way, Lundu folks did not read newspapers today as land transportation to Kuching is disconnected due to more heavier floods affecting a number of areas along Kuching-Lundu road.

Sometimes, Lundu town mimics Venice.

The newest bus terminal in town (right, white building) is not yet operational but already the flood gave it a real baptism.

This time around, it is wiser to wear shorts.

Seemingly serene but come a few more hours of heavy down pours this will be in the local media headlines. Today, Lundu Town became the Floating Bazaar of the western corridor of Sarawak.

A happy towkay (shop owner) indeed. It does not matter if his cafe is flooded as long as he is in the picture.

In this part of the world, it is very normal that the advent of a Lunar New Year is preceded by a flood or two.

Two possibilities: Either owners of these vehicles are extremely rich or they have fitted these machines with some kind of a floating mechanism.

Wet markets are always wet markets and boys are always boys.

Adios! Hope to capture no more of these nostalgias in future.