My 1st contribution!!

Here's a photo from our Mabul-Sipadan trip as well. It was conceptualized as a postcard

More good times

The group pictures are rather small, so please click on them for a larger view. Somehow scaling them decreases the quality of the thumbnail. Do advise me if you have the technical know-how to upload high quality large thumbnails :)

The normal us...introducing Tam (2nd from the right on back row) and Leong (4th from the right on back row), the latest addition to our clique back then.

Us trying to look sad.

Us in crazy mode :D

Since Chiew Yun was the only birthday girl, we made her feed cherries to the birthday boys.

On the left is Yui Ping's birthday card...his head on a body builder's figure :P oh and they were supposed to mimic the pose.

Kah Jin mimicking his rather gay-ish picture...pardon the pun :)

Chiew Yun in her supermodel pose.

Kah Jin doing an even better job at the supermodel pose.

The good old times

After a rough week previously: having my shooting schedule messed up; falling ill at a 4 days motivation camp in Tenom; going through the arduous schedule the camp facilitators put us through (we only caught 2-3 hours of sleep daily!!!)...I'm absolutely thankful now that the storm has blown over. For starters, the June event in Tawau has been postponed to middle of the month, which means I'm free to shoot my friend's wedding! :) Truth is I was elated when I heard the news, that I literally shouted my friend's name (online that is :P) to tell her the good news. She in turn was equally glad and enthusiastic. To perk things up, the June event might just be held in Sandakan instead, which means I could be off the hook...no need to crack the poor coconut head of mine coordinating the event.

So here are some happy snapshots of Chiew Yun, Kah Jin and Yui Ping's birthday. This is the one and only time that all of us were gathered together. Boy...I missed those times hanging out with this bunch of crazy fellas :P

Yee Huey

Kah Jin (left) & Yui Ping (right) enjoy making funny faces at me :)

Joe (left) & Jimmie (right)

Pou Wee & Say Wae

Amy (left) & Siau Yong (right)

Samuel

Chiew Yun (I was after the water color effects you normally see on the front cover of Chinese romance novels)

Two crazy weeks it's been...

Now the question that's been bugging me for the past week was 'Soo Jin, how come I don't see that many pictures on your blog?'. Well truth is I've been swamped with office and prep work as well as meetings for these two weeks...to make matters worse, everything seems to be working against me this week.

To start off my week where Murphy's law seems to have kicked in, my leave in June was withdrawn by my superiors!!! I was supposed to shoot a friend's pre-wedding photos and her actual wedding in June. And it was the exact same dates that my superiors decided to hold an event in Tawau. Of all times and places!!! Being the host meant I'm bound to remain in Tawau during those dates to coordinate the event. I was exasperated, frustrated, disappointed, you name it... After what planning and promises I've made since January, everything went down the drain.

To rub things in, there'll be a beauty fair in Tawau this Sunday, and my department has been invited to showcase our exhibition along with other beauty saloons and healthcare providers. A makeshift indoor studio will be available for customers who'd like to have their portraits taken after a makeover. The photographer in me was screaming 'Yes!! I might just be able to get some portrait shots of visitors.' Then the bombshell was dropped on me...I had to attend a course in Tenom tomorrow which stretches through next Monday. Again and again I've been denied.

Many other problems are still nagging at me. The hollow shell of what's left of me would just have to settle whatever I can today, get things ready for my trip tomorrow, and hopefully matters will blow over by next week. So yes...enough complaining...more pictures coming up next week when I get back :)

More of Mabul

Here's a few more pictures of Mabul Island's denizens. As we wade through the small village, kids were running everywhere, clad in next to nothing if not naked. They were tourist friendly though, smiling readily at the sight of a camera. It's unfortunate to see that many of these kids had bloated stomachs...a sign of malnutrition or worm infestation. We wished we had the thought of bringing some albendazole along to be distributed.

*If you're the squeamish kind, refrain from reading what's next :P What we witnessed was definitely 18SG stuff.*

As we made a move back to the resort for dinner, we saw two kids by the shore grabbing a greyish blob out of the water. The identity of the object eluded us at first, but it dawned on us as we saw it struggle in the kid's grasp. It was a squid the size of a football. Nice catch...we thought. Then the kid started punching the squid, like what a boxer would do to a bean bag, in an effort to kill it. As the squid started to go limp, the kids proceeded to 'clean' it inside out. They were soon in a puddle of seawater stained black by the squid's ink, after which they carried their catch of the day away...most likely to be laid on the dinner table.

Mabul here we come

That morning I leapt out of my bed with much more enthusiasm than I'd normally have at such an hour. It was 5.30AM and I was geared to embark on our 1 hour journey to Semporna whereby we'd catch a boat to Mabul Island. As I dropped by Pou Wee's place to pick the 4 of them up, I was met with 3 pairs of panda eyes XD which I was told the reason later that the guys were up all night choosing songs for Ron...for some reason that made me chuckled in amusement.

Nevertheless we went over to Wen Jiun's place and piled into her Unser which we used for our road trip. I was speeding at 110km/h along the way to Semporna. When I say speeding, I mean it, coz drivers in Sabah tend to crawl at 20-30km/h on an empty road. Besides that, what they call 'highway' here in Sabah, is what we call 'road' in peninsular. People who know me would know that I vehemently abhorred the traffic in Sabah for these very reasons :P

We had half an hour to spare when we reached Semporna. Our stomachs were already growling in protests (despite the amount of junk food we consumed en route) but no food outlet was open yet. So we stomached it and headed for Mabul Island on our boat.

We explored the island on foot. By noon, the restaurant echoed its gong. Boy were we glad that we could finally have our first meal of the day...and to top it off, the food was decently good. I think Pou Wee had 2 and a half beef burger besides the other food :P We could have attributed that to our rumbling stomachs, but the food was consistently good over the next 2 days.

Our snorkelling session at the house reef yielded some rather huge reaction from us. Donning the mask and flippers, I plunged in right by a HUUGGEEE school of fish. I was stunned for a moment by the intimidating sight before I started backpedalling to a safer distance. Say Wae plunged in at the very same spot where I started. Imagine the surprise she had...she literally scrambled for the safety of the jetty XD

I loved every minute of this trip. Here are some shots.

The eatery

Chun Keat

Ron & Wen Jiun

Pou Wee & Say Wae

We lived on those chalets right there