1st Borneo Lantern Festival

If you haven't read about the 7000 lanterns on Sibu street I wrote in the previous post, you can take a look at it before proceed to this write up for better understanding.

I was at the "lanterns light-on" ceremony scene last night. I just knew that the organizer had gave it a name, it is called "Borneo Lantern Festival" and this is the first ever Borneo Lantern Festival in Sibu! Heard it will be noted in Sibu's calendar as an annual event and its scale will be expand from year to year.

The ceremony was held at Sibu Tua Pek Kong Temple where the "dragon head" was located. The place was too crowded and I was unable to get any closer. Doesn't matter, as usual the ceremony started with speeches from VIPs which I not really interested anyway.

It was about 7.45pm when VIPs pressed the button to switch on more than 7000 lanterns' light. A second after that, fireworks were seen to mark the official opening of the 1st Borneo Lantern Festival.



The dragon head came to life with the power of electricity! It was made of twisted metal and also lighting tubes.


Visitors were impressed by the artwork and taking turn to pose in front of it to capture this historical moment. Few foreigners being seen attending this event and they were busy taking photos. I guess they did enjoy the night!

As the roads along the hanging lanterns were temporarily closed, the crowd then being asked to walk following the lanterns' route from the dragon head to its tail located at Sibu Gateway to witness the beauty of the "red dragon".

[Lanterns from Tua Pek Kong Temple]

[Lanterns on Channel Road]

[Lanterns on Chambers Road]

[Another viewing angle of the lanterns at Chambers Road]

Sibu Gateway is where the "dragon tail" is located and it marks the ending point of the lantern festival. Here you can see hundreds or maybe approaching a thousand of colorful lanterns. The lighting on lanterns covering the square made the place look really gorgeous.

Lots of parents brought their children here to see the beautiful scenery. The kids are among the happiest group seeing thousand of lights and colorful "tanglung" just above their heads!

At a separate corner of Sibu Gateway few feet away from the sea of colorful lanterns, a red giant lantern was set up with a white-light swan statue stand on top of it. I guess it brings the meaning of "Swan City" （which refers to Sibu） is having a lantern festival!

It was a great experience and it gives Sibu people a nice place to go during leisure and hopefully it can really boost up Sibu's tourism.

Seven Thousands of Lanterns @ Sibu Streets

Recently if you walk onto Sibu street near the town center, you will notice something special. Total of 7000 red lanterns were hung high above the streets in conjunction with this year's mid-autumn festival celebration event.

The lanterns were hung above the streets starting from Sibu Tua Pek Kong Temple, to Channel Road (along Sibu Central Market), then from here it turns to Chambers Road passing by Pansar and Sibu Chinese Chamber of Commerce building towards Sibu Gateway.

[The lanterns started from Tua Pek Kong Temple]

[From the temple towards Channel Road]

[Along Channel Road where Sibu Central Market is located]

[View from another end of Channel Road]

[From Channel Road the lanterns turned into Chambers Road]

[Along the Chambers Road]

[From Chambers Road heading Sibu Gateway]

[A view at Sibu Gateway]

At Sibu Gateway, there were hundreds of colorful lanterns covering the square. It was the efforts from few local social associations cooperative with the local council as a way to celebrate the coming Mid-Autumn Festival as well as to attract more tourists visit to this town in conjunction with visit Sibu Year 2009.

[Hunderds of colorful tanglung covering the square]

The tanglung were hung in such a way so that they look like a red dragon flying across the sky of Sibu. For Chinese, dragon is the symbol of good luck! When a dragon flies across the sky, it will bring good fortune to the people at that place.

The dragon head will be placed at Tua Pek Kong Temple and Sibu Gateway is where the dragon tail is. At my time of shooting these photos, the head not being installed yet. The light-on ceremony will be held on 25th September which is tomorrow. Guess it will look tremendous at night time when all the lanterns light are on!

[Another view at Sibu Gateway with hundreds of lanterns covering its sky]

[Well arranged lanterns' shadows under the hot sun]

Tsunami At Haeundae

Just watched Tsunami At Haeundae, the first disaster oriented Korean film ever made and the first Korean film I watched on big screen.

Generally, the film was set place at a vacation hot spot named Haeundae at Busan which draws one million visitors to its beaches yearly. While the local were having their everyday affairs peacefully, a local geologist who is specialized in tsunami research discovered some abnormal activities occured under the East Sea. He tried to warn the Disaster Prevention Agency about mega-tsunami that may hit the penisular, but his warnings always end up with ignorance. One day, while the locals as well as the vacationers were enjoying the hot summer at the beach, a mega-tsunami was headed towards Haeundae at 500 miles per hour causing severe destruction.

The selling point of this film in my opinion is the CG effects rendered the tidal wave that causing the mega-tsunami and brought massive destruction to the town. Other than that, it was just another Korean movie which featured love story with comedy and heart-touching elements decorating the storyline.

As a whole, the CG effects was impressive, yet if compare to the similar disaster films produced in Hollywood, such as "The Day After Tomorrow", Korean CG skills still have much room of improvement in term of its realism of the effects.

I would give 6.5/10 for this film!

Street Fighter IV PC Game Review

Currently I am playing the latest fighting game, Street Fighter IV. It is the latest Street Fighter game in the market.

[The selection screen]

If you are a Street Fighter fans, these screenshots may look very familiar to you. Yeah, it is what a Street Fighter game is all about, the familiar characters and also the background. However, differ from the previous versions, the models and backgrounds are rendered in 3D, but the gameplay remains the traditional left-right 2D control.

[Sagat fighting with Ryu]

[Guile (left) - one of the most significant character in Street Fighter game]

In this version of Street Fighter, almost all the most well-known faces in the game's franchise are back. They are:

• Ryu - a Japanese martial artist
• Ken - Ryu's former training partner or rival
• Chun Li - a female martial artist from China
  
• Guile - a former special force from US
  
• E.Honda - a Japanese Sumo wrestler
• Blanka - a green beast from Brazil
• Zangief - a pro wrrestler from USSR
• Dhalsim - a yoga master from India
• Balrog - an America boxer
• Vega - a Spanish cage fighter
• Sagat - a Muay Thai master
• M.Bison - the leader of the criminal organization Shadaloo

[Chun-Li and Blanka]

Then, there are few new faces added to the game.

• Abel - a French mixed martial artist
• Crimson Viper (C.Viper) - a female Amerian spy with long hair
• Rufus - a fatty fighter
• El Fuerte - a Mexican luchador (wrestler) similar to Rey Mysterio in WWE

[Ryu vs El-Fuerte]

[Abel hit the fatty Rufus]

There are also some additional characters who needs to be unlocked by completing the Arcade game:

• Dan - Complete Arcade mode with Sakura
• Fei Long - Complete Arcade mode with Abel
• Sakura - Complete Arcade mode with Ryu
• Cammy - Complete Arcade mode with C. Viper
• Gen - Complete Arcade mode with Chun-Li
• Rose - Complete Arcade mode with M. Bison

[E.Honda slammed Vega onto the ground]

Here are some bosses to be unlocked:

• Akuma - Complete Arcade mode with all unlockable characters except Gouken
• Gouken - Clear the game with either C.Viper, Abel, Chun-Li, Dictator, Ryu OR Sakura, without continuing and scoring 2 perfects and 3 or more ultra finishers
• Seth - Clear the game with the remaining characters you haven't cleared the game with yet to unlock Seth

[Master Ken in action]

[Ryu Vs M.Bison]

After trying it, I found that it was a nice game to play especially if you are a Street Fighter game's fan. The control remains the same, but it was the 3D rendered environment and the great graphic that will give you a fresh and great experience!

[Guile with his alternative uniform color was fighting with C.Viper]

[Balrog with his heavy punch!]

[Dhalsim with his fire ability]

Minimum system requirement:

• OS - Windows XP or Windows Vista
• CPU - Pentium 4 2.0GHz or higher
• RAM - 1 GB or higher
• HD Space - 4.5 GB of free space
• Graphics Hardware - DirectX 9.0c/Shader3.0 or higher compatible, NVIDIA GeForce6600 series, ATI Radeon(TM) X1600 or higher, VRAM 256MB or higher

[E.Honda got an electric shock from Blanka]

Recommended system requirement:

• OS - Windows XP or Windows Vista
• CPU - Intel Core2Duo 2.0GHz or higher
• RAM - 2 GB or higher
• HD Space - 4.5 GB of free space
• Graphics Hardware - DirectX 9.0c/Shader3.0 or higher compatible, NVIDIA GeForce8600 series or higher, ATI Radeon(TM) X 1900 or higher, VRAM 512MB or higher

[Vega prepared to fight E.Honda]

[C.Viper with her electric punch!]

[Zangief showing his "Smackdown" skill]

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri 2009

Since today is Hari Raya Puasa, I would like to take this opportunity to wish the Muslim all around the world, especially my Muslim friends and Just Sharing readers Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri, maaf, zahir dan batin!

Random Photos From Bazaar Ramadan 2009

Just wish to share some random photos I took at 2009 Sibu main Bazaar Ramadan which had been held at Sibu Town Square phase 2.

As expected, over the past month it had attracted people from different races and religions visited the place to get their favorite Malay foods.

Here are the pics:

[The venue]

[The stalls and crowds]

[The "Teppanyaki"]

[The dounuts]

[Laksa, nasi lemak and ...]

[Deep fried foods]

[Colorful jelly cakes]

[Pulut panggang and other foods...]

[Favorite keropok lekor and some roti...]

[Fried mee, bee hun...]

[Kuih lenggang and other Malay pastries...]

[Various pastries...]

[Various pastries...]

[Various pastries...]

[Malay "Lok Lok"]

[BBQ chicken section]