Jalan Alor
(a couple of pics from)

mango crushed ice.. the coldest drink on the planet?
.. quite possibly :)

Finely misted water, wafting over over now more comfortable diners

Any idea what sort of butterfly (or moth?) this is? I've seen several of them in the last couple of weeks. This one took some convincing to get our of my apartment, but we got there in the end :)

.. Nocturnal Architecture ..

.. a short series of photos that I've taken recently while out & about after dark.

These pics were actually captured by my phonecam (a htc touch cruise), and came out better than they appear here, I've distressed them a little in an image editing program.

..hope you like them.

Unearthing Sydney's underground bar scene

The City of Sydney council will investigate mapping the central business district's network of underground retail arcades in search of hidden spots suitable for small bars.

"Unlike most cities, we have an absolute labyrinth of underground shopping arcades but they basically pull the shutters down after the 5pm commuter exit. There's an opportunity to activate those places after dark," said Jeff Lewis, a spokesman for the Lord Mayor, Clover Moore.

Mr Lewis pointed to the arcade that joined Town Hall station to Pitt Street Mall, the link from the corner of Liverpool and Elizabeth streets to Museum station and Park Street, and a stretch from York Street to Wynyard to Hunter Connection to Pitt Street. "Who knows what's down there. I know Wynyard had a number of levels they used for storage and there's a whole World War II storage area under [St James]," he said.

Andrew Dodds, a bar reviewer from the website Where is the Pub?, remembers Wynyard's Hunter Arcade packed full of drinking spots in the '90s. "That building had about eight or nine if you counted them. There was the 747 bar where the windows and seats were styled like you were inside an aeroplane. The Porthole was fairly small but the Jungle Bar was a reasonable size," he said.

Mr Dodds said he was more pub patron than bar fly but welcomed the liquor licensing reforms proposed this week. "If the pubs had listened more to what the people wanted rather than just the pokie punters, then they wouldn't find themselves in this situation," he said.

The former Hunter Arcade bars, owned by the nearby Menzies Hotel, were closed in the early '90s after the Menzies' owners decided to focus on the hotel. "I do remember the Jungle Bar was a very hot R'n'R bar during the Vietnam years," said one long-standing Menzies worker, who asked not to be named.

A City of Sydney councillor, John McInerney, said he would rather have a tipple in the sunshine than underground but said "there are a few little nooks and crannies in that area that are left over from warehouses and funny little subdivisions running down to Darling Harbour".

Cr McInerney also pointed to the underground public toilets at Hyde Park, Wynyard and Macquarie Place that were filled in when the former lord mayor, Frank Sartor, was in office. "Something I would like to do is unfill them and put them back as some other use. The designs were very nice," Cr McInerney said.

He also floated the idea of bars in disused train tunnels at St James station. But a spokesman from the Australian Rail Historical Society, Graham Thurling, said public access to the tunnels was banned after September 11, 2001. "Those tunnels are heritage protected and they won't even let you do tours since the terrorist thing came up," Mr Thurling said.

found on smh

Comet Between Fireworks and Lightning

"Sometimes the sky itself is the best show in town. On January 26, people from Perth, Australia gathered on a local beach to watch a sky light up with delights near and far. Nearby, fireworks exploded as part of Australia Day celebrations. On the far right, lightning from a thunderstorm flashed in the distance. Near the image center, though, seen through clouds, was the most unusual sight of all: Comet McNaught. The photogenic comet was so bright that it even remained visible though the din of Earthly flashes. Comet McNaught continues to move out from the Sun and dim, but should remain visible in southern skies with binoculars through the end of this month. The above image is actually a three photograph panorama digitally processed to reduce red reflections from the exploding firework."

Credit & Copyright: Antti Kemppainen

Some pics from the Sydney New Years Eve Fireworks display..

...more photos here.

...Of Sneezes & Shopping

Fluey.
Only spent about a half day at work yesterday as I have a cold. Erk. Did some work from home Friday morning, but had to go in to do a couple of things that I couldn't get to from my apartment. Minor disaster with one of our customers tools that was my responsibility, so had to take that on the chin.

A pretty quiet Friday really, went to the sauna before going to work, trying to sweat out my fever. I think it worked a bit. The air-conditioning at work did its best to undo any good work though.

I Woke up around 8am this morning, feeling a bit better, went for what has become my typical Saturday morning ritual, swim and sauna again.
My swimming is really improving, I swam 26 laps this morning. It's a 25m pool btw. Ok, I'm not a very strong swimmer and that's why I'm practicing, ok? Ok. ;)

Improving my swimming is one of several things I have on my shortlist that I want to concentrate on improving while I'm here in KL. You just don't get the opportunity back home to swim daily like you do here. Not that people don't have pools, many people have pools. Just that I don't have a pool. ;)

Afterwards I went for what is becoming at times the second part of my Saturday ritual, and that's buying pirated dvd's from one of the local shopping centres.

Had a nice, although very late lunch. I couldn't avoid it, I just had a craving for duck. Bought the above ring from Sungei Wang too, it's made from stainless steel, which seems to be a common medium for men's jewellery here. I guess you'd call that a traditional Chinese design eh? Whatever it is, I happen to think that it's pretty darn cool.

This evening has basically involved taking it easy indoors, drinkings lots of green tea and waiting for the storm in my nostrils and head to subside. Either it gets worse with the cooler evening (what cooler evening?) or I've overexerted myself today, but i'm feeling the worse that I have all day. Studying Cantonese is a delightful uphill battle that I appear to have started on... Also decided to really throw myself at the Dojo toolkit and see what it has to offer.

Dinner was the excellent chicken caesar salad from room service within my hotel. Can't get enough of it, it really is excellent.

While I was roaming around in a brief moment of clear-headedness this afternoon I took a few photos of some of the great architecture in this area. Check it out:

Tonight's Photos