Jordan Lye

This is my second visit to this heritage site, last time was in 2007, it seems has some changes in the exhibition hall. I’m so lucky to have 2 frees entry pass, so I go along with Tommy Chai for this Khoo Kongsi shooting,

The Khoo Kongsi (邱公司) is a large Chinese clanhouse with elaborate and highly ornamented architecture, a mark of the dominant presence of the Chinese in Penang, Malaysia. The famous Khoo Kongsi is the grandest clan temple in the country. It is also one of the city’s major historic attraction. The clan temple has retained its authentic historic setting, which includes an association building, a traditional theatre and the late 19th century rowhouses for clan members, all clustered around a granite-paved square. It is located in Cannon Square in the heart of the oldest part of the city of George Town, in the midst of narrow, winding lanes and quaint-looking pre-War houses exuding a palpable old world charm. For more please visit Wikipedia

Chew Jetty also known as Seh Chew Keo is one of the famous clan jetty among the other seven.This eight clan jetties (villages on stilts), which have existed since the 19th century, are found along Pengkalan Weld. They belong to the Koay, Ong, Lim, Chew, Tan, Yeoh and Lee clans. The eighth is a “mixed surname” jetty. Their ancestors, mostly fishermen and oyster gatherers, are from the Hokkien province in China. “Chew” is the famous last name which mean the entire long stretch of jetty are residence with “chew” as their surname. For more info please click here

These photos was actually taken in Feb around chinese new year, after out sunrise trip in Marina Bay. I only manage to have a little time to do the editing and post it in my blog, hope this will bring some nostalgic feel for the reader.

This is my last shot of the year, I suppose to shoot interior design but I notice the view from the condo is really spectacular and I can’t resist to take a few shot of it. I stop taking photos as my own hobby lately due to my son and also heavy schedule from my works. I hope these photos will let you all know how beautiful our penang is. Please help ourselves to take care of this Island and environment, for the sake of this planet and our next generation.  I love this island.

I purposely take a bit of my time to witness and capture this Penang wonder. It has been delay for a few years but finally tomorrow is the official open ceremony of this Kuan Yin temple, too bad that I got a wedding shot for tomorrow if not I sure will go to the hill side and take the full night view of this Kek Lok Si temple. I have to wait for another 2 months for the chinese new year to fulfill my collection.

Light is the photographic medium par excellence; it is to the photographer what words are to the writer; color and paint to the painter; wood, metal, stone, or clay to the sculptor. ~ Andreas Feininger

This week I got some desire to shoot Heritage building in Penang, frankly speaking my oversea photos is actually more than my penang photos. I seldom go out to shoot is because I think that it is not safe, and also I live in penang, day in day out, everything look so normal. I want to collect our penang heritage photo is because penang is under UNESCO now. People around the world purposely come to take photos in Penang, what a shame that I take it for granted. This will be a good collection for future pre-wedding shot. I can propose my customers if I personally went to that place before.

Penang City Hall

Logan Memorial & Penang High Court

St.George’s Anglican Church

Malayan Railway Building

Doors

1886 Building

Cantonese Tua Pek Kong Temple

Sun Wui Wui Koon

Penang Classic

Queen Vixtoria Memorial Clock Tower

Archeen Street Mosque

Islamic Council Building

ABN-Amro Bank Building

Many Others

We have to depart really early today, Mei Lan was feeling sick, so Chan was not able to join us also. This kind of schedule and foods really making people sick only. I think next time I prefer backpack better.

Mt. Emei is one of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China. The patron bodhisattva of Emei is Samantabhadra, known in Chinese as Puxian (普贤菩萨). 16th and 17th century sources allude to the practice of martial arts in the monasteries of Mount Emei made the earliest extant reference to the Shaolin Monastery as Chinese boxing’s place of origin. Mt. Emei was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.

We arrived in Mt.Emeishan at 7:30am, but we need to take a cable car to reach the Jin Ding. Is rather early in the morning so we no need to queue for the cable car.

Great spectacles of Mount Emei include the sunrise and Clouds Sea seen from the Golden Summit of the mountain.

The sunrise is very varied, but optimally begins with the ground and sky being in the same dark purple, soon showing rosy clouds, followed by a bright purple arc and then a semicircle where the sun is coming up. The Clouds Sea includes several cloud phenomena, e.g. clouds appearing in the sky above, in addition to the regular clouds beneath. But we are not so lucky to witness one, the fog is too thick today.

There are a lot of worker work as a transporter on the mountain. They carry the sand for RMB 4 a trip to the mountain, the weight of the sand is 100KG, everyday they must carry more than 10 times. Each journey takes more than 1/2 hour, by looking at them I must know to cherish my life now.

When we get down from the mountain, the road was cover with heavy fog, and the weather is cold and chill, I always love this kind of weather, we walk along the staircase to the car park, along the way there are a lot of monkeys.

After the trip we pass by the Baoguosi- a buddhist temple before we were back to the hotel.

We went to Leshan in the afternoon after check out from the hotel. This colossal statue was carved on a cliff on Soaring to the Clouds Hill facing the three rivers. On the rockface to the left of the statue, a twisting path leads down to the base of the statue from the top of the hill. The huge seated figure measures 71 meters from top to bottom, has a head 10 meters wide, a nose 5.6 meters high, ears 7 meters long, and legs 28 meters from knee to foot. The foot can seat more than a hundred people on its flat instep. With his eyes half closed, his facial expression kind and dignified, this Buddha has a majestic bearing. The statue, flanked by two armed warriors, represents a highlight in the development of sculpture in ancient China.

According to historical records, the statue took ninety years to complete, from 713 to 803 during the Tang Dynasty. A monk called Hai Tong from Lingyun Temple is said to have sponsored the construction of the Buddha at the confluence of the rivers to protect boats and passengers from the violent currents there. In 1996 was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

I didn’t stop at the buddah, we just tour with a boat, from the boat we can see a great view of this wonder. Is really amazing to witness this, When I read the “tian Xia” comic book, they already mention this buddah before, after 15 years, I have the chance to see it myself.

We have MaLa Steamboat for our dinner, is their hot and spicy special. I think this is our best dinner through out the journey. After that we have a very good show ahead, is the SiChuan Famous “change face” show, I really get amaze by their chaning speed. We can have a good night sleep tonight because tomorrow schedule will be like free and easy.

We have to wake up early morning because we have to depart from the hotel 7am in the morning, today journey will be a bit rush, by dawn we have to reach Maoxian, if not the road will be very dangerous if we drove there at night.

Before we reach HuangLong, they stopped by a Dzi bead souvenir shops, Dzi bead (pronounced “zee”) is a bead stone of mysterious origin worn as part of a necklace and sometimes as a bracelet. In several Asian cultures, including that of Tibet, the bead is considered to provide positive spiritual benefit. These beads are generally prized as protective amuletsand are sometimes ground up into a powder to be used in traditional Tibetan medicine. We spend almost thousand to buy the “heaven’s pearl” (天珠).

Huanglong (黄龙) is known for its colorful pools formed by calcitedeposits, especially in Huanglonggou (Yellow Dragon Gully), as well as diverse forest ecosystems, snow-capped peaks, waterfalls and hot springs. Huanglong is also home to many endangered species including the Giant Panda and the Sichuan Golden Snub-nosed Monkey. Huanglong was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1992.

Due to thousands of years of geological evolution, Huanglong consists of numerous unique landscapes of geological landforms. Glacial revolution, terrene structure, stratum of carbonic acid rock, tufa water and climatic conditions such as arctic-alpine sun light have created this world-famous travertine landscape.

Because we spent too much time in the shop, we were unable to complete the full trip to the top of HuangLong, I get a little bit mad about the travel company schedule, shopping is more important than the main attraction, because of sales commission.

We stopped by the middle of the road to took some XueBaoDing 雪宝顶 photos. This mountain is 5588M high, is the highest peak in HuangLong. This mountain is like the God for the native, every year in chinese calender jun 15 and 25 they will go and worship it.

I feel very sick on the way to XueShanLiang 雪山梁, the road is really killing me. I don’t even have the appetite to take lunch also, so I went out to have a walk and took some fresh air, of course I did some photo shooting also.

After lunch we drive all the way to Maoxian, the landscape along the journey is really stunning, but we can’t make too many stops because we are behind the schedule, we just stop by in the middle of the mountain for a while before we drive all the way to MaoXian, Maoxian is a very small town, we just stop by for a night and leaving early tomorrow morning.

We are exciting about the visit, I heard people mention JiuZhaiGou is the most beautiful place in china. That’s why i can’t wait to see it. We gather infront of the Hotel at 8am, but our tour guide still yet to come back from the ticketing center. JiuZhaiGou limited 10,000 people a day, so in order to get the ticket, he went there to queue at 3am in the morning, so is not easy to be a tour guide. 

We have to walk to the main gate of JiuZhaiGou, china really take care of their enviroment, only battery buses are allow to use inside the area, no smoker is allowed to smoke in the open air, you will get fine if you plug the flowers or leaf. They are 100% enviromental friendly.

We took a bus to our first stop – Nuorilang Waterfall. Nuorilang mean “megnificence” in the Tibeat language. The scenery of Nuorilang Waterfall is at the merging point of three ravines, are 20 m high and 320 m wide. They are reportedly the widest highland waterfall in Chinah as made it a symbol of JiuZhaiGou. This Nuorilang waterfall was under The Shuzheng Valley (树正沟, Shùzhèng Gōu) is the northern (main) branch of Jiuzhaigou. It ends after 14.5 km at the Y-shaped intersection of the three gullies. Going downhill from the intersection to the mouth of the valley. I’m getting excited to shoot the photos of this wonder, but is not easy to get a good angle, first of all the tall tree blocking the view from the far angle, if you go too near your camera will get wet due to the water splash. We just stay there for a while and continue to our next stop.

The Zechawa Gully (则查洼沟, Zécháwā Gōu) is the south-eastern branch of Jiuzhaigou. It is approximately the same length as Rize gully (18 km ) but climbs to a higher altitude (3150 m at the Long Lake). Going downhill from its highest point, it features the following sites:

• Long Lake (长海, Cháng Hǎi) is the highest, largest and deepest lake in Jiuzhaigou, measuring 7.5 km in length and up to 103 m in depth. It reportedly has no outgoing waterways, getting its water from snowmelt and losing it from seepage. Local folklore features a monster in its depths.
• Five-Color Pond (五彩池, Wǔcǎi Chí) is one of the smallest but most spectacular bodies of water in Jiuzhaigou lakes. Despite its very modest dimensions and depth, it has a richly colored underwater landscape with some of the brightest and clearest waters in the area.
• The Seasonal Lakes (季节海, Jìjié Hǎi) are a series of 3 lakes (Lower, Middle and Upper) along the main road, that change from empty to full during each year, but we didn’t stop here.

After finish Five-color pond, we went for an early buffet lunch, luckily we went early, if not the crowd make a very very long queue and the foods were almost empty, is terrible to travel in a country with such a population. We went for some shopping first before we continue our next visit.

The 18 km long Rize Valley (日则沟, pinyin: Rìzé Gōu) is the south-western branch of Jiuzhaigou. It contains the largest variety of sites and is typically visited first, but we cannot cover all of it. So we just manage to visit

• Five Flower Lake (五花海, Wǔhuā Hǎi) is a shallow multi-colored lake whose bottom is criss-crossed by ancient fallen tree trunks.  
• Pearl Shoal (珍珠滩, Zhēnzhū Tān) is a wide, gently sloping area of active calcareous tufa deposition covered in a thin sheet of flowing water. It empties into the famous Pearl Waterfalls, where the shoal drops 28 m in a 310 m wide broad curtain of water. The Pearl Shoal Waterfall is one of the most beautiful sites in Jiuzhaigou, with an altitude of 2,433 metres (7,980 ft) and a height of 21 metres (69 ft) meters. On the top of the waterfall, it measures 162.5 metres (533 ft) in width. With a fall of 40 metres (130 ft), the waterfall has a shape of the crescent.

The last spot was the village of the native, we can do some shopping, pray or buy some food there, but I choose to take some photos. 

We have some traditional dance and peformance by the native, they are very professional entertainer, they also invited some of the guest to involve in some game show. All of us enjoy from the very begining towards the end.