I went to this yearly event, the lantern festive at Carpenter Street last week. With just a blink of an eye, this year marks the 9th mooncake festival. I’ve been visiting this place almost every year, and it brings a lot of joy and memory. The foods are delicious, and the number of stalls has been greater.
I saw my friend Kenwy Ho performing at the event, and he also played one of my favorite song The Night Fairy. He is a music professional, who owns three music schools at Kuching. And his main passion is playing the “yang qing” a Chinese musical instrument. I don’t eat much meat and fried food now adays, so in this trip I bought a few snacks and a cup of drink. But I do enjoy the atmosphere; I took a lot of photos that night together with my friends. And composed it into a short clip, hope you guys like it.
I went to shoot some photos of the demolished Gambier Street. I did some reading from the net, the government (Kuching City North Datuk Bandar Abang Mohamad Atei Medaan) wanted to demolish this place cause they said that the place are decades old structures and is not safe to operated business and they put “safety first”, they concern about the safety of the people who operate business there. Read News Here
They are going to make this place an esplanade which would stretch from Kuching Hilton to Ban Hock Wharf as well as across the river to ensure both riverbanks would be developed beautifully and making them a popular recreational spot for city dwellers and visitors.
When the government wanted to do something there’s always voice from the public, a signature campaign to save the heritage buildings of Gambier St. was form to group the power from the public and let the current ruling elites be aware of what they are doing was wrong. Read News Here, and here.
Records in some publications show the market existed as early as the 1860s although permanent structures as the ones we see today were built in the early1900s. Personally I also hope that the authorities can keep this place, the historical value is priceless. I felt regret that there are many time when I have the changes to took photos of the internal or Gambier St. but I didn’t.
And now it had been completely tear down, what we can see is just some solid foundation (some said is a secret tunnel) which lies under Gambier St market for centuries. I must say that I’m really impressed by the architect work done by the Borneo British. All the building materials must be shipped from UK to Borneo, few hundred years ago where they only have steamship.
Imagine the man-power require to move all the materials. The White Rajah of Sarawak, James Brook, also build railway, trains, dockyard, buildings, they import cars from UK, plane. He builds an empire here!
I was thinking has the ruling elites from other done the same thing to their historical heritage? Or is it just here at Malaysia? Hm~~~
Well, few years from now we can expect a brand new Kuching Waterfront for sure. Hope that time, it can boost up the tourism industry at Kuching. Bye Bye Gambier Street.
My brother showed my some photos and short clips on his mobile. It was a crocodile, a huge one. It was caught near the Limbang River behind the old Chinese Temple. We can be aware that the river is not a safe place anymore. Sometime there are children bath and play there, is a very danger place to be. I don’t know how they capture the croc, so does my brother. But when viewing the process I felt that the croc was quite pity. His front and back legs was tied behind his back. And when they lift the croc, they just carried his tied legs. Its gonna be hurt.
For my friend who's at oversea now, here's how Kuching Kenyalan looks like. Most of the people are shopping for this coming Chinese New Year 2009. Gong Xi Fa Chai my dear friend.
There will be a worshiping ceremony on the coming weekend at the Buddhist temple, I company my friends to Sunday Market to buy fruits. There is a little boy at the fruit stall helping his mom. He has dark skin, and short hair. His math is good; he can calculate our fruits price without using the calculator. I was impress =O my math sucks.
Sunday Market start at Saturday evening 3pm onwards, till Sunday 12pm. The stall are cheap, my friend who has a stall there told me it only cost around a few dollar a day to rent the place.
The fruit stall owner dig all the fruits out, and repack into small packing.
This is the smart kid. I ask how is the apple? He just smile, then I asked him again, if the apple is not sweet, can I change it with you? He smile, and give me a shy look. Hahaha… is nice to talk to kids.
We’ve survey all the pricing first before buying them, Sunday Market at Satok Kuching is the best place to get fresh fruits.
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I'm at Penang now for half month 22July till 06Aug. I’ll miss Kuching :( this is the first time going to Penang.
”We still go to the beach?” I asked my friend once I’m in his car. I follow a group of friends to Sampadi Beach on the first of January. “Ya, still going :)” my friend answer me. Our destination is a open beach, it does not have beautiful resort, does not have toilet, does not have barbeque stand, does not have security guard, is just an open space. To get to the beach, need to pass by Matang, then cross a river by using a ferry. While crossing the river, the rain had stop. The win is strong and cold, can tell that a heavy rain is coming.
It tooks us about one hour to reach the beach, we unload all our drinks, chicken curry, lamb curry, eggs, chicken wing, fried noodles, junk food, and many more. The senior uncle and aunties, they start the fire for barbeque. While waiting, we all walk around the beach. The win is so strong that I had a feeling that I was going to blown away by it. The rain start to drizzle, I feel cold and hungry. The beach is cover by coconut trees and pine trees. There is an almost collapse pavilion beside the beach, we put all our bags there. It only took the uncle and auntie half-an-hours to get the chicken and pork meet cook. This is the first time I’m having lunch on a drizzling, strong win environment. A very good experience, after finish lunch some of my friends go swimming. While some of us stay back to finish the food.
The tide is strong, and is quite danger actually. I took a lot of photos, and post it up here. Before we go home, we have a lucky draw game. I get number 11 which is a note pad, the first price is to get all the left over barbeque chicken wings, pork meet, instant noodles, junk food, and soft drink. This trip is fun, if the beach has more facilities like toilet, and bath room it will be better. I sleep at 9.00pm that night, tired.
I was in my friend car, at the back seat. I was getting worried will the rain ever stop, will the sun come out today? I hope it will.
crossing the Sampadi river, the beach is just 10 minutes drive after we cross the river, and the charges is RM1.00 per car to cross the river.
Here we are, we have to unload all our food and drinks.
The win is cold and strong, I should bring my jacket.
The experience uncle and aunties are in charge of lunch, while we just wait for the food to be cook
good progress, is very warm when stand near the fire.
Beside coconut trees, there is also a lot of pine trees. Because this is an open space beach so no people take care of the beach, broken tree branches all over the place.
It starts to rain again, the tide is strong because of the win. This is a nice place, it will be better if it have more facilities.
This year is the 9th Rainforest World Music Festival (7th – 9th July), my cousin brother Kenny and I had went for the Sunday show. Before that I didn’t plan to go actually, cause I think there is no point listen to a bunch of people play drums, plus they are not famous so why waste the money. But everyone is talking about this festival, it only organize once a year. People around the world are coming for this music event, and the culture village is just like 14minuts drive from town (only if Kenny drive) so I just follow Kenny to the music festival.
Kenny pick me up at 10a.m from my hosue, and we first went to the Tun Abdul Razak Hall. An artist name Stephen Bennett was exhibiting his painting at the museum. Some of the picture can cost around USD4000 and higher. He exhibits the portrait paintings of people that he had met around the world including his travels around Sarawak, Sabah, Brunei, and Kalimantan, the theme for the exhibition is called the “Portraits From My World”. His painting wes amazing, it was just like a real photo. There are two types in his portrait photos; one is painted with colorful colors. And another one is with original skin color. For me I like both, as each of them has it own beauty.
So after the museum, we had our breakfast at open air with Kuih Tiao and Sio Bee. We reach Santubong resort at 11.21am. We park our car there, and bough two tickets of music festival (RM60 each), and two shuttle car ticket (RM5 per-person) to bring us to the music festival and back to the resort when finish.
Upon entering the culture village, we have to wear a wristlet to indicated that we had bought our tickets. My wristlet number is 00001, how lucky. The weather is HOT!!! We then went to the auditorium to check out the schedule for the day. Then we start to roam around culture village, Kenny is a tour guide so he knows how to explain the characteristic of each ethnic group in Sarawak to me.
2.00pm, we went to a percussion workshop at Lagenda hall with the theme Feel The Beat. The group consist people from Korea, Madagascca, Latin America, Mongolia, and Malaysia. I felt very amaze on how they can combine all the instruments together and form a fantastic music beat rhythm. Everyone was carried away by the music, we dance, we clap hands, we laugh, and we all had a very good time.
The workshop last for about 40 minutes, and then we went to this Iban Longhouse, the Sarawak Bidayuh tribe dance with member of Biringkeng Tuaan, with the themes Menigal. When we reach, it was almost over, so we proceed to the next workshop at the auditorium. The themes for this workshop were Drones and Popes, this was perform by people from Austria, Scotland, and France but when we reached the hall the show was over. The three workshops are performing at the same time from 2.00pm to 2.40pm.
The time was 3.20pm, hungry :S we went to the food stalls to get something to eat. After surveying, I decided to eat Kebab (RM7). Is a half pizza, half burger thing. Kenny meet his friends, we sat down under the tree shade, and chill. The feeling that time was unexplainable, just imagine in a hot day. You eating bugger, drinking cold coke, while chilling under the tree, and breeze blowing at you. Plus there are a lot of foreigner hot chicks walking around.
We stayed until 4.30pm, then we went to the last workshop at the auditorium again. With the themes Kissing Cousins which will perform Bidayuh bamboo instruments plus Madagascan music instrument. Both of the instruments are made from bamboo. They all give introduction to each and everyone of the musical instrument, and also tell brief history on the musical instrument background. Its like a history class, and I almost fell asleep, seriously I hate history classes I fail my history exam from kindergarten until secondary school. This last workshop is kinda boring; when it ends we have to be inform by the MC that “ok, the show is over now. You can come up and try the instrument if you want.”. Then everyone just start to clap hands, and run for exit.
The night show starts at 7.30pm. We then went to the Damai beach; I wanted to take some shoots, especially sunset shoots. Wow~~seeing the sunset is beautiful, just if you are here beside me. We head back to the culture village at around 7.00pm, felt hungry. Kenny bough lots of food for me (my good cousin brother), we had bugger, coke, sausage, satay, and barbeque chicken for dinner.
The first group to perform is by Istamuzika from Malaysia, follow by Genticorum from Canada, then is Tengir Too from Kygryzstan, after that is Kilema from Madagascar, and then is Calle Sur from Latin America, then Les Yeux Noirs from France, and last is the Finale from all of the performance around the world. The rainforest was full of people, it was like the United Nation. People from around the globe gather together and celebrate. The RM60 entrance fees is all worth it, next year mark the 10th Anniversary of the Rainforest Music Festival, for me I will definitely go for it. See you all next year at the rainforest music festival my dear readers.
Enjoy the photos and clips.
Before I went to the music festival, Kenny had bring me to the Dewan Tun Abdul Razak (Tun Abdul Razak Hall) is situated just opposite the Museum Sarawak. As there’s an painting exhibition.
”Portraits From My World” an exhibit of portraits paintings of the people Stephen Bennett has met around the world.
The tall guy on the upper left corner is Mr. Stephen Bennett. Notice that he carries lots of camera on his neck. That is one of my dreams, to go around the world and take photos everywhere I go.
Inside the hall, the painting is displayed on the center of the hall.
This is an unfinished painting, wonder who is the old dude?
The name of this pretty girl is Jennifer Koo. Just look at how he painted the face, and hair. It looks so real.
This is a biggest portrait painting, it was hang on the center. This painting would cost more than USD4000, and guess how big it is?
Kenny standing beside the picture.
In this picture, the light on the face. It gives me a 3D feel, it looks so real.
His workplace, is a mess. I think every arties workplace is a mess.
Ok, after the exhibition. Our next destination Sarawak Culture Village.
We part our car at Santubong resort.
Tickes girls
Tickets on the left is for entering the culture village which cost RM60 each, tickets on the right is for shuttle car to bring us from the resort to the culture village, and later back to the resort again. Which cost RM5 per person
Kenny and his tourist guide friends.
Yeah baby, welcome to the Sarawak Culture Village
Before we enter, we have to wear this wristlet to prove that we had bough tickets.
Above is the restaurant.
Barbeque chicken wings, and drum stick. Cost RM2.50 each
Lots of booths had been set up to sells souvenir.
First I went to the Chinese House, which I had missed out last time.
Chinese altar
When I step in this house, it had somehow brings me back to the pass. I can still remember to old house that my grandpa and grandma live, the design is exactly the same. The table, how they put the knife, the cooking stove, the cupboard, and the thing that sit under each leg of the cupboard which you have to pour water in it to prevent ants from going to the cupboard. All of this is exactly the same.
Another view on the tradition Chinese house.
The first booth that we visit. This guy sells Tradewind Treasures from the South China Sea. All are ancient shipwreck jewelries and artifacts. Each item is individually handcrafted in sterling silver and in one of a kind.
Malay house
The interior of the traditional Malay house.
the bedroom of the Malay people
The Melanau house. The Melanau are one of Sarawak natives people, which live inside the forest.
They likes to eat sago, sago its like their local delicacy.
This is the Sago tree trunk.
Behold the stage for tonight event.
This dude must be the one who in charge of the sound system tonight.
This is the auditorium theatre, and guess what I saw in the theatre...
...some sleepy staffs.
The first workshop starts at 2.00. The themes for this workshop “Feel The Beet” a percussion workshop. We reach there 15 minutes before showtime, to get a good sit. They are setting up the sound system.
yeah, lets all standup and dance and I was standing on a chair.
Enjoy the clips. The group consist people from Korea, Madagascca, Latin America, Mongolia, and Malaysia.
At the Iban Longhouse. Menigal a interactive Sarawak Bidayuh tribe dance workshop with members of Biringkeng Tuaan.
At the Auditorium theater. “Drones and Pipes", a hurdy-gurdies, harmoniums, and a lof of hot wind. Pity is that when we rach, the show was over.
Is time to dig for food.
Suddenly I was crave for kebab, and I went for this stall called the Little Lebanon
See how he prepare the food.
My lamb kebab RM7. Kenny paid this for me.
After our lunch, we head back to the auditorium again for another workshop. The “Kissing Cousins”, is a Bidayuh bamboo instruments meet Madagascan bamboo instruments. For me it was more like a history class then a musical workshop.
I almost fell asleep in the auditorium
Now all of the workshop had ended, we have to wait till 7.30pm for the night shows to start. So we walk to Damai Lagon, and to the beach to take some shoots.
Welcome to the beach, I haven’t been here for almost one year. Times fly
Beautiful sunset, I just love sunset. Is very harmony, and beautiful. (12 July) a very special day, wish you’re happy always.
Is time to eat again, this round is for dinner.
we had coke, bugger, sausage, barbeque chicken, and Satay for dinner.
Let the music begins
Just if I had a digital SLR, then you guys can see clearly the performance on stage.
The Kilema group from Madagascar.
Just look at the crowd.
Everybody dance with the music. Who cares worldcup is just few hours away,
After the grand Finale which perform by every performance from all over the world, then it marks the end of the 9th Rainforest World Music Festival 2006. here is my ticket to get back to Santubong resort, see you all next year. --------------------------- Kenny thanks for your sun block cream, I just notice that I didn’t suffer any sun burn :) Another thing is Kenny you’ve use to talk to stranger right, do you see the yellow shirt girl, can you go over and…
