The Sunset

The sunset was to die for. And on both afternoons, the weather was clear and the tide was low. This allowed us to walk along the sand beach to middle of the sea while the sun was low on the horizon.

Irfan soaking up the sunset

As an avid photographer, the golden light it produced was simply mesmerising. Definitely worth the trouble of taking the ferry here to Langkawi ....

The Many Paths

One thing I noticed about Tanjung Rhu Resort was the many paths they had between the buildings. Most of them would be snaking along the beach. But those were really hot especially at noon.

During the night, the paths were well lit up, which was just as well as otherwise we would be struggling to find our way around. The problem was the renovation work right in between the main hotel rooms and the main restaurants.

For a Different View

A few years back, I was in awe of a series on Discovery called "The World from Above". I was guilty of recording the episodes and watching them again and again. It was basically aerial footage on famous landmarks with narratives in the background for colour. It was both eye-catching and educational. Especially when it features the UK, on landmarks which I knew but taken for granted. The particular episode featuring New York was my favourite. And don't get me started about San Francisco!

And then I read about the availability of drones for aerial footage. I always thought them as cumbersome, difficult to fly while getting decent footage would take some training. I was wrong!

The more I read into it, and looking at the videos on YouTube, I realised that it was quite simple. All you need is a bit of time and passion.

My interest peaked when I read about the Phantom 4. It was a drone which was easy to fly and had a decent camera attached to it, for both video and snaps. Did some homework and find out a bit more about the pricing. So, last weekend, I bought one.

Getting the blades in orderTrying to understand the parts ...The remote was still in the plastic coveringIt was not exactly cheap, but to be honest, it was cheaper than a decent dSLR. And I started flying them the next day. All you needed extra was a smartphone, or in my case an iPad which would act at the display. The flying was done via a remote plus touchscreen. And to take photos and video, you just press the screen. The camera was a 12MP affair, of a decent point-and-click quality - with an f2.8 aperture - and it was capable of capturing 4K footage straight into it's memory card.

Flight time was also rather decent with a battery unit lasting about 25 minutes - my set came with 3 batteries for an hour of flight. It came in a slick portable case, which meant carrying the drone around a piece of cake. The whole package weighed less than a couple of kilo trams.

Going through the instructionsReady to fly!I should have bought one earlier as the footage from Langkawi would have been amazing! But never mind. I would still have to get proficient with it and with every flight I was learning something new. Definitely a keeper! Now, I would have to get some free time to fly the damn thing!

Great Light

After many afternoons of going out for photography and putting, we decided to stay in this Sunday afternoon. I was actually having a map after lunch. And today, the weather turned out to be gorgeous!

But since we had planned to stay indoors, Idlan just finished his homework and generally had a quiet night in. How I wished I was outside instead...

EdpressSushi is Moving

I knew that I will be craving it during the upcoming Ramadhan, so I decided to indulge for lunch today at the usual spot at Great Eastern Mall.

The place was full today, being a Sunday lunch time, and we were also informed that our beloved EdpressSushi will be moving to another spot - which happened to be where one of our friend was living - after Raya later. They had been at the spot since 2009. Not sure if we could go there as frequently as we were doing now since the current shop was directly in front of the supermarket where we sometimes do our groceries. Kinda tied in with our routine.

I think he's trying to break the tip jar!Anyhow, they had to move on. Maybe once in a while we would drop by to catch up. The boys were still babies when they started going there.