KLickr Photo Hunt for Urbanscapes

COMPETITION UPLOAD PERIOD FOR ALL FOUR HUNTS ARE EXTENDED TO 6PM SUNDAY! PLEASE UPLOAD YOUR MASTERPIECES VIA TWITTER USING #klickr TO ENTER THE COMPETITION.

KLickr. Flickr. Urbanscapes. Competition. You do the math. We have been brewing the four words at the beginning. We wanted a competition, with people at Urbanscapes taking pictures, And we what it to be about accessibility, not who was carrying the most expensive gear. It was about being at the right moment at the right time. So we came up with the KLickr Photo Hunts!

It will be a series of four hunts during the day. The hunters - that you, the Urbanscapes dwellers armed preferably with your mobile phones - would be given a theme, and a set period of time to take photos and upload them via twitter with a hashtag #klickr. You can use any of the photo sharing fascilities - twitpic, lockerz, owly, posterous, even instagram. Through a sophisticated network of programming and raw computer power - re my iPhone and my MacBook Air - the tagged photos would then be transferred onto our Facebook Competition Page where all those expressions of arts and beauty would be showcased.

Prior to Urbanscapes, KLickr had run a couple of other competitions and the winners of these competitions will come on board as guest judges for the Hunts. We would then deliberate on the winners - and as one of the KLickr judges would be a lawyer, don't even try to street demo us into picking your pics. The winners would get vouchers and A YEAR SUBSCRIPTION TO FLICKR PRO.

These are the themes and the period the photos should be uploaded via twitter - balloons from 1330 to 1500 hrs, colourful dresses from 1600 to 1700 hrs, music from 1800 to 1900 and the main one, lights from 2000 hrs on the Saturday and the photo can be uploaded for the competition up to 1800 hrs the next day, Sunday 17th July.

Theme 1 - balloonsTheme 2 - flowery dressesTheme 3 - musicTheme 4 - lights - pic courtesy of ShazPlease click on the links above or the photos to go straight to the Facebook Page of the competition. Happy Hunting!

It's Closing In

After planning for quite some time, it appear that everything is coming together nicely for the KLickr team. We would be having a tent - to be dubbed KLickr-ville - at Urbanscapes 2011 to be held at Padang Astaka PJ on Saturday. Praying for nice weather, from what we had seen so far, the tent is going to be huge - 40 by 40 feet. The other evening, we met up to finalise the plan as well as assigning the task for the day. We also talked about the budgeting and sponsorship. On the whole, I am pretty optimistic about this weekend.

All together, there would be four main facets to KLickr-ville. Each with their own unique role and attraction. There would be a total of three separate competitions on the day, although the one I would be running will have four winneres in the end. The would also be photoshow as you would expect, but with a twist. We will call this the 5 minutes Photo Express - more about that later. There will also be slideshows for events taken place in the recent past and also promoting our future activities. We would also be showing our past projects. There would be a charity portrait shoot which the participants would have to pay a nominal fee as entrance, and for which the taken portrait would be upload onto facebook for their friends to generate the number of likes. This will then double as a competition as the winner with the most number of likes on their uploaded portraits will then receive a prize.

There would also be sales of prints by KLick members. There would be vouchers given away for visitors to KLickr-ville as well other giveaways. There will also be a portrait-taking competitions where participants over a period of time would need to click away portraits of Urbascapes dwellers, and the participants with the most number of captures would win. In the evening, after sunset, there will be slideshows of all the photos taken during the day as KLickr-ville sail away through the night.

To recap - the four facets would be - competitions (three of them on the day), exhibitions of past events, the 5-minute Photo Express, and the charity Portrait shoots. I will go through each of these in the next few entries. Watch this space!

Pix of the site courtesy of Adi Arfan.

Cupcakes it was

This week would be the last for Sri Utama before they take a 25 day hiatus for a summer break. With the exams done, it was time to party more or less. My boys have been under the weather, so they will only return to school tomorrow, just in time for the class party.

Mingling home from KLCCFor the kindergarten, the parents were supposed to bring in food for the party as snacks. This year, Anita wanted to bring in some cupcakes, and I had to take her to KLCC. Why? Because she wanted the cakes from KLCC. I don’t argue with her. So off we went …..

It seemed that only the children would get to enjoy those sumptuous cakes unfortunately!

Return to Express Sushi

It has been a while since I visited Express Sushi at Great Eastern Mall, arguably the best sushi fast-food outlet in town. Miles better the more accessible Yo! Sushi at least. Since coming here a couple of years ago, the main chef - Eric has been busy with another of their outlet. There was a period last year that the quality went down a bit, but today it was almost back to when I first came.

The ramen for startersSince it was just a quick stop, we had to be quick. They now have a lunch menu which came in handy. My set - salmon teriyaki set - came with ramen, potato salad and a bowl of rice. Not bad for RM26 actually.

And the mains has arrivedBut they were soon goneThe outlet is located on the Lower Ground Floor of Great Eastern Mall, next to Delifrance.

Wadi Hadramawt

In the last few years, we have done Chinese, Indian, Minang, Western, Thai, so we thought we try Arab this year. Before everybody went overboard, the reason why we tended to go out for a big meal during my birthday was because I share it with my father-in-law - and Dr Mahathir as well if you must know - so, the family was actually celebrating his birthday and I just tag along for the ride. It tended to confuse my boys though as both their father and granddad share the same birthday.

Anita picked up Wadi Hydramawt. Every time we drove by Jalan Ampang, she kept looking at the restaurant and this time, she wanted to give it a try. Booking was straight forward, she asked for a private room upstairs and we turned up just after 8.30. Walking up the stairs proved a nuisance both for my kids and parents. So, be careful if you we planning to venture into the private rooms. We did not pre-order our food though.

Taking time to orderLet me start by commenting on the venue. It was a converted bungalow building, more of a colonial touch, right of Jalan Ampang, to your left if you were driving up from Ampang Park towards Jelatek. The building did look extravagant from the outside, and there were ample parking space for the patrons. It was attended full time apparently, so it was well-lit and safe. You have a choose of eating at the open verandah, or inside the building - our room were upstairs on the first floor. Pretty cosy but was crowded when we arrived. Sitting in the room, with the air-conditioning on cut us away from the buzz happening around.

The menu was straight forward, and we all took orders of rice with either chicken, lamb or fish. And here is a tip should you were there for a visit - order the set rice meals, such as chicken mendy rather than fish. The fish took a good half an hour to be ready, and were the laser to come. All the other rice meal I was sure were pre-cooked. The drinks came fast, so was the salad. Being a Sunday evening, I could appreciate that the restaurant was fully booked, but what did not help was they were clearly short staffed. And the staff on show were a mix of local and Arabs, and the Arab waiters could do with some English classes, as their Malay we non-existent. All that said, the waiter assigned to our table was courteous and did not mess our order at all. His English was another story.

So, what did I sample? Olive and hummus salad for starters, then chicken mendy for mains, with side orders grilled chicken - which looked and tasted pretty much like tandoori - and lamb with brinjal curry. For drinks, I had some freshly - and I really mean fresh - blended mango juice. We also had a variety of salads, and my children and father-in-law had fish for their main meals.

My chicken mendyTime to tapau!

On the whole, the food was better than expected. I couldn't resist the comparison with Al Rawsha, another Middle Eastern restaurant we frequent. The menu was comparable, and so was the price. I have to say that Al Rawsha's food was a touch better, with greater variety. The service at Al Rawsha was a bit slower though from what I experienced before. Al Rawsha's "castle" near Bulatan Pandan was much bigger however, although during peak hours, parking there could be a pain despite having attendants to help out.

On the whole, if you were craving for some Middle Eastern food, you could do much worst than here. Be prepared to pay a premium as it was not cheap. I might come here again on the odd occasions, and I would recommend you do the same as well from time to time. More information available here in their rather extravagant website.