Pavilion Xmas Decor

One of the advantage of a multi-cultural society is the regular festivities that we had. And during this period, the shopping malls in town would be lavishly decorated, filled with night lights and gimmick. Despite the economic slow-down and the recent haze, everybody were still looking forward for a bit of flair and creativity.

As of every year, I looked forward to what Pavilion had to offer. This year, it was more glitters than snow, with Swarovski being the main sponsor at the lobby. They had a five-storey Xmas tree on show, filled with crystals and lights. The train and the grotto made a comeback and the area by the main entrance and the fountain were filled with lights as well.

Last night, I had the chance to explore the place at night, trying to absorb the light show. The main lobby was still closed for installation last week, so yesterday was the first time I explored it as well.

It was the ASEAN Summit weekend and with Obama in town, we were expecting some traffic flow problems. Despite that, there were still plenty of people out on the Saturday night. I wonder what Nu Sentral and 1Utama have in store ….

A Hazy Outing

I had to settle some business in town and ended up walking in town in the worsening haze this afternoon. The API - Air Pollution Index - was around 120 in central KL at the time, well into the unhealthy range.

After the business was taken care of and a spot of lunch, I decided to have a quick walk towards Low Yat - none-the-less - to have a look at a few things. I brought my camera along to see how different the cityscape looked like.

Spare some thoughts to this working in this condition

I was walking without a mask and by the time I reached Low Yat, my throat had already felt the irritation. I stopped for a drink - indoors of course - before walking on. Had a look at a few items before returning back to Pavilion where I parked. There was an event by KakiSeni going on, plus other campaigns and roadshow taking place in the open. How I pity those sales people having to endure such elements.

By the time I drove home, it was already threatening to rain. The haze was still lingering thick after the rain was done and we decided it would be no school for both Idlan and Irfan tomorrow. Another day of havoc at home! We found out that other parents had also decided against bringing their children in due to the bad air quality. Should the situation deteriorates, even the school may be closed ...

Kueh-mueh at Fahrenheit

During one of the evening taking Anita for shopping, I had the chance to stop at Fahrenheit just across the road from Pavilion. The Raya decorations were being set up at most of the malls and the theme at Fahrenheit was rather unique. It was on Malay cookies, or in Malay Kuih Raya.

Lemming of course ...Ketupat ....

But they were giant sized. Not edible I was sure. But there were plenty of them and on the whole I thought they were pretty neat.

The Edgy Camera

iPhone had always been the go to smartphone for photographers. It gave a consistently pleasing results, and with each iteration of the phone, the results kept getting better and better. It is a given that any flagship smartphone would come with a great camera.

The Lumia series then redefine the concept of a cameraphone. I own a Lumia 930 and the results had always been fantastic. But the main drawback with the Windows platform, was the lack of software, although the Windows 10 looked promising. Hopefully more apps would be available of the likes of Snapseed and VSCO cam for a bit of post-processing.

Even the Blackberry - at least on the Z10 - had a decent camera. I really like the output from the phone, but it was grainy and blotchy on low light. It also relied heavily on post-processing as the out-of-the-camera result wasn't always that great.

Then came the Android. They tended to be a mixed bag. Sony tended to have great sensors for their camera. LG was not far behind although I was disappointed with the Nexus 4 - which was made by LG. Oppo made great hardware and screen, but their camera was always so and so. The we came to Samsung. They were improving over the years and the output from Note 3 and S4 was pretty decent.

The S6 edge was a different beast however. The 16MP - or in my case 12MP since I use the 3:2 format - snaps I was getting from the phone had been mind-blowing. Yes, they tended to be oversaturated one minute and subdued in another, but overall I was not expecting it to be this good. I would have bought the phone on the camera alone, let alone the scrumptious screen and form factor.

The jpeg had issues in high contrast situation struggling to cope with a wide dynamic range, but it held its own pretty well. On par if not better than my iPhone 6 plus in most situations although it occasionally tended to underexpose indoors. The iPhone tended to get the exposure right compared to the Samsung. Low light performance? Astounding. However, I still rated both the iPhone 6 and the S6 lower than my Lumia. The Lumia could challenge even a half-decent compact cameras at times.

At the moment, I was pretty happy with the results from the S6, and paired with Snapseed, it was definitely worth a look as a compact travel shooter. As they say, the best camera was the one you have with you at the time.

A Sunday Outing

It was not often that I had a Sunday free. This time it was through a combination of patients being discharged that morning as well as my last call being a good 10 days ago. I might as well enjoy it while it lasted.

So, today Anita came along for a monorail ride with me towards Bukit Bintang. Again we started off from Nu Sentral, parking our car there. A short hop to Berjaya Time Square then. We had lunch and Anita did a bit of shopping afterwards before we hopped across to Low Yat.

The entrance to the theme park at Berjaya Times SquareBut we decided for an early lunch firstAnita's power bank failed and she needed a new one. Not an easy decision as she climbed six floors of the mall looking for the one that she liked. We finally found one at the second floor from the top.

It was threatening to rain then, so we chilled out inside the mall for a little bit before making our exit. And then came the street party at one corner of Low Yat with the road leading to Federal Hotel being blocked off. More on that here.

After mingling around in the crowd, Anita wanted to have a drink. We initially wanted to go towards Jalan Mesui to have some coffee there. But the sky was getting grey again. We didn't risk it and walked towards Lot 10, then further on towards Starhill Gallery.

At the salonSome ice-cream maybeAnita was suspiciously happy to see the blob!!Starhill Tea Salon was the destination. We had scones - although I had a mocktail rather than tea this time - and some pasties. Proper English style!

All together a nice little outing. Walking back to the monorail station quickly to avoid rain. It poured by the time we got into our car at Nu Sentral. More entry on the Nippon balls here.