Moving into 2014

I am dripping in sweat and gasping for breath, but that never disrupts me from wondering where the broken bridge will lead to.

Missing planks and carpeted with moss, could I slip down into a rabbit hole, leap into a Smurf Village, or stumble upon the lost Ark of Indiana Jones? These questions will remain unanswered; nevertheless, moving into 2014 will be as rugged, adventurous and full of imagination.

Man and his creation ages, time never; it stays young to witness me getting older, but day-dreaming even more often.

Cheers to 2014, for all the small victories through those dreams.

Long Exposure

Being motivated by the decent results, my whetted appetite gets me experimenting shooting Cerok Tokun with long exposures, again and again. Though without a tripod, trees help the most as they are everywhere, at any time.

And it looks like Tinker Bell has slipped inside my camera and sprinkles the shutter with pixie dust. Cerok Tokun is no more dull and dim, just because of me, but is now full of gorgeous tones and indefinite possibilities.

Trees are the same old trees, but are now not the same at the same time. 

I am so crazy in love with it.

Musing of Mushrooms

"The cost of a B-2 stealth bomber could build over 4,500 homes", and it becomes obsolete within a period of time.

I find no bomber on Cerok Tokun, but mosquitoes attack me silently from everywhere every time I stop by and start bookmarking; each of them sucks about 5-millionths of a liter of my blood, returns me with red itchy bumps. They never become obsolete as having a radar system to track me. I do not have this, but mushrooms always appear out of the corner of my eye. I take away many of them in 2D, but not 4500 homes.

Beauty of Lights

No more fungus and virus attack, and Freddy Krueger and Superman are not real, it seems like just one of the very ordinary mornings at Cerok Tokun, yet every day is another day, as great as us who have succeeded in arriving at this wonderful world while 100,000,000 others have failed inside the mothers’ womb, lights that have survived in the 150,000,000 km of travelling, manage to drive away the darkness, and light up the small mushrooms. 

I am delighted, and I say it out with a DSLR, my outside memory, and my messenger.

Creepy Mushrooms

Something's not right to my camera after some pictures of creepy mushrooms  are taken.

They have entered my camera, and start a fungus-attack.

My camera is disarmed. "Please clean the contact between lens and camera" is  prompted. 

This is a fool.

It only works after I have removed and placed back the battery. 

That has temporary erased their memory. My camera fails again after taking some more live view shots, of them.

Something's not right. 

It may need a course of acupuncture. Can Google Search tell where should the acupuncture points be?

Escape

After a hard week’s work, it is good to find an escape; the canine friends preferred to dig a nest on the mud land and curled up into it, but I preferred a 21-km Penang Bridge Run, if not a full marathon, on last Sunday, at 3:30am.

 

While torturing endurance and searching the full meaning of limit, it was beyond capacity to carry a DSLR on shoulder, though photography is akin to my breathing.

 

So curling into a ball is well shared, but not the pictures of me whose muscle cramped after three hours of "raw" experience, on running, and kept running.

Moment with Crabs

Apparently the crab is reading my mind. It looks up attentively to me, feeling naked but no whining, I watch it crawling nearer; it stops, and it stays. 

Is that a broad grin on its face? 

Only zooming in the LCD monitor, there I locate two tiny black dots in its green eyes.  I am wishing more.

Then I see many of them gathering around the mind reader. Before my next wish comes true, my wife calls to make a move. 

The crabs march away.

It is actually my wife the mind commander.

From The Window

I want to show more pictures from the hotel windows, like Superman showing off the big red "S" and little red underpants.

These pictures will be forever beautiful and aging-proof, until Armageddon; 

the sparkle is to always blink like a star, and the pinecone will never drop. Superman is definitely incomparable.  

He always needs new underpants, in order not to lose his loose pants while flying in the air.  The red pants, my friend, are blowing in the wind. That is the joke of the year.  

I am eager for the moment, and that shot will be a huge hit.

Squirrels

The same yesterday's squirrels are munching nuts again when I login to the hotel windows.

Throughout the morning, in the warmth of the sun, and the soothing breeze, they fill their small stomach with a handful of pine nuts playfully, in an upside-down defying g-force position, 

a normal free-and-easy manner, or in whatever way they like to.

This is their way. 

Service of Superman, not required. A bungalow to boast self-esteem, a Lamborghini to vroom around, or Google to enrich life further have never come into  their mind. 

Living a life the way it is. It is now.

Inferior As a Child

To be inferior to my wife when hiking allows me to take many lovely pictures of her back.

But right timing is the key factor of being inferior, especially the moment I swing my hands to regain my balance this morning. Mistakes my reaction, a nose-fuming macaque stretches its neck as close to me as possible to show me its big and sharp canines. No photograph of course, I move away from this invasive animal immediately.

I always try to be inferior, as children are bound to be inferior to adults, or there is no incentive for me to grow down; I keep my child's heart.

Photography Moments

I have been offered three light-bulb moments this morning, each of them serves as a window into new experiences for 1/40 second. That’is not copy-and-paste-able.

 

 

I raise my camera to a bird's-eye view position. From which the world is believed to be very interesting, on the other way around you may have enjoyed the macro of my ugly sweaty armpit. That you can copy.

Photography captures moments in a lifetime but presented in not even a couple of hours.

Gushing like a maniac, I am neither a saint nor insane. My blood type is Canon 7D, adrenaline level 100mm, macro.

Serendipitous Encounter

I was disturbed whether you had had enough tickle if the good virus has been passed into the sewerage system; not until I have been enlightened by a narrow pass serendipitously could I find an answer.

This is a place full of sandy rocks and a sharp drop where everybody includes a fast and experienced hiker has to slow.......... down. Besides the colorful virus, I discover one spider, one hammerhead worm and many mushrooms that are jammed over here this morning. Oh what a list of appetizers that is staying safe in you that makes you feel good.

And it seems like being adventurous and brave is the only key to be happy.

Green Alarm: Virus Attack

 

When I look back, my hiking trail seems more like the interior of an intestine. The roots and trees form the intestine wall, which is full of sensory nerves.

An army of virus moves around freely, exploring every nook and cranny.

They stay inside, waiting for available chance; they never do a needle-poke, they tickle.

Inducing laughter is a fabulous thing. The army is sent deep inside your body. They will start tickling the moment you find me.

A friendly reminder: Please don't force too hard in the morning routine, you may pass these good virus into the sewerage.

The Brain Matter

(It is said that we’re repairing things centrally if we use our brain a lot as opposed to sitting around, looking at the wall).

I found pools of mushrooms on Cerok Tokun; they were gone when I came back the next week.

(A busy brain is also the brain that stays lucid longer, the study says).

Life of mushrooms is as evanescent as the morning dew.

(Many creative types have long lives).

It is merely a brain matter.

When hit by an apple, when overwhelmed by mushrooms, and through one hundred words, this finding makes me a potential Nobel Prize winner.

Still Pretty After 4.5 Billion Years

A Mars-sized protoplanet named Theia crashed into Earth 4.5 billion years ago. Resulted debris formed into the Moon, the powder metamorphosed into flowers.

One is super big, another so small, but both love to be loved. The Moon is too big for my garden, we leave her to the Sun, the Stars and the Comets.

My wife found and took the flower home weeks ago; she exhibits, though tiny in size, the soft and yellow affection day and night, in return. The affection continues to bloom, one after another.

And hence she is still pretty after 4.5 billion years; always has love.

Beauty Was A Beast

No Google hunt is required during raining days, many of the mushroom species are easily seen everywhere at Cerok Tokun.

One of those makes me think of Yang Guifei, who was “one of the Four Beauties of ancient China and the beloved consort of Emperor Xuanzong” of Tang Dynasty. She was, most importantly, obese.

I have not seen her in person, but these mushrooms are a real beauty, irresistible: round, smooth, fair, tender, sweet, juicy, and SUPER BIG, that urge me to possess them, and to eat them, but inner me tells, 

The fall of Tang Dynasty began when the beauty became a beast.

Two Trees

It is rare to see an open space in a forest; this makes two trees a main attraction to me.

They escape the thick crowd of canopies wanting fresh carbon dioxide.

They love standing by the "window" watching hikers panting like a dog, the dog barking at the monkeys that act like hikers.

They love watching the Moon chasing the Sun while being surrounded by the Stars.   

The trees know they have not seen everything, though everything seems to be the same everyday.

Rainfield may appear in a same uniform every week, the handphone played rock and roll this morning.

To Watch Us Watching Them

There are eyes to watch us watching them, on the information highway, and on those downtown sidewalks. Our every moment is captured, and archived in gigabytes.

There are eyes to watch us watching them, in the wild, and in the forest, either when we are “bookmarking” or merely wandering around. These are remembered and gossiped through the whistling breeze in the leaves.

There are eyes to watch us watching them, no matter you know it, or not. You better behave yourself for not becoming a digital sore or a laughing stock in the jungle. The later may last for centuries.

Photographs and Bookmarks

Earlobes never defy gravity; they increase in length by an average of 0.22 millimeters every year. Is an 18 millimeters increment significant by the age of 80?

Photographs are my bookmarks, I lay them in Cerok Tokun every week. I should have had one in every meter at the same age if I still manage to hike, while seeing my earlobes swinging left and right like a pendulum of a time machine.

Rather than regret not doing what my heart lead me to, I continue to bookmark.

Growing earlobes should not be used as an excuse for slowing me down.

A Detour

They are monkeys. To be precisely complicated, they become long-tailed macaques, crab-eating macaques, 长尾猕猴, 食蟹猕猴，etc.

They are as invasive as humans, or vice versa, but they can always disguise themselves as The Thinker at the same time, 

or show their disdain for the uninterested DSLR.

They are very common in Malaysia, I meet them every time I visit Cerok Tokun, and this time at Batu Caves.

"Batu Caves is one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India, dedicated to Lord Murugan. It is the focal point of Hindu festival of Thaipusam in Malaysia." (Wikipedia).

We made a detour to visit this place during the last trip to Bukit Tinggi.

Bukit Tinggi, Photography Experience

My family had a one-night stay in Bukit Tinggi, Pahang this Hari Raya Puasa Holiday. Why Bukit Tinggi? Because the missus planned this solely for me.

So I experimented with over three hundred clicks, and set some exposure times to twenty seconds.

I continued practicing as early as six o'clock in the next morning,

carrying a tripod around, and setting self timer to two seconds at the same time to prevent from any camera shake.

Where is all my joy at the end? It can be found in every of these pictures.

Trees, and A Boy

I wonder how similar they are to us, if trees go networking, make me laugh, and drive me paranoid.

(We share 60% of our DNA with a banana; an evidence of shared ancestry).

I take their pictures. One of them mimicked Scooby-Doo, and turned its face red. It even tried to play Freddy Krueger.

(A simple potato is more complex than us; it has 48 chromosome counts, whereas we have only 46).

I had once, in an aura of mystery, discovered the Wonderland of Alice in the woods.

(There was a tree, The Giving Tree, and a boy).

A Wacky World

Welcome to the wacky world of an insane photographer.

Let’s smile, this is the only choice you can make. After all, you are left with no other but to be a part of my crazy story.

Disagree? Let's forget about it. The sky may look eerie, you face may look red, you are angry, but that's only your feeling, my story tells differently.

Welcome to my wacky world, I am telling you again, my poor leaf, if you can’t beat me, join me.

Nonetheless, I agree that I do appear in someone's story as well.

I am so saying, "Hi."

Illusion

I accidentally found that my magic wand had fooled me. It reserved half of its power.

I was by then taking pictures of a caterpillar. Trial makes perfect; back and front light, and whatsoever techniques I have read, I put into practice. 

My magic wand started functioning when a band of rainbow appeared on the camera screen.

It changed the transparency of the caterpillar, like how I alter the transparency of a solid fill in Microsoft Office.

That was interesting, I waited more. I could be Merlin or David Copperfield in the next second. 

But it stopped, absurdly.

The caterpillar stayed half-disappeared. My left half was Rainfield, another half  David Copperfield.

Networking

A tree is no doubt a social creature whose life finds meaning in its relation to other tree beings. It develops cramped and distracted kinetic nature of networking, which we call roots, and ours fiber optics.

I wonder during this persistent pursuit, does it crazy about number of likes.

Trees and human beings are alike; everybody partakes of society, they facebook each other, that sounds interesting enough, and worth the effort to write a thesis.

The networking looks complicated on the surface, and is even worse going underground, in which spyware, malware, phishing, virus etc spread around.

This is the life of a tree.