Interloper View

I recently visited the tropical fruit farm in Penang. It was interesting place to visit however a bit costly - charges RM 25/- for adults and RM 17/- for children. I guess they have to do that because they needed to pay the workers to conduct the tour, the gas for the van to take us up to the farm (short distance from the entrance) and of course the all you can eat fruits at the end of the tour. The tour lasted about 20 minutes where they showed us various tropical fruits some which are not local in Malaysia - imported from neighboring countries. Here are the pictures of the fruits they introduced us to: Scenary from the top.  You can see the dam and a nearby fishing village - Teluk Bahang. Coconut tree: Other fruits:        Fruits from cactus:          Dragon Fruit which is now getting very popular in Malaysia.  There are two kinds - with white content or purple content.                  This is the entrance - with shop and where y

Deepavali is the festival of lights which is a major festival in Malaysia. You can get more details here .  One of the things you can enjoy during this time is the art form produced using only different colored rice. Here are some I photos I collected this year.            

I received the following article from a friend through email: A way to differentiate between Taiwan made products and China made products, by looking at first three digits of its Bar Code. If the 1st 3 digits are 690, 691 or 692 - China made. If the 1st 3 digits are 471 – Taiwan made I searched through internet and it seems that the article was taken from here .  I did a further search and found that China is actually covered by 690 to 695 - the country look up is found here .

Looking around the neighborhood, you will find a lot of beautiful birds flying around. I was working at my desk this afternoon and saw a beautiful bird just outside the window. I managed to get a shot using my phone camera and wanted to get a better camera to get a better shot but unfortunately by the time I got the other camera, it had flown away. Anyway, this is what I managed to capture:

I recently found out that there was  change in the way the credit card charges are made in Malaysia. Take the following scenario: The balance on your credit card is RM 5000.10. You make your payment in cash so you pay RM 5000/-.  The bank considers that you have not paid your card in full and will charge you.    However, note that they will not charge you based on the 10 cents you did not pay but based on RM 5000.10. That means you will have a very large service charge.  Apparently, this is done for all the banks.

With the cost of living going up, everything cost a lot more.  However, there people of go to great lengths to be come self sustaining.  I noticed this a semi detached house in Penang recently: Here you have a small farm in Penang: Here you have a house where they rear chickens, ducks, geese, and even turkeys.  (didn't get a picture of all of them).    

The average lifespan of humans is about 77 years based on Wikipedia . This may seem a lot but how much of this years are productive years. When compared to other animals and creatures, we rank one of the highest. There is an article showing the lifespan of different animals. Here is the list from it: MAMMALS YEARS Elephant 69 Horse 50 Hippopotamus 49 Chimpanzee 40 Grizzly Bear 32 Bison 30 Lion 30 Tiger 25 Elk 22 Mountain Lion 20 Beaver 19 Wolf 16 Squirrel 16 Chipmunk 12 Cottontail 10 House Mouse 4 BIRDS YEARS Turkey Buzzard 118 Swan 102 Parrot 80 Great Horned Owl 68 Eagle 55 English Sparrow 23 Canary 22 Humming Bird 8 REPTILES YEARS Giant Tortoise 152 Box Turtle 123 Alligator 68 Snapping Turtle 57 Cobra 28 Cottonmouth 21 AMPHIBIANS YEARS Giant Salamander 55 T

As I wrote in the blog that got me my free ticket for the screening of Mama Mia - I went into the show with minimal expectation since I did not know what to expect. However, I was pleasantly surprised. This is one of the few events organized by NuffNang for Penangites. So Horray!! There are so few events for us up North. Even though the tickets was not as impressive as the one the printed for K.L. Here is how our ticket looks like: Since this was free sitting, I expected to see a lot of the ugly Malaysian Ethics but surprisingly everybody was well behaved and entered the cinema in an orderly fashion. Don't see too many of those in these kind of free functions. Next I was surprised with the number of cameras that was brought for the event and more surprisingly was the fact that they were all allowed into the cinema hall. These shows how much respect we bloggers get :-) As for the show, I enjoyed it tremendously especially with all the ABBA songs which were my favorite

In Malaysia, due to our multicultural heritage, you will find many different kinds of architectural design. Here are some examples: These are pre-War (World War II) houses: Notice Komtar in the back. Komtar is also starting to lose its attraction as a shopping destination but still contains government offices: Some of the newer buildings in Penang: The building in the center is the UMNO (United Malays National Organization - one of the political party) building. You will find power cables in some areas: Kuala Lumpur Times Square: Here you have Kuala Lumpur Tower in the background: This is the Penang Twin Tower. Can't see very well at this angle. Hindu temple. Most of these temples are very beautiful artwork on them. Penang Times Square. It is still under construction. Old Chinese Clan building: Look at the artwork on this Chinese temple: