After taking the photos of the sunrise, I continued to shoot around.  Our location at 3rd floor were just right for all these photos.  If I had more time, I may have captured photos from each floor to see the surrounding scenery from different angles.

The higher the better?  Not really.  From a higher place, the things in the scenery become smaller, but we can see more.  From a lower point, we have limited scope, but things on the ground floor show greater details.

Maybank is an important landmark at LCCT for some bus to stop.  It is located across a road from Tune Hotel.

The plane was landing.

I also saw a large plantation of palm trees.

From the top, I caught a picture of the root of the palm tree.

Since the hotel is not that far from the airport, aeroplanes parked there are easily visible too.

This is another important landmark for buses to disambark and pick up passengers.  This building is the post office.  It is known as Pos Malaysia.

This is how to corridor outside the hotel room looks like.  There is quite a lot of room to move about.

From the balcony, I found the car park of the hotel.  Do you notice the red van in the picture above?  That’s the shuttle service of the hotel that provides rides from various places.  One of it is LCCT to the Tune Hotel and return.  This costs RM 1 per ride.

It must have rained the night before.  I discovered that the handle grip of the fence on the corridor was wet.  The drops of water on the grip created a nice texture and pattern that moved me to capture them.

The picture above is a close up and this is the whole picture of the wet handle grip.  The sunrise (background) in the picture above is out of focus and overexposed. 

Someone might had looked at me while I was taking the photo.  There are security cameras in the building to protect the safety of the guests.

Overall, it was quite an experience to spend a night at the Tune Hotel.  We didn’t order any extra facilities besides the basic ones so I guess we didn’t really have the 5-star hotel experience as promoted in their advertisements.  However, it is a place with sufficient facilities to rest in order to ‘recharge’ one’s battery and prepare for the next journey.

As the night slowly crept away and the dawn came to take place, we had an acquaintance with the lovely sunrise.  It was a refreshing morning and we were fortunate enough to be able to catch this beautiful view at the corridor outside the hotel room.

According to some findings on Wikipedia, one should not confuse dawn with sunrise as dawn is the (variously defined) point at which the sky begins to lighten, some time before the sun itself appears, ending twilight.  Sunrise however, is the instant at which the upper edge of the Sun appears above the horizon in the east.

What does sunrise mean to you?

Couples shown in movies like to stay up all night on the beach just to wait for the sunrise because it is romantic. But to be on the safe side, you have to make sure it’s a weekend.  You don’t want to fall asleep at your desk with your boss standing in front of you. Do you think watching sunrise is romantic?

Well, from another point of view, sunrise is the beginning of a new day.  This is a fact that can’t be denied.  How many of us actually know that it is a new day when it is a new day? A funny but meaningful question. Think about it.

A new day means our lives has become shorter.  Every second that has passed us by will not return anymore.  It is very important to realize what we are doing every second is meaningful so that our lives can be content and not wasted just like that.  Have you called or hugged your loved ones today?

Sunrise can be a new beginning.

A new beginning to a new born.
A new beginning to a new job.
A new beginning to a new project.
A new beginning to a new friendship.
A new beginning to a couple who fought the night before.

Can you tell us more new beginnings that you know or have encountered?

There’s a Chinese saying that goes (translated), ‘A whole-year’s plan starts in spring, A whole-day’s plan starts in the morning.’.  Planning is essential to ensure what we want to achieve be done in a smooth way with possible difficulties decreased to the least.  You might get more brilliant ideas if you are planning your day while enjoying the sunrise.

Do you think the sunrise picture above resembles the sea and the seaside?  I think it looks like the sea during dusk.

If you are still wriggling in bed, you better get up because slowly the sunlight will force itself through your window into your room.  You might have a curtain but you still can’t stop the Sun to pay you a visit every day.  And the Sun is a good doctor because it will ‘roast’ all the lazy worms in us and wake us up to our routine.

Romance, a new day, a new beginning, a new life…the Sun appears and brighten up every living beings with new hopes.  It burns itself without any frustration or complaints.  Let’s not disappoint the Sun and waste its effort.  Be happy! Be positive! Have a wonderful weekend!

We had a night stay at Tune Hotel, LCCT which located 7 minutes walk from the departure hall (as stated in Tune’s advertisement).  We walked two rounds “from/to” between LCCT and Tune Hotel.  On our way, we found the following which is extremely unbelievable.

It was the rubbish behind the Food Garden of LCCT.

I started to guess who has thrown the rubbish here.  The food sellers, the customers, or the cleaner who has done this?  Why the rubbish was left just like this although it is not the front side of the building?

If you were a tourist and you see this what will you think about it?  It was supposed to be removed from a tourist’s vision.

I can think of one idiom,”sweep under the carpet”.  Now I should change it to, “throw rubbish behind the building”.

Let me tell you the exact location, the drain is somewhere not far from the carpark near Pos Malaysia.

Pos Malaysia.

This is the road between Tune Hotel and LCCT.  It is about 300 to 400 meter.  We took about 10 minutes to reach (longer than the stated 7 minutes because we had to carry our luggage).  There is no proper footpath for pedestrian, and we always worried the vehicle that come from behind when we were walking there. 

We took a van for one time from the hotel to airport, and it cost us RM1 each.  The rest of the time, we were on foot.

Good luck to the trolleys because pushing the trolley on the road can shorten the trolleys’ life span, there should be a smoother path for both humans and trolleys.  We did use the trolley to carry our luggage from the airport to the hotel because there is no sign saying that we can’t do that.  When we asked for the direction of shortest path to Tune Hotel, a helpful young Malay guy at Food Garden told us that we can use the trolley until we reached the hotel.  Thanks to that young Malay guy.

When we reached the hotel, we unloaded our luggage and parked the trolley.  I doubted if there is anything wrong because our trolley has a different colour from the other trolleys in blue.  Soon, I cleared my doubts because I also saw the trolley of different colours appeared.

But we saw a girl stopped pushing her trolley.  When she reached the carpark she left the trolley behind the Food Garden, and carried everything on her own.  I think she regretted later because when she reached the hotel, she saw the trolleys again, and even for a short distance to the hotel receptionist, she used the trolley again.  We were walking a distance behing her and saw everything.

A junction outside the Tune Hotel.

The driver has parked the car illegally beside the road.

Although we could hardly open our eyes due to the strong sunlight, the things we have seen were our eye-openners.  (Mouth-openners too).   :p

Astana Kuching.

Trees, branches and leaves that can be seen in Waterfront at night.

Lights on the trees at Waterfront during the DUN opening.

I put my camera on a table at a food court in Waterfront and produce the two pictures, one facing the river, and the other facing the shop at the road called Main Bazaar.

When taking night photo, exposure setting on camera is a great challenge.

Here end the series of night photography of the Kuching Waterfront, Dun etc..  The events have ended about one week ago, what was left behind is we have newly painted black and white divider on many roads in Kuching.  If you were in Kuching, you will understand what I mean.  The workers seem to have worked 24 hours before the events.  Thanks to them.

Kuching Waterfront is a great place to take night scene photos, but I haven’t tried before, to go there at night with my camera because my parents always remind me that it is not a safe place to go at night, especially with tripod and camera bag. It’s true because many robbery cases have happened especially after 10pm. However, last week I made a first try while there were events (decorated boat parades, exhibition, etc.) held at the waterfront. The events attracted a lot of visitors and it was a good time for me to bring my camera and tripod along.

01 My safety tips: Do not go to take night photos alone, preferably a large group of friends. :~

02 Another tips: Go in the evening, right before the sun set (the earlier the safer), firstly for safety, secondly you can take the sunset photo.

03 Another tips: Wait until there is no car in front of the temple, and the picture will look cleaner. I mentioned that I don’t want to take the Light in the Night photo again until I have come out with something new, if there were cars in front of the temple, the lights from the car’s headlight doesn’t look nice in the photo.

There were many cars passing by, do you know how long have I waited? It was about 2 minutes, I waited the car in front of the traffic light to be cleared, and right before the car from the opposite side came into the frame of my picture, I quickly pressed the shutter release button. The shutter speed was quite long, so my speed must be faster than those cars.

04 Tips of taking photo of Tua Pek Kong Temple: The lights of this temple is not switched on every day. The best time to take night photo of this temple is 1st and 15th of a month in Chinese Calendar and when there is a event at waterfront like the annually regatta, Dun Openning or other functions.

Tua Pek Kong temple is the most famous temple in Kuching located in the golden triangle area just a few steps away from waterfront, therefore it is another good subject to be photographed there. Every year there is a parade organised by this temple.

I used my camera remote control with 2 second delay to take this photo of SiewPeng and me.

Right across the Tua Pek Kong Temple, there is a water-spraying structure which its shape look like the hornbill (a big bird that found in Borneo).

A very popular cafe - James Brooke Bistro and Cafe is not far away from this structure. Can you see its red-neon-light signboard behind the structure?

Personally I don’t think this water spraying structure look nice :p, but I tried my best to take nice photos of it.

The slow shutter speed setting in my camera was used to take these photo to create smooth effect.

From near to far, can you see the square man-made pond with mini waterfall, then the water spraying structure, and at the further behind TuaPekKong Temple? This is one of the entrances to WaterFront and from this angle we can see these three things here.

The reason I brought tripod was actually for taking the photos of the musical fountain near the square tower because I found that it was working already after broken for years. But when I reached the musical fountain, the lights have been switched off. I will go and check if it is working and take its photo soon.