Sunday, September 28, 2008

The tales of the two cities

I lived in Kuching between 1995 and 2006. Adelaide is the city that I lived between 1989 ~ 1994 and 2006 until now. One city is located at the tropic while the other is located down south. They are very distinct cities but also share some similarities and relationship.
Kuching Skyline

Adelaide Skyline

Let's has a look at Kuching first. Kuching is founded by Sir James Brooke in 1841.
Sir James Brooke

James Brooke arrived at Sarawak in a 142-ton schooner, The Royalist. Sir James Brooke helped the Sultan of Brunei to put down a rebellion. The Sultan of Brunei rewarded him a small piece of land called Sarawak to Sir James Brooke. The land covered area around Kuching. Sir James Brooke rules Sarawak as his personnel Kingdom and Kuching was made his capital and head quarters. Sir James Brooke and his descendants are known as The White Rajahs of Sarawak. The White Rajahs expanded their territory at the expenses of areas controlled by the Sultan of Brunei. Brunei lost more than 90% of its territories to the White Rajahs.
The present population of Kuching is around 600,000. The society is multi racial and consisted of Chinese, Malay, Dayaks, and other ethnic group. A majority of people in Kuching are capable of communicating in Bahasa Melayu and English. On top of Malay and English, Mandarin and other Chinese dialects are widely spoken.
The founder of Adelaide is Colonel William Light. Colonel William Light sailed to Adelaide in 1836 on the 162 tons rapid. Colonel William Light surveyed the coastal area of South Australia and decided the harbour and capital of the new colony will be located.
Colonel William Light

There Light selected the location and laid out the street plan of the city of Adelaide. The city was planned by Light in a grid fashion with the main streets running east to west to avoid the dust storms blowing from the north. When Colonel Light was designing Adelaide, his plans included surrounding the city with 1,700 acres (6.9 km2) of parklands. This would provide clean fresh air throughout Adelaide.
Sarawak is a state in Malaysia similar to South Australia is a state in Australia. The state and federal government system in both Sarawak and South Australia is similar inherited from the British.
Sir James Brooke father Thomas Brooke was English and his mother Anna Maria was born in Hertfordshire, the illegitimate daughter of Scottish peer Colonel William Start. James Brooke was born in Secrore, a suburb of Benares, India.
Colonel William Light was born in Kuala Kedah, Malaysia and grew up in Penang. He was an illegitimate son of Captain Francis Light, the founder of Penang. His mother was Martina Rozells, who was a Portugese and Malay descent. The first relationship was established where Colonel William Light who founded Adelaide was Malaysia born and Kuching is a capital city for Sarawak in Malaysia.
During the second world war, the last Rajah of Sarawak Sir Charles Vyner Brooke evacuated himself and his family to Sydney where they remain for the duration of the war. The Japanese surrendered on board HMAS Kapunda at Kuching to Brig Eastick in September 11, 1945. Kapunda is a town in South Australia 75km from Adelaide. Sarawak was placed under Australian Military rule until 15 April 1946 when civil government was restored.
Sir Charles Vyner Brooke

Throughout the second world war and during confrontation with Indonesia, the Australian Army was fighting for the liberation and threat faced by Sarawak. The present Batu Lintang Teaching college was once Batu Lintang POW camp where three thousand Allied POWs were housed including Australian soldiers. The camp was liberated by Australian 9th Division on September 1945.
The present Chief Minister of Sarawak Taib Mahmud is a graduate from The University of Adelaide. His wife Laila Taib is from Adelaide. The first lady of Sarawak is an Adelaide woman. They do have a lot of similarities and relationships in between the two cities which seems to be unrelated.

A380 and Adelaide International Airport

IT might have been a short pitstop but the largest flying kangaroo in the sky could still pull a big crowd.

The giant Airbus A380 made its first appearence at Adelaide Airport yesterday, with hundreds of people turning out to give it a big welcome.

We were on our way returning home from Harbour Town shopping centre. We saw large crowd and cars stopping at the road side of the airport runway. We decided to turn into a street to find out what was happening. I spoke to a taxi driver and he informed me that the A380 is making its first pit stop at trhe airport. We joined the crowd in welcoming the arrival of the super jumbo jet.

Many spent several hours waiting for their chance to the double-decker, which arrived just after 12.15pm, and made a smooth landing despite a strong crosswind.

The crowd hushed as the wheels hit the ground with a slight puff of smoke.

After the brakes cooled down, and pilot reset the flight computer, it turned around and returned to the air to Melbourne to fly above the MCG before the AFL Grand Final.

The visit was the first of several visits to Adelaide until October 17.

Many onlookers who were expecting the engines to roar were amazed with how quiet the 450-seat A380 was.

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The crowd wating along the road side.
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Australian grocery icon Woolworths truck passed by.
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A short traffic jam.
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Finally the A380 landed. My superzoom camera at 12x zoom still is not good enough to pick up the details. Maybe I need a tripod for stabilisation.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

The Mid-Autumn Festival celebration at Elder Park

The Mid-Autumn Festival known as the Moon Festival , is a popular East Asian celebration of abundance and togetherness, dating back over 3,000 years to China's Zhou Dynasty . In Malaysia and Singapore, it is also sometimes referred to as the Lantern Festival or "Mooncake Festival."

The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month of the Chinese calendar (usually around mid- or late-September), a date that parallels the Autumn Equinox of the solar calendar. This is the ideal time, when the moon is at its fullest and brightest, to celebrate the abundance of the summer's harvest.

The Mid-Autumn festival fall on 14 September this year. It was celebrated at Elder Park between 4pm - 8pm. In the Southern hemisphere, it is the begining of Spring. Are we going to call it Spring Festival?

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Sylvester and Felicity in front of Adelaide Festival Theatre.

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Sylvester and Felicity holding their name in Chinese Character.

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Buying satay from a Malaysian Stall.

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Adelaide Convention Centre taken from Elder Park.

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Crowd started to move into Elder Park.

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Buddha Statue in temporary temple.

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Lantern beside stage.

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Child play.

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Dragon boat racing.

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Lion dance on poles.

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The main charcter of the day. The moon.

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Kung Fu Panda!

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Shark Lantern.