David Guetta Live in Malaysia

Last Friday is one of the best Friday I've had in a long time. Seriously long time. Well, it goes back to about 2 weeks ago, my teenager niece came back for a semester break from Australia and she wanted to go to David Guetta's rave party. So she asked me. "Seriously? You wanna hang out with your aunty at a rave party?" OK so I know she must desperately wanted to go that she succumbed to ask me; so I obliged.

I posted an invitation on my Facebook hoping that some of my friends might be interested. One answer the invite and that's about it. In fact, most asked who's David Guetta and my answer is that if you have to ask, don't bother. And so we bought the tickets and drive our way to Sepang on a traffic horrendous rainy Friday evening. Bad start!

I got hold of this itinerary on the day itself and so we were cool on our drive there since Guetta only coming on at 11pm. Of course, all three of us are most probably praying quietly for the rain to stop. Guess what, it did stop when we reach there at about 9pm. I was expecting it to be somewhat a lukewarm party since most people doesn't know him and there wasn't even a lot of publicity going on. Boy was I wrong. The crowd was crazy. In fact I think Guetta mentioned 20,000 tickets were sold.

When we made our way in after the 3 tiers security check, Kaz James was spinning. And then Alesso took over at 10pm and it was a pleasant surprise. He's good. Finally at 11.30pm, Guetta came on and the crowd went crazy and probably a little bit drunk too. True to his accolades as the Best DJ in the World, Guetta used his magic power to rave up the 20,000 party goers to danced and jumped and screamed non-stop.

Explosive back ground panel and lighting

Put your fucking hands up ... Hell yeah!

Sorry but I hate party goers like this. So you expect people behind you to watch your behind?
Come down for god's sake.

Thanks Guetta! Definitely one of the best rave party I've attended.

 There you go; 20 thousand people came to dance to Guetta.
(Pix from Future Sound Asia)

Some of my favorite official photographs from the organizer, Future Sound Asia.

While tired dancing, I took short breaks and also some short videos.

Little bad girl

Without you

Tonight's a good good night

Me and my niece = 0.01% of the crowd

Location : KL, Malaysia
Date of event : October 12, 2012.

Borobudur - the relics, the stupas and the Buddhas

Continuing from my previous entry on "Sunrise in Borobudur", we left Borobudur at about 8am to go back to Manohara Hotel for breakfast. We met a lot of Buddhist monks staying in the same hotel. Well, seems like Manohara is some sort of a monastery; USD80 per night monastery. We also spent about 30 minutes or so to watch a documentary on Borobudur to understand a little bit about Borobudur before attempting the full day templing. 

We took the chance to take the horse carriage for a full round ride of the Borobudur Park
The horse must be cursing, all four of you?

The 85 hectares Borobudur Park was build around the temple to protect and safeguard the Borobudur temple by the Indonesian government. It was attempting to restore the spiritual atmosphere around one of the most important historical monument.

The horse carriage left us in front of the entrance.
This is the view of the entrance. Now that the sun has risen, we can see it from afar.

Tourists aside, serious Buddhist pilgrims have a specific way to follow. They must enter from the East Gate and circle the temple 3 times as a sign of respect before continuing to the Level 2 to 9. As for tourist, which probably constitute about 95% of the crowd, they just came from all directions and move in all directions.

Borobudur's name originated from words 'Boro' and 'Budur', where 'Boro' means temple or shrine from sanskrit 'Byara' while 'Budur' from Balinese 'Beduhur' which means above the hill. Borobudur temple is located 269m above sea level and surrounded by several mountains.

Borobudur are divided into 3 sections to the pilgrims. The first 2 sections are about human lives that are control and not control by desires etc. The pilgrims are supposed to walk clockwise to study the story on the wall. To us tourists, it is 6 terraces full of relics, well 1460 to be precise.

Let us begin!

That was only 10 of the pictures I took of the relics. I think you get the idea.

I'm here taking a breather, in fact many many breathers along my climb up the temple. 

Now's, lets talk about Buddha statues. There are apparently 504 Buddha effigies around the temples. Apparently the Buddha has different poses depending which side it is facing. To me, it is just many many opportunities to take pictures of them. A lot of them has been destroyed during earthquake.

This is about sunset. Beautiful.

The foot of the Buddha

After climbing and walking for 6 stories covering 1460 relics, pilgrims find themselves in the final journey of Arupadhatu which means Nirvana in Borobudur.

This is the 3rd section (top 3 terraces in the form of circles) of the temple.
It is refers to as Arupadhatu which means nirwana.
Pix taken using wide angle lens

This final section of the temples are circular in shape and surrounded by stupas. Each stupas has a Buddha effigy inside except for the highest and largest stupa in the temple. The emptiness signifies nirvana where nothing matters.

And finally, some of my favourite tourist photos.

Evonne and me at Nirvana

Nicely capture by Sam Hor of me with an unmistakably Borobudur stupa

Meditating at Borobudur.
This picture got us into trouble with the guards :)

Defnitely one of the most breathtaking place in the world and probably in the running of one of the place to visit before you die.


Location : Jogja, Indonesia
Date of travel : June 2012

Sunrise in Borobudur

I'm dedicating here a whole entry just on sunrise in Borobudur because this is one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. I guess no photos or words can describe exactly how beautiful, surreal and emotion stirring the scene is.  I have taken some 'no-way-near-the-real-scene' pictures of what I experienced and just hope that you can just try to imagine it.

This is taken at probably Level 6 or 7 of Borobudur at dawn

I can't explain but can you see the mist congregating at the blue mountains and green jungles?

Stupa on the hilltop temple surrounded by jungles and mountains

Sun began to show itself

Sun rises in front of the Buddha effigy

Hey, we're here, we're here! Thank you for the marvelous scene.

Show yourself, dear Monastery on the hilltop

And now, we can see the whole Borobudur complex from the sunlight.

Shadow from the east of the photographer , namely me.

Location : Java, Indonesia
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