The Historic City Melaka

Bandar Hilir

It’s school holiday again. We plan to take our kids to some cool places. After all I can’t remember when was our last “out of the state” family trip. We list out some places that we think might be suitable for a family activity.

Now what are family activities? Kids love to play and discover new experience. So we just need to find any playground and they would be happy enough. Or perhaps a zoo or a science exhibition might be interesting. And then I thought Melaka would be a great place to visit. It has variety places of interest for the whole family to discover. Beside its just 1 hour journey from Kuala Lumpur and we even has relatives living in Melaka. That’s just perfect.

Despite being the second smallest State in Peninsular Malaysia (after Perlis), Melaka is crowded with tourist especially on weekend. Infact, Melaka attracts the westerners such as Portuguese, Dutch and British since 1511.

I counted that Melaka has around 60++ places of interest:

• A’Famosa (Porta de Santiago)
• Aborgines (orang Asli Village)
• Aborgines Museum
• Ayer Keroh Cultural Village
• Bee Farm
• Bukit China
• Butterfly and Reptile Sanctuary
• Casuarinal Park
• Cheng Hoon Teng Temple
• Christ Church
• Clock Tower
• Crocodile Farm (Taman Buaya)
• Dataran Padang Pahlawan Melaka
• Dataran Sejarah
• Ekspo Melaka
• Gallery of Admiral Cheng Ho
• Handicrafts
• Hang Jebat’s Mausoleum
• Hang Kasturi’s Mausoleum
• Hang Li Poh’s Well
• Hang Tuah Hall
• Hang Tuah Walk
• Hang Tuah Well
• Hang Tuah Mausoleum
• Jonker Street
• Jonker Walk
• Kampung Kling’s Mosque
• Light & Sound Spectacular
• Malacca Fish World
• Malacca River
• Malacca Sultanate Palace (Cultural Museum)
• Malaysia Youth Museum
• Maritime Museum
• Medan Ikan Bakar Pernu
• Melaka Africa Ostrich Park
• Melaka Agropark (sungai Udang)
• Melaka Islamic Museum
• Melaka Raya Walk
• Melaka Tropical Fruit Farm
• Melaka Zoo
• Mini Malaysia & Mini ASEAN
• Peacock Paradise
• People’s Museum
• Poh San Teng Temple
• Portugese Square
• Proclamation of Independence Memorial
• Recreational Forest
• Sri Poyyatha Vinayagar Moorthi Temple
• St. Francis Xavier’s Church
• St. John’s Fort
• St. Paul’s Church
• St. Peter’s Church
• Taman Budaya Seri Malaysia
• Taman Merdeka
• Taman Rekreasi Durian Tunggal
• Taman Ular
• Tapak Sejarah Nsan Acheh
• Tasik Ayer Keroh
• The Baba and Nyonya Heritage
• The Dutch Graveyard
• The Stadhuys
• Villa Sentosa

We choose several places like Melaka Zoo, Bandar Hilir (the area which the Portuguese and Dutch relics concentrated) and Maritime Museum.

Melaka Zoo

Melaka Zoo

Bandar Hilir

Maritime Museum

High dynamic range (HDR) Photography

If you visit flickr regularly, you've probably noticed that a lot of High Dynamic Range, or HDR, stuff posted these days. Even if you don't, you've likely seen HDR photos all around the net as photographers both pro and amateur experiment with this emerging artistic format.


In Wikipedia definition - High dynamic range imaging (HDRI) is a set of techniques that allow a far greater dynamic range of exposures (i.e. a large difference between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to the deepest shadows.

Personally HDR gives a new perspective in my shots. Most of my HDR photo set produced by Photomatix, a standalone HDR image processor. But you can also use the Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Bridge to get the HDR photo. I can't wait to try the HDR feature in CS but with the price tag USD649 I think I'm going to buy it from Low Yatt.

There are a lot of tutorial on the net regarding hoe to create HDR image but I think these 2 had fairly enough information to start the ball rolling.

How to Create High Dynamic Range Images by Jack Howard (showing both Photomatix and Photoshop CS2 method) and How to Create Professional HDR Images by Ryan McGinnis (uses Photoshop CS method).

To get some good sample of HDR images, checkout this HDR group.