Fraser's Hill-Trapdoor Spiders

Chinese New Year is one of the big holidays here, so we had four days off at the office. My friends and I went up to Fraser's Hill again. Still rates as one of my favorite places in the world. One night a friend took us out to a place where you can see trapdoor spiders. These spiders are fairly rare and even the famous British nature documentary producer, Sir David Attenborough came here to film these trapdoor spiders.

Here is the site of the spiders "trapdoor". Notice how good the camouflage is.

The trapdoor has several "strings". When the spider feels the strings vibrate as a passing insect walks near his hole, he jumps out and grabs the tasty morsel on his doorstep.

The inside of the spider's lair.

Here is the attack, minus the innocent insect.

Lunar New Year

Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year as it is known in Malaysia is this weekend and the Kek Lok Si Temple here is all decked out with 10,000 lanterns and 29,000 light (yes, I counted every single one). I went to take some pictures on Tuesdays night but they turned out the lights at 9:30 so it cut the session short. Hoping to go again soon for another picture taking session and to all my Chinese friends, Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Any last requests?

If I were sentenced to death and they asked me what I would like for my last meal, I finally have an answer. MMMMmmmmm!

Scuba diving

Last Thursday was a holiday here but I opted to work and take Friday off and go do a bit of scuba diving with a friend. The scuba diving spot close to where I live is not spectacular but is a fun day and never fails to disappoint. This Christmas I told everyone that all I wanted was money for an underwater camera, so when I got back to Malaysia, I bought one. This was my first trip with the camera and I here are some of the pictures. I also am involved in a scuba diving blog that you can access by clicking here.

Lionfish. I only had one pass at him before some other photographers came up and started taking pics.

The water at this site is greenish sometimes and visibility was poor. This is my attempt at a wide angle shot with a barrel sponge as the main attraction.

This is a nudibranch, a type of sea slug. I left the shells in the picture to help with size. The shells are about the size of your thumbnail or slightly bigger.

Nudi in Greek means naked (gasp!) and branch refers to the gills, basically meaning naked gills. The feathery protrusion on its back are those naked gills and are how it breathes. Here it is navigating a crevasse.

Here are nudibranches mating. Cover the children's eyes!!!!

A pufferfish, obviously not puffed. It is quite unethical to force them to 'puff' but some divers do it anyway.

Another species of nudibranch.

This turtle was one of the last things we saw before surfacing on our last dive.

Matahari terbenam di Pasir Panjang

Sunset on 5/2/07 at Pasir Panjang (Long Beach)