Lotus and Lilies

These were pictures of lily and lotus taken near the General Hospital in Miri.

Lily

Lotus... the major external difference is the center part. Lily is available in pink also. To see more of these photos, click here.

Beauty from the wild

I am not sure what is the name of this plant. Anyone knows? This plant has huge leaves and big yellow flowers. When the flower set, the seeds mature and ...

and this is what you see.
This plant brought back memories of my childhood days. We used to collect the leaves of this plant for sale.  I can't remember how much we had to collect in order to get just 20 cents. The leaves were used to wrap meat, veggie or fish. We were so environmentally friendly at that time.

Today in Limbang

I last came back to Limbang in September when Esther was just about to leave for UK. This time, we came back to see grandma as she complaint of backache, etc. Today is Christmas and we went to the Methodist church at 7:30AM for the Christmas celebration. I took some shots at the church....
Worship team.

Crowded church...

A solo presentation ...

Pastor Wong 王子成牧师...

A presentation by the women group ...

We met our ex classmate, Mdm Ling 林菊珠. They have 4 children and 8 grandchildren! Amazing!

There was a distribution of gift for everyone consisting of cookie and drink. In the afternoon, I tried to amuse myself with my camera. I just got my lens back after servicing! Wah, I missed my lens!

I walked around the "garden" and tried to shoot something...got this! Any idea what is this flower? The flower is about 5mm wide only!

No need to guess, this is water guava (jambu air) 水桃

This is a young pinapple. Do you know that a flower comes out of every eye? Notice the purple flower at the tip. Also, a pinapple tree can bear only one fruit.

Ok, the tiny flower above is from the star fruit. Every flower will produce one fruit.

Some flowers to cheer u up ...

After reading all the bad news and the needs to apply job again, I thought I have to cheer myself up by looking at nature...the creation which is perfect, never need to pay service tax or looking for job!
#1 Mushroom
#2 Maize
#3 Jathropha.
#4 Not too sure whether this is wild flowers.
#5 Oh, someone said this allamanda is poisonous! Any truth? (Thanks to STP for the name).
#6
#7 This is definitely wild flower.
#8 Lonely tiny flower.
#9 Cluster of star fruit flower.
#10 Nice Rangoon Creeper. It smells lovely and the flowers are abundant on the stems, changing colors as they get older, from whitish, light pink and then to red). Easily grown, as you can use stem cuttings. Like its name, its best when you allow it to creep along borders and walls. (contributed by anonymous).
#11 Ixora (Contibuted by "housewife9988")
#11 Ri2 You
Cat whisker! Can be used as herb.

Real beautiful roses ...

Yesterday's blog was "Roses ...." but I didn't really showed any roses. So, mummy was complaining that my title was not right! So, today, I make up for it. I hope you like the pictures of roses I took at Klaus and Elaine wedding...

No. 1

No. 2

No. 3

No. 4

No. 5

No. 6

No. 7

No. 8

Ok, if you don't mind, tell me which one you like. Thanks.
You may even put them on your computer wall paper. Just click on the rose you like, a higher resolution photo will be displayed. Right click on the image and "Save image as..." to save it to your local disk. Then open the image with Microsoft Paint and then "Save as wallpaper" or something like that. If you do save my images, I do appreciate it if you don't remove my watermark.

Lilies taken on my HiRes Camera

More lilies but taken on my HiRes camera...
This is "resized" otherwise, the file would be too big... cropping just the center bit where you see the bee ...
... click on the picture to see the full size in the actual resolution (but of course cropped)!
A cluster of lilies ... This lot was in the middle of the pond. I crop out the center flower to show actual pixel size...
Click to show the actual size. I cropped the flower to display 800 pixels across.
The above was posted on my photography blog which I update once in a while.

Durian Feast

On Saturday, my family went to SabaOrchard (Lambir Green) to take pictures and also to eat durian! Lambir Green has 40 acres of fruit trees and is managed by a husband and wife team (Austin and Winni). I helped them to create their blog and I used some of the pictures here still with their blog name on.
Durians everywhere! We helped to pick durians ...
... and Austin busy serving us...
... and obviously mousie had a good time!
They also have mangosteen...

.. and rambutan, etc.

If you have not seen durian flower buds before...
In addition to durian, they also have flowers ... bunga kertas.
... orchid ...
... more orchid ...
... and more! Not all orchids shown here are for sales!
If you are interested, you may go to their farm in a group, or you may organise a durian party whereby Uncle Austin will deliver the fruits to you. Please visit his blog if you are interested to contact him. Alternatively, you can visit his residence for durian!

Flowers in my neighbourhood

Just came back from Cell Group just now. And on my way to my house, I saw my neighbour's huge dragon fruit flower.
I think I am forever amazed by this flower. It is about 25cm across and is full bloom from about 10PM, or earlier. When sun rises, the flower will set. By evening, the flower will set completed.
I just realised that taking such picture at night is not a bad idea! It provides a natural black contrasting background.
Ok, this one is from my garden. It is difficult to take this flower during the day as the pure red is not very kind to digital camera.