Interactive video by SAMSUNG Microsite

Have you ever try the Interactive video from SAMSUNG site? (http://bit.ly/pa8JrF). It's fun! Click on the link provided and take note the "Click Here" button on the page, then fill in the empty box on the left bottom corner...yes! Any words you like, and see how's the video react! Haha!

The Samsung Microsite

Beside this fun interactive video, you can also submit your interesting video taken by SAMSUNG Galaxy SII, and who know your video might be the One who use for SAMSUNG next campaign! Do it now by click on the link : http://bit.ly/pa8JrF

Have you take any video by this phone before? It will be appreciate if you can share it.

Key-in any word you like to see how's the video react. (The Red arrow)

I did some video shooting on my GALAXY S and it's be able to produce a decent video clip...and I confident with the SAMSUNG GALAXY SII can even provide much better clip because of the Full HD feature. SAMSUNG Galaxy SII equipped with 8mb camera and be able to take FULL HD movie (1080p@30fps), that really produce nice and excellent video clips whenever you go! 

Just imagine that you carry a Full HD Video camera with you everyday - 24 hours that you Won't miss out any Precious moment around you, Great! :) Try it to Believe it!

I will try to shoot some videos by using the SAMSUNG Galaxy SII and will be post on this blog next week, do visit it and give some comments. Thanks.

Part 4 - Colombia in a 1968 Volvo Amazon

South America Road-trip in an old-timer

 A summer breeze warms my face as I look out from the old fortified city wall across the skyline of the new part of town. Cartagena de Indias, can you think of a better name for the place where we were to end this fantastic trip? A great finish to a great tour, but also a confirmation of my feelings about a country that has been longing to be discovered for over four decades. I visited Colombia for the first time in 1991 and was instantly won over; the nature, the colonial cities and the people... especially the people.

The next day we left our hotel at 10am for a 400km drive to Medellin. We had already heard that the first part would be relatively flat, then more or less sloping up until Manizales, and from there a final pass of 3,000masl just before Medellin. The road started out perfectly smooth, even turning into a four-lane highway of sorts after the first 25km. Intervals of two and four-lane roads, and road-works kept us on our toes, and it became clear that by next year this entire stretch would probably be much faster to traverse. We reached Pereira and entered the famous coffee region of Colombia, one of the more prosperous parts of the country. The region is one beautifully green and fertile land filled with coffee plantations doubling as hotels. One can spend a good time here between the picturesque towns of Pereira and Armenia, relaxing at the haciendas, learning all there is to know about coffee and enjoying the splendid natural surroundings. We sadly did not have much time to stop, but luckily I had been here before (see a few blog entries back).

We pushed on toward Medellin, which was still quite a long way off. We were experiencing some minor problems with the car. The passenger window had sunk into the door and decided it did not want to come up again, whilst dark clouds were gathering in the sky above us. The “Amp” light was on again, meaning we were once more driving without charging the battery, and the Volvo’s loyal engine was having difficulties adjusting to the climate and had started to heat up. We stopped at a gas station upon leaving Pereira, filled up our tank and provisionally sealed the window using an old raincoat and a lot of duct tape. As the rain started pouring out of the sky, we ordered and devoured one of the best hamburgers on our trip in the station’s cafeteria. This combined with really great service and one of the most impeccable toilets ever seen anywhere, let alone in a gas station, caused Johan to officially baptize the place as one of the very best pit-stops along the entire South American Pan-American Highway. And I think he was right!

Stomachs filled and window temporarily closed we drove on. Though half of our challenges were taken care of, the battery and overheating problems persisted. However, anyone who has driven an older car before knows that an overheating engine can be dealt with, at least temporarily, by turning on the car’s heater. That said, the fans that transport the hot air from the engine to the passenger compartment do so by means of electricity, so when your engine problem is combined with a battery charging issue, then you are kind of screwed. On the road to Manizales we were stopped by another one of those unexpectedly friendly police officers, who wished to see our papers. We killed the engine and did as we were asked. After a nice conversation we were told we could move on, but of course our battery was as dead as could be. Without much ado the police officer stopped another car and ordered the driver to help us jumpstart the Volvo, which was taken care of without questions and with much friendliness and ease. As we stood there with our heads under the hood of our 1968 travel companion, I had a closer look at the electrical wiring. I followed one of the wires that seemed to come from the alternator to one of the fuse-boxes and opened it. It seemed like one of the fuses was kind of dirty and not plugged in as tightly as it should be, but that was nothing a Swiss army knife and a band-aid from our first aid kit could not resolve. I have never been much of a McGiver, but the “Amp” light did not bother us anymore after that.

What with all the pit-stops we had kind of fallen behind schedule and had to make haste. Around 5pm, dusk set in just as we were headed back into the mountains. We had one last pass to conquer before we would be able to descend into Medellin. With the day fading, we found ourselves on a meandering mountain road littered with heavy trucks, slowing us down quite a bit. The car was not happy with this at all, and as well as having the now perfectly functioning heater at full blast, I had to resort to hitting the clutch, brake and gas pedals at regular 20-50m intervals to make sure the engine ran enough rpm’s to keep itself from boiling over. The last 25km were kind of tormenting, the temperature inside the car was around that of an over-eager Swedish sauna, and there was no way for us to escape the huge traffic jam slowly creeping down the hill into Medellin. We eventually reached the city limits around 8pm, but due to the maze of one-way streets that managed not to match with our map at all, it was another hour and a half before we finally found our hotel in the old city center. Old indeed, as our hotel, built in the 1940s, seemed not the have been touched since. We didn’t even bother to have dinner, but located our copper grandma beds and crashed straight away.

We checked out one early Sunday morning, and without having seen one bit of the much-heralded city of Medellin we hit the highway at 6am and made our way towards Cartagena de Indias. We had been informed about yet another 3000m pass we would have to cross 200km after leaving our hotel, and with another 500km to go after that, so we did not take any risks this time. The early bird factor, and the fact that it was Sunday and this is still a catholic country, made for sparse traffic (apart from many sinning cyclists) and we conquered the pass around 11am. After this point we descended easily into the next valley, which would be our stomping ground until reaching Cartagena that night. We made good time and even though we had left the mountains behind us the landscape was attractive and varied. We encountered very little traffic throughout most of the rest of the trip, and sometime around 4.30pm we only had 150km to go before Cartagena. Here we encountered a little more traffic and saw the damage done by the high waters of the past weeks. Colombia is graced by three Andean mountain ranges, intersected by three large rivers, all of which end in the Caribbean Sea near Cartagena. As all three of them had been processing much more water than normal, they had simultaneously overflowed, flooding many villages in the area. We passed numerous houses under water and crossed various bridges on the verge of being inundated by the huge mass of water surrounding us. Parts of some of the bridges had already given in, but we managed to cross them and drove into Cartagena through little back streets around 6pm. Of course we got neatly entangled in the evening peak traffic, but we did not care. Cartagena is a beautiful city, and we were happy to slowly finish the last part of our journey, savoring the salty air of the Caribbean after 10 days of hard driving all the way north from Lima. We eventually made it to the Hilton, our hotel for that night, located in the new part of town and looking out over the Caribbean Sea. A feeling of euphoria came over us and we lost very little time parking the car, stuffing our luggage in our rooms and cleaning up just enough to be allowed into the Café del Mar in the old part of town. A nice and cool place located on top of the fortified wall surrounding the old city, with spectacular views of both the city and the sea. Nothing could taste better than a couple of ice-cold beers to finish off yet another unforgettable trip.

The next day, December 20^th, Johan took the Volvo to the harbor from where it would be shipped back to Europe. Just before he left we said our goodbyes, as I would fly back to Lima that same afternoon and from there to Buenos Aires the next day. I was going to arrive in Peru around 1am and had arranged for a room in the Ramada Hotel at Lima Airport to catch as much sleep as possible before my 10am ongoing flight to BA. Of course my life would not be what it is if it had not thrown me one last little curve ball in the form of my old fried Guillermo Gomez, a pal from the early days in Peru, who had moved to Venezuela a long time ago, but who happened to be in Lima and decided it was time to pay me a short visit, even in the middle of the night. This is how I ended up in the hotel lobby drinking double pisco sours with a great friend until the wee hours of the night, missing my flight that next morning and almost arriving too late for Karin’s birthday the next day… Luckily everything was planned well ahead, so when I finally touched down at Ezeiza Airport at 7am on the 22^nd, my father was there to pick me up, while my visiting sister and my daughters had already arranged a beautiful breakfast in our garden. Karin just walked down the stairs when I entered the front door. “Ah, you’re back,” she said, “just in time!” We hugged and life was simply great.

Shana Tova!

Synagogue ceiling, Siret, Romania. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Shana Tova to all my readers! Thanks for your attention and comments!

May you have a sweet, satisfying and scintillating New Year -- and beyond!

I LOVE SAMSUNG GALAXY SII - The Sexy and Powerful Smartphone!

In the dilemma on selecting the Smartphone? Yes...I had the same situation before. There are too many brands and models in the market, sometimes it makes us really difficult to choose a phone for ourselves.

But all is over now! The new Samsung Galaxy SII is one of the nice and best performance Smartphone in the market for the moment. I had been attracted by the Sexy look for the first sight! It has a solid finishing outlook and equipped with the Dual-core 1.2Ghz ARM Cortex -A9 powerful CPU to handle all Hardcore App in the market. Click here for Full Specification.

Photo from : http://www.techdigest.tv/2011/05/review_samsung_12.html

The Samsung Galaxy S already became my Best Companion when I travel. I share my travel photos & videos along the way to Facebook and Twitter. Check my email anytime and do some browsing on the internet. Beside that...the phone also provide my exact location where am I, I use it as A Navigator. It's really Help! I believe the Samsung Galaxy SII can do much more better than this!

Hey! Do I mention about video? Please click the URL (http://bit.ly/pa8JrF) where you can enjoy the videos shared from the owners of Samsung Galaxy SII. Take note of the word - "Clcik Here!".

Well, I like the Sexy phone very much! Do you?

I Receive High Honor from Poland

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I'm honored and delighted to report that at a ceremony at the Polish Consulate in New York last night I received the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit  -- one of Poland's highest honors awarded to foreigners. Poland's President Komorowski presented the awards -- alas, I was not able to be in New York, but my friend who stood in for me took a video of the moment when my name was read out:

Given my history with Poland, going back more than 30 years, it is quite an honor! As my old friend and colleague Doug Stanglin reported in USA Today, this award comes 28 years after Poland's the-Communist regime arrested me, threw me in jail, interrogated me and expelled me on trumpted up "espionage" charges.

At Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, 1983

What a difference a few years and the fall of the Berlin Wall makes.

In 1983, at the height of martial law and the Solidarity worker's movement, Poland's communist-led government detained American reporter Ruth Ellen Gruber on suspicions of "crimes against the state."

The then-bureau chief for United Press International was hauled in for questioning by police, then expelled from the country.

Thursday, the Polish government was at it again, with a new proclamation aimed at Gruber.

This time, it bestowed on her the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit, one of the highest honors awarded to foreigners.

.Read full story HERE

Here's another story, by Polish Radio's English service:

Ruth Ellen Gruber, who remains an active commentator on Central European affairs, was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit by President Bronislaw Komorowski on Thursday at a ceremony at the Polish Consulate in New York.

Poland’s head of state is currently attending the UN General Assembly in New York, where he gave an address calling for solidarity among nations.

Gruber, who covered the Solidarity surge in Poland as a bureau-chief of United Press International, was deported from the country for “crimes against the state.”

As it was, Mr Komorowski was himself arrested by the Polish authorities during that period. As a Solidarity activist, he was interned after the declaration of Martial Law in December 1981.

Gruber was granted the award both for her coverage of the Polish bid for democracy, as well as her more recent work furthering Polish-Jewish understanding.

Letters from Europe (and Elsewhere), a collection of her articles, was recently published, as well as her work on the so-called Jewish revival in Poland – Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Central Europe. (nh/jb)

Read full story HERE

Modern Revelations Restaurant at Taman Molek, Johor Bahru.

Modern Revelations Restaurant (N1.52985 E103.79364) is located at Jalan Molek 2/3, Taman Molek - Johor Bahru.

Modern Revelations Restaurant at Taman Molek, Johor Bahru.

Visited the restaurant for Japanese BBQ dinner on one of the Saturday night, and it was crowded with customers!
The decoration is nice and every table provided with a chimney which suck out all the BBQ smoke.

Cozy and smokeless environment

They have many type of different foods and package and we decided for the Japanese Seafood BBQ package. The foods served on our table fast and the staffs provide good service!

The squids, fish and abalone.

We only chose the chicken and pork, didn't take any beef or mutton package...

The pork and the chicken

Salads

The special sauce

After all the foods served, the waitress put one unique and small BBQ pit on the table. That was really cute! :)

The BBQ seafood and others were Nice & Delicious! Especially the sauce! We were satisfied with the foods and the service here! I like the pork, it was tender and juicy! Yummy! All of us enjoy the BBQ session that night!
The Damage : MYR150.00 for 4 adults and 2 children included drinks. Well, it was reasonable and cheaper than the Korean BBQ Restaurant we visited before but there are totally different on the foods and the taste.

They have total of 3 restaurants at Johor Bahru located at 3 different places. Another 2 restaurant are located at Taman Sentosa and Taman Sutera Utama.

Modern Revelation Restaurant

44, Jalan Molek 2/3, 

Taman Molek,

Johor Bahru.

Tel : +607-3521803

http://www.modernrestaurant.com.my

Location map of Modern Revelations Restaurant at Taman Molek, Johor Bahru.

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Chinese Lion dance Competition on July 2011 at Jalan Hiok Nee, Johor Bahru.

Jalan Tan Hiok Nee (N1 27.385 E103 45.814) was having the Chinese Lion Dance Competition (High Poles) on the street for the first time in the month of July 2011.

There were total of 8 teams from other states of Malaysia participated in the competition. We were there slight late because we missed the first Lion from Malacca...

The whole area was packed with peoples! Luckily I found a nice spot just beside the poles.

Every participants were seriously performed in the competition, and that was really a nice show for the night at Jalan Tan Hiok Nee!
It also an eye opener for me because I'm never be so close to the competition area!

The jumping Lion!

It was Tough for me to take the photo that evening because of shooting fast moving object in low light situation. Most of my photos turn out blurred!

 

 The judges of the night

The organizers had warning those photographers that 'Please Don't Use Your Flash Light!'...but seems like none of them got the message! Everyone still Flash like nobody business!

The Lions came out one-by-one and they did the Best they can on the Poles, but unfortunately...some of them fall down! (cause by their skill or the flash?! I'm not sure...)

Too bad I had to watched the exciting show through the lens that night...

I really admired their fantastic skill (all the 8 teams), and they did well through all the difficulties on it! One of the amazing moment was when the lion bend down... (below)

The lion bend down, not falling!

The fall of the Lion

Total of 5 Lion's teams had fall from the poles that night, and most of them fall down at the highest pole at the back...

The Lion before it jump on the poles...

The Result : 2nd runner up belong to the Lion's team from Kelapa Sawit, Johor. 1st runner up was grabbed by the Kuala Lumpur team and the Champion belong to the Team from 'Kuan Sen Kong' Temple - Muar, they are also the World Champion for the past few years.

The Champion of the night! Kuan Sen Kong's Lion.

We were really impressed by the skill when they 'Fly', 'Jump' and 'Dance' on the poles! 

The performance of the Champion!

We were totally enjoyed the 2 hours Lion dance show that night especially my daughter! She was very excited! Haha!
Hopefully they will organize this type of event every year!

Location map of Jalan Tan Hiok Nee at Johor Bahru.

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Nice photo web site on Eastern European Jewish traces

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I've just come across the web site galiciantraces.com -- "a photographic documentation of Eastern European Judaica" by Charles Burns. It features a growing gallery of photographs and comments on Jewish heritage and heritage sites in Eastern Europe. It's worth a look.

He has arranged the photos by towns -- and there are dozens on the list. The are mainly in Ukraine and Poland -- but  he doesn't give the country or any other geographic location. I also wish he had included links to similar sites and other resources.

Ecuador to Colombia in a 1968 Volvo Amazon

South America Road-trip in an old-timer

After leaving Ecuador at Ipiales we entered Colombia, and when the torrential rain had subsided, we continued along the road to Pasto. We were not sure how the road conditions would be, but we needn’t have worried; it was in mint condition, recently asphalted and smooth as silk. We traversed through a spectacular, green and mountainous landscape, regularly passing waterfalls and enjoying views of fertile valleys. Both Johan and I have seen quite a bit of South America, but this was one of those moments when you are simply struck silent, taking in the awe and savoring it. Probably it also had something to do with the fact that we were driving into a country that until recently was considered too dangerous to visit, let alone drive through, and we were entering one of the areas still marked “grey” on the safety map of Colombia. The overwhelming natural beauty, and the peace and calm that the countryside beamed back at us simply did not marry with that cautious warning, or with the enormous road signs showing Colombian Special Forces with heavy weaponry and futuristic war-helicopters, which were, supposedly, protecting the area. We never saw anything even remotely resembling military, apart from a couple days later when we saw troops helping people out in the flooded areas to the north. The road was as safe as any we’d driven down already.

We reached Pasto at nightfall; a relatively small town in the mountains (150k inhabitants). We arrived at our hotel after an easy cruise through the town, parked our car in the garage and went for a short walk. During our walk we stumbled upon an impressive and surreal Christmas garden; an enormous stable with figurines belonging to the Christmas story, some of them higher than the actual buildings surrounding the park, and most of them decked out in rainbow neon lights. Large amounts of people roamed the park, stopping to buy things at stalls selling food, beverages and a wide array of religious objects. Again an unexpected and beautiful moment, enhanced by the warmth of the people we would learn to enjoy Colombia for.

The next morning we left for Cali. The sun was already beaming in the sky and before we knew it we were out of town and on the Pan-Americana Highway again. According to the owner of the hotel we just left, the road to Cali would be more mountainous and in some parts would be of worse quality, mainly due to the fact that lately this part of the country had seen a lot of rain and there had been several landslides. Still the entire stretch for today was only 380km, so we felt that making it to Cali before 5pm should not be too much of a challenge. The first part of the trip was mountainous indeed, sloping down from Pasto at 2500masl to more tropical surroundings at 700masl. Colombia seemed to be much more densely populated than the other countries we had passed through thus far and the road was busy with all kinds of traffic. Especially the large amount and great variety of trucks brought our traveling tempo down significantly. The scenery was pretty and we took our time, stopping to take pictures and enjoy the views whenever we felt like it. Even so, the road was in good shape and we expected to make it to beautiful Popayan around 1pm for lunch, but that turned out differently…

 Closing in on Popayan the road got hillier, and while we were cruising along the winding tarmac, all of a sudden we ran into a long line of vehicles. This of course happens from time to time, when roadwork is being done and one lane is closed off. During regular intervals traffic from one direction and then the other is given priority to take the lane left open. This was a different situation however, as we saw no traffic coming down the mountain and could not see where the jam started. Eventually we turned off our engine and got out of the car, just like everybody else. Our Volvo drew attention as usual, and several people came walking along for a friendly chat. Johan got talking to the owner of one of the cars in front of us, who was also en route to Cali, and meanwhile I went for a walk to find out what was causing this unexpected stall. I walked for a good 20 minutes and still hadn’t reached a point where I could see what was going on. What I did see were a couple of empty sand trucks coming down the hill looking like they had just unloaded. After some asking around I figured out that there had been a large landslide uphill and that the entire road had disappeared. The trucks coming down were the first of a series that had been commissioned from higher in the mountains to bring sand and rocks to fill in the missing part of road. Apparently these had already managed to cross the gap, so I started walking back to Johan and our car. When I arrived Johan was standing with a Colombian baby on his arm, salsa music blaring from the Volvo’s powerful speakers (the Xplod car stereo was definitely no old timer) and people smiling, dancing and taking pictures all around. Nice stop! We shared some snacks and water with other drivers and finally the first cars and motorcycles started coming down the mountain.

It still took a long time before we were could start driving again and in the end the whole episode took four hours out of our driving day. Lunch in Popayan was not an option anymore and we pushed on straight to Cali. During the wait we were approached by an elderly gentleman, also on his way to Cali, but by bus. He was on his way to visit his family there, but the bus ride would take him through Popayan where he would have to change vehicles and lose many precious hours, so he asked if we needed a guide to get us into Cali city in exchange for a ride. We said ‘no problem’ and that turned out to be a lucky move. Cali has over 2m inhabitants and we had no clue how to find our hotel. Funny enough our passenger happened to live very close to the hotel and as he knew the town like the back of his hand. It took us about 10 minutes to traverse the myriad of highways and little streets to arrive around 8pm to the front door of our hotel. We said goodbye to our passenger and ran into the bar for a few cold beers before retreating to our room with two super king-size beds for a good night’s sleep. Another day full of warm, spontaneous, exuberant and friendly Colombians and their beautiful country with spectacular landscapes, managed to send us to the land of dreams in a matter of seconds.

Italy -- Huge turnout for Jewish culture event in Rome

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Organizers report a huge "unprecedented" turnout for a Jewish culture extravaganza held in Rome Saturday night -- the "Night of the Kabbalah".

I wasn't able to attend, as I'm in Prague... but the Rome Jewish community reports that at one point more than 3,000 people stood in line to get in to the Jewish Museum for events. There were readings concerts, discussions, interviews etc etc etc

The event was organized as part of the annual  International Jewish book festival in Rome, which is on this week.

Part of the crowd. Photo: Rome Jewish Community

Kim Chi & BBQ Korean Restaurant at Taman Pelangi, Johor Bahru.

Kim Chi & BBQ Korean Restaurant (N1.48170 E103.77479) is located along Jalan Perang of Taman Pelangi, Johor Bahru. The restaurant is crowded during weekend, but they have different levels dining area for customers.

The Smokeless Environment was great! We waited for about 10 minutes for our table....

The nice environment of the restaurant

It is a BBQ style Korean restaurant just like some of the Japan Restaurant around Johor Bahru area.

We oedered the package which was served with : Pork Spare Ribs with bone, Thick Sliced Pork Belly Special, Roasted Saury, Ginseng Chicken Soup and Kimchee Pancake. (stated for 2-3 person) And also with all the Korean small side dishes...

The Korean side dishes were served on the table...

The Kinchi

Follow by the package we ordered...

The Roasted Saury

Marinated Pork Spare Ribs

Thick Spiced Pork Belly Special

Special vegetables

The vegetables above was nice!
The waiter/waitress here were friendly and one of them lighted up the charcoal to prepared the BBQ pork for our table. Their service was good!

Before the pork ready, we already finish the Roasted Saury and some of side dishes. Well, the Nice aroma from the BBQ pork! Less than about 10 minutes, the both type of pork were ready on the table!

The BBQ Pork from Kim Chi & BBQ Korean Restaurant

Our table was full of Korean foods

After they completed the pork, the Ginseng Chicken Soup and the Kim Chi Pancake were served...perfect timing!

The Ginseng Chicken Soup

Kim chi pancake

We were satisfied all the foods served by the restaurant. The Ginseng Chicken Soup was Special! The Saury was tasty, BBQ Pork was Delicious! My wife and daughter like the Kim chi pancake very much! I like the BBQ Pork Belly very much!
But...the portion served was too much for small family like us! We really sorry about some wasted foods on the table. The package was just nice to serve 3-4 adults, but we were only 2 adults and 1 child.
The Damage : RM120.00 included drinks and white rice.

The boss - Mr Park Sang Jun was a very friendly guy and he provide the Yakult healthy drink for every children for Free!

Beside the package, they also serve Ala Carte foods. This was a nice experience for us to dine in the restaurant, especially with the nice & friendly staffs around!

We will definitely visit the restaurant again! Of course with more peoples...

Kim Chi & BBQ Korean Restaurant

24, Jalan Perang,

Taman Pelangi,

Johor Bahru.

Tel : +607-3331700 / 6700

Location map of Kim Chee & BBQ Korean Restaurant at Taman Pelangi, Johor Bahru.

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