The Raptors are back

Pic above: Raptor Watch at Tanjung Tuan

Last Saturday was my second time visiting Tanjung Tuan wildlife sanctuary. The first was during a family trip to PD a few years ago and now, to catch the giant birds of the sky, an annual event organised by the Malaysian Nature Society.

Raptor Watch is a festival to celebrate the return of the mighty birds of prey. Many species of hawks, eagles and ospreys use Tanjung Tuan as the crossing point from Sumatra on the way back north to their original breeding ground. Tanjung Tuan is one of Malaysia's oldest forest reserves and wildlife sanctuaries. Many of us come to Tanjung Tuan to visit the old lighthouse (10th Mile Port Dickson) but i never did realise the significance of this land mass as a pit stop for birds of prey till now.

The rising hot air at Tanjung Tuan is important during this time of the year. The raptors use the hot air to glide as opposed to flapping their wings over the long distances which tire them.

When David and I arrived on the Saturday afternoon, scores of visitors and birders were already on their way to the light house to catch a glimpse of these tired birds, gliding effortlessly in the air. MSN members were seen busy counting the numbers of birds that flew to Tanjung Tuan this year. The last I saw, numbers stood at some 30,000.

Pic above: Oriental Honey Buzzard

Booths were also set up on that day for product exhibitions, sales of MSN merchandises and registration for forest walk, marine walk and games. The whole event was held at Ilham Resort, about a kilometer away from Blue Lagoon.

Definitely not for 'puteri lilin' material as the scorching hot sun was unforgiving that day. But then, with sunblock SPF 50, a cap, an umbrella and oh......a bottle of icy drink all ready at hand, made our visit to Tanjung Tuan much more tolerable.

Pic above: White-bellied Sea Eagle

All in all, it was great fun watching the birds flying around and as a bonus, we also managed to spot a dollarbird (glad that most people there could immediately tell that it is a dollarbird), sunbird, bulbuls, drongo and mynas. Most of these birds were spotted as we were exploring the nature trail at the Tanjung Tuan wildlife sanctuary.

Pic above: Dollarbird

More information can be obtained from www.raptorwatch.org or www.mns.my

Raptors, hope to see more of you guys next year!

Babyface Live in KL!

It has been almost 2 weeks since my last blog entry and I’ve come to realise that blogging is way too time-consuming for people holding full-time jobs like myself. No new posting, no traffic :(

…unless of course if you are a celebrity or some big shot! OK OK, so I got to be disciplined enough to write at least twice a week.

So with my ‘almost-can-die’ busy schedule, I am going to share my recent experience having witnessed the legend of R&B himself, Mr. Kenny Edmond a.k.a Babyface performed his solo concert here in Malaysia….woo hoo!

The event was held at the Plenary Hall, KLCC on the 5th of March. Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds performed here in Malaysia as part of his South East Asian tour.

I am glad to finally see the man who is responsible for producing number one hits for the world’s biggest-selling artists like Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Madonna, Eric Clapton and Michael Jackson. The singer, songwriter and producer has had several chart-topping hits of his own too such as “Every Time I Close My Eyes” with Mariah Carey (another favourite artist of mine), a track that was nominated for four Grammy’s Awards.

Through his own recordings, Babyface has helped to restore the smooth and sensitive R&B crooning style, making him one of the best-known faces of contemporary music, especially during my early twenties, when he was more active performing then (I am not sure whether the teens nowadays have heard about him or not).

I love the R&B genre and I was elated when I won 2 tickets to watch Babyface live via the Shout-Out-Song contest organised by Mix FM (Thank you guys!). My moment with the Mix FM breakfast crew, Rudy, Jay and Ferhad can be found in the Mix FM website but i uploaded it here as well.



Now, back to the concert…….

My husband and I reached KLCC about 8 pm and there were already many people at the venue.

Pic above: ticket to the concert

After collecting our tickets and as we made our way to our seats, I started reminiscing the last concert I’ve attended, which was actually a good 12 to 13 years back…..the Jon Bon Jovi’s concert held at Stadium Shah Alam. The band was fantastic, the singer blown me away and the atmosphere electrifying. I remembered jumping up and down on my seat, dancing to “It’s My Life” like there’s no tomorrow……..

Pic above: Queues before the doors opened

I have to admit I am very excited and slightly overwhelmed when the show finally started right on the dot at 9:30 pm. Before that, a local artist were performing.

Pic above : Sarimah Ibrahim's opening gig

Babyface looks just like ……..Babyface, well of course he is older now but hey, he can still croons. Besides doing the numbers that we usually hear him doing on the radio, he also performed a medley of songs that he produced for other artists such as "Change the world" by Eric Clapton, "Can we talk" by Terry Campbell and "End of the road" and "Mama" by Boyz to Men.



And when he sang THE song…….Everybody started singing with him…..especially when he reached the chorus part (song from “Every time I close my eyes”)

“And every time I close my eyes,
I thank the lord that I’ve got you,
And you’ve got me too,
And every time I think of it,
I pinch myself cause, I don’t believe it’s true
That someone like you, loves me too………”

(heart melted)

I am sure everyone in the audience feels the same way too…..including the men!


The concert lasted for about 2 hours. I was a bit disappointed that he did not do his version of "Take a bow" which he wrote for Madonna and the song which I think propelled him higher in his singing and song-writing career "Nobody knows it but me"

Overall, my hubby and I had a wonderful time. This is exactly the way I like to end my Mon-Fri work routine, especially after a week of reports, meetings and deadlines. Thanks to Babyface for gracing our Malaysian soil and the organisers for making it happen.

As I slipped into Lalaland that night………I broke into a smile, knowing that I will be humming songs from Babyface for another week… or maybe two……