On the Riverfront

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For those who live abroad and haven't been back to Kuching for a while and not seen what the riverfront (where the buildings accomodating the poultry and vegetable markets used to be) now look like, this posting is for you ...

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Although I'm still saddened by the demolition of the historic wet market buildings along Gambier Road, and the hardship this caused many traders who had sold their ware there for generations, I must admit the Sarawak River scene from the new frontage is quite peaceful and beautiful.

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Selamat Gawai Dayak

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Name the Town

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Here's a little quiz to test how well you know your Sarawak. If you have been travelling around the towns and cities of our great state, some of these statues and monuments should be quite familiar to you. I must admit that when Leo Sia first sent these photos to me, I was completely stumped by some of them. It just goes to show that I've got to do a lot more sightseeing within Sarawak.

Out of the following, let's see how many you score (one is an obvious giveaway, of course) ...

Town 1

Town 2

Town 3

Town 4

Town 5

Town 6

Town 7

Town 8

Town 9

Town 10

An added incentive is that the first one who gets all ten absolutely correct will receive some automotive accessories. So what are you waiting for ? Send your attempts to me at jslyong@hotmail.com .
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Revisiting the Library

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When was the last time you visited our St Joe Library? For me it was probably 1976 or 1977. Well, last week Bob Chew and I visited the school principal Mr Thomas Lau for a discussion on areas the Class of 1976 could give back to the school. During that visit, we were shown various parts of the school including the library. I thought some of you might be interested to see what the library looks like now, so I took some photos.

Well, here's the main entrance ...

After you enter, there's a large librarian desk area on the left ...

Then there are half a dozen or so rows of private study cubicles ...

A pair of common use computers sit in one corner ...

You then have to go through some glass doors to get to the second section ...

The book shelves looked very familiar. Looking more closely, I discovered that they were the very same shelves from the time of the 70s.

Towards the other end, there are some locked rooms, one of which contained several more computers for student use.

Walking through the library brought back many memories. This was a place that some of us spent many hours in, and got to know extremely well back in our day.

The place looks reasonably well maintained, but obviously more can be done to improve the collection of reference books, upgrade the computing tools and possibly enhance the physical furnishings.