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Peter and Pulau Pangkor
August 25th, 2009
Pulau Pangkor

Pulau Pangkor

Peter van der Lans is the brains and force behind Pulau Pangkor.com, a detailed site dedicated to helping tourists and locals alike find their way around the lovely island. Peter is a true fan of travels, for he is also the webmaster of 2 other sites: Bicycle Adventures and Yangshuo Travel Guide.

And…. our Penang Travel Guide was featured in Pulau Pangkor.com’s latest newsletter! We are delighted that he highly recommends our Penang Travel Guide, our gratitude to Peter!

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Posted by Pin Filed in Friends, Travel guide
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Adline at the Silk Ikats of Central Asia Exhibition
August 14th, 2009

Adline was in Australia recently for the Silk Ikats of Central Asia exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. My fellow travel writer, Adline brought the travelling exhibition from the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia where she is an Assistant Curator. The exhibition runs from 2nd July to 11th October 2009 and showcases 50 exotic and colourful robes and textiles, wall coverings and jewellery made through the complex process of dyeing and binding. What’s unique is that the colours of the ikats are obtained from natural resources like saffron, indigo plants, crushed cochineal insects and skins of pomegranates.

 

Adline unfolds a silk ikat after removing it from the packaging.

Adline prepares the stand which will hold the robe.

Charlotte Davy, senior exhibitions registrar, Art Gallery of New South Wales, and Rezad Adnan, operations officer from Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia and aka Adline's hubby =), position a robe on a plinth.

The robes and textiles are all in place in the exhibition.

Visit AGNSW’s Flickr for more colourful pictures! Do make a date with the historical ikats if you are in Sydney, entrance fees are $8 for adults and $5 for concession and members.

* Pictures, captions and details of the event courtesy of Adline.

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Posted by Pin Filed in Friends
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9 New Asian Destinations Added!
August 14th, 2009

We are pleased and excited to inform you that we have chosen 9 new destinations to work with our writers, all to help you get around, find the best eats and see the best sights in Asia!

We would also like to invite all travel website owners to join us and be part of the fun a4trip team! If you are interested in having your site contents compiled into a guidebook, please do contact us by filling up the ‘contact us‘ form. We are looking forward to hearing from you!

This time around, we’ve got:

1) Daegu Travel Guide
2) Doha Travel Guide
3) Guangzhou Travel Guide
4) Hiroshima Travel Guide
5) Istanbul Travel Guide
6) Macau Travel Guide
7) Seoul Travel Guide
8) Taipei Travel Guide
9) Tokyo Travel Guide

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Posted by Pin Filed in Travel guide
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Who’s Behind Those Languages?
August 13th, 2009
People around the world can now read our posts, thanks to our wonderful team of translators who stretched out, reached them and spread the good word around in various languages! Let’s take a look into who works behind the scenes, those multi-lingua walking dictionaries :)
 

Maria Noel

Maria Noel

 

Maria Noel is our Basque language expert. Born in Argentina, she is now a History professor and Basque language teacher and plans to further her studies in Mythology and Ancient Religions. Certainly a great addition to the team, Maria is a proud mother of a 10-year-old boy and a 4-month old girl. One who has travelled quite extensively to Spain, Basque Country and England, Maria has ‘travelled’ and ’seen’ even more by working for the team!
 

Jessica

Jessica

 

Jessica is one passionate translator. Doing Chinese Traditional translations for us, she found translating so enjoyable that she quit her job to concentrate on freelance translation and has no regrets since! Jessica has an MA in Children’s Literature, loves reading and travelling and hopes to travel around the world one day.
 

Ahmed Amin

Ahmed Amin

 

Ahmed Amin, our Arabic translator, is one very busy man. He does business administration and tutoring, and we are lucky that he still manages to find time for us! Working in the UAE, Ahmede is currently on vacation in Egypt. His trip would surely be a interesting experience to share with us when he comes back.
 

Stefan Petkes

Stefan Petkes

 

Stefan Petkes is our Romanian translator and proud father to Andra, his lovely 14 month old daughter.
 

Rei

Rei

 

Rei is our Japanese translator who has lived in the US for the past 8.5 years. She has many years of translating, 6 years to be exact! She has worked mainly with theatre and film, doing scripts, letters and reviews. Truly a ‘woman of words’ :)
 

Emma Cazabonne

Emma Cazabonne

 

Translating our sites to the romantic language of French is Emma Cazabonne. She is an Emma of many trades! She has written a book titled “A Light to Enlighten the Darkness: Daily Readings for Meditation During the Winter Season”, paints rocks, teaches English and tutors French via Skype. If you want an image immortalized in a unique way, send her a picture and she can paint it on a rock for you! Check out her site.
 Liang Qin Liang Qin is our Simplified Chinese  translator, working for a busy company in China and is also a part-time freelance translator. She used to live in the UK and has an Msc in Applied Psychological Research there. She traveled a lot in Britain and loves the beautiful view there, however is upset to having had no time to looking around in the Europe. She also likes Chinese cooking and Chinese music. She is hoping to travel around the world and making more friends, and letting more people to know about China!
Debora Perricone

Debora Perricone

Debora Perricone is 28 years old, lives in Turin, Italy and is happily married :D She is a freelance translator and also works for a company. She graduated in Foreign Languages and Literature with a thesis in Cinema History and Criticism. She loves cinema, English and North American Literature and traveling.

Matthias Heining

Matthias Heining

 

Based in Bavaria, Germany is Matthias Heining. He now wants to visit Malaysia after getting enticed by a4 trip! He is one who loves talking for hours, hates bad exchange rates, loves “The Scream” by Edvard Munch, dislikes unfair people and enjoys working with Linux and Unix. He seems to be a truly colourful character!
 

SunYoung (Sophie) Henderson

SunYoung (Sophie) Henderson

SunYoung(Sophie) is our Korean translator who currently lives in Canada. She has travelled through most of Asia, Europe and Canada so far! Her favourite travel spot would have to be amazing Laos. She found every part of Laos incredible, relaxing and very beautiful. She loves travelling and seeing the world. She hopes her next adventure will take her to somewhere in Central America or Africa!
 

Ehsan Forghani

Ehsan Forghani

This is Ehsan Forghani, our Persian translator and aged 21 years old. His biggest goals in life are to be a great music composer, mastering English and developing computer games. He plays the guitar and loves it. He’s says that he’s not a very talkative guy, studies computer science and wants to pay tribute to the people who helped him in this duty: Mr. Hadi Forghani, his father and his friend, Moeen Tabrizi.

pic1

Melanie Mosqueda

Melanie Mosqueda is our Tagalog translator. A registered nurse with a BS in accountancy, Melanie started doing translations when she volunteered for the UN. She is now learning Norwegian and very soon, she could be our Norwegian translations too!
Vanessa Martin Quintana Vanessa Martin Quintana

 

Our Spanish translator is Vanessa Martín Quintana . A true fan of languages and art, she has studied translation, interpreting, film and indology and is also a coach in Neuro Linguistic Programming! She currently works in Munich as a freelance translator and media designer. She loves India for its romanticism and also for her love of Tantrism.

Also in our team is Joanna Trinh who does the Vietnamese translation and based in Malaysia, Mirna Soininen works on the Finnish ones, our Hungarian translations are done by Matyas Gyongyosi and Kelly M. Matos is our Portuguese expert.

A big thanks to them for their role in reaching out to the world!

You may want to take a look at our related posts
Posted by Pin Filed in Behind the scene, Friends, Role and responsibility, Translation
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We Love Our Wives :)
August 5th, 2009

It’s our annual trip back to Tronoh, Perak for Ching Beng. This time is special. A new addition family member is following. Yep! She is my wife. First time this part of Perak State and never heard of Kellie Castle. So we decided to show her. After all it’s just along the way.

Kellie Castle is actually a big mansion build by Mr. Kellie early 20th century for his wife. The building was never complete as Mr. Kellie died while on a trip to Europe. The building was left in ruined until a few years ago the state government decided to turn it into a tourist attraction.

Kellie's castle, standing tall and pretty.

My wife is hot ;)

To go there, exit from North-south expressway from Gopeng and head towards Ipoh. Upon reaching Ipoh there is a junction which indicate Batu Gajah. Turn into that road and after about 15 minutes you will reach Kellie Castle which situated along a river bank by the road side. Sure to spot it. It’s the only half complete and big structure which also look Victorian or maybe Tudor. I am not so sure which is which. At least we have a castle even it is just a very big house.

Thanks to Yong for sharing his experience and also kind enough to provide directions for those who might want to head there after knowing about the place!

You may want to take a look at our related posts
Posted by Pin Filed in Activities, Experience
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