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Monday morning brings me, Ding, Sarah, Andy, and Kai Tzin to a bak kut teh joint in Klang – that famous under the bridge bak kut teh restaurant that many people have been talking about but I never got around to going.

So yeah I woke up at about 6.40am and waited for Ding to arrive, at about 7.30am. We then left my place towards the general direction of Klang, and as usual, we were greeted with the early morning rush hour and was stuck considerably at the Summit traffic light – ditto that when we arrive in Klang, which, needless to say, was pretty damn clogged up with vehicles too.

When we finally made it to our destination, Andy ordered for us since he has been there before, and what came surprised us as it wasn’t the usual large pot filled with bak kut teh as nearly every other bak kut teh joints are doing: what they had was a small bowl filled with bak kut teh (pork, soup and all) for each individual, while at the centre of the table was a bowl filled with the poor pig’s revolting internal organs like its grey, mucky intestines…

I actually hate pork – something that my mum and/or my friends used to tease me that I’m a born Muslim wtf but I just couldn’t stand the soft, disgustingly mushy steamed meat of a pig. If it’s fried, then I couldn’t care less since most fried meat taste nearly the same anyway.

Bak kut teh in small bowls!

My favourite yao char kuai, when mixed with the bak kut teh soup = a heavenly mixture of herbs that titillates your tastebuds when you bite on a not-quite-soft piece of the normally crunchy yao char kuai. The trick is to not soak the yao char kuai for too long! Just for several seconds enough to make sure the yao char kuai is soaked in the herbal goodness like a prepped-up sponge would do. Putting that in your mouth ensures that a healthy amount of the herbal soup will spill forth into all four walls of your mouth when you chew on a piece – pure orgasm.

Another look at one of my favourite food. =) (Must be mixed with the bak kut teh soup!)

Us talking after cleaning up our food.

Jengjengjeng Ding also had a ticket from MPK (Majlis Perbandaran Klang) for parking illegally on the roadside. >_> It was funny as the servers were shouting “Saman saman!” urging their customers to rescue themselves from a fine wtf.

Ding sipping the fragrant jasmine tea, Kai with his ‘whatever’ look, Sarah engaging in a serious talk.

Damage done: about RM14 each person for this morning breakfast.

We headed back, and we were greeted with yet another round of jam despite the fact it was nearly 10am or so. We also now know that those living or working in Klang are a bunch of rule-breakers as you can easily see a line of cars going against the “No entry” sign to escape the jam, U-turning at “No U-turn” signs, and at one point, even going against the direction of the arrow.

After dropping Sarah off, Ding, Andy, and Kai dropped by at my house as Andy wanted to copy over some episodes of Heroes, and I took the chance to ask Andy (who had worked before in a PDA shop in the past) to help me stick my newly-purchased RM10 screen protector on my phone.

Which took a painstakingly long time.

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Because it’s high-tech and an ‘in’ thing to do these days in the age of the GPS (maklumlah other countries have been using it years ahead of us already), I took a GPS snapshot of the bak kut teh joint with my handphone, uploaded it to this website called locr and the resulting image can be found here! IS THIS NOT COOL OR WHAT!! (Make sure you zoom in on the map at the indicated point and you’ll see that it IS indeed under the bridge wtf.)

I’ve also discovered a function of Google Maps that I’ve never thought of using before – and this is something I’ll be doing from now on: planting ‘pins’ on the map using GPS coordinates of all the greatest food joints in Malaysia. =D And anyone on the world can use this specific map. (So far only got one pin lah obviously, since I’ve just started out. Sigh if only I have a GPS-enabled phone with me when I went backpacking last time =( can do all these nifty things with points of interest etc!)

View Larger Map
Google Maps’ display of Klang’s under the bridge bak kut teh. Make sure you click on the blue pin too!

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I used to be really anal and ‘purist’ when it comes to photography, in that I believe that each image should not be edited in any way to retain what exactly has been captured by the camera – that whatever image you produce should be conveyed solely by your camera-handling skills. But of course, that mindset disappeared and I realised that Photoshop or whatever post-processing methods that a photographer uses isn’t a bad thing – we’re using whatever tools available to reproduce our art as long as that is the story that we want to tell.

Which is why I know I wouldn’t win the Canon Photomarathon Asia 2008 at all as I’ve been relying too heavily on post-processing to bring out the best in my pictures – and that rule of no post-processing basically meant we had to rely 100% on our skills alone.

But how exactly do we draw a line between acceptable post-processing and ethically wrong post-processing? I know a photographer who showed me a picture of the most beautiful and colourful sparks of fireworks lighting up the night sky with the bright Petronas Twin Towers next to it – and he showed me, how, with a little Photoshop, he ‘cut’ the dazzling fireworks from another picture to replace the actually dull fireworks on the picture he was showing me.

I didn’t know whether to congratulate him for his amazing Photoshopping skills or chide him for misrepresenting and misleading his viewers (he has a popular blog) – because there really isn’t such magnificent fireworks at a grand scale at KLCC that night.

Oh sure, it’s just fireworks and it’s not like he Photoshopped our prime minister’s face on a naked buffed body or something, some of you may think – but really, where and how do we draw the line between acceptable Photoshopping and the unacceptable?

Personally, I utilise simple post-processing methods (nothing more than a few clicks here and there) to edit a picture to convey the ‘feel’ that I want, and I certainly didn’t add or remove artifacts here and there, so you know that my pictures are 100% ‘genuine’ in a way. Every single wrinkle on a face is still there, so does every single fat in one’s tummy wtf.

As long as the photos do not mislead the viewers into believing something that doesn’t exist, that’s where the line should be drawn.

Opinions? Comments? Any arguments from the opposing side?