Welcome
Welcome to my homepage! If you share a keen interest in photography, travel, adventure and living life, I hope through this website and blog, I can share my life journeys with you. Being a keen outdoor adventurer, I love photography, the great outdoor, classic cars, mountain biking, camping, trekking and offroad expeditions. JOHN KONG
HARRINGTON SUITES – THE FIRST GOLD RATED RESIDENTIAL GREEN BUILDING IN SABAH
IF YOU SOW THE RIGHT SEEDS, YOU WILL REEP THE BOUNTIFUL FRUIT
Harrington Suite is a 30-storey luxury condominium located in the vicinity Luyang. Throughout the whole product development, we have a clear vision that security, privacy and the exclusivity is our main emphasis. The whole building is only accessible by the smart card system and we have incorporated the idea of individual lifts where residents are brought up straight to their foyer via the smart card system.
We are dedicated to advocate energy conservation and environmental sustainability into our building design.
We look into many aspects into achieving this green building. For example for the building envelope, we study the sun angle, where to cut out the light, we pun in extra features like fin walls on the outside to cut out lights from a particular angle from the sun carefully study to reduce the heat gain from outside. Besides looking into the building envelope design, we also into ways to cut down electricity usage inside the building. This includes provide LEDs to all the building units and also all the common areas.
We also provide inverter air-conditioning to all the residential units and for the common areas, we also provide natural ventilation. All led lights in the common areas are also controlled by motion detectors. When no one is in the vicinity, the lights will dim automatically.
Besides energy, we look into ways to safe water in the building which includes rain water harvesting systems. All the rain water from the roof is collected through our rain water filtering systems and stored in our 9 harvesting tanks located on the 6th floor. From there, all this water which has been filtered will go to top up the swimming pool, for the common area washing and watering of the landscape gardens and green walls of the building.
We also look into other ways to reduce the materials impact from this construction. We picked materials which can be sourced locally where we can which are not directly harvested from the rainforest. We picked the low organic volatile compound (VOC) materials, zero for malty height glues as well as top quality water proofing adhesives in all our internal finishing works.
To minimise construction after OC, we also provide fully furnished condo units where practically the owners can just move in with the suitcases. After obtaining the OC, we are now in the operation phase of the building where we are now working with the MC and also with the residence on the recycling programme, We have provided recycling centre on each floor and also a recycling centre at the back of the building where the plastic and etc will be sorted out and recycled. We also have food composting programmes where the wet trash from the kitchen can be composted into organic earth for the gardening needs.
THIS IS THE FIRST RESIDENTIAL BUILDING TO BE RATED GOLD IN SABAH.
Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) in the course of construction plays a very important part too to ensure that the quality of the structural construction meets and beyond the requirements as specified in the structural designs. The building has also been re-enforced during construction after the 0.6 scale earth quake which structed Sabah on June 15, 2015.
I must say I am not a collector of vintage cameras but rather I just loved to own a piece of history if I chanced upon something and here are some of the items that were lying around in my gallery and office. Some were bought and some were given to me by friends from as far as England. The oldest item is the list has to be the suitcase which is about 100 years old at the time of writing and the 9.5 mm projector which is 95 years old.
Vintage Cameras
Photography has been around in various forms since the dawn of the 19th century, so there are a good two centuries’ worth of photographic devices out there to capture the imagination.
Not surprisingly, this means there are many subsets and strands of camera collecting. Some people are keen on a particular make or brand of camera, whereas others will look for cameras from a certain period, or which have been owned by celebrities. A lot of it has to do with personal preference and interest.
Certain cameras are considered more collectable than others, though. The value of a vintage camera is often a matter of supply and demand. The vintage camera that I have around are not in mint conditions, just chanced upon them during my travel to abroad in markets and garage sales so here goes. Read More
We are pleased to announce that the Borneo Expedition will be covering and filming Episode 2 of our overland adventure series this year by joining the Trans Borneo event organised jointly by North Borneo Explorer (NBE) of Sabah, Malaysia and P.T. Java Adventura of Java, Indonesia.
This episode was aired in ASTRO Channel 109 and RTM in 2019.
BRIEF HISTORY OF TRANS BORNEO
Trans Borneo started in 1988 when a group of former ex-Camel Trophy participants led by Yamin Vong, Dr. Zaini, Taib Khamis and the ACKL (Adventure Club Kuala Lumpur) members, decided to do a similar type of event in East Malaysia.
The first event started in Kuching and took participants on the roads less travelled towards Kota Kinabalu. The rugged clothes, bandana on their heads, participants with mud-boots, and mud-filled vehicles captured the public’s imagination and sparked off massive interest in off-roading in Sabah and Sarawak. In 1989, the event started in Kota Kinabalu heading towards Kuching.
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Today is my big 50th Birthday. In car terms, that is vintage status. Friends around my age group and elder will say it’s just a number and life is just beginning!
I must say my journey has not been entirely smooth. As a young man entering adulthood, I remember feeling like my potential was infinite. At 17, my first job was at McDonald’s in Melbourne, Australia. Graduated in 1989, came straight home to Kota Kinabalu to start my career as an Accountant and later started Ocean Pro Boats manufacturing in 1995 at Lumut, Perak as a young entrepreneur. The financial downturn in 1997 has caught me and I lost everything in 2000; the business, properties and my fiance of 7 years…
Blessed with supportive friends, family and a “Never Give Up” attitude, I re-discover my inner self, my strength and my weaknesses. As I always have a passion for arts, cars, sports and the great outdoors, this has given me strength to pick up a camera and started photography to share my vision through my lens and has never looked back. It’s important that we must be passionate and love what we do to live a quality and fulfilling life.
From my experience, the key in life is finding our balance. We have found our balance when we start to appreciate what we have, and not worried of what we don’t or lost. This applies to all aspects of life, our career and relationship. We can only do so much within our limits and never let other factors to push us over our limits.
I’ve made a lot of memories in my 50 years and I know for a known fact that I will not be given another 50 so death will eventually come one day. A great philosophy is that every new day from today onwards is a bonus!
SO THANK YOU FOR A GREAT 50 YEARS to all to the people that have shared it with me thus far and I bless you all my friends, my family members, my son Ian and lastly my lovely daughter, Abegale.
Have a great life ahead!
Love and Hugs
JOHN KONG, May 2017
Meet 5-year-old Henry and his 9-year old brother, Adren, from Kampung Sungai Magandai, a remote village in the Kota Marudu District presently only accessible by off-road vehicles. Henry and Adren do not enjoy the modern pleasures of iPads, Disney channels and things that our children take for granted in their daily life. Sunday means making two wooden swords from pieces of wood and a game of sword-fighting begins. Henry and Adren are part of the 6 children of Kokop, aged 48 and his wife Marinok, 34.
The eldest daughter Nervina (20) works as a babysitter in Kota Marudu and her younger brother Zidan (17), currently works as a factory worker in Kota Kinabalu for a wage of only RM300 a month. Their 3rd child aged 15 also works as a babysitter in Tandek for a minimal wage of RM300 per month. Their youngest daughter, Elviana is only 2 years old.
Kokop’s house is a 3-kilometre walk from Kg. Sungai Magandai and is currently in a very rundown state. The roof is full of leaks and walls are made of tree barks. Kokop barely makes less than RM50 a month from the sale of wild vegetables gathered from the forest. They have no piped water nor electricity in their house. Water is sourced from the river below and cooking is done with firewood where chicken meat and other meats are only for special occasions.
These are some of the current living conditions of the 100 homes of the Dusun Sonsogon people of Kg Sungai Magandai which has an estimated population of about 600 people. The lives of these 100 homes are about to change for the better.
THE SWEPA BAREFOOT SOLAR PROJECT
The Sabah Women Entrepreneurs and Professionals Association (SWEPA) is a Non-Governmental Organisation established since 1994. SWEPA aims to bring women entrepreneurs and professionals to the forefront in the economic development of the state and nation.
Headed by SWEPA Barefoot Solar Project Organising Chairlady Datin Jeanette Tambakau, and SWEPA Deputy President Datuk Aminah Ambrose, SWEPA is working together with Barefoot College in India, founded by Mr. Bunker Roy more than 40 years ago with a geographic focus on the least developed countries, to train women worldwide as solar engineers, innovators and educators, who then return to their villages to bring light and learning to their community.
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