If you’re in Sibu and you’re looking for something different, other than those same old coffee shops, you can actually take a ride to the Tua Pek Kong Temple in Sibu.

No, I’m not asking you to worship the Gods, but right beside the temple, there’s a block of revamped building that houses Sibu’s finest lounge and cafe. The lounge is located at Jalan Chew Geok Lin. The once antique building looks great now after major refurbishment works.

The building is owned by Wah Tat Holdings. The lounge is closed in the morning, nothing’s happening there during daytime…but when the sun goes down…

Uncle Dom Cafe is the latest modern, franchise-style, Ipoh-kopitiam-themed outlet to be mushroomed in Sibu town. Of course, they don’t just serve Ipoh white coffee, they serve a fusion of Western and Eastern breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

What’s great about this place is its very vintage and originally Sibu’s design and decor. You can find lots of old photos of Sibu town as the wallpaper and wall photos.

When you look at the mascot. What comes into your mind?

There’s a “bank” in town that is open for business even on Sundays, and are the busiest on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, where most of the users are depositing small amount of money starting from RM1.10 to RM11, and a handful of them would bank in RM55, and up to RM110.

Those handful of users might had gone to the temple, or a fortune teller, or had a wet dream the other night.

Lottery betting is one of the biggest and most profitable business in Malaysia, as it is the ONLY form of legal betting apart from going up the hills to Genting Casino. Any other forms of betting activities will get you prosecuted.

Have you ever been to Kuala Lumpur? The Berjaya Times Square? Ya, the place where you shop for fashion clothes, and go for a IMAX 3D movie? The place where people countdown during the new year’s eve? Yeah, that place lorrr…

Well, you have to thank yourself for being one of the contributors to the funds of the building, because of your daily deposits to the Berjaya Group’s Sports Toto. They’re one of the largest and most profitable companies in Malaysia dealing with resorts, real estate, retailing, 7-Elevens, Cosway, education, and basically whatever you can think of…

They are the peoples waiting for fortune to happen, while the “bank” thanks them for all the fortune.

They’re also the ONLY bank in town that tells everyone how much money the users had deposited into the bank. Thanks to their jackpot system.

Now that you’ve read this post, go and bank in RM1.10 tomorrow for ‘9555′. I wish you good luck!

Wah Tat Bank was the oldest bank in Sibu. Founded by Chew Geok Ling and his business partner, Teo Chong Loh. The business started with Wah Tat Money Exchange and Remittances which was the forerunner of Wah Tat Bank.

In 2001, Wah Tat Bank merged with Hong Leong Bank to form the Hong Leong Bank Berhad that you see today.

The now defunct Sibu Wah Tat Bank building. Shot taken from the Sibu Tua Pek Kong temple’s pagoda. Click for larger view.

Mary and I were researching on HDR photography for quite a while now, and we finally took the initiative to have a go at it with Sibu town as the subject. It’s been pretty hot and sunny this few days, not a very good weather for photographing, but Mary brought over her dad’s infrared camera and this kind of weather is just perfect for infrared photography.

Let’s start off with some of our virgin works of HDR photos.

Sibu Old Town. The building with a green oval-shaped roof is the Sibu’s Hawker Centre, the biggest of its kind in Sarawak (or Malaysia?). Most of the shops here were built around the 1950s, surviving the World war II. Taken from the Sibu Tua Pek Kong temple’s pagoda.

If you need plywood or timber, please contact me, Alex @ +6013 8380 333, or e-mail me at ezylink@sibucity.net.

Common public impressions suggest that, Sibu is that dull and boring town, sitting by the unattractive milk-tea-colored muddy Rejang River, waiting for time to pass. The town might seemed so, but go further away, in the suburban forested areas, you’ll realize that this is not quite the case. There, you’ll see sawmills, timber yards, plywood factories of ISO standards, bustling and producing hundreds and thousands of cubic meters of timber products every month to feed the world’s hunger for wood.

Sibu houses a handful of global timber conglomerates, namely the Rimbunan Hijau Group, Ta Ann Group, Sanyan Group, WTK, The Sarawak Company, just to name a few, among other big private owners of sawmills and timber concessions. They’re the timber export powerhouse and the primary driving force of Sibu’s economy.

ISO standard plywood industry. At ground level, it doesn’t really tell the whole story of how big this industry is.