Ampang Nine Emperor Gods Festival 2014

If you are looking for 2015's  Nine Emperor Gods Festival dates and blog entries, do click on this post "Coming Up... Nine Emperor Gods Festival 2015". Else do continue to view the timelapse video at the bottom of the post before heading on to this year's event. Cheers.

The Nine Emperor Gods Festival is on again this time of the year. The festival starts in the eve of the ninth month of the Chinese calendar (23 Sept 2014) with the raising of the flagpole, followed by nine days of prayers, vegetarian diet and purification ceremonies.

The Nine Emperor Gods Temple in Ampang before the start of the festivities.

This year, I am unable to cover the festival in Ampang due to travel plans. For those who are around, do go and have a look, especially on the evening of the eve where they invite the Nine Emperor Gods to the temple, and on the evening of the second day (25th Sept) where they invite the Finance minister to the temple. The usual list of events are as follows:

• Eve of festival - 23 Sept 2014    -  Lantern pole raising and invitation of Nine Emperor Gods
• Day 1 - 24 Sept 2014
• Day 2 - 25 Sept 2014 - Invitation of Finance Minister
• Day 3 - 26 Sept 2014
• Day 4 - 27 Sept 2014
• Day 5 - 28 Sept 2014
• Day 6 - 29 Sept 2014
• Day 7 - 30 Sept 2014
• Day 8 - 1 Oct 2014     - Bridge crossing ceremony
• Day 9 - 2 Oct 2014     - Fire walking ceremony

To read more about the festival and follow it, do visit Cheryl Hoffmann's site about the festival, where you can obtain a lot of information about the festival and enjoy her lovely photos. As a preview, here is a mash up of some timelapse that we did last year, which needs a lot of work done on it. To all my friends going to the festival, take lots of photos and enjoy!



.

Malaysian Orchid of the Day - Renanthera elongata

Renanthera elongata - Tree on Fire orchid

This is the same plant that I have blogged previously in this article. Currently it is growing well with three leads. Only the one that had overgrown the support tree has produced inflorescence.

Happy Merdeka Post - FRIM Kepong Botanical Garden

Last Friday we were lucky to get a 'guided tour' by a Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM) staff to visit a few of their nurseries and the Kepong Botanical Garden, which is currently under FRIM's jurisdiction. The visit was an eye opener to the rich biodiversity treasure that we have in our forest, and to hear of how these treasures were threatened by development and ignorance was sad indeed, especially when our nation will be celebrating her 57th birthday.

Crown shyness exhibited by Dryobalanops aromatica (Kapur trees) at FRIM. The forest floor was littered with their germinating seeds, which also smelled like camphor.

So here's some photos of the plants, trees and interesting stuff that kept our cameras occupied and our brain working hard.

Zingiber spectabile - one of the showy true gingers of our rainforest. I nicknamed this 'Ladies Delight' as the ladies in our group were going ooohs and aaaahs over it. Not too sure if it was the length, shape or colour that got them so excited about it.

Begonia rajah in the nursery. Our native begonias do have a lot of potential as showy garden plants

Alpinia mutica flowers - there's a bee in one of the flowers.

Nelumbo nucifera from one of the ponds in Kepong Botanical Garden

Another pretty lotus bloom that caught my eye.

Love the yellow stamens of the sacred lotus.

An interesting ginger inflorescence and bloom. Love the way the inflorescence spirals around the central axis.

Shimmering blue Selaginella sp.

Another shot of the shimmering blue Selaginella sp.

Dianella ensifolia (Siak-siak). The fruits are a striking blue colour.

Looking for Smurfs, but found none... Toadstools were sprouting everywhere.

Peliosanthes teta - Derhaka mertua. It is a medicinal herb.

Calanthe ceciliae blooms. Someone says that it looks like a dog, specifically, like Patrick the dog, lol.

Seeds of the Kapur trees (Dryobalanops aromatica) cover the forest floor, and most of them were germinating.

Seedpod of Grammatophyllum speciosum (Tiger orchid) with the petals and sepals still intact.