Klang Valley’s Soul of the Night – discovered, captured and shared

Blogger Suanie and Multimedia University student wins in the Nokia N82 Wireless Adventure 2! Kuala Lumpur – Eight teams raced against each other last Saturday, 5 April, to uncover Kuala Lumpur’s hidden gems and little known treasures in the Nokia N82 Wireless Adventure 2: Discover the Soul of the Night (SOTN).

Blogger Suanie (www.suanie.net) and Frankie Tiau Tze Yit, Multimedia University Malacca student emerged as winners of the sequel to last year’s Wireless Adventure, walking away with an all expense paid trip to Hong Kong and RM1500 cash money.

This year’s race challenged teams to take to the streets of Kuala Lumpur at night in a bid to sift through the city’s bustling night life, capturing interesting but little-known places with the Nokia N82 multimedia computer and sharing it with the rest of the world via the SOTN online platform.

“Initially I was not all that enthusiastic, because I have been living in KL and Petaling Jaya for seven years. But during the race, something just came over me and I felt a rush of excitement and eagerness to showcase what KL has to offer from our point of view. If we were given more time, I believe we would have been able to cover more hidden treasures because there’s just so much to do in KL!” said an ecstatic Suanie after she was announced the winner of the race.

“For me it was a little more challenging as I’m not originally from KL. I wasn’t confident that I could win since I wasn’t familiar with KL. But like Suanie, I got really pumped up. It was a really interesting experience for me and the rain, time constraits, traffic jams made it even more exciting. I’m still reeling from the shock that I’ve won!” said Frankie.

Some of the places which were discovered by the winning pair were The Curve’s Street Market, a view of the KL skyline from Le Meridien Hotel’s 8th and 33rd floor balcony, an impromptu street dancing competition at the corner of Jalan Bukit Bintang, Sri Paandi Indian Restaurant along Jalan 11/4 and Big Shot Archery in Maju Junction.

Andrew Cheong, Managing Director, Nokia Malaysia, who flagged off the race from One Utama, Bandar Utama said: “The Discover the Soul of the Night campaign is an initiative from Nokia to connect individuals and communities around shared interests and passions. Through this campaign we are creating a platform where everyone can share insights into the ‘soul’ of their city and discover, capture and share their experiences instantaneously through their mobile devices.”

“The race brought this seamless sharing experience to life. Almost everyone has a favourite night hangout, makan place, cafe or club, and these aren’t necessarily commercial or touristy places. In fact, it’s more likely that you hang out more often at the mamak stall just around the corner. This was what our eight teams discovered – interesting places hidden away in the nooks and crannies of the city,” he added.

The teams made use of the Nokia N82 to navigate through the streets of their city at night, discovered unique locations matching the clues provided, and then captured and shared the images instantaneously on the internet through high-speed wireless connections, revealing the ‘Soul of the Night’ in their city.

This year, the eight teams comprised of members of the media and selected bloggers. The teams were:

Team 1: Afiq Hanif (Harian Metro) and Sharon Khoo, Senior Designer
Team 2: Blogger PinkPau (www.quaintly.net) and David Liow, Engineer
Team 3: Blogger Kimberly Cun (www.kimberlycun.com) and Fairuz Sidik, IT Entrepreneur
Team 4: Liang Lai Sin (Sin Chew Daily Cyberworld) and Tan Hooi Han, Architecture Student
Team 5: Aref Omar (NST) and Sabrina Peter, Dentistry Student
Team 6: Sam Cheong (The Star) and Sadat Foster, Corporate Communications Executive
Team 7: Blogger Suanie (www.suanie.net) and Frankie Tiau Tze Yit, Student
Team 8: Blogger SmashPop (www.smashpop.net) and Szetoo Weiwen, Communications Student

Each team walked home the Nokia N82 as well as consolation prize of RM500 Robinsons and Marks&Spencer Shopping Vouchers. Judges of the race comprised of Joanne Foo, Marketing Services Manager, Nokia Malaysia; Glen Cha, Product Marketing Manager, Nokia Malaysia; Hazel Abu Samah, Communications Manager, Nokia Malaysia; as well as SOTN Ambassadors Adrian Yap, freelance writer and boo_licios of www.masak-masak.blogspot.com.

Discover the Soul of the Night continues

The discoveries do not end here. Now that the race is over, adventurous Malaysians can still log on to the SOTN website at www.nseries.com/soulofthenight to share discoveries with one another or just explore the discoveries of other Malaysians.

Registered users can upload images of their places they’ve discovered, write a short description about that place and record location information. They can also “Tell a friend” about their new locations, post comments and check out where other people like to hang out.

And if you think you’ve discovered all there is about Malaysia, check out the six other countries in Asia Pacific.

The Nokia N82 Soul of the Night initiative spans seven countries across Asia Pacific - Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Australia, Thailand and Vietnam. Similar programmes will be rolled out across the six countries with consumers in each market being encouraged to go out, discover, capture and share.