Friday, July 27, 2007
As you all know, I went to Malaysia (again....). This time was for business then fun. The trip started at 9pm. I went to New Park Hotel to meet the rest of the team before we boarded the bus to Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia. The bus ride there was uneventful and I slept or at least rested all the way. The rest stop was Yon Peng, the same place I ended up on my first trip to Malaysia 3 weeks earlier. The place looked more quiet but then again it was 12am in the morning.
I slept the rest of the journey. Woke up at 4am in the morning. Stoned till Chee Yen, Mun Joe and Sok Nee came with the 3 MPVs to bring us around Ipoh. We dropped our stuff at Fair Park Hotel, then went to Chee Yen's place to look at Nancy and her little friend whose name I do not remembe. Nancy is a tiger dog or lao hu gou. Not very appropriate name but not my dog so yeah.
Next stop was this dim sum place which served excellent dim sum and good pudding. Ate our fill and then went back to the hotel for a nap. The next stop was Jusco Shopping Centre where we caught this movie called Invisible Target.
The movie was okay, action packed with the necessary jocks and chicks to satisfy the average movie goer. I found the plot quite normal: bad guys kick the ass of the good guys till near the end where the good guys work together to kill the bad guys.
Shopped a bit for my daily needs and then we went to hit the pool. The pool was a bit lopsided. Too shallow on one end and too deep on one end. Its kinda like one end you dive and hit your head and the other you dive in and take 2 seconds to surface. Irritating.... Doesnt help that many events require diving into the water or going to the bottom of the pool to get the manikin.
We got chased out of the pool before we could go change because our coach wasnt with us and the time for warm up was much later. Our options were to either wait there or go somewhere else to chill. We went to Old Town White Coffeeshop. The food there was okay, the coffee was unique and we had loads of team bonding.
When we got to the pool and got changed, we realised that the changing rooms were terrible and the pool water wasnt very clean. Oh well... Nowhere is perfect. The warm up and practice runs went smoothly and we had tons of fun practicing our events.
We were once again kicked out of the pool, this time for dinner and then went back. Before dinner, the rest of the team arrived. Dinner was okay, not very good but edible.
We went back to bathe, change and then sleep.
Breakfast was simple the next day. We arrived at the pool for warm up. The warm up was in the diving pool so it was quite hard to touch the floor. After all it was only 5 metres from the surface.... Practised my obstacle swim and entry. Felt quite confident that I could improve my personal best for 200m obstacle (2min 58sec). I did my stretching and loosing of muscles before taking my place at the team area.
My first event was the 200m obstacle swim. I swam quite hard and my first 100m was close to perfect. The 2nd 100m was less than good, I hit the obstacles at least twice thus slowing myself down. The official timing was 2min 49sec!!! Improvement of 9 seconds. Still I have much to improve to make it to the top 8 in the upcoming National Inter-Varsity Lifesaving Championships.
The competition was exciting for me because I was cheering for my friends. The best event was the line throw event. Theen Mun and Yi Yang won Bronze for the guy's event while Sin Yan and Yen Ying won Silver for the women's event
My next event was the 4 X 25m Manikin Tow. I tried my best and so I have no regrets. Considering I only learnt how to tow a manikin 4 weeks ago and havent been training properly for the past month so I am quite satisified with my timings.
The final event was 4 X 50m Medley relay. I did a normal 29.17sec for my 50m free leg of the relay. Disappointing considering how much training I have put in for that event.... Oh well, better luck next time.
The whole competition was an eye opening experience. I learnt a lot about Lifesaving as a sport and how widespread it is in the world. Competing against Singapore and Malaysia's best helped me to form a good idea on how much improvement I have ahead of me. The only damper to the whole event was the lunch time entertainment.
The entertainment was mainly for the Guest of Honour and his fellow dignitries and not for the competitors. In fact, the whole post-lunch break was for the entertainment of the guest of honour. I have nothing against a 2 hour break for the food to digest but I do have something against holding a demonstration in a language in which only the locals understand and the guest just stare blankly into space trying to figure what is happening. The demonstration was, I think, a simulation of how the divers recover a drown victim. I would say, it was impressive though they seem rather lacking in urgency. Then again, it was a demonstration....
We got changed and bathed before cleaning up the area and leaving for dinner. Dinner was delicious abeit too much food. We ate at least a ten course dinner and then had desserts. Never felt so full for quite some time... Took a few funny photos and played funny games till it was time to say good bye to the team.
Six of us: Sin Yan, Theen Mun, JK, Meiling, Simin and myself stayed back at the eating place while the rest of the team went to the bus station to go back to Singapore. We then took Chee Yen's car to the bus station to bid them goodbye and go for Ipoh Hor Fun.
Ipoh Hor Fun is different in Ipoh than it is in Singapore. It is more soupy and more split up into its individual parts. The meal was good but I guessed it would have tasted a lot better if we weren't so full.
After that we went back to our hotel to rest and bathe..... I repacked my stuff so I could decide which stuff I needed for Langkawi and which stuff would see the light of day only in Singapore.
Woke up the next day around 6am to enjoy a quick shower and then changed for breakfast. Packed up whatever stuff I left around for use that night. Waited for everyone else to wake up and get changed. Mun Joe arrived to pick us up for breakfast.
Breakfast was Dim Sum again. This time, I wasnt very hungry due to physiological reasons I do not understand. The food was great and I drank at least 7 cups of tea. After breakfast, we went to the bus station to purchease the tickets to Langkawi.
Thus began our Langkawi adventure!
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