Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Run! Run! Run!

Everyday, thousands of restless motor vehicles traveling to and from this beautiful island called Penang via this bridge. Once a year, the bridge will be closed for one fine morning. No public vehicles allowed on the bridge. You'll have to use ferry if you wish to cross the sea at this few hours, as the bridge will be full of people, guys and girls, from all ages, from all around the world, participating in this great event - Penang Bridge International Marathon.
Pre-run:
The marathon was supposed to held somewhere around June-July. Because of the March 8th election, the event has been called off because the previous state government think the new state government should organise their own events if they want. Well, the new state government did not dissapoint us. Eventhough the event had to be delayed to November, it was held successfully. And for the first time, the event was actually organised entirely by the state government. Personally, I think it is pretty well organised compared to previous ones. I won't say it's perfect as there are still alot of things to improve on, but the whole event was carried out pretty smoothly.
Applied for the marathon pretty early, thought I could be well prepared for the run this time. But so many things happened that I almost thought I couldn't go for the run this year already. Until pretty last minute, I managed to stick back to my original plan to go for the run. Then on the Saturday morning, one day before the marathon, I went for a short run around my place. My trust-worthy-old-friend, my nike sport shoes finally decided to gave up on me. The sole was totally seperated from the shoe's body. At this final moment, she gave up on me...

Why does everything I planned had to go through so many resistance? Where do I find the money to get a nice pair of shoes to run at this time? Again, I felt like giving up... It was already 12noon, I was still sitting there staring blankly at my laptop monitor, in KL. Then my sis found out what's going on, from her MSN...
"What else is stopping you now?"
"Just go lah!"
" I can sponsor you a new shoe!"

Somehow she managed to wake me up! What else is stopping me? I wanted to do this, and nothing is suppose to stop me except myself now. Why must I get a nice shoe? If those school kids could run with their Bata shoes, I don't have to buy expensive sports shoes to run! I packed my stuff and rush my way to Tesco and bought myself a pair of, ermm... okay sport shoes. If you ask me, I think it looks ugly. It doesn't fit my feet that well. But what the heck, it fits my wallet. It's RM70 so what else to complaint? At least it should be better than running with Bata school shoes. Grabbed a burger and on my way straight to Penang Queensbay Mall~!

Reached there around 6pm, got myself registered and collected the t-shirt and number. After dinner it was pretty late already. 8pm is quite late if you had to wake up like 2am the next morning to run 25km. To save time, I decided to sleep in "Hotel Queensbay Car Park" ...in my car...

The Run:
Won't call that a sleep for that few hours I spent in my car, more like a sauna session for me. Regardless, I did get a little rest, shouldn't be too bad. Weather was really nice and feels like there are more participants than last year. Did some stretching and warm myself up, ready to conquer that bridge. To start off the marathon, there were lion dance on the starting line. Then, the gun shot fired to mark the start of the marathon sharp on 4:30am. Lion dance drum still beating while everybody were cheering and slowly run across the starting line. Pretty motivating moment.

Since the new shoes were not run-in yet, it felt like I was wearing bricks. The shoes are already killing my feet after about 45mins run. The marathon used to start from USM and have a length of 22.3km. This year, we started from Queensbay Mall with length of 25km. I thought that extra 2.7km shouldn't make much of a difference. I was wrong. I guess 22.3 km is pretty much my limit already, and 25 km is just well over my limit. For the last few km, I was basically crawling my way back. My feet were so painful I felt like chopping it off. Got multiple muscle cramp on my thighs and hamstrings, even fell down because I thought I could still run. Lucky no injury at all, it was a slow motion Matrix-like-fall. The qualifying time was 3.5hours. I took almost 4 hours to finish the race. So, no finishing medal and certificate for me this year. :(

Well, at least I managed to finish the marathon on my own, without getting on one of those sweeper buses, I'm happy. Moreover, I was still on time to get a nice massage session by this cute St. John girl after the finish point, best reward for the day.
Mr. Stanz, you served your purpose, at least we finished the race. We'll come back again next year okay!

Saturday, November 1, 2008

My Calendar

Basically, I felt like my year of 2008 has ended since last week... and my new year won't come until sometime in April next year...

People follow different calendars around the world. Of course, we have THE calendar that everyone of us agreed to follow on globally. But for example in Malaysia, where different people from different society, culture and religion, still follows different calendars. Chinese follows the Chinese calendar, Malays follow the lunar calendar, and Indians follow Indian calendars... hence, the amount of holidays we have here in this wonderful country, Yay! I'm sure there are tons of other calendars different people follow all around the world...

For me, I felt like I'm following the MotoGP Calendar. Funny but seriously, since the MotoGP ended it's '08 season in Valencia last week, days just felt so different now. Weekdays felt so long when I'm not looking forward for the next race and planning where should I watch it. Weekends arrive with less meanings for me now. I'm lost and don't know what to do on weekends.

This two-wheels-poison has got into my blood so deep... Not having a ride of my own at the moment, I guess watching people do it every weekend help keeps me alive. Many thanks to Ken and Shigechi, for letting me crash into your house to watch the race and had to watch it with me somemore, haha. Sorry for the troubles, but it's just so hard to find a mamak restaurant that plays MotoGP instead of F1 or football matches... So, I hope I get massive salary increment this coming year end and get my own astro at home. Or else, I'll be back bugging you guys again next year :D

Overall, it was a great year. My hero Rossi got his world champion title back. Lots of exciting moments still linger in my mind. Went to watch it live in Sepang couple weeks ago, can still remember clearly the thundery sound of MotoGP bikes passing by. It was so awesome to see Rossi in action and grabbing yet another glorious victory even after he was crowned the champion. Another favourite rider of mine, Marco Simoncelli, got crowned the world Champion for 250cc at Malaysia. Such a happy ending this year :) Plus, I had the chance to sit on Casey Stoner's Ducati, thanks to KhyePing for hooking me up to Ducati's VIP Lounge.




And of course, one of the highlights also, taking pictures of the showgirls...


Well, until the MotoGP 2009 season starts, I need to find something else to do for my weekends...

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Church Wedding

It was my first time attending a church wedding ceremony, pretty excited about it. Lots of wedding scenes from the HK movies flashed through my mind. Well, it was pretty much 80% similiar to what I imagined. I heard it in so many movies and songs saying about walking the red carpet... but nope, no red carpet here. Hmm... maybe it's just different culture, or is that just a movie thingy? What about people throwing flowers while the bride is walking towards her husband? Maybe it's just too messy and no one wants to clean it up. But The most important part did happen, where the father announced the couple married as Husband and Wife, and then the organ starts playing wedding songs, and the wedding bell tolls... suddenly you could just feel the love in the air.

Tried to edit some of the photos I took. Remember someone told me you could never go wrong with black and white for wedding photos. So I tried it out.. it definitely gave a different feel! Amazing... :)


Walking their steps towards a new married life...

Where's the red carpet...?

Under the witness of Lord Jesus Christ, the man unite with his wife...

Congrtualtions KS and CC.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Happy Birthday!




What a nice way to celebrate the day of one getting wiser... ... we EAT!
Having a birthday boy who is a top house chef himself, no ordinary food would satisfy his taste buds. So we ate good... REALLY GOOD!
The nights were just unforgettable...
especially that crème brûlée with brown sugar and caramel (maximum sweetness!) from Le Bouchon, and that Char Siu of Overseas....
Oh! no it's not just about the food lah... hehe
Enjoyed the crowd and just glad to be there for the man! :D
Thanks for having me there, hope you had a great birthday.
Happy Birthday and many more to come.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

#8

"Scusate Il Ricardo," Rossi Valentino.
That's what the hero of MotoGP said to his fans after he claimed his 8th World Champion (6th in the premier class) after another superb victory at Motegi, Japan last weekend.

Translation: "Excuse me for the lateness"
After two years of hair pulling moments just to see you gave the throne away to other racers... nothing sounds better than this...
But hey, everyone of your fans always believe, that you're always the Champion in our heart.
Welcome back!

28th September, 2008... 8th World Champion for Valentino Rossi.
For me, the number 8 here is just as meaningful as it is for the Beijing Olympic, if not more. :)
VALE~! VALE~! VALE~!

(Photos courtesy of http://www.crash.net)

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Blogging

I believe everyone has their own story to tell...
Everyone is unique with all sorts of different experiences they had throughout their lives.

Some stories are filled with happiness, some with sadness...
Some are inspiring, some are dramatic...

Regardless...
I believe there is a need for everyone of us to express ourselves,
to tell our stories, or whatever that we are thinking inside our mind...
Just like breathing, eating, resting... it is a part of our lives, a necessity for us to keep living.
Hoping someone out there would listen to our crap...

Some people are just so articulate to express themselves through words they speak;
some people use music, either sing it out or by instruments;
some people can dance it out...
and what more and more people are doing today,
we write it out...
we BLOG it out :)

Hope you enjoy my stories.