Broga Hill and Brands

Me, Alex and Kel hiked up Broga Hill yesterday :)

Truth be told, the night before yesterday, I went out with my family to catch Pirates of the Caribbean 4. The show was at night, at 8.10 pm so it finished at around 10.30pm. By the time we got home, it was already 11pm. I told myself I was going to bed by 11.15 pm but one distraction led to another and before I knew it, I was watching some laughing dog video on YouTube and it was already 1.00 am :P So i quickly cleaned up, got to bed and slept. Before I knew it, it was already 3.00 am and I had to get up again, all tired, unrefreshed and cranky :( The reason for needing to get up so early was so we could make it to the top in time to catch the sun rise. Keeping reading and check out the pictures below to see if we made it in time :)

So I was at Alex's house by 3.45 am. Kel came to pick us up at 4.00am. After about an hour or so we reach the base of the hill. The surroundings were of an oil palm plantation, to someone who hadn't been there before, the place would've been impossible to find as there were hardly any signs there. The nearby towns were more like 'Malay Kampungs' rather than towns because I couldn't spot a single Chinese or Indian restaurant along the way and the place looked and smelled like a kampung :P

We started hiking about a minute after we parked. This was around 5 am. There were only 2 other cars there at that time. I could tell that the 3 of us were the first few of the day hiking up the hill. We started out relatively quick, the the area around us was still mostly oil palm trees. after about 15 minutes, the gradient got steeper. The surroundings changed from oil palm trees to think grasslands. The pathway was also narrower than compared to when we started out. We reached the first checkpoint/ peak about 20 minutes after we had started. We took a breather here for about 10 min, enjoyed the view(almost pure darkness) for a bit :)

Alex resting.

Kel with his torchlight.

Me with my head lamp on :)

Peace much :)

I saw this patch of grass. I don't think its that clear in the picture(phone camera) but that small patch of grass was actually growing out of a rock!!.....thought it was kinda cool :P

The moon smiling at us :)

The town down below from the first peak.

This is the town from the second peak, a little brighter now cuz the sun was on its way up.

This picture was taken at the highest peak on the hill. No good pics of the sun rise because it was cloudy and foggy. Couldn't even find the big orange circle in the sky :(

On our way back down :) Breakfast was calling :)

Doesn't this picture look like a scene from Lord of the Rings ??!! If you look closely you can see Frodo :D

A piece of rope tied to a tree branch. Needed to be climbed to get to the highest peak.

" Look!! Its Sam and Frodo !! "

These pics so remind me of Lord of the Rings :)

LOTR RIGHT?!!? :D

Camwhore :P

Saw a small durian at the base when we stopped to get some coconuts to drink.

We went to USJ 21 to eat dim sum for breakfast :) Was an exhausting morning. By the time I got back, which was around 10.30am , I immediately took a bath and slept til 330 pm. It was a tiring day, but fun of course :)

Went to Ikea jsut now with my mom and bro. Just walked around carrying the Ikea shopping bag mostly. My mom likes to go to Ikea. She seldom buys stuff, most of the time she goes there just to look around. We didn't buy anything major today, just a small mat and some mugs.

We went over to the curve after that, I bought 3 shirts from Brands :)

Frankly speaking, I'm not the shopping type. I really do think its a waste of time and money. You're basically buying more clothes than you can possibly use. Some people even buy them just for a one time use and then leave them in the depths of their drawers of cupboards, never to see sun light again. I shop practically only once a year and thats for my CNY clothes. BUT Brands is the one and , so far, only store that I'd do my casual shopping at. They have ACTUAL clothes that people would ACTUALLY wear daily and not just chuck them aside after wearing them a few times :P

The shirt I got :) :

Chemistry joke :) Nerds can be funny too :D

2 Thumbs Up!! :)

Thats all for now :)

Energizer Night Race Goodie Box

Just received my Goodie bag from the energizer run :)

For most of you who don't know, about a month and a half ago, I took part in the Energizer Night Race at the Sepang Circuit.

However, the event was poorly managed by the organizers, a one 'Expose Media'. Because of this, the people at Energizer stepped up and took full responsibility for the entire thing. They refunded everyone back in full and they also sent out the Goodie bags that most people failed to collect on the day itself. Read on to find out why me and the 10000 other runners say it was terribly managed :P

Problems of the Energizer Night Race 2011 :

• RM10 parking. Legal/Illegal? Syndicate?
  

People were dressed in RELA uniforms outside, 'selling' parking tickets (blank pieces of pink coloured paper) that cost RM10. Even after some paid the absurdly high fee, there literally wasn't enough space (no not parking spaces, I literally mean ground area) for people to park their cars. And its all the way out in Sepang!! There are no buses that go by or LRT or MRT stations around! How else can some one go to the race if not by car ? And when I say 'people were dressed in RELA uniforms' , you have to understand that getting a RELA uniform is as easy as going into a uniform store and picking it up. How do i know if the people there weren't trying to pull a big hoax ?

• Not enough headlamps

After going through the tight narrow tunnel (picture below), I reached this room literally full of people, pushing and shoving each other, trying to get to the stack of boxes at one end of the room that contained the headlights. There were no personel in charge of giving out the lights at all. How were they suppose to know who signed up and who didn't ? Who paid RM50-70 registration fee and who didn't ? In the end, lots of runners didn't get their headlamps.

• Only one water station functioning instead of two.

Not only was there just one water station through out the whole race, they gave out those 1.5L bottles of water! If you're new to long distance running, picture this : You're tired and exhausted after running for some number of kilometers. You come across a water station that's suppose to supply u with a sufficient amount of water to rehydrate you and moisten you're throat again. Instead of giving you paper cups of water that can be disposed of at a rubbish bin set up near by, they give you a big 1.5L bottle. What are you gonna do with a big bottle like that ? Drink 500ml and throw the rest away? Or drink 500ml and carry the other 1L with you, its not like you're EXHAUSTED or anything RIGHT ?

• Lack of direction by race marshals at finishing line. They were rude.

• Unorganized distribution of goodies bag.

Only 2 collection counters were present during that night. Both with a line of participants each literally (I can not stress this anymore than I am now) taking me 15 minutes to walk to the end of (just one of the lines) . They began throwing the bags out at people after sometime.

Can you see the Goodie bags collection counter ?

At the counter area.

• No finisher medals

From the event's website, it is stated that if a participant finished the race within a given amount of time, he or she is entitled to a finisher medal. When i reached the finishing line they (the race marshals) told me that medals were only for the top 10 runners. Lots of other runners were absolutely frustrated when told this.

• Not to forget, the rude MC

I'll let the MC's post on her Facebook wall speak for itself:

And yes, the English she used then was as sucky as the one in her post. Loads of people couldn't understand half the rubbish she was blabbering on about.

With all that in the past, I was happy to have gotten justice :) And my medal of course :D

The parcel :)

Addressed to me :D (I don't get much mail, so 'syok' a little) :D

The medal :) (front)

Back

The finisher shirt

Some freebies, from the left : The headlamp 'given out' on that night (its because some people didn't get their headlamps that they had to give everyone a new one because they didn't know who got theirs and who didn't), a razor and a battery charger.

Top (the finisher certificate) and bottom (the bag that all the goodies were suppose to be given out in )

Thats it for now :)

Me and some friends plan to climb Broga Hill on Monday, so I'll most probably be posting on that next :)

How a Malaysian should be.

For those of you who actually care about where this country is going, I strongly recommend you read this post :

http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2011/05/25/i-am-malaysia/

Spoken like how all Malaysians should speak.

Motorcycle lessons

Just signed up for my motorcycle license course just now ! :)

According to the receptionist/worker at the driving institute there, I'll be able to get my P license in about 1 and a half months time !! way shorter than compared to the time it took for me to get my P license for a car. This being so because I've already sat for the computer test thing and I don't have to sit through another 6 hours long KPP course :P

My 'Amali' Course will be this Friday, after which I'll be getting my L license Hopefully I'll be able to start my first lesson next week :)

I know some of you who know me may think 'Why'd you want a motorcycle? To rempit around?'

If so then my answer is NO to both those questions. I've always wanted to own and ride a motorcycle and this will be my first step towards that dream :) And please take note that I'll be learning to ride a >500cc bike. Meaning with my license, I'll be able to ride the 1000cc bikes you see on Moto GP and not some 'kap cai' 100cc rempit bike :P

To be honest I'm quite excited but nervous in the sense that I may have to repeat the test again like what happened to me during my car driving test :P But this particular driving agency (Metro) allows me to retake the test 3 times for free....hopefully I'll only have to take it once :P

Isn't this every little boy's dream ;) :

Although I will not have a bike to ride at all upon the obtainment of my P license, I'll be happy to know that when the time comes for me to get one, I'm already ready for it :D

Break Time :)

That's right !! My term 3 is finally over with 2-3 months of break waiting for me :)

First few things done upon reaching home :

• Downloaded new games to play (Portal 2 , COD BO) ;)

• Ordered some pizzas ( Aloha chicken + Beef pepperoni = *thumbs up*)

• Went out and bought a tub of strawberry ice-cream all for myself (I did buy ice-cream for the rest of my family of course, its just that the strawberry tub was ALL MINE :D )

looked something like this, only better :

Droolzzzz.... :P

• Ate Dim Sum with Khai Cheng, Des, Kel and Yee Pei
• Watched some vids on Youtube (Although most of you would think that watching youtube vids isn't anything special, you'd beg to differ after living in a hostel with wired internet connection that breaks every 5 mins for 10 months) (if you're reading this and in the mood for a good laugh check this vid out :P )

I really can't believe 10 months have come and gone by. In a few months time, given that my results are good, I'll be starting my first medical year. So much has happened so fast.

To be honest, I really hated the fact that I was there to begin with. I know it may seem 'childish' to simply use the word hate to describe how i felt before but I can't think of a word more concise and accurate. The thought of working more than 300 hours a month on average in a government hospital for 10 years just worsened my state of mine then, especially whenever I recalled the things the doctors in HKL told us during our 'exposure trip'.

Apart from that, being away from friends, 'wasting' time doing a substandard course (in comparison to A-lvls and STPM), knowing that the best efforts I put in will only land me in a never-heard-of-before university as compared to the likes of IMU and Monash and further more, being away from my then girlfriend all added to the ball of misery that grew in me.

Only about 3 months into the course did I begin to accept my fate and start to take it as a blessing in disguise.

By taking up the scholarship I was helping my parents financially and indirectly carrying out my responsibilities as a son.

I was also learning how to actually be independent. Yes, I use the word 'actually' because although most people my age(teens/young adults) think that we are capable of being independent, you don't really know how it truly feels like until you live on your own. It also got me thinking about how my mom survived when she was my age and how she moved to the city(KL) from Perak all on her own with nothing more then RM800 and a Form 5 education level.

Apart from that, meeting new people, unique in their own ways from all across the country, definitely changed the way I think and look at life. It is most probably true that if your a young adult and you come from the city, your main focus (at the present moment) is getting a good job and making money. But that shouldn't be how one's mind-set is. It is true that money is important in life as it is needed to build a family and no I'm not gonna say 'Money can't buy you happiness' because to an extent it can. But when your old, tired and dieing, I truly believe that all the money in the world would be worthless if you can't look back on your life and be happy with what you've done with it.

So after a while, I just forgot about being angry and focused on the things that mattered most to me. I studied hard. I set new goals for myself to better myself and I made more commitments to what I want to accomplish in life.

To date, I've already:

• participated in two runs ( a 10km one and the Adidas KOTR 11km) and have another 3 coming up soon.
• I bought an electric guitar and learned how to play it ( I'm no Slash or Hendrix or Page but I know an A minor from an E :P ).
• Went back-packing in Penang for 2 days with my house mates.
• Planning to sign up for a Mandarin class (yes for those of you who don't know, I'm a Chinese that can't speak Chinese :P ) tomorrow.
• Learned to solve a 7x7x7 Rubik's cube.
• and many more :)

I never thought I'd end up in some university amongst paddy fields, getting ready to study medicine there. But then again, if I had never gone to Aimst, I wouldn't have found the store that had one of the few 7x7x7 Rubik's cubes in the country and bought it then learnt to solve it. If I hadn't gone there, I'd still be having a laid-back attitude towards life and wouldn't be interested in taking part in any runs. If I hadn't gone there, I wouldn't have realised just how much of a disadvantage I'm at by not knowing Chinese and wouldn't have decided to sign up for lessons. If I hadn't gone there, I wouldn't be writing this post now because I'd still be taking life lazily.

In truth, a lot of things would be different if I had chosen not to go. Can I say I'm glad I did go ? Maybe. But then again, I wouldn't know what pros I'd have if I didn't go. Here is where I know not to ponder on such things ( what might have been or could have been) and just look forward to the future because you'll miss it if you linger in the pass :)

2nd Sunday of May

2nd Sunday of May :)

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish my mom a Happy Mother's day :)

Although I know you most probably will never read this, I'd like to say thank you for raising me for the past 18 ++ years. I hope to at least be half the parent you've been to me with my own child next time :)

To all the other mother's out there, Happy Mother's Day !! :)

Such a long time :)

Hey world !! :)

Its been almost 2 years since I last posted anything on this derelict so-called blog.

But I'm restarting it !!

Busy studying for my upcoming finals now, so I'll do some major post-ing after :)

So stay tuned until the next post !! :)