Tourism Year

This year may just be the tourism year for MGB & family. :-)

However with the H1N1 scare and is deteriorating during this time of the year, it seems that the sales of air tickets is getting hottier...probably the players are expecting the sliding of demand of air travels due to the worry of the flu. This "pressure" sales is giving higher temptation for us to look and plan ahead of our next outing.

Hey, before dreaming on the next trip, I would like to share with all my recent trip to Macau, Hong Kong, and Shenzen from 4th June to 8th June in celebrating my 10th anniversary with my one and only darling with whom i have two wonderful "cahaya mata". Well, we may categorise as the 3rd overseas trip (exclude Singapore/WM) together since the last two to Australia Gold Coast and Sydney/Brisbane back in 1999 and 2005 respectively.

It is a wonderful trip together, exploring the oriental cities, the pearl of the east and the one that we have been watching all these while in our life. It is like to refreshment moment as it is like the backyard of our mind as many of the key places have been shown in most of the Hong Kong moviews/serials. I did not do much talking as I only speak a little Cantonese so I let my girlfriend did the talking as she is quite fluent in it. I like to hear the hongkies Cantonese as their sland is like music. I am quite impressed with the conversation among them as they could communicate in high understanding of each other as I observed from the people on the street. They will normally give a quite assuring response as compared to our own locals in our place.

On the first day (evening), we have been to the Ladies' Street, a bigger version of Petaling Street. You must bargain smartly for a good price but then if you are going to Shenzen, then better focus your money in Shenzen. There is also a Men's Street (red lights street), but did not make to the street...:-(

It was a free and easy for the first day (evening as we only reached HK at about 3pm).

The next morning, we had follow a small tour group (all Malaysian). After the dimsum breakfast, we went through the Stars Valley to enjoy the scenery of the Hong Kong's skyscrapers as per above photo, Hong Kong Island's public beach passing by Jackie Chan's mansion and also others. We are also supposed to visit the Madam Tussaud's musuem but we did not manage to go as we do not have the time... :-( i miss the statue of Andy Lau, Michael Jackson.. sobs...

A visit to a jewellery and herbal shops is a must as this is where the tour agency/guides earn their extra tips. We had visited Jackie Chan's jewellery shop (how true...I dun know).

After lunch, we went to Ocean Park but did not play any of the games though we have watched the dolphin show...as we were busy taking pictures of great scenery. Actually, we should spend a day there to relax and experience like what we have gone through in the Dream World in Gold Coast...By 5.30pm, we have to catch our train to Shenzen as our dinner at Shenzen is scheduled at 8pm. Zoom...we go !

Hey, though we had only spent 2 days and a night in HK, it is definite a sweet experience. We have planned to go back sometime this year bringing our RM (Rachel and Moses) to visit the DisneyLand, definitely spend a day there and also another day in Ocean Park.

to be continued...

Safety First, Not Convenience

I must share with you this important lesson but often being ignored due to convenience.

My wife's car was broken into last Thursday night when she parked at Jalan Song. Before going for her dinner (alone as I was on travelling to Sibu), she had transfered her office bag to her car booth (Waja), then she locked up and armed the car's alarm. Within 10 minutes as far she could recall, she return to her car and shocked to find out that the right rear car window was smashed and the back seat was unbuckled and her office bag was missing. She was in total shock and called me to inform. A few important documents and office keys were in the bag. In our mind then, we were very unhappy to face such bad situation. However, a police report were need to be made to report the lost in view of the important document. I quickly called Heroes to help out as he has experience (he had also met with similar incident a month ago...his losses was heavier (thanks buddy) :-)...

The agony of losing or suffering from the breakage was not enough as along her way to police station, she was stopped for two offences. Guess what ?

OML, she was first caught not switching on the head light and second, she was on the phone with me. It was really a bad day (as I listened to the conversation of her with the police, it was heartache indeed but I could not do anything but listen...). But thank God, the police only summoned her on the headlight but not the handphone incident as the police was aware that the car was broken into a few minutes earlier and she was still in shocking condition (thanks for the understanding).

At the police station, it was revealed that there were few cases of breakins and robberies on the same day. Ours is considered minor. We felt that we are lucky to have suffered this minor loss and we could have avoided the loss if we have been more alert and responsible.

This incident is purely due to convenience...lessons learnt are as follow;

a) If we wish to put our bags/belongings into the car booth, do it before our journey to destination (best is do not put in the car booth) as if we do it at the destination, we do not know who are watching us from the vicinity.
b) Use handfree :-) no matter how short or how important is the call..

Mount Kinabalu 2nd Expedition

I am pleased to present you a photo edited by Mr. Tee showing the view of the mighty mountain from Laban Rata.

After slightly more than a month coming down from Mount Kinabalu, the urge of conquering the top has never faded and in fact I have been enquiring for the earliest expedition again to conquer this mountain. I have received request from few friends (not BMs) to organise the trip soonest possible such as in Nov 2009 and of course many had written down in their diary for the May/June 2010 challenge.

What is important here is the fitness and mental level, especially for myself. Of course there is always an exception like our living example of BM5, who is not fit (no training) but has the super mental to back him to the top. So, I would only referring this to my current condition and to achieve this feat, I must conquer my following challenges first;

a) Twice weekly 5km run/10km walk, increasingly to 15km walk
b) Weekly mountain climbing activities, increasing to conquer Mount Santubong before D-day
c) Twice weekly 1 hourly squashing
d) Weekly weight training
e) Learning rope/rock climbing

Above all, I must have my weight reduced by 25% (naturally diet observance and alll the above exercise regime, I will definitely achieve that...:) ).

The greatest challenge is the discipline to start and maintaining this programme. I believe I will end victorious.

(Those who are determined (not only interested but determined) to participate in the next expedition to Mount Kinabalu - please register your name in this reply column...)

Mount Kinabalu 1

So near yet so far....I was at 3,668m against the peak of 4,052m but by distance, it is probably about 1.5km away. It was raining and coupled with strong winds at 4.30 a.m, it is unbearable to move up. My whole suits (from head to toe) was wet (it is freezing but thanks to my extra fats...I can still hold on to climb down) and by the time I reached the last wall (with rope), I practically stop myself from ascending further as I was never prepared to climb the rope (although I had climbed two other wall rope minutes earlier but it was not only about 40 degrees steepness, and this one is probably about 60-70 degrees).

Where to start, there are so many good memories along the way from Day 1. The first day, it took me 9 hours and 18 minutes to reach Pendant Hut (about 80m above Laban Rata) from Mesilau Point. The length of the journey is about 8.3km. Frankly the first 4 km was peanut but as it comes to KM5, I started to feel the tiredness and coldness without my jacket, little drinks and foods. The wind was very strong and we (both Heroes and myself) had to chase our porter for the jackets and extra supplies. We managed to call Ah Too to look for our porter who was about 500 metres ahead of us (500 metres...means we are about 45 minutes in part based on our phase of walking...haiz). Though we have our jacket but we did not take out our head light and extra supplies from the bag as we never thought that we will need to walk for another 4 more hours as we are expecting ourself to reach Laban Rata latest 7pm (so we happily walked ourself up and still got the time to take photos on the scenery...and letting the porter up on his way).

We reached the junction between Timpohon route and Mesilau route at about 5.30 plus pm. I have asked the guide (do not know many times), how near are we to Laban Rata ? He said, it is quite near...another 2.3km (my heart is very sour and tired) and urge us to move quickly to beat the darkness ahead, so we obediently follow through. Along the route, we also met many couples and they were interwined in our journey. Thanks to them, we also use their muscle pain lotion as if not, we could not ever reach to Pendant Hut. They are loving couples helping each other up the Mountain. At 6pm, we overheard one of the couple calling their friends to pack dinner for them as the restaurant closed at 7pm. Thus, I have asked heroes to call Chuan yew to pack for us (this proof to be vital as none of our members did that as I discovered from Paul yesterday...what a relief...). At 5km using Timpohon scale@7.28pm (if Mesilau, we have reached 7km), our supplies had run dry and the darkness had enclosed us. I sms to Ah Too/Paul/Chuan Yew to ask for the head lights/food/medicine (as Heroes complained that he has fever).

At 7.45pm, we received head light from the guide but no food or medicine. Again, I sms to Paul sending stronger message to him telling him that Heroes is very sick. We were at 7.5km, the last pondok before Laban Rata. We waited for about 15 minutes and we decided to move a bit as to shorten the time whilst waiting for help (It is very cold with strong wind blowing...I think the temperature has dropped to below 14 degress Celcius).

Chuan Yew met us at about 7.8km with foods and medicine. What a great relief...(time is 8.00pm) (I must mention here that this Chuan Yew is super fit for this adventure....he had actually reached Pendant Hut at 4 something pm, having rest, trying to get shower and had dinner. he had volunteered to come down to bring supplies to us the moment Paul told him about our needs at around 7.45pm)

It is only about 600m to the Pendant Hut but it took us more than an hour to reach the destination. It is really a painful effort and I could not have completed this journey without the constant motivation from Chuan Yew along the way as he guided me.

At 9.18pm, I reached Pendant Hut ! (I am totally flat !) after 9hours and 18 minutes journey from Mesilau Gate.

To be continued......

Next week This moment...

Seven of us, the Magnificent brothers will be resting at Laban Rata whilst hearing out the first and last briefing to scale the peak of Mount Kinabalu at 2.30a.m the next day.....

How is our preparation at this moment....
BM1 ....now resting at home...I think 70% fitness...
BM2 ....now having dinner with family...fitness at 80%
BM3 ....dun know what he is doing now...but fitness at 95% (he had conquered the summit last year...so he is the most experience of all)
BM4...dun know also...but judging from his squashing...he is probably at 80%
BM5...I really do not know...guess he is at 70%
BM7....hmmm this guy is yo-yo...but I put him at 80% as he is strong mentally.

Last but not least, myself....I am trying to peak at 100% by 30th, that is only few days to go...now...probably at 60%. Being the heaviest of all, I am at a disadvantage as need to carry more weight, breath more deeply...but my strongest point is my "mental state".

However, fankly, my last two months were really the boiling point of my patience emotionally as facing unscrupulous people. I have lost much of my time in managing such challenges. Postively, tomorrow, i must sweat all out, challenging the 10km walk through hilly action in speeding up or stress test for this summit.

I will not ask for more time as I am really looking forward to this enjoyable trip with best of buddies especially after conquering the Summit, to the island of tits. Wow...

Continuing.....

Another BM Quits

Whilst all BMs are preparing smart and hard for the summit this monthend, we have just received the announcement of one of the most interesting BM quiting this quest of conquering Mount Kinabalu. The last round, we had our Joe but was almost effortly replaced by another BM. This time round, it is hard to get a replacement but who knows, there may just another BM waiting to fill up this seat ! This is so a positive news like the stock market nowadays.

Hey, the good thing is the rest are ever eager to ensure 100% success of this scalping ! (I had just bought my windbreaker/sweater that cost me a bomb ! so..the commitment is definitely 100% here although lately I am faced with a lot of challenges...)

Seriously, this morning, is just my 2nd time continuously work myself up in preparing the quest...mind me...it is only about 24 days left. BM1 told me that we need to disciplinely carry out our own training during weekday whilst for weekend, we can do it together.

This week, we will scale Mount singai again (3X I guess to recover the last 3 trips which are supposed to be done !). I hope BM1, BM2, BM6 & BM8 can all make it to this last few training together...

I shall calling you....wherever you go ... (Digi theme song....)

FIRST FAMILY MOVIE IN CINEPLEX

A free ticket to Movie at Star Cineplex was given to Rachel as she achieved 6th position in her last Semester exam. It was given for all students who had achieved with 10 positions in the class. S0, I promised her to take her to the movie on last Tuesday, 31/3/2009 as the dateline is due for the ticket to be redeemed. We have decided to watch "Dragonball" as the rest are more towards adult preference.

She was very happy as I can see the radiance from her face as we reach the cineplex hall. I am happy too as this is the first time that I brought my whole family to a cineplex. Moses is also very happy as he keeps commenting during the movie (except the part that few teenagers behind keeps swearing vulgarities...shXt).

I hope to make more often especially when there is better "cartoon movie" around...may going for the one that Rachel is posting in front of the picture.