at the beach again

I was worried Redang would disappoint.

It didn't.

Dream about turquoise-coloured dives in the morning and evening. Throw in a fair sprinkle of snorkelling from one end of the bay to another. Think sumptuous seafood dinners every night. Beach walks. Facial and foot massages. Pre- and post-Redang walkabouts in Kuala Terengganu.

Aaahhhhhhhh...I'm in my happy place.

Three cheers to one of the most memorable family trips I've ever had! Not to mention that I also managed to get my Advanced Open Water diving certification along the way! Yeayy!



Bright colours abound at Kuala Terengganu's Pasar Besar Payang.


Hanging up her wares for sale.


A lone painter gets distracted.


I like old. Old is good.


A fancy door at KT's Chinatown.


More old memories at Chinatown.


Sometimes I wonder, what if we painted our church red?


One end of Teluk Dalam at Pulau Redang.


And the other.


Our home for three nights.


Family.


Macro of a shy grasshopper.


Black and white contrast.


Dusk falls.


Lunch with a view.


Looking out to the sea.


Colourful canoes on the beach.


Monkeying around.


Taking the leap.


Vincent took this. Nice.


A lonely batfish.


Nudibranch.


Paijo and I.


Yes, that's moi.


An awesome sight in a wreck.


And there's more...

2007.08.18-21 Pulau Redang and Kuala Terengganu

dive @ Perhentian - day 5

So quickly and we finally reached the last day of our trip. Since we were due to fly back to KL later on in the day, we couldn't schedule any extra leisure dives today lest we kill ourselves in the compression/decompression process haha. And so, we basically just hung around the resort's vicinity finding other things to do.


Jungle trekking, although the group really dwindled after a short distance with the majority choosing to laze in the pool instead =p


BIG ant.


A picture postcard shot.


And another one...peeking through the shrubs to view the sea beyond.


Almost 2 solid hours in the pool playing ball.


Some of us.


Before we embarked on our antics.


This one clearly didn't work out initially.


Three alphabets that represent us. Guess.


The cover shot for next month's corporate mag?


Final lunch at Break First Bar. Best mango shake I've ever had!


Rollicking over dive stories.


Time to leave paradise.


The blue, above and below.


Binge trip in Kota Bahru - first stop: keropok lekor!


Leaving our trail of destruction after nasi lemak burung puyuh and coconut water!


To ease our transition back to civilisation, we had KFC -_- for dinner at the airport. No pictures though. You know how KFC looks like, right?? ;)

We arrived in KLIA-LCCT late. Said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Hopped on a bus with Irene to KL Sentral. Was thinking I could catch some shut-eye but we ended up yakking all the way instead.

It felt a little weird returning to the concrete jungle after spending 5 days of going back to basics. While there were certainly feelings of sadness now that the holiday had ended, those feelings also went out to the realisation that we in the city had become so disconnected with nature. Our creature joys are now mainly derived from man-made peripherals rather than God's creation itself. That's some food for thought huh?

Amid those slightly depressing thoughts, it was a welcome sight to see a familiar face at the bus station waiting for me. I was home.

dive @ Perhentian - day 4

That's it!! I'm just going to finally wrap this up once and for all. I know this has been such a drag but since I did originally set out to chronicle every single day of my trip on the blog, I shall press on. But given that memories fade with time and old age, I'll probably make this a quickie picture blog post instead...hah!

We wrapped up our last two dives today at Genting and D'Lagoon. Genting proved to be a welcome respite from the pesky jellyfish that had hounded every one of our earlier dives. Here, there were NONE to be seen! Visibility was average though with lots of bottom sediments clouding vision. Marine life was abundant but sadly, the reef was showing signs of degradation. As much as it was still a pretty sight, what we saw was probably a far cry from its earlier halcyon days.

It was very much the same situation in D'Lagoon, which was pretty sad because we had been hyped up earlier for this last dive that was supposed to have been the 'best' one! Again, one could tell that not all the corals were alive anymore. Still, it was quite a pretty dive and we enjoyed ourselves.

And with that...


All done!


Oh well, actually we still had to sit for a written test after that but it was nothing too difficult really. Later on at our final dinner cum graduation party...


The latest divers in town!


Finding every excuse to take a picture - the Monash University Roberts Hall combi.


Team OSK.


The Monash University combi.


Doing the OKAY sign with Mazlin, our instructor, and Joe, my dive buddy


There were many more pictures taken that night but since this is a regulated blog, I shall refrain from posting them hehe. Suffice to say that it was a great night and we had our fair share of fun!

Copa IBA 2007

Yes, I know. I'm a really slow blogger but better late than never. I had too many people bugging me for the photos, so here they are.

Anyway, Copa IBA 2007 kicked-off just recently. On the 14th of July, hundreds of the young (and young-at-heart) congregated at the Real Sports Arena in Klang for the annual Brethren Assemblies youth sporting event. After many years of having the event at RRIM, I guess the committee decided that a change would be good. Speaking of change, this year also saw the introduction of futsal as one of the main competition events, which made perfect sense since the venue was an indoor futsal court.

Gasing fielded a junior captain ball team, as well as futsal teams for both junior and senior categories. Overall, we did pretty good with all teams getting pretty far in the tourney. Kudos to all who participated this year!

It was our junior captain ball team however that surprised most (if any at all) of us by reaching the finals of the competition. This was the very team that one point (pun not intended) was staring at the brink of elimination from the qualifying round after scoring only, yes, ONE (1) point after the round robin matches. By God's grace, and a miracle too, really, we qualified.

And lo, that wasn't the end of the story. With the team all pumped up with their entry to the quarter-finals, they pulled together some fancy moves to post a convincing win over Kelana Jaya in the final 8.

We faced SSGC next in the semi-finals. Up against a very competitive team (and team manager too!), it certainly wasn't a walk in the park and there weren't many chances to score either. The Gasing team had to pull out pretty much all stops to clinch this match, which they did. The narrow scoreline of 9-6 says it all.

And there we were, in the finals again. Our second consecutive one too, following our last Copa IBA appearance in 2005. In an ironic twist of fate, standing at the opposite end of the court was SJGC, who gave us our lone point in the round robin stages with a 12-12 draw. It was a tough match and both teams gave it their best. Nevertheless, Subang turned out to be the better team that day and walked away deserving champs.

Besides the fun that I had watching the matches and cheering the teams on, Copa IBA also presented an excellent opportunity for me to test my then half-day old toy. I hadn't familiarised myself with all the controls and functions as yet, especially the manual settings, but I went back fairly satisfied with the results.

So this is when I step back and let my pictures tell the rest of the story.


Our super catcher in flight.


Shadowy steps.


The Gasing senior futsal team in deep discussion.


Our private BKT eating competition!


David leading the way.


Go Gasing!


Supporters in wild abandon.


Supporters in deep concentration.


The junior captain ball finals - PJGH vs SJGC.


Our junior captain ball team with their Runners-Up medals and Fair Play Award trophy.


SU-SING! A play on SUbang and GaSING.


Smile =)


For more pictures, simply click on the link below:-

2007.07.14 Copa IBA 2007

dive @ Perhentian - day 3

On the morning of Day 3, I decided to wake up a little earlier than usual to spend some time alone. After getting past the initial struggle of pulling myself from under the sheets, I took a shower, got dressed, and then headed down to the beach with my Bible.

The Sunday morning heralded the new day with beautiful hues of blue, yellow and orange. There was a light breeze in the air and it was quiet.

Picture doing your quiet time with this view!


Silent rays breaking the dawn.


After breakfast, I spent the next couple of hours sitting through some more classes with the OW gang. Wasn't too interesting. Blah blah blah...

Later on in the morning, the leisure and AOW divers had gone out for their morning dives, but since the OW gang didn't have dives scheduled for the rest of the morning, it was time for a late morning siesta (if there was such a thing)!


At about 11am, I thought about the faithful mulling about their usual business back in church. It would have been Coffee Hour so I sent back this tempting picture through MMS with the caption, "This is me on a Sunday morning!" Haha!


Lying on the hammock, just a tilt of my head to the right and this is what I see. Maybe I should have sent this picture instead.


The OW gang having lunch at Samudra Cafe. Had a nasi ladna, which turned out OKAY.


The rest of the afternoon was packed with our dives. We did a few more "confined" dives at Teluk KK where we practiced a few new skills. Also had a chance to swim around a bit as the area was fairly deep. Yeah...so much for the term "confined" dive.

My group even saw a turtle swimming around! A green turtle...I think. Did I fail to mention that before this dive, Irene and I had been jokingly complaining that the best thing that we had seen so far was sea cucumber?! Sea cucumber that we had even given the quintessential generic name "Bob". Today wasn't Bob's day unfortunately, as he was bumped off his pedestal by our new turtle friend.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story...


End of Dive #1.


A short rest and soon we're switching our air tanks for Dive #2 at Shark Point!


Of course, some decided that sleep was more important.


Gotta feed 'em hungry divers.


Han Ther, me, Hooi Teng and Poh Sim