Life is better with a little drama in it

NTU Dragonboat 6-Days trip to Penang... I haven't been able to blog recently due to our DragonBoat Team 6 days trip to Penang to take part in the International Club Crew World Championships (CCWC)... then after the trip from Penang, I got seriously ill. Took me a good five days to recover! Haha~ Can't deny WE are not getting any younger. In the past a simple illness like this takes at most two days to recover. Now? more than twice the time... haiz~

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Anyway this CCWC is a worldwide international event, and this time it's being held in PENANG. Somewhere near to us, so more the reason we should go & support, and truly witness an eye-opener to see other world renowned teams in pure, hard, fast action! We have teams from Canada, U.S.A., Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Germany, Australia, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Macao, Dubai, India, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia, Taiwan ROC, New Zealand, Iran, South Africa & Malaysia... it's a handful~ but it's a total of 23 countries & exactly 110 teams that took part in the event! Yeah, I know... I counted.

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Day One, July 30, 2008: First day of arrival - was breakfast & lunch at the coffeeshop near our hotel, Cititel. Then, we headed to the race site @ Teluk Bahang Dam... the scenery there is wooooohooo~ NICE... good breeze, good view, good waters. The organisers already got the tents, pontoon, stage, grandstand etc set up then. The tents remind me of a scene from Narnia: The Witch, The Lion & The Wardrobe, where Aslan was preparing for war with the Ice Witch... the tents at the foot of the hill, on an open patch of land. That's the scene to describe it. The tents were all labelled with the signboards of the various teams. The Singapore teams were just next to each other... NJC, SMU, NTUC, RP and Mountbatten, as well as next to some japanese teams... eye smoothies for the guys. =P (Not for me!) So we went down for some test-row on the waters. After one or two hours of "training", we headed on to the chartered bus, on its one hour plus bus ride back to the hotel. It's that far... of course due to the winding mountain road and poor traffic layout of Penang too~

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That very night, we had the tradition Penang "guy-girl teams bonding session" where the guys team & girls team are split up & mixed into various smaller groups, where they will have dinner together & the rest of the night till the meeting timing to be 'alone' @ the nearby shopping centre near the hotel... Of course, the best activity for the guys & girls team to bond is to GOSSIP about scandals in the team or even better, create THE SCANDAL ourselves. So that night's dinner my group managed to dig out alot of girls team's secret thanks to Nicole, Crystal, MeiYan... & we created the scandalous couple for the night, Joel & Crystal... =P And after dinner, while other groups went to purchase foodstuffs & water for the team or themselves, my group laze our time away, relaxing at the Secret Recipe restaurant. I swear somehow the cakes at Secret Recipe Penang just tastes better than those in Singapore... I'm serious. Alot of girls from the girls team say so too. Time's up, went back for debrief & the next day's schedule & that was pretty much concludes Day One. (Not to mention my "encounter with the other side in my hotel room" that faithful night~) =S

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Day Two, July 31, 2008: 1st Day of Race - 2,000m Race. Reveille timing: 0530hrs! (Un)fortunely due to the fact that not everyone gets to row in the mixed boat, some of the guys & girls were "left behind" after breakfast in the hotel, to get better rest-up & re-join the team at a later timing for their respective 2,000m race - be it Mens 2k or Womens 2k. When I say "later timing", I really meant 12:30pm. Notice how much more time that is, 7hours(!) for you to sleep (that's what Enyu did all the way till lunch at 12noon =P ) or do whatever you want... Well, for Jonah, Darryl & I, we did sleep (of course!) till about 9:30am & used the hotel's internet services at its office at around 10am. Some used it to check emails. Some used it to go through facebook. Some used it to drop an 3000 word essay email to their loved ones back in Singapore. haha =P After that, I went back to my room & slack with my roomie, YongSheng who by the way, fell sick on the first day of arrival. Me? I fell really sick on the last day of departure... He "bao tou", I "bao wei", which is considered auspicious in Chinese traditions. haha...

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Anyway, after lunch @ coffeeshops near the hotel, we headed for the race site via our chartered bus. Woohoo.. another hour to sleep! When we finally reached the race site & re-join the team, they were more than happy to see us. (haha... come join in the suffering... there's nothing to do here in between races!) As soon as we saw the guys, they were pulling us to take a look at this hot russian babe that was around, supposingly of Miss World standard... So in the good name of pure curiosity, I tagged along to seek out this Miss Russia. When I saw this Miss Russia, my jaw dropped~! I must admit that she was a looker... but my heart already belongs to someone else back in Singapore. Teehee~ Too bad Miss Russia, no more chance~

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Back to our 2k race, well I must say it was a good set, best set I had since all the 2k trainings... Downside, we got disqualified for ramming into RP's boat (our own countrymen). What happened is a long story & it's in the past now. All I can say is both parties were at fault, so let's not bother pointing fingers. =) Cheers~

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Okay, the rest of the 4 days were just BAD... me having sore throat, the hot, dusty environment, waiting & waiting in between different races, totallllyyyy fried food for lunch throughout the race days, burning of the whole day at the race site - rotting, lack of sleep/rest & lack of shopping =P...

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But a good trait of NTU Dragonboat Team, is that we can make the best out of any bad situations. We always have ways to self-entertain ourselves. Be it bitchin', cam-whoring, taking pictures with various other teams, playing the "Tabata Indian Poker"... The point is we can really self-entertain~ =) which makes the whole trip so much more enjoyable & endurable~! Haha~

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I have to end here now, for all you, readers' & my sake... before it turns into another 3000 word essay. =P Bye Bye, Have fun! Cheers~ (I must find someway to upload the pictures somehow~ hmmm...)