I look back at this blog and my, its as dead as the Sahara desert!
Well guys actually the Sahara desert is the third largest desert in the world that is teaming with life! From the smaller arachnids such as the deathstalker scorpion that has enough venom to kill a man, to foxes and the large Addax, which is also known as the screwhorn antelope due to its.... Okay sorry back to the topic but it has been ages since I last blogged! Well I'm happy to say that I am back for now since school is more or less over. One more annoying Media law paper to clear and I'm done(:

So many things have happened since the last time I blogged... (In a rather-thick nutshell)

1) AUSTRIA Was sent to Austria to compete in the World Youth Championships(: Made tons of friends from the respective teams from all over the world and met some of the best climbers(: I love Europe! Had a hell of a time there partying with the South African team, ran down a mountain trail within 20minutes (was supposed to be a 2hour hike) with my dear Aussie mates AT NIGHT. Not to mention, getting lost while running through the cornfields too! Hahaha! Unforgettable scenery, our farm stay was surrounded by mountains and the temperatures dropped one fine day and I woke up to them, snowcapped(: Oh I miss everyone. Seems like i've to travel around the world to meet them..what a sweet excuse:D

2) VIETNAM Internship ended and I had a short 2week break before school started again so I went for a 7 turned 8 day epic Vietnam trip with Randy and Arul. Did crazy stuff. Ate rat, fat juicy live coconut worms, chicken testicles, bees... You get the point. Made many friends there and networked with the climbing gym owner who comes from Chile (who is now a good friend of ours)! Got our phones and wallets stolen on the THIRD day and after calling our friends to tell them about it, next thing we know, our friends brought a whole army of stick-wielding motorcyclist backing us up in search of the culprits...but we couldn't find them): Oh it was great fun riding the bikes there:D Made friends with a group of (really hot) French law school students and we did some viet club hopping together. And finally 2hours before we were supposed to fly off for Singapore, our flight got canceled. NEVER FLY BY TIGER EVER AGAIN THEY ARE HORRIBLE. They haven't even paid me my tiger insurance that they owe me. So we had to stay an extra night. Thank god for our friends there who helped settle our accommodation such last minute that night. I'd like to go back there soon.

3) School started and one of my major projects was to do a documentary for Underwaterworld. They found out about my underwater photography and they allowed me to dive with the dolphins to film them. Unforgettable.

4) SOUTH AFRICA with the family in December(: We went to Johannesburg, Kruger national park and Cape Town.
Met up with Sam stainton, a good friend I made during my competition earlier in Austria(: Miss her so much! She invited us to her place for a traditional South-African dinner. They did a braai, which is a kind of barbeque, lovely(: Had a swim in their pool and OMG SHE HAS A CLIMBING WALL AT HOME. Her dad got it built for her for her 16th birthday. Jealous. Went to the slum area of Soweto and it was a good eye-opener. I love traveling to these parts and its interesting to capture on film. Took a flight to Kruger national park and it was like living the dream! Our safaris were in the open-air jeeps and we were blessed to have spotted all of the Big 5. (Buffalo, rhino, lion, leopard, elephant). The elephants especially, came really really close. I enjoyed having our little tea breaks in the middle of the wilderness, espcially the time when we had it beside a hippo-infested river. Last but not least, we traveled down to Cape Town where dad booked a helicopter ride for us. It was so fun! Gave me some really good photos(: Also dived with the Great White Sharks!! Highlight of the trip. Met dad's friend, Prof Kruger, a world renowned gynecologist and his wife (who is a Olympic gold medalist-swimming) for dinner. Really sweet couple. Prof Kruger heard of my dreams of doing wildlife documentaries and he hooked me up with a friend of his, who does video work for Animal Planet. WIN(: South-Africa- The best trip yet. Parents wanna retire there.

2012

So all of the traveling came to a stand-still in my final semester of Polytechnic. It was a good last lap I suppose, i'd definitely miss school. But c'mon no time to feel sad, so many things to look forward to! Like army.. HAHA.

I remember starting out 2012 with no resolutions which is weird cause I usually write some stuff down and keep to it. Its not that I didn't put any thought to it, but cause I couldn't think of anything solid that was worth making a resolution for.

However it came on to me as time passed and as I thought more about what is to happen this year- Graduation, break, army.
Working then spending the rest of it traveling seemed like a plan, but how is that gonna benefit me in my future? Can I do anything traveling related, that will benefit me?
I sent out emails to my contacts in Australia and South Africa, 2 people who do filming for discovery channel and animal planet respectively, hoping to fix an internship with them of some sort. I also came up with plan B, something within my control- underwater photography.
I'd like to take advantage of my youth. Everyone who does underwater photography is much older mainly cause equipment is really expensive. However, i've been blessed to have started out at a tender age of 16. This already sets me apart from all other underwater photographers but in order to nail it and cast it in stone, I plan to publish a book. My target of publishing a book has been brought forward from 25 to 20 years old(: I can safely say no one has done it before and this book will help boost my portfolio immensely.

This has been a very long post. I am sorry its a couple of months worth of word-bombing.

South-east Asian Circuit last week.. Asian Youth Championships over just yesterday.. I've never felt more alive.

The Asian youth championships was an amazing experience. The whole thing seems so surreal! 3days passed just like that and the experience felt as if I was thrown into one of youtube's climbing world cup videos. First time seeing the famous blue Japanese jerseys with "the north face" all over, the Koreans and their many sponsors as well.

There was a dinner for all participants the night before. The Japanese were dressed smartly and intimidating-ly in their north face sponsored vests, with the flag on the back, the Koreans were too in their north face jerseys. The Iranians brought a huge group over and were dominating the whole restaurant with their laughter and excitement.. A total of 13 countries participated in the event.

I used this chance to interact with as many as I could and since my mandarin is good(hahahahahahahahaha), I went over to the china team first(: They said my mandarin is good k! :D Got to know their names and exchanged some training tips with them. I was expecting them to be hardcore climbers that climb 7days a week(like other athletes from china) but surprisingly they climb the least!

The Iranians were a lovingly crazy bunch of people..that also shattered any hope of competition I was thinking of giving them.. They train 6days a week and the particular climber I was talking to had an onsight (finishing a route without any beta or knowledge of how to do it upon 1st try) grade of 8b. Their manager asked me for mine..Embarrassed, I told them 7b(which is a huge difference from theirs)..and she said, "oh its good for a start!". OUCH. I suppose she said it cause in many other countries, climbers start young, at ages 8-10..So these guys have been climbing for over 10years. More than twice the number of years I've climbed.


Competition environment was never so intimidating. After all, these are the best in asia and I have no idea where I stood amongst them. Qualification round consisted of 2 routes. I went in with no expectations of myself and used the 1st as a rough gauge to know where I stand and how strong my competitors are.

I managed to finish the 1st route together with 8 others! Thats when I told myself to aim for the finals, which was top10. I didn't manage to complete the 2nd wall though but I got into the finals anyway!

I didn't win anything, wasn't close to it either, but I am really satisfied with this competition. I made good friends with people from all over asia. In particular, with a really nice climber from japan who (I found out later), ranked 5th in the world (youth). He's been climbing for 10years now and I have so much to learn from him! He has inspired me to train a lot harder. I also made good friends with the Korean guys whom have made me their brother:D Really fun bunch to hang out with.

Like I mentioned earlier, this whole thing seems so surreal. One moment i'm with all of them, making friends, climbing, and just hanging out..and now they are all not here anymore! Far away from singapore):

Its time to train a lot harder to give them a tougher fight in bigger competitions coming our way.

Fight the emotional trauma. You're stronger than that.
You don't need anyone. You don't want to repeat a past mistake.

"In time, the hurt began to fade and it was easier to just let it go. At least I thought it was. But in every boy I met in the next few years, I found myself looking for you, and when the feelings got too strong, I'd write you another letter. But I never sent them for fear of what I might find. By then, you'd gone on with your life and I didn't want to think about you loving someone else. I wanted to remember us like we were that summer. I didn't ever want to lose that."
— Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)

Do you think you can be as successful as your parents?
Will I be able to offer my family the life im living now?

I am into my third week of what I would consider "hardcore" training, or rather, as hardcore as I am able to right now. I'm climbing 3 times a week after work(:

I'm focusing purely on endurance training, not working on anything hard just yet. Climbnival was over the weekends and I used it as part of my training scheme, mostly to do as many routes as possible since I haven't been doing routes yet. I managed to get 2nd for the men's elite category.

I can proudly say that this is my first time training so hard. Never have I spent more than a week doing purely endurance, while my other friends have fun whacking route after route. I always would give in to the temptation and join them after a couple of laps. This time, I am training alone. I suppose its cause i'm working under pressure right now. Time is limited, the competitions are coming closer. The Asian Youth Championships is only 3weeks away and I have only started training for it 3 weeks ago while my competitors have been targeting this comp since last year.

I realise this blog has only been about climbing and work. I'm really sorry my non climbers if you don't understand some of the things I write about. I suppose these are the 2 main things my life revolves around now.

My sister and brother in law just sold their bmw & got themselves a Minicooper s. I need a car too): Wait. I need to find time to learn how to drive first! haha!

 

I received probably the most exciting task yet last week. I was called down to do a shoot on the Arapaimas! The giants from the Amazon river. Something I’ve always dreamt of swimming with and photograph.

The experience was amazing. I went down to the holding area where the fish were and in this huge pit were 2 of these giants. They followed me around as I walked the circumference of the pit in hopes of me throwing in food (or me as food). Burnard, the graphic designer that contacted me to do this shoot for the river safari banner, seemed a little frightened for me at first but somehow, I really had no fear. I was all ready to jump in (slowly of course so as not to startle the fish)!

I have learnt something about myself from this whole experience.
I’m always in awe of the videographers/photographers I see on Natgeo/BBC. The dangerous situations they find themselves in while capturing the most spectacular images is something I have always dreamt of doing. The best shots are still the ones that few dare to take.

Although this seems like a dream to me, I learn that this isn’t a job for everyone when my colleagues saw photos of me with the huge fish and exclaimed, “aiyo, you not scared ah? So dangerous!” or “ Aren’t you afraid that you’ll be attacked?”
I suppose these are the first few questions that run through people’s heads when they see something like this. It’s different for me. I learn that I have a trait above others that will bring me one step closer to my dream of natural history filming/photography – balls. Hahahaha I’m kidding. COURAGE.

However, courage alone cannot take you far in this wild, crazy industry. You will be eaten. One of the most important things to practice when working with animals is respect. Always respect the animal, and the animal will respect you.
As eager and excited as I was to jump into the pit, I remind myself that these fish are still potentially dangerous, as are all other animals. I slowly climbed down and finally got into the water. The 2 fish cruised around me, circling me and checking out the huge chunk of meat that just entered their lair. I submerged my head to look them at eye level and this wave of excitement and joy engulfed me. I was actually in the water with 2 huge arapaimas! Both of them looking me straight in the eye! It was astounding. The fish knew no fear. They came so close their tails would brush against me whenever they swam in another direction. I am probably going again for another shoot when the lighting is better.

The dream comes true when I find myself camping in the amazon, submerged, and capturing footage thats never seen before.

I'm leaving for the South-East Asia Circuit that is kicking start in Malaysia tomorrow, coming back Sunday evening. Gonna be busy with competitions from now onwards!

I really need my pulley injury to recover asap. It doesn't affect me as much when I'm highwalling, but it does when I boulder - Prevents me from jumping to tiny crimpy holds. The pain needs to go. I can't start popping painkillers again before my climb like I had to for the same injury during the national youth sports climbing championships last year, of which I screwed up.

Well I need a miracle again this weekend to not get last. It is after all, an international competition..
I need a miracle that happened to me 2 weeks ago.
I need more time to train.