GUNUNG ANGSI - ANNUAL DINNER

We had the company's annual dinner last Saturday.  I must say I enjoyed the shows being put up by the organiser.  Instead of paying professional singers to entertain us, the organiser chose to have a talent time show with participation from the employees.

I participated in the talent time contest as a friend/colleague asked me to join his group.  Originally we were supposed to sing a medley of two or three songs that include a song by Radiohead and Muse.  However, before we even turned up for the practice, my friend had a better idea.  Why not we play snippets of songs that use up to 4 chords only!  With that concept, we ended up choosing the final selection of 22 song snippets.  They include songs from Journey, John Denver, 3am, Muse, Lighthouse Family, Elton John, U2, Michael Jackson, etc! 

It was tough memorising the sequence and the lyrics and we turned up for the audition with lyric sheets in hand.  We were lucky as the management team selected all 7 groups to advance for the final during the annual dinner! 

Small Hiker on stage with his colleagues!

As history had it, we were the 2nd runner up winners that walked away with RM2,000 cash for 4 of us.  I had an enjoyable time performing for my fellow colleagues and I knew they were cheering us up and gave us standing ovation!










After the dinner show, I didn't wait that long as I needed to rest for the next day's hiking at Angsi via Bukit Putus.  And as I promised I met my fellow hikers the next day at the foot of Mount Angsi. 

I must have been tired from the excitement of the annual dinner as I felt exhausted going up the easy mountain.  This is the mountain that I'd choose to climb if I want to have a retreat but today I felt it was rather challenging.  Nevertheless, we reached the peak within 2 hours. 









On the way up, we were lucky to see this scorpion and all of us took the pic for our own collection! 

I was wearing a new t-shirt that I bought from John, the pathfinder!  And I still owe him the money!  I like the t-shirt as it's dry fit, suitable for hiking activity.













On the way back, we stopped over at the nearby orchard cum restaurant to have our cold drink.  As for me, my favourite at this restaurant was ambarella juice.  It had slightly bitter taste mixed with the sour taste from dried plum (asam boi). I enjoyed the drink!   

And we left immediately after.  As for me, late lunch was waiting for me at home! 

Inspirational Quote

Reading Habit - The Lost Symbol

Phew!  It took me such a along time to finish reading the novel.  It's a very fascinating read but then I always have other distractions, most notably going online.  Unlike a close colleague, she can finish a book in just one night!

I am known as an insomniac, the other end of insomniac, I wake up very early in the morning and never go back to sleep until the next evening.  Just imagine, I am already awake at 2am and never go back to sleep the whole day and by 7pm, I'd really get sleepy and it's so common for me to sleep at around 9pm!  And then, I'd sleep for about 4 hours and the biology clock wakes me up automatically!  Therefore, it's not unusual for me to sleep during day time over the weekends!  It's payback time.  I have my ideal weekend when I exercise in the morning, to be followed with 3 - 4 hours of sleep!

Reading is a very good 'sleeping pill' and I always go back to sleep after reading something for about 1 hour.  The novel did that for me at one time and I felt so good when I wake up in the morning, it was  already 5.30am.  However, the same trick didn't work at one time too, I got so engrossed with the reading and I did it from 2am until 5am, non-stop.  It's okay I guess as I don't read Dan Brown's novel all the times!

As we are coming to the year end soon, I must say that I don't reach my target of reading 8 books this year.  I'd end up with 3 books maybe.  I am now reading a book on Coaching.  It's related to my work as we're going to transform the company towards embracing he coaching culture from next year onwards.  It's also part of my preparation towards becoming a coach!

Ayer Hitam Forest Reserve - The Trip

As planned, we went for jungle trekking at Ayer hitam Forest Reserve yesterday.  There were ten of us including John.  Missing was Azinda, who really wanted to join but was sick on that day!  Perhaps next time! 

We met at Giant Bandar Puteri at around 7.45am.  When I reached there, the early birds were already chirping away and having their worms!  We had to wait for others but not long as the last car came in soon after that.  We drove in convoy to Taman Wawasan,a 7 minutes drive away.

We started trekking at 7.50am and reached the first checkpoint 30 minutes later.  There were 10 of us and I guessed they were very fit, when we reached the first checkpoint, they were not there, very much ahead of us! By the time we reached the 2nd checkpoint, we had trekked for more than 1.5hours. 

At the second checkpoint, we had to decide whether to go to the pool that was 45 minutes away or to complete the round trip back to the starting point.  We decided to go to the pool.  And it was all worth it.  For the first timers, they realised there was still such a place in KL area.   

We stopped here to enjoy the tranquility and beauty of the surrounding area.  It's beautiful and made the trip well worth it.  I always enjoy feeding the fish here and it was therapeutic looking at the fish feeding on my sandwich bread.   




Darah manis!  dancing queen's bite!



Someone testing his waterproof camera!



We left the pool area 40 minutes later feeling satisfied.  I believe if we skipped the pool, some of them may not return to this area for jungle trekking anymore as there was really nothing to look forward to!

We completed the trip within 4 hours.  After resting a while under a shade, we left separately feeling satisfied.  As for me, I'll definitely come back to this area for my hiking activity as it's so close to home. 

AYER HITAM FOREST RESERVE - NOV 13

I think I have fully recovered from my long fever.  When I first got the fever about two weeks ago I was given antibiotic as I also had sore throat.  I didn't take it as I thought it was too early to be on antibiotic.  And when I went to see the doctor again three days after that I was lying to the doctor telling him that I had taken all the medicines.  In fact, I took it just for one day and I thought my fever was gone but I was wrong it came back the next day.  The doctor gave me antibiotic again.  Just like the first time, I didn't take the antibiotic. 

Last week I went to another clinic near the office and this time I asked for antibiotic.  Now I'm taking it for 4 days already and I feel so much better.  I hope I'd not get the temperature again.  Why didn't I take the antibiotic when I got it the first time? How about the second time?  I got the excuse for the first time as my sore throat wasn't that bad and I ran out of excuses when it happened for the second time!  I guess I got tired of taking medicines!

Due to my fever, I missed the chance of leading my colleagues for their hiking trip to Bukit Gasing on Deepavali day.  I cancelled it one day before and I don't think they'd have problem in finding the place and there'd always be big crowd there, they wouldn't get lost as well!

I really felt better today, so early in the morning I went to the park near my house and did my brisk walking. I felt good but at the same time weary as I could feel the temperature was coming back.  I simply ignored it. 

So this week, if everything goes as planned, I'll be taking my group to Ayer Hitam Forest Reserve in Puchong.  The last time I went up hiking there with a friend, we were shown a notice that the forest reserve was a restricted area and RM10,000 will fined for trespassing.  Prior to inviting my friends to join me there I did my recce and found that people went up there again!  And from the news, I read that the state government has gazetted the area as education and forest research area.  Amongst the reason why people are not allowed to go up was they tend to mess up with the research being conducted there where the trees were labelled and special parameters were erected! 

I hope I will not disappoint the group and we will be free to go up!  Insyaallah!