I miss baking!

Haven't been pottering around in the kitchen for a while. :( There are still so many things on my to-bake list, think I need to find some time for myself to do the things I want to do.

So two of my awesome friends just got married recently! Oh wait, before my awesome friends got married I trekked up this "山坡" in Kluang called Gunung Lambak on Labour Day! Doable in 3 hours.
Level of difficulty: 4/10. To provide a point of reference, I would rate Kinabalu 7 or 8/10.

 

The adrenaline junkies

  

510m from the top, hmm not much of a view

And of course, we got to be in charge of the morning gatecrash! However the frogs proved to be too easy for the guys. Boo. :(
Never mind, we will up the difficulty level for the next one in September! Muahahaha.

  

Little froggies procured by our 7th Jiemei, the Frog Whisperer

 

No kick! Should have blindfolded them haha

 

Bridesmaids looking pretty in purple

Congrats to the newly weds! 

Together with the most fabulous and awesome friends one can ask for :)

And I shall leave you with my fabulous new hairstyle. :) I think I look quite hip with orange hair! LOL hahahaha.

Booya!

I first heard about the Capture the Colours contest through Mad, who nominated me to join. (Check out her awesome entry here!) The idea is to post 5 photos from your travels, each representing a different colour and I thought it was an interesting concept for a blog post, even if I'm not out to win anything.

Initially I was highly doubtful that I can even find 5 representative photos, since I usually take human beings and food more than gorgeous scenery. Anyway, I quickly scanned through all my photos and woah I'm quite glad all these photos exist because although I won't say that I'm quite the globe-trotter (there are still so many parts of the world I haven't been to!), I realized I have seen and experienced quite a number of things through my travels. And without these photos to remind me of what I have seen, I think I would have forgotten most of them. For example, I can't even remember all the places I visited in Beijing.

Also I realized that the quality of my photos were all pretty lousy circa 2006, not that it's fantastic now but I guess the quality of the camera also helps LOL.

There might be more hidden gems in my folders but sifting through everything is gonna be super time consuming. I tried to find one photo from each of my more memorable trips so here goes:

Red

 

The Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto, Japan. Taken in June 2009. It looks orangey here but the pillars are red in real life, perhaps my camera wasn't good enough to capture the colours properly. There's a picture of me mimicking a scene out of Memoirs of a Geisha floating around somewhere hahaha.
Read more about my Japan trip here.

White

I visited Cambodia the same year, in December 2009. This was taken in the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I thought this really suited the white theme well and sent a really strong message about the sombre sentiment of our visit to the Killing Fields. It reminds you of the cruelty of the Khmer Rouge regime, and perhaps even of mankind in general.

Yellow

  

I had a few photos for the Yellow category but ultimately chose this even though it only has slight accents of yellow because 1) It's THE Great Wall of China! 2) It was during the World Cup in 2010 and we saw a group of Brazilians who were very enthusiastic about their support for their country, as you can see from above. 3) We didn't know them but just went ahead to take a photo with them anyway. :D

Taken in Beijing, China, June 2010.

Blue

  

I had such a hard time trying to find a photo that suited the blue theme because I felt that they all weren't representative enough. In the end I settled for this shot, taken at the Death Valley, California, USA, June 2011. We stayed over a night here en route to Las Vegas and this place really lives up to its name. There were very few people around, it was super dry and scorching hot, so much so that I could feel the heat radiating up from the ground.

Green

 

Last but not least, this is my shortlisted photo for Green. The most recent of the lot, taken in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia in July 2012. This trip was a purposeful one, as the aim was to summit Mount Kinabalu, and I feel that this shot was very representative of the seemingly never-ending hike up to the top. Surrounded by lush greenery, all we could do was to focus on taking one step at a time, slowly, ploddingly, surely.

Read more about my Kota Kinabalu experience here!

Check out more awesome photos on their Facebook page, I just did and it sure puts my lousy humble photos to shame!!!

OK I'm supposed to nominate 5 people to join too and I hereby "arrow" the following (no obligations though! The deadline's nearing anyway...)

1) Gillian

2) Adelene

3) Mabel 

Shucks running out of friends to arrow...

4) Su Yi

5) Can I re-nominate Mad? Haha

I will save the other photos that I selected but didn't make the cut for another entry next time! Laters!

Woah it's already mid-July! :x

Much has transpired since my last post on 1st July:

1) I climbed a mountain! :D
2) One of my bestest kakis left to do her Masters - I won't see her for 2 years! :(
3) I got passed over for promotion :(
4) I completed another 10km run
5) I got hooked onto the Fifty Shades trilogy

Of course the most exciting and significant of which.... was to reach the summit of the highest mountain of South East Asia!!!! :D :D :D

The idea of climbing a mountain probably first formed in my brain as I was going through one of those quarter-life crisis moments... in an attempt to make my life more exciting. It's just one of those things that you want to do at least once in your life! After 2 years of empty talk, I can now say that when I am old and start thinking, what exactly did I do with my life when I was in my twenties? DUM DUM DUM DUM.... I can proudly list this as one of my achievements!!!

Climbing Mount Kinabalu is by far, the most physically challenging and exhausting thing I've ever done in my life. It's tiring to the bone, there is no other way other than UP, and with every breath you take you just push yourself further. And because of the thinner air, I was panting and gasping very audibly all the way up despite all the training we've done. Thank goodness I took altitude sickness pills, or it could have been much worse.

That said, there's nothing like that sense of accomplishment and knowing that you have pushed and overcame limits. :D Really an experience to be treasured. Plus nothing bonds people like physical torture and adversity LOL.

Hmmm, perhaps there is some truth to us being adrenaline junkies after all!! :D

Some photos to summarize:

 Still pretty excited at the airport

First stop to fill our tummies!


 
At City Park Lodge. Setting off at 6 or is it 7am!

 

22kg of barang that our guide lugged up

All bright-eyed and fresh, unaware of the terrors that loom ahead hahaha

 It's a 6km + 2.5km (?) trek to the summit!

 

Our first milestone marker, at 0.5km, still feeling pretty relaxed!

  

Means still got mood to take and pose for photos haha

 

Our very pro guide Johan, who has traversed the mountain about 500 times. He will offer his magic hand and drag us up when the going gets tough. All while carrying that huge load 0__0

Surrounded by lush greenery

 

Passed the halfway mark!

 

The terrain starts to change... it gets rockier and the paths are not as clearly marked

 

False bravado after lunch break LOL. The toughest 2km trek to Pendant Hut looms ahead!

 

Started to rain

HOW TO CLIMB THIS YOU SAY?! (I thank Johan's magic hand)

 And I was thinking, shit man, dunno how the hell I'm going to come down. From experience, I really suck at maneuvering around rocks for the way down!

 

One more km left! We can do it! 

 

It gets colder and mistier

 

Scrambling to rest with a mere 500m or so to go. Displaying our best shagged face hahaha.

 

Pendant Hut - where we crashed for the night. Ended up not bathing! Water was so cold, my hands froze when I washed my hands and my nose felt like dropping off when I washed my face.

Crashed at 8pm and woke up at 2am to plod our way up, up, up countless stairs, hoisting ourselves up with rope, praying not to lose my footing on the treacherous rocks, onwards to the peak. I felt giddy at times, thinking, this must be how it feels like to hyperventilate. Giving up wasn't an option, we just had to go on, one small step at a time. It's too surreal, now looking back, I wonder how I managed to make it up.

 

This is what I look and feel like, half-dead, about 1km away from the summit 

 

 Breaking dawn

 The summit's just behind us!

 Team Ain't No Mountain High Enough at Low's Peak, 4,095,2m above sea level!

 

Was too cloudy for the sunrise :( The view up there is gorgeous, but I think I was too tired to fully appreciate it. Haha.

 

View from the top

 

It would have been totally awesome to do the Visa dance against this backdrop. Hahaha :D

Spot the pals :D

Our victory cry LOL

  

At the highest toilet in Southeast Asia! (Yes I had the chance to pee in it LOL)

 

At the edge of glory

 

 We are survivors!!! :D

 Taking the Via Ferrata - scaling down the surface of the mountain

 

It looks steep from here but it's actually not as scary as it looks - it's like rappelling 

Took us 2+ hours to complete the Via Ferrata. After that, we went back to Pendant Hut, thoroughly exhausted. Unfortunately, what goes up must come down, and we still had a 6km trek down to Timpohon Gate. GARHHHH!

It was a very tortuous trek down. Coming down is definitely much harder than climbing up, and as I mentioned I really suck at navigating such rocky terrain because I have this morbid fear that I will slip and fall spectacularly and probably knock my head and die. Hahaha. I mean look at what happened when I went cycling in Pulau Ubin.:x

Coupled with the fact that it was slippery (intermittent showers), my feet started to hurt, our legs were starting to feel the effects of the strenuous climb up the day before, and all those stairs aren't great for our knees.

GOLDEN RULE #1: Good trekking shoes with a very firm grip + a walking pole will save your life!!!!

We left Pendant Hut at 2pm, and arrived at Timpohon Gate at 8pm. Night fell and our last 1.5km was spent navigating in the dark. Never felt so 狼狈 in my life.

GOLDEN RULE #2: A headlamp and torchlight is essential! And so is a poncho, for that matter.

 
Rewarded ourselves with a good breakfast the next morning. I quite like their laksa!

 

And because we didn't have time to take photos with our signs at the summit, we accosted a patient tourist who very kindly helped us with the photos LOL

 

One is enough! Erm yeah but now I have thoughts of going for another one in like Nepal or something after looking at the Adventure Quest webpage haha. (http://www.adventure-quests.com/activities/Intro%20to%20Trekking/intro_poonhill_trek.asp - the highest altitude is 3,210m! If we can do 4,095m we can do 3,210m... right? LOL.

 

EVIDENCE, y'all!!!

Summited Kinabalu + completed the highest Via Ferrata in the world!

Certified adrenaline junkie!

My legs ached for 4 whole days before they started regaining some sense of normalcy on Friday.

And then on Saturday I went for a run. Hahaha. 

And this was from last Saturday's Marina21k run at Punggol Promenade. (10km)

I also - perhaps foolishly - signed up for the half marathon at this year's edition of the Great Eastern Run.

Gulp.

That's happening in November, which is 4 months away... oh do I think I can prepare to run 21km in 4 months? 

My current pace is slightly less than 8 mins per km, and that is without stopping or walking, so with some simple multiplication, I should take 168 mins for 21km. Rounding up, I hope to finish it in 3 hours. With time to walk and collapse on the floor if need be. Hmmmm.

I think this post is getting too long and rambly. Will blog about other stuff another time.

"Laters, baby."

(Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey)