It's time!! I woke up at 6am, got ready and called for a cab at 630am. As i was getting ready to leave.. i heard the taxi arrive..
About 5 minutes later, I went downstairs and found that the taxi had left.. So impatient! So i called the taxi company and had to wait another 5 minutes before another taxi arrived.. I was getting a bit concerned by then cause we were supposed to all meet in front of the Air Asia counter at Terminal 1 at 7am.
Fortunately, I arrived at Terminal 1 at 7am sharp. But ended up waiting for another 30 minutes or so for the rest of the team to arrive and start to stream in slowly. We were a huge group of sportsmen: Golfers with their humongous golf bags, bowlers with their bowling bags, badminton players with their rackets and bags, and of course the table tennis players with their luggage (cannot see their tennis bats cause it's hidden inside their luggage).
The checking in process was a nightmare. So many of us. I think I was the only one who did not have any check in luggage. All I had with me was my small Nike backpack, my travel skin wallet and my badminton racket. Everyone was like: "Wah, you bring like that only ah?" haha.. I was quite the conversation starter there. Needless to say, i took the shortest time to check in and get my tickets. But i still had to wait for the rest.. The poor golfers and bowlers had to find ways and means to combine their baggage allowance with others so that they can avoid paying for extra baggage capacity.. haha..
We took some pictures at the departure gates, before proceeding for some breakfast at the food court. I had Nasi Lemak and iced milo.. Not bad, but over priced as usual..
The 50 minutes flight to KL was uneventful. I sat beside one of the female golfers who happened to be a manager from the same department I was working at. The first 10 minutes was awkward cause i didn't know what to talk about with her. Then she moved one seat away to the window seat, citing something about having more space since the seat was not taken. All was fine after that as i read my magazine and rested my eyes for a while..
Upon arrival at the Low Cost Carrier Terminal in KL, the entire waiting game started again.. We had to wait for each other to get past immigration, collect luggage etc etc.. While waiting, some of us started taking pictures again.. here are some photos we took at the airport, including a group photo of the whole Singapore team.
About 5 minutes later, I went downstairs and found that the taxi had left.. So impatient! So i called the taxi company and had to wait another 5 minutes before another taxi arrived.. I was getting a bit concerned by then cause we were supposed to all meet in front of the Air Asia counter at Terminal 1 at 7am.
Fortunately, I arrived at Terminal 1 at 7am sharp. But ended up waiting for another 30 minutes or so for the rest of the team to arrive and start to stream in slowly. We were a huge group of sportsmen: Golfers with their humongous golf bags, bowlers with their bowling bags, badminton players with their rackets and bags, and of course the table tennis players with their luggage (cannot see their tennis bats cause it's hidden inside their luggage).
The checking in process was a nightmare. So many of us. I think I was the only one who did not have any check in luggage. All I had with me was my small Nike backpack, my travel skin wallet and my badminton racket. Everyone was like: "Wah, you bring like that only ah?" haha.. I was quite the conversation starter there. Needless to say, i took the shortest time to check in and get my tickets. But i still had to wait for the rest.. The poor golfers and bowlers had to find ways and means to combine their baggage allowance with others so that they can avoid paying for extra baggage capacity.. haha..
We took some pictures at the departure gates, before proceeding for some breakfast at the food court. I had Nasi Lemak and iced milo.. Not bad, but over priced as usual..
The 50 minutes flight to KL was uneventful. I sat beside one of the female golfers who happened to be a manager from the same department I was working at. The first 10 minutes was awkward cause i didn't know what to talk about with her. Then she moved one seat away to the window seat, citing something about having more space since the seat was not taken. All was fine after that as i read my magazine and rested my eyes for a while..
Upon arrival at the Low Cost Carrier Terminal in KL, the entire waiting game started again.. We had to wait for each other to get past immigration, collect luggage etc etc.. While waiting, some of us started taking pictures again.. here are some photos we took at the airport, including a group photo of the whole Singapore team.
Then it was onward to our hotel at Crowne Plaza Mutiara. The bus ride took about 45 minutes.
Upon arrival, we went into a small function room for some logistics briefing. We were given goodie bags and name tags. Inside the goodie bag, there was a sports towel and a nice little name card holder in the shape of the KL Twin Towers which i like very much..
When we arrived at the hotel, there was not enough rooms for everyone. So we had to put our bags in our sports convenors' rooms before heading out for lunch. I went with 4 other badminton players from my team to Pavilion for lunch. The rest were meeting friends and colleagues. Actually, Pavilion was my suggestion cause i wanted to buy my favourite Egg loaf bread from Lavender Bakery.. haha.. I brought them to the Food Republic food court, where i had hor fun and po piah. I was kinda like the tour guide cause none of them had been to Pavilion before, not even the girl whose hometown is in KL (but she worked in Singapore)!
After lunch, we headed back to the hotel and checked into our own rooms. I was sharing a room (with 2 single beds) with another girl in my team. The room was decent, but no nice view of the Petronas twin tower whatsoever.. = ) We assembled again at 2pm at the lobby where our bus took us to the competition venue for our training session. The ride took about 40-45 minutes.. I was shocked when i saw the place.
It's the KL Wangsa Maju Racket Sports Club. Which to me, is a warehouse turned badminton hall. There was practically nothing surrounding the sports club except for several rundown car workshops and gravel roads at the entrance leading into better paved roads..
But the sports hall was huge.. they had like 20 courts or so. Low hanging florescent lights and absolutely no ventilation of any sorts.. not even one fan. Great... it was like training inside a sauna.. It wasn't a good start, and I didn't have a good feeling about competing in the same place the following day. It felt okay when you are running and moving around, but once you stop and rest, the whole body starts to feel very uncomfortable.
Anyway, we trained for about 2 hours before we headed back to the hotel and headed for dinner at 7pm. We gathered at the hotel lobby where the committee members were distributing bottles of Vitagen for us to drink. They needed the empty bottles to fill up with rice and beans and use as "shakers" to create some noise during our cultural performance for the closing ceremony.
Dinner was buffet at a Japanese restaurant called "Saisaki" just opposite our hotel. Wide variety of dishes.. looks delicious but lousy quality. The service was lousy too.. no smiles, uniform shirts coming out and nobody bothers to tuck them in, clearing plates when we haven't even finished our food cause they didn't bother to ask first.. Won't recommend this place to anyone.
We went back to the hotel function room to attend a briefing for the closing ceremony performance on Saturday. All contingents had to put up a simple performance for the closing ceremony. The Singapore team was going to dress up in ethnic costumes and sing songs from the 4 languages of Malay, Chinese, English and Indian. Me and my partner were arrowed to represent the Singapore team. Initially, the deal was whoever lost the most number of matches will go up on stage to perform. But on the way from the airport to the hotel, i was told i had been nominated to perform by my sports convenor.. sickening!!
After the briefing, I headed back to my room and had an early night. My room mate was still out for dinner with her friends, so i went ahead without her, bursting with anticipation for morning to come..
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March 23, 2009 at 1:12 PM
cos you are pretty!! that's why you were arrowed. :)