Starting to be Alive

This blog will be coming alive again..... very soon!!!! So watch out!!!

The Dive....and moving on

Like I mentioned in the last post, scuba diving was really the highlight of the trip for me and the gang. It was really a glimpse into the life of a mermaid, not that they exist, but if they did at least I can say that I enjoyed the 1/2 hour experience of being a merman. Here's more pictures of our diving expedition before we move to the next activity.

Instructor teaching us how to breath like Darth Vader

Getting set to go into the water. I was really expecting us to backward flip into the water like what we watch on discovery channel, but alas because we were bunch of first timers, we had to suit up in the water.

where's Nemo??

We sure did feel like successful PADI certified divers after the 1/2 hour experience.

Activity 3: Surfing

Next highlight of the trip had to be surfing. In all my previous trips to Bali, I never did try out surfing. Heck, even in my 2 years staying in Brisbane, 45 minutes away from the best waves in the world, Surfers Paradise I never ever tried surfing. So this time I thought I should try it out.

The only motivation I had during surf lessons was that if Hock could stand so can I and that was what motivated Yuen and Valarie as well. Surfing is not easy thing to do, the hardest part is actually not standing on the board, it is actually swimming out and finding a wave to catch and finding the correct time to stand. A lot of body action is required and now I understand how those surfer dudes can have a "surfer body".

Learning to surf is one thing but there was another lesson I learned too. That is to always no matter what.. put sun block. You see, I was so excited and all that I forgot all about the sunblock. I hurriedly suit up

Only to come back from 3 hours in the sun having two contrasting body shade.

Lesson very well learned.

It's alive again

Wow!! This sure has been the longest silence ever. 4 1/2 months of no activity here, I wonder do anybody still bother to come visit this blog. It's so dead that even the chat box has died a "natural death". I really wonder who are the 5 people who still checks this blog faithfully. Whoever you are, thank you for being faithful.. your patience has finally paid off.

Anyway, I thought what best to start this blog again then to talk about my long awaited, long deserving holiday. It happened just before Chinese New Year, Yuen Wei, Valarie, Rachael and myself decided in early March 2007 that we would board a plane

Heading towards the beautiful Island of Bali. There was actually 5 of us in the group originally, but Hock had to ffk last minute and left me babysitting 3 girls. But still it was great company as it was the 3 girls that took good care of me.

Anyway, here's the deal.. my dad hooked us up to stay with his friend's friend who had a house in Bali. So we weren't sure how to house would look like and all I remembered of Bali, majority of houses weren't that big, so we all geared ourselves up with sleeping begs only to find that we weren't staying in a house but a huge 3 storey bungalow where I had a king size bed to myself

And the girls had a huge super king size bed to roll around in

you can see it fits 3 comfortably

Well thanks to Val over rolling around where she did her kung fu stunts on Yuen and Rachael, the two girls kicked her to a mattress the next night. And all these luxury cost us only RM50 split by 4 (in love gift to our new found friend aunty mei chen) for 5 nights. What blessings. Our host aunty Mei Chen was great, came to pick us up in the airport and arranged our transport for the duration of our trip, ensuring we get the best price possible.

So what do you do in Bali? You have fun on the beach. And how do you have fun on the beach? You do water sports on the beach and what better place to do all these than in Nusa Dua beach.

First activity: Para gliding

All I can remember from my para gliding experience was that my privates hurt real bad after that. Not because I landed I landed on them but because my body weight was literally supported by it.

Look closely at the harness, look what it is cupping on... but before I go on.... so they gear me for the para glide in lighting speed and hooked my on to the chutes and before I could even say "terlalu ketat?" the man in the cap just shouted "LARI!!!" and I could hear the sound of a roaring speed boat firing up and by the next second I was......

now look at the chute and look at what's supporting my whole weight to the chute? you got it right, the harness and now look where the harness is hook to? you got that right... no wonder I felt like my voice was a higher pitch after I landed.

Second Activity: Scuba Diving

This has got to be the highlight of the holiday, to be able to be under the water for 1/2 hour 600m below sea level. The briefing before the the actual dive made scuba diving seem like a piece of cake. All we had to remember was how to breath through Darth Vader's oxygen tank and how to pop your ears when you feel the pressure. Seriously, all of us thought it was a walk in the park until we all went in the water.

Me as the only man on the trip had to be the first one to go into the water to set an example that scuba diving is nothing but a walk in the park. Truth be told now... once the guide brought me to the 1st 100 meters I already panic because I kept breathing from my nose instead of my mouth and the pressure on the ear was so great...I was so scared until I literally pee pee... poor Rachael, she was next to me when that happened. Anyway, once getting over the initial panic and fear... the feeling was surreal...

high 5!!

It was really a surreal feeling to be able to swim with the fishes and feeding them

Now I understand why people are so crazy about scuba diving. The waters in Bali was a bit murky so now i really want to get my PADI and go to Redang, Tioman and even The Great Barrier Reef to dive... can't imagine how the feeling will be like there

Do watch out... more Bali updates coming...!!! Yes this blog is alive again!!!

ever experiece?

Have you ever experience this before? You thought you were good at something only to realize later on that you are actually bad at it? Well I am going through that right now and it's not a good experience.

i am craving for....

I've just been having this big craving for Ribena lately. I don't know why, everywhere I walk, there's just that smell of Ribena that surrounds me. Every thought that runs through my head is interrupted with a picture of the Ribena squeeze squeeze packet. It's become an "in-between" drink for me now. At least it takes my addiction for Coke

like a tiger..

By the way, I just submitted in for an audition to model for Tiger Beer. I figured that Tiger needed to reach out to its female consumers because there are a rather large segment of drinkers. I am sure those female consumers don't want to see one of those sexy bikini clad girls on the poster. So I sent in my profile picture in to Tiger for their consideration together with the attached letter.

To whom it may concern in Tiger

Hi, My name is Tan Eng Meng, but my friends call me Ah Meng but I guess you can call me Marko. Why am I am Marko and not just Mark you may ask? Because people look up to me that's why they add the "ko" to the Mark and that's why I am Marko.

Because people look up to me, I think your female consumers will also. This is the reason why I am writing to you. Because I feel you are loosing your female "audience". The ladies don't want to see Jessica Alba drinking a Tiger, they want to see a Tiger drinking a Tiger and I think I am your Tiger!!

If you think the above picture is not Tiger enough. I am sure this picure below is more Tiger than you can imagine.

I hope you will consider me modeling for Tiger in the future.

Yours sincerely,

Marko the Tiger

p.s. I still have shots of me in my Tiger underwear.

hhhmm.....

Watching this video.......

Watching this video somehow just reminds me of .......

Maybe one day when Malaysia finally has "Malaysia's got Talent", Terry you could sing that song.

finding time....

I've been so busy lately that I miss doing the simple everyday things such as replying emails to close friends, updating my blog with more interesting stuff instead of picture of me sleeping in toilets.

Right now, I'll follow the steps of Judah Cheah and leave you all with some true life stories of travellers. I promise, the next post will be a entry.

Until than, enjoy.... btw.. I find it hard to believe that some of these stories are true.

Why some people Should Never Be Allowed To Travel?

The following are actual stories provided by travel agents:

I had someone ask for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window.

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A client called in inquiring about a package to Hawaii. After going over all the cost info, she asked, "Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii?"

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I got a call from a woman who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information when she interrupted me with "I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts. "Without trying to make her look like the stupid one,I calmly explained, "Capecod is in Massachusetts, Capetown is in Africa." Her response ... click.

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A man called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state."

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I got a call from a man who asked, "Is it possible to see England from Canada?" I said, "No." He said "But they look so close on the map."

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Another man called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed he had a 1-hour lay over in Dallas. When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I heard Dallas was a big airport, and I need a car to drive between the gates to save time."

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A nice lady just called. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and got into Chicago at 8:33am. I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of llinois, but she could not understand the concept of time zones. Finally I told her the plane went very fast, and she bought that!!!

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A woman called and asked, "Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know who's luggage belongs to who?" I said, "No, why do you ask?" She replied, "Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said FAT, and I'm overweight, is there any connection?" After putting her on hold for a minute while I "looked into it" (I was actually laughing) I came back and explained the city code for Fresno is FAT, and that the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.

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I just got off the phone with a man who asked, "How do I know which plane to get on?" I asked him what exactly he meant, which he replied, "I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on them."

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A woman called and said, "I need to fly to Pepsi-cola on one of those computer planes." I asked if she meant to fly to Pensacola on a commuter plane. She said, "Yeah, whatever."

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A businessman called and had a question about the documents he needed in order to fly to China. After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded him he needed a visa. "Oh no I don't, I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those." I double checked and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this he said, "Look, I've been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express."

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A woman called to make reservations, "I want to go from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New York" The agent was at a loss for words. Finally, the agent: "Are you sure that's the name of the town?" "Yes, what flights do you have?" replied the customer. After some searching, the agent came back with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a Hippopotamus anywhere." The customer retorted, "Oh don't be silly. Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!" The agent scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, "You don't mean Buffalo, do you?" "That's it! I knew it was a big animal!!!

toilet break

For the last two days, I found myself going to the toilet very very often. And it's not because I've been drinking lots of water which I should. But it's more because I've been doing a lot of this in the toilet.

Toilets still are the best place to catch those much needed power naps. As a tip, if you find the disabled toilet vacant, best to use the disabled toilet as it's more spacious and comfortable and there's a railing to lean on.

smells like teen spirit

What does one do on a boring Saturday in Singapore? He goes surfing around on YouTube... I surf through many videos and suddenly thought of my time in school when Nirvana was in the in thing. Songs Lithium, Come as You Are, Smells Like Teen Spirit could be heard out of the window of every teenagers room in the early 90's. Smells Like Teen Spirit has always been my favorite Nirvana song and so I set out to relive some old memories and went in search of the MTV for Smells like Teen Spirit. So presenting to you, Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana before Kurt Kobain Cobain died.

Off course this song is not only a favorite to me but to many other people and for sure you see many bands doing covers for this song. YouTube off course had videos of many others who covered the song. But his is my favorite acoustic version of the song.

And who says acoustic set up was boring. I this this has got to be one of the best unplugged group around. This song was so big that many has gone out and rearrange the song to suit them, but nothing beats this rearrangement.

Rock certainly does Swing!!

i'll give you anything and whatever

If you claim to be my friend, I will give you

ANYTHING!!

And

WHATEVER!!

Yes, indeeed, I will give you ANYTHING

and WHATEVER

Both this drinks are a new craze that has hit Singapore for the last 2 months or so. Everyone here is raving about ANYTHING and about WHATEVER. So, now you ask me, What's so special about this drink?

Well as you can see from the packaging,

It looks the same right? But, you are wrong.. there is a difference between these two can, and the difference lies on the back.

What difference you ask, well one has to look closely at the ingredients

That's there the difference is. Very sorry for the blurred shot, my hands shake a lot when I take pictures therefore the camera is never steady. Anyway, as one can see that each can of drink is flavored differently and one can only tell when looking at the tiny small portion that says "ingredients", therefore, the whole idea of the drink is, when you purchase these drinks, you're purchasing ANYTHING because it can be WHATsoEVER flavour and you never know until you read the ingredients.

So the Singaporeans have really gotten into this drink and made a game out of it. I buy ANYTHING and guess WHATEVER flavor is it. Rules are simple, just purchase a can of ANYTHING

or WHATEVER

These drinks can be purchased from any sundry shops nearest to you. Step 1 : open the can

Step 2: Take a sip and guess the flavor

Step 3: check at the back to see if you got it correct.

If you got it wrong repeat step 1 to 3 until you get it correct. So fun right???

And speaking of WHATEVER!! This video is so cute courtesy of Rose

it's coming, it's drawing nearer

The youth event of the year is just another 4 days away. Make sure you make yourself free for FIRE UP!

Fire Up!

Fire Up! Conference

Dates: July 6-7, 2007

Venue: Glad Tidings, PJ

Featuring: Michael Rowan (USA)

a car review

Remember about a month ago I wrote about this?

Well, I came back from work today to find it all assembled up.

These days, baby walkers are made so colorful and installed with nice little extras to it. Heck!! It even has sport rims to it. It may not be your OZ 17" rims, but it's still rims. I remember when I was a baby, baby walkers just look like this

These days, there's "zhng my baby walker" and they are now even installed with a steering wheel with horn attached to it. To top it of, there's these little triangle and square shapes things that makes all sorts of weird noises that I can't even tell what they are. It is really "zhng my baby walker" kow kow.

On why my landlord left the kuku-car at my place instead taking it back for her daughter to play and walk around with it, I really don't know. Obviously, me being so impressed with the kuku-car, I had to take it on a spin

And boy, was it literally a spin, just a spin A-Round. Obviously, the kuku-car didn't quite fit me so *sigh*, I couldn't take the kuku-mobil out to Clark Quay and ask the chicks there if they "want a ride?"

another fun filled weekend

It was another tiring but fun filled weekend for me. Had Hock, Terry and Heng Joe for company for the weekend. Certainly was fun to just relax with the blokes with no agenda and program. It was the Copeland, Anberlin gig weekend which explains why the blokes and a few YC kids were down in Singapore for.

Copeland certainly rocked for me that Sunday night. When I hear their CDs in my room, I get bored after the 4th track but when they are live, they totally rocked. The emotions that exudes from the stage when they sing totally made their set all worth to watch. I guess when I listen to Copeland now, there will be new insights to them. Anberlin was good too, but I guess it's either I was too tired by the time they came up and didn't enjoy their set or I am just too old for energetic punk rock style music. I think I'd put it to tiredness.

My only regret for that night was that I forgot to bring my camera along, so that explains the extremely poor photo quality which was taken with my trusty camera phone.

I have to say it's not bad for a 1.3 mega pixel camera. I really wish I could write more about the weekend but there's really too much to write about that I don't know where to begin (it's actually an excuse for being lazy to write)

a tired but refreshing weekend

Last month, when Ollie Sebastian from Paradise emailed me and asked if I could play for him for an Assemblies of God Singapore worship conference, I said yes thinking in my heart that it'll never happen. But it actually did happen and what an awesome conference it was over the weekend. It was totally great to play with the Paradise folks again, really brought back memories of my 2 years in Paradise Community Church. Come to think of it, it's been exactly a year since I left Adelaide and what a great way to mark my 1 year being away by having a chance to play with Ollie, Anna and the gang. It certainly was a piece of Adelaide that came to me.

The Conference is named Saturate Conference and it's in its third installment. This year's theme was "UNDONE, reduced, ruined, REVIVED"

This year's conference featured Jared Ming as the main speaker and Paradise as the guest band. When I first heard the name Jared Ming I thought he was some unheard of chinese guy coming to speak. Turns out he's American and is quite a big name fella. He's the one that mentored people like Lincoln Brewster to the great song leader he is today. Jared Ming himself is an accomplished song leader in his own rights having recorded for a few albums with Vineyard Music. I was asked to be part of the support band to play for Jared as it is his style to start with some songs before he starts to preach. Playing for Jared was an experience of all kind in itself, his style of worship is totally of a different sort from all that I've experience. The minute he touches the keyboard, you can feel a sense of anointing falling into the auditorium. It was great playing old time gospel songs again.

Jared brought along his 12 year old daughter, Macie Ming and you sure can see that worship is flows in his family. He got his daughter to come and help him lead in some songs and she too carried that same anoiting the father had. This is really what i call leading with anoiting. When Macy sang "When I Think About His Love", tears just flowed down my eyes, as she sang you could just feel the love of God surround you. I was so touch that when the band had to come in I totally missed the queue because I've been so engulf in the love of God.

I went to this conference thinking I was just "part of the paradise band" and expecting nothing, but boy was I wrong. This is one conference I so glad that I went to and the opportunity God opened for me to be part of it.Initially, i have to admit that I was a bit reluctant to be part of the "Jared Ming band" because it called for extra practice and time was already so packed and I was also displeased that they didn't like asked me if i could play the organisers just said "Mark come for practice for Jared Ming...", I was honestly not happy with that sort of treatment and even Ollie asked me to stand my ground to them and not let them take advantage but something in me pushed me to do it anyway and now I am glad that I just kept quiet and went ahead because I was so bless. Playing with the Paradise band was great but playing for Jared Ming was WOW!!!! I can see now Lincoln Brewster became the song leader he is today because of such a great mentor. Jared is super encouraging even after the amount of mistakes I made for his set. He even asked if I could follow him for his Sunday engagement in another church but it was just too bad that I had already committed to following Ollie to another church service.

I have to admit that Singapore has a lot of talented musicians that I was wondering why did they ask a "cha pe lang" bassist like me to play for Jared when there was so many other better ones around. Almost everyone in the conference were accomplish musicians in their own rights, even the girls and boys who took care of the stalls selling CDs and food were accomplished musicians. It's really such sense of servant hood from everyone in the conference.

It was a tiring 3 days, everyday the day began at 7:30am and ended at 1:30am, but it was really spiritually refreshing. So happy that I had the change to attend and be part of such a great conference for free.

what's wrong with americans?

What's wrong with the Americans?? Can't they see a good talented singer? I can't believe Melinda Doolittle is out of the finale.

a long awaited wedding of the year

I know this is so long overdue, but I still want to congratulate one of my best friend from school and college for beating all of us in the gang to do this.

I remember when we were younger in school, all of us in the gang would always say that Troy would be one of the last to get married because of his fat-like-lump-of-blob look and also his fear of women.

But looks like we're (actually just me) eating our words now. The Blob from yesteryears has turned into a handsome prince and became the first in our gang to get married. Even beating Aaron Ram Sarma (the most eligible, richest and handsome), whom we all thought would definitely be the first to tie the knot.

We're certainly proud of you Troy for what you've turned out to be. I think you definitely deserve to tie the knot first because you definitely were the most matured amongst us to understand the true importance and significance of marriage.

And what's a wedding without any mishaps especially when all of us "who brings along destruction to any where we go" are heavily involve in the wedding. I'll always remember this incident below as that was one of the highlights of the wedding for me. We just had to accidentally "vandalize" Troy's mother-in-laws car. We sure hope that incident hasn't turned you into an out-law in Janice's family. I wonder is that why Troy had to move to some secluded town in Malacca?

As I mentioned, I should learn not to curse people because curses do come back to you. Me always declaring back than that Troy "The Blob" Khoo would for sure be the last one to get married; now looks like I am going to be the last one to get married (looking at how things are currently). Well for now, I am very happy and satisfied just to be involve in any of my good buddies' wedding, be it being a video man

Emceeing for the wedding.

Or even just being a normal wedding guest shouting "YYYUUUMMMM SEEENNNGGG" when it's my tables turn to do so.

Again, Troy my dearest best friend. I am so happy for you, your wedding day was one of the happiest day of my life, not because it was a day the whole gang united and did crazy stuff together but seeing my best friend at his happiest made me very happy too.

p.s. Troy, I still owe you your wedding ang-pow

p.p.s. Can I now show my true colors to Janice? Now that she's Mrs. Khoo Teck Yih?