Haha

Sunway Lagoon

This time, I’m trying my hand at surfing and body boarding. I found out that during the monsoon season on the east coast, people actually surf there. Occasionally. the waves there are comparable to Bali and Hawaii. Since I have not surf a single wave all my live before, I decided to try it out first at Sunway Lagoon’s Surf Pool.

Ok, here’s the breakdown of the price

Entrance to Sunway Wet Park : RM 27.90
Rental of Body board : RM 10.00, refundable deposit of RM 20.00
Rental of Surf board : RM 20.00, refundable deposit of RM 30.00

The surf pool is only open during weekends and public holidays. Session for body boarding is from 3.00pm to 4.00pm and limited to 20 person per session. While for surfing is from 5.00pm to 6.00pm. For surfing, you need to register first at the rental booth at 3.30pm because there’s a limit of 12 person per session and this quota is usually filled by regular surfers, so be quick. In each session, you’d be given about 20 waves which will be signalled with a loud horn.

Body boarding and surfing is not an easy feat. I can swim, but still find catching the wave a mammoth task. ‘Catching’ here means having the wave pushing you, while it makes it way to the beach, with you on it. Took me a while to think about the physics but here goes

1. There’s a limit to the force of a wave, so if you’re too heavy to push, the wave will just duck under you. To prevent this, you need to lessen the force needed to push you by moving at a similar speed as the wave. To do this, you need to paddle in the same direction as the wave is going. In bodyboarding, you can paddle with your hands and feet but with surfing, you can only to paddle with your hands.

2. Next, comes the hard part. Duck diving. When the wave is approximately a couple of feet behind you, with both hands on the top part of the board, transfer your upper body weight to the board by pushing the tip slightly under water. Then, when you feel the wave hitting you back, guide your board with your dominant knee. At this point, the wave should push you all the way to the beach. If you manage reach the beach, congratulate yourself. You’ve just caught your first wave.

The next step is standing up. I’m yet to be able to do that. Wipe out after wipe out took my breath away. Tired, but I’m not defeated yet. Clearly I need more education and practice. I’ll conquer this eventually.

Sunway Lagoon

Wiped out with bodyboard

The pink manace. Damn hard to balance myself on this thing

Also, I’m moving this blog to blogger.com to take advantage of the nicer url. Check it out http://penyelamat.blogspot.com

A good friend of mine had to let go of a mother cat and 4 kittens. The kittens are approximately 4 weeks old and just started eating dry food. Warning : They’re extremely cute and playful. Look at the pictures with caution.

Cute little devils aren’t they? You’ve been warned. Hehe.
If you’re interested in adopting any one of them or better yet, all of them, kindly contact me via amrizal98@yahoo.com

Also, I’m moving this blog to blogger.com to take advantage of the nicer url. Check it out http://penyelamat.blogspot.com

Enrolled myself to Aquaria’s Dive with Shark last weekend. There’s 2 slots that guest can join, the 1pm and 5 pm. The 1pm slot is usually for certified diver while the 5pm is for non-certified. Aquaria is not really strict about this, guest can request to join the 1pm slot. The whole event sould take you about 3 hours. The first hour is for training and diver’s hand signals, and the rest is for prep and the dive itself. The cost of the dive is RM450 for non-certified diver and RM400 for certified divers. I know it sound expensive but bear in mind that there’s reasonable amount of risks involved. You’re diving in a tank with sharks. Plus, this includes the rental of the diving equiptment, the dvd recording of the whole event and the goody bag you’ll be getting. Aquaria is also kind enough to supply me with an instructor to guide me through the whole experience for no additional charges. Talk about value for money.

Getting in the wetsuit was murder. I’m telling you, those things should have a ‘dangerous item’ label. Turned out, you have to wet it first before doning it on. After quickly slipping in the wetsuit, I was briefed about how to use the mask and the tank and again, drilled with diver’s hand signals. This is important because diver’s need some way of communicating under water. The prep area is actually their staff room but equipt with shower and a lot of diving equptments. There, you can also see behind the scene of how the tank works. They’ve got filters for everything; sand, protein etc. Those filter’s are huge. My cameraman told me that Aquaria is currently employing about 80 staff.

The oxygen tank weight about 10kg(i think) and you’ll also be wearing some sort of heavy belt. Probably to weight a diver down. Wearing flippers and the oxygen tank, you have to walk backwards into the water, and then to the backflip thingy at the edge of the reef. Btw, I saw a mermaid with a pink top came out of the water just before i dive. Hehe..

I was advised to just let the instructor manouver me underwater instead of doing it myself. Don’t kick and don’t wave your arm. The reason is rapid movements attracts the sharks curiosity. They’re not really violent, but the risk is still there. The instructor guided me throughout the whole tank which is a maze. I’d be lost and end up in the shark’s den without him.

The day ended with me awarded with a simple certificate. What’s cool is the "I survived Dive with Sharks" t-shirt included in the goody bag. You can’t buy that at the gift shop. Plus, I’ve managed to collect about 6 shark teeth. I would highly recommend this to anyone.

Shark’s teeth

Check out the rest of the pictures here and Ghazali’s photopages. I haven’t receive the dvd yet from Aquaria. I’ll keep you guys updated when i get it.

Also, I’m moving this blog to blogger.com to take advantage of the nicer url. Check it out http://penyelamat.blogspot.com

Went to a batting cage at One Utama. The batting cage is outdoor and located at the new wing’s Upper Roof level. The charge is RM7 per 15 balls although there is a ‘Home Run’ package where you can rent a batting cage for RM45 for 30 minutes. The speed of the pitch ranges from 40mph to 70mph and the height is also adjustable. The helmet and bat are provided free.

With the RM7, you’ll be given a bronze token that will activate the pitching machine. Pitches are made in between 10 seconds interval. Unfortunately, you can only set the pitching speed once for every session

It’s more flexible in the ‘Home Run’ package. You can switch speeds and batter between pitches. The balls are also unlimited. Good if you’re in a group, where you can switch between friends on who’s turn to bat

Great fun if you like hitting stuff with baseball bat or just to let off some steam. I’d recommend the 50mph speed for beginners like me.

We went to the Houston Space Center this afternoon. Cool.. The Americans have landed 6 times on the moon. I really hope a Malaysian could step his or her foot on the moon soon.

There’s also another space center which is located in Florida where they would launch the shuttle then later, hand the mission control to Houston

Since 1985, they’ve declared the Houston’s mission control as a national landmark. They’ve moved the mission control to another room but maintained the old mission control. Too bad we’re not allowed to the new mission control. They’re using it to monitor the Discovery that took off last week

Me being a tourist.

That black triangle is supposed to be a piece Moon rock that’s 3.8 billion years old. It was brought back by the Apollo 17 crew in 1972.

Isk… Can’t seem to adjust to the timezone. Still having the accidental nod while standing up.

Sunrise : 06:45

Sunset : 17:20

Went to the Museum of Fine Arts yesterday. Moving around is quite easy here because Courtyard West University(the hotel I’m staying) provide shuttle services for their guest. It’s free, but you still need to tip the driver. Gave him USD5 so that he’ll look forward to send and pick me up the next time I ask for a shuttle service.

The museum is huge. Filled with traditional arts from Mayan, African and Asian and modern arts from America. Could spend days admiring and understanding them. However, due to legal reason, visitors are not allowed to take picture of the exhibits. Most of them are loaned to the museum individuals collectors. This is the only picture I was allowed to take.

I had my lunch in a cafe in the museum. Had my first veggie burger because everything else is filled with bacon. I was given this wierd looking coaster. It vibrates when the item you order is ready. The idea is, out of annoyance of the beeping and vibrate, the customer would get the item themselves instead of the waiter serving them.

Checked-in my hotel about 8am this morning. Tired. My transit flight in Singapore arrived late resulted in my whole schedule went nuts.. I had to wait for 6 hours in LAX.

Tried using the payphone in LAX and wasted USD1 on them. Out of frustration,I asked a guy manning a nearby shop how to use it. Turns out with these kind of payphone, you have to dial the number, wait for the operator to tell you the minimum amount you have to deposit, then you deposit the amount. They only take quarters here. I’m still trying to buy a calling card.

Houston. Still not used to the cold temperature though.

Our office went for the semi-annual outing last weekend at Sunway Extreme Park. Had soo much fun.

We were divided into 5 teams and the winner was decided based on total points achived by performing team activities which are futsal, go-kart, ATV, and paint-ball

Team #2. Me, Wing Meng, Kak Norliah, Chee Loon and Eva

Kak Norliah sprinting pass the shutter

Wing Meng placing the ball to the top left corner

ATV trail at a nearby construction site

Chee Loon’s ATV. He fell off the ledge and unbruised. Cool ^_^

Team #2. Lock and loaded

In the end, Team #2 came second place. Not bad eh? The outing ended with high tea at Sunway Hotel. Ate like a T-Rex

Went to my first Indian wedding last weekend with Jay, Tan, Kat and OBK. The atmosphere was really fun. We arrived early so, we had the opportunity to witness the ceremony.

Jayakumar with his big smile, walking down the aisle

Astro dancer. One of the girls is really cute

Tan and Kat

OBK and me

Congratulations to Jayakumar and Susan