Adventures in the land of the long white cloud

Canyoning!

2006-06-06T04:55:00.000-07:00

ok i've screwed up the order a bit coz i actually went canyoning before the unigames... oops...
anyway wat is canyoning? According to wikipedia, Canyoning (also known as canyoneering) is travelling in canyons using a variety of techniques that may include walking, scrambling, climbing, jumping, abseiling, and/or swimming. basically if u like getting wet and cold and jumping into rivers and abseiling down cliffs, canyoning is for u. For more details u can check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canyoning

So i went on this quest for more thrills with my thrill buddy Charlene and her ex boyfriend and i just can't remember his name now. dammit. i bet ill just be walking down the street or taking a dump or doing both at the same time and then suddenly it'll come back to me and ill remember his name.

anyhow it was raining sheeps and cows when we got to the pickup point and the possibility of the activity being cancelled loomed over our heads as the water levels in the river etc might be too high for us to canyon safely.

While we waited for our instructor to check the water level, we gathered in the equipment shed and suited up. here, i met the guardian of the shed, Randal.

ok his name isnt randal but he looks like one rite? rite? rite? oh c'mon! anyway he's freaking big! almost bear like. and he's pretty friendly too...

Anyway the instructor came back and we were clear to carry on so on went the wetsuits and helmets before we jumped into the van and headed to the river. It was still drizzling on and off but the weather was still pretty good and once we got started the rain was the last thing on our mind.

And wat a start it was!! this was the first of many jumps into several pools along the river. the water was gan cold but it was still gan fun.

A while later, we were confronted with the highest jump of the day.. from about 8 metres up. Any fears were soon tossed out of the window as the first guy did a forward somersault into the icy waters. thereafter it was more about doing it in style than doing the jump itself. I wanted to do a forward dive at first but some guy did it before me so in the end i decided to just jump sideways and get a good photo... and this is it!

its like crouching tiger hidden dragon meet garang scuba diver... graceful rite? i know...
anyway our guide had to have the last say, performing a backflip moonsaw off the ledge.. the show off...

next on the agenda was a backwards slide down. basically u sit down on the edge of a mini waterfall and let the water push u down... backwards... good stuff
Of course canyoning isnt just about being in the water...
there's abseiling too! well i must admit i din too well wit the abseilling bit... so i shall refrain from insulting all guardsmen for 27 days... (why 27 days? ask ur mom)
this is one of the cliff faces we abseilled down... pretty damn gorgeous if u ask me
speaking of gorgeous... this is me holding to a line just before another water slide.. see the white water? means the water is really fast and choppy.. once i release the rope its pretty much 2 secs til i reach the bottom... pretty cool
the good thing about rushing water is it provides a pretty good massage if ure willing to withstand the cold and stand under it... aqua-therapy as i call it... not to be mistaken with ah kua therapy which can be found at changi village... but that's another story..
ok here we are looking nice and gay(happy) near the end of the day... its good that they took the picture then coz after that, we had to hike up for about 40 mins to reach the carpark where the van was..

and here we all are after a shack but fun day...

ok sorry for the boring post... just going thru motion coz im super behind time.. =P

but if u really do feel like complaining, feel free to log onto the website and fill out the form at www.doilooklikeigiveafuck.com/imawhinybitch

Unigames!!

2006-05-19T05:51:00.000-07:00

So i couldnt possibly go 6 months without soccer right? so i joined the soccer team at my uni. every year the universities in nz gather in one of the cities for wat they call the unigames. basically its like a mini olympics with a lot of sports from debating to rowing to ultimate frisbee. this yr's event was held in wellington. so i went to try out for the team coz the competitive bone in me needed to do something.

Well i wasnt playing well at all during the trials. in fact at times i was abysmal in my opinion but i got in somehow. but i wasnt really sure if i should go coz A) u have to pay like $300 for lodging and transport etc B) playing with pple u dun really know can be a drag plus we NEVER trained C) NZ soccer standards are fairly low D) going for the trip would mean I have to travel South island after exams E) your mom.

but in the end i decided to go and just enjoy the experience as best i can. So we all met up early on the first sunday of the holis in preparation for wat was supposed to be a routine 10hr bus ride down to wellington. We managed to get a bus for ourselves (the guys & girls soccer teams) and after an eternity (i later learnt it was an hour) we left auckland heading south to the capital of NZ (yes i mean wellington u dumb piece of shit).

I managed to get the whole seat to myself (yes nobody likes me. ok?) which was good coz i could stretch out and sleep and not worry about drooling on other pple or them drooling on me. I managed to catch some sleep before the bus made a routine rest stop.
it was here that i would learn the first rule of road trips. ALWAYS give people timings to adhere to! all of us didnt know how long we were going to stop for so while some people rushed to the toilet and back, others strolled along, bought breakfast, took a nice long shit that sorta thing. when ure in a group, you're only as fast as your slowest member (this you can ask Noel and Chervin. about the knnbccb auntie who happily delayed us in Sepang). anyway after we left i was entertaining myself by reading the travel guidebook that my darling frens gave me for my bday before i left. awww u guys are the best man.... sniff sniff... except chervin who is a cheebye. he didnt share the present, but pretended to anyway. scum of the chows! but i digress...
i also had in my arsenal of fun, an mp3 player that the local bank gave for opening an account with them.
Soon we reached Matamata aka Hobbiton.

This was the town that they created the hobbiton for lord of the rings in. Most of the stuff is gone but there are still guided tours etc to places where they shot some scenes etc. anyway after we stopped some pple went to get lunch, some wen to take a long shit, others like the ultimate frisbee team formed a circle and threw the frisbee around. wen we got back to the bus, we noticed a hissing sound coming from one of the tires. we assumed that it was loud enuf for the driver to hear and thus we did not pursue the matter further.

shortly after we left matamata, our bus stopped and after some querying, we found out that we were waiting for a bus behind us that was havng problems. after some eons had passed, our bus drove back to where the other bus was. apparently and i qoute, "its accelerator was spoilt". anyway we were pissed off coz the other buses had left and we did not like all the constant delays that were taking place. fortunately, our bus finally left and we were appeased for the moment.

2 more soccer girls frm another bus had joined us and i was forced to share my seat. and no i wasnt thrilled abt it. i mean if i had to choose between having more space and sitting nex to a girl who doesnt look like ase wang, lindsay lohan, natalie portman, monica belluci, christy chung or najiah (heh... all bases covered), i'd choose space anytime man! (noel.. this one's for u man)

anyway i found solace in my mp3 player and soon we were in taupo for a stop. i rushed thru an excellent kfc meal before rushing back to the bus and learning that the uncle had finally realised that the tyre was leaking air and had to change it. idiot! so he drove off somewhere to change it and we were given an hour more to 'roam in taupo'. so a few of us found a tavern and grabbed a few beers. i had abstained from drinking on the bus til now coz i din want to have to go to the toilet after 20mins, especially since i wouldnt know when the bus is gonna stop again.

anyway the bus came back finally and armed with boxes of beer, we left taupo headig south.

by now we were all bonding better by sharing magazines (fhm) and playing cards (fhm poker cards) both activities of which im sad to say that i did not participate in. (really... i know... i feel stupid too...) but probably the most important contributing factor to our new chummyness was that we were drinking. =) the bad thing is we kept pestering the bus driver to stop the bus so that we could pee. the girls were getting annoyed at us coz we were adding to the delay. or maybe its coz we din offer to share our beer with em. ;)

i managed to steal another 40 winks before our bus reached the windy city of wellington, 13 freaking hours later! 3 hours more than the scheduled time. hahaha. wat a bitch of a ride. anyway we stayed in base backpackers hotel which is not bad. we were lucky enuf to stay on this special floor as well which they call the 'sanctuary'. basically, its a floor for girls only and they have nice toilets and shit like that. so it was great! another bonus was that we shared the floor with the girl's hockey team which had the nicest looking girls of the unigames. heh heh heh... there was one in particular that was bloody hot.. too bad i dun have a photo of her so dun bother asking...

anyway we drank a bit more at the bar whilst watching some epl then retired to our rooms for a deserved rest.

the next day, after registering ourselves for hte games, most of us decided to tour wellington.

wellington is a nice city. nicer than auckland anyway. its more lively and there are more things to look at like art etc. auckland is kinda dead in comparison. the wind in wellington, however, is mother strong and i guess you really need the best hairdressers here to keep ure hair in place.
anyway after lunch we went to Te Papa which is the national museum of NZ. it's pretty cool with many exchibits and its one of those 'new wave' type museums. basically more interactive and less boring. kinda kiddy too in a way i guess. like u can press buttons and move things and all that. but i'll talk more about it in my nex post about my post unigames tour.

that night we had the opening ceremony at some bar and it was jus packed with uni students from all the participating unis. it was a bitch getting drinks coz the bar was so small and everyone was jus crowding around it. in any case we werent doing much. jus standing around and checking out the gir...i mean participants from the other unis. ;) i was entertaining myself by watching south africa cream nz in cricket and laughing at the locals.

so with nothing much happening, most of us decided to head back for an early night in prep for our first game the next day.

We had 2 games today and on paper we were favourites for the group with arch rivals and defending champs AUT in the other group.

We played Massey palmerston north and Massey something else (Massey has universities everywhere) and we beat them easily, 3-0 and 5-0. i was playing CB for the team and put in 2 good performances so i was pleased with that. in the 2nd game, i did a goal saving tackle too! it was le brilliant. somehow the ball broke thru to a striker and he sprinted towards goal with only the keeper left. i dunno wat got into me but i sprinted back and flew at the fucker from behind and got the ball cleanly too! he sat on the ground stunned as the ball was cleared and my teammates all congratulated me on an awesome tackle. though i got a lot of sand up my ass, it was worth it!

garang rite? i know.
yes im wearing 10. i din choose it lah. they gave it to me. muahahahaha! so we ended the day in high spirits and in the driving seat to top our group.
we celebrated by heading out to a restaurant for dinner and some of the girls joined us as well. some of the girls are pretty good too expecially the americans. though they're a bit bigger, they can really kick ass man. our team was really international too, boasting 2 norwegians, 2 germans, 1 dutch, 1 iraqi, 1 thai, 1 mexican, and 7 kiwis.

the next day we had to play presumably the weakest team in our group before the semis in the afternoon. the day started badly though. our best striker got drunk the previous night and we couldnt reach him by phone or anything. so we had to play without him and spirit wasnt too high. its not just that he's our best striker, but the fact that a teammate doesnt turn up without notice is kinda disruptive and disrespectful. anyway we started out cold and in their only chance of the game, their striker managed to beat the other CB and score. we were left to chase the game which wasnt a big prob other than the fact that we din have able personnel upfront to finish the chances. the referee was being a cheebye as well and was ruining the game. he actually booked my teammate for wearing a chain and claimed that he had instructed us clearly before the game to remove any jewelery. yeah right. if he did say it, it must have been a whisper to the little mole on his tiny dick or something coz no one heard it. when one of my teammates got clattered into, i shouted at the ref to do something and he rewarded me with a yellow card. he then asked me to turn around so that he could see my number. i obediently complied, turning around and bending over in a 'come fuck me' pose much to the delight of my teammates and the spectators. fortunately i din get anything else for that but as time went on we got more and more desperate as we jus couldnt convert our chances. finally we lost 1-0. the good news is we still topped the group, but out egos were bruised and our confidence was diminished.

as expected AUT topped the other group so we headed into the semis hoping to make it a dream final against them. we played victoria in the semis and they had a few good players. as usual we started out cold and once again conceded a goal early in the game. once again we were chasing the game and although our striker was back, he was still suffering presumably from the hangover of the previous nite. as the other team sat back and defended, we threw everything at em but always came out short. my fellow CB had abandoned defending and was trying to play upfront, leaving me to defend by myself. not tat i minded of coz. we were losing after all. it din help that the wind was fucking strong. and i mean FUCKING strong. i know it affects both sides but it ruins the game lah, makes it that much more scrappy.

so as it turned out, we dominated the game but still lost, fucking up our grand hopes of winning the gold. story of my life really... on the field anyway...

anyway we went back all disappointed but determined to get the bronze medal to salvage a shitty tournament and facing off against the team we beat on the first day 5-0, we were pretty confident. We were more confident and controlled the game all the way, running out 4-0 winners.

after the tourney there was this 'team of the tournament' thingy which basically is a team made up of players who have performed well throughout the tourney. my teammates were all confident that i'd get in coz i did have a good tournament. but seeing as how the refs pick the team, and how 'popular' i was with them, i wasnt too sure. in the end, i din get in which was kinda disappointing and the team only had 2 defenders from AUT, which let in 8 goals in 5 matches by the way, so it was kinda screwed up. anyway several of my teammates came up to me and told me that they felt i should be in so that's good enuf for me. i always enjoy a good rubbing of the ego... heh

we got back to the hotel, showered, then it was time for dinner and partying. before we left, Humi (the iraqi) and i shared a bottle of jack daniels. 375ml each. man i love JD. hahaha. after that, we were set for the night. We went back to the same shitty bar for the closing ceremony and this time it was more entertaining. i guess went u've drunk more, everything seems more fun.

The guy in the jacket is 'old man' robert from germany and the guy in stripes is joep from holland. there's too much to say about them so i wun even try.
we were there with the girl's team too who promptly gave our asst team manager (this dumb ass honky dude who's an idiot) a sexy dance with him in the middle. we actually wanted to drag him to a strip club but i guess this was the cheaper option. heh. after a while we went to some club in wellington but i din stay long coz i was tired. so i dragged my ass back to the hotel with joep and had a gd sleep.

anyway even though we were bitterly disappointed at not making it to the finals, i think we all had a smashing good time and while we lost the gold medal, we gained so many friendships. awww so sweet right... i know...

anyway many thanks to my UoA teammates. though u'll never read this, i love u guys man. and i'm NOT an alcoholic.

shopping

2006-04-14T06:12:00.000-07:00

well after the crazy weekend i had the last time i went to the rugby game etc, i was kinda flooded by tests and assignments and shit so i was all set to destress with some good ole retail therapy.
our hostel organised this shopping trip thingy. Basically, its free transport to 3 places to shop.

the first place was this street market place. basically its a carpark and on weekends its like a pasar malam. you can buy fruits and veggies or other pasar malam stuff like food and shirts etc. but the things on sale werent that cheap or that nice. so i din buy anything! wanted to buy some 'pacific island' shirts though. they were not bad. but too expensive. one shirt had 'pimp my waka' on it. waka is car in maori... so... hope u get the reference now... if not go watch more MTV.

in the end, the only thing that i came close to buying was a bird whistle thingy. basically its this piece of plastic which u put in ur mouth and depending on how u blow it, it makes bird noises!! pretty cool... but i was thinking, wen the hell would i get to use it? and if i did, would birds come and peck me or shit on me? i still havent been shat on by a bird and thats a record i intend to keep...
Anyway it wasnt all a lost cause. turns out the PM of NZ, Helen Clarke was due there for a talk about some welfare packages or something. So i went to kaypo. it was pretty worth the time too! there were maori performances before she came. some troupe from a school preformed and it was great. i really like maori songs. very erm.. soothing... melodious... something like that lah.. anyway too bad i dunno how to upload videos or i would show u guys a few of their routines.

after a while, Helen Clarke arrived. She's pretty tall and all and she gave her opening address in maori and english as well as a few asian greetings. i dunno if she has to give things like 'national day rallies' in maori just as our PM does in malay, chinese and english. but i know u guys dun care....

WELL U SHOULD! AND FROM NOW ON YOU BETTER NOT GET ON MY WRONG SIDE! COZ I HAVE POWERFUL ALLIES.....

SEE! HA! me and the PM are how tight! i mean how many pple have taken a photo with a foreign dignitary(hope i spelt that right) eh? and how many have taken it in the classic "extend the arm and take it ureself" method? man im so proud i could almost frame it up.

the funny thing is, i've never met our PM in the flesh, let alone take a photo with him. and to a certain extent, i dun really want to. speaks volumes eh... tsk tsk...

anyway thereafter we boarded the bus and went to botany downs. its a place with huge ass shopping malls and a lot of brands to choose from.

one of the many restaurants there.

anyway we all split up (guys and girls) and went about our shopping. we boys popped into rebel sports and spent a good amount of time there. things werent really cheap but there were still some good deals here and there. i found this green nike polo and decided to buy it since it was reasonably cheap at $35. (normal price $65) i wanted to buy a puma hoodie too but seeing as how spore is fucking hot and i have a lot of jackets/sweaters already, i decided not to.

next we went to a kathmandu store. the stuff was good. on sale too. but wen ure reducing prices from $500 + to $300+, its still bloody expensive... so... i din really find anything to buy.

by now i was hungry so i wanted to get some lunch. i walked thru some allies, searching for food wen i found myself in front of a 'foot locker' shop. hmmmm... SALE... ok the food can wait.

there were a lot of good bargains in the shop. i settled myself comfortably near a promotion shelf and began picking thru the clothes on offer. there were nike shirts going at 2 for $30!! HOLY GUACAMOLE! i also come across this gorgeous white shirt and it was like $30 after discount!!!

omigod! i feel like one of those bimbos who squeal in delight after buying new clothes/accessories and take nice little photos of them and put them in their blogs!! you go girlfrens!
one of the other shirts that i bought.

thereafter, we rushed to the bus and even though i hadnt eaten, i was satisfied. ;)

the last stop was onehunga. basically there was this huge ass warehouse mall which had all the major brands at warehouse prices. having spent $100+ dollars at te last stop, i was in no hurry to splurge and i sat down for a nice healthy macdonald's lunch. living the american dream man.

anyway, i soon got to shopping again and while the things were cheaper than normal, they still weren't cheap cheap. i wanted to buy some cheap socks but they din really have em. i did see a deal at nike though. they were selling 2 hats/caps for $10. now i only wanted one, so i set about psyching pple to buy one so that i could share the deal with them. one by one the pagans resisted my charms til i managed to convince josephine to buy a cap. she chose the same colour and design as i did but wat the heck eh. life's not perfect. so i was happy. thinking i had gotten my nice little cap for $5, when josephine comes up to me and says "hey. think i wun buy the cap. i like another adidas one. sorry"

at this point, i find it inappropriate to mention the vulgarities that spewed out of my mouth as i cursed the ***** who had just pang seh-ed me. in so doing, she joined an elite club of pang seh-ers led by the ever pang-seh-able Noel John Geno Oehlers, aka Pang Seh Kia (PSK). Noel puts the PSK in pesky.

anyway, jus as i was giving up, i saw 3 maori girls checking out the hats, so i went over and asked them if they intended to get any. fortunately, one did and i was back in business!

so this is the ugly little thing i had to go to so much trouble for. but $5. not bad lah hor.

so on the way back... it hit me.. (as im sure it must have hit some of u)

OH NO! I'M A CLOSET NIKE JUNKIE!!!

everything that i bought was from Nike! oh the shame.... how can i ever live with it...

ive never been a fan of nike. honestly! i refuse to buy nike boots (coz it is in my expert opinion that u will indefintely sprain ure ankles but dun qoute me on that. Nike, if ure reading, i love u guys. maybe we can work out a sponsor deal?) so yeah... i was pretty shocked about my revelation. oh the horror....

but well, i was/am happy with the deals that i got. so i guess the morale of the story is

"If you feel like buying it and its a good deal, JUST DO IT!" heh heh heh

minus 5 & housewarming party

2006-04-13T19:03:00.000-07:00

so after the rugby game, Charlene suggested that we check out this place called minus 5. basically its a bar that only serves vodka. and for good reason too. coz the temperature of the bar is -5 degrees celcius. well basically vodka doesnt freeze at such low temperatures and its one of only a few types of drinks that are like that. so yeah.. its the 'coolest' experience in auckland.
We had to wear special coats and gloves to go in. this is my 'damn its cold' face.
so basically the bar area is this small little room with a lot of ice sculptures in it. they have bears like this one and dolphins and eagles and all sorts of shit. but the coolest part (pun not intended) is that the bar itself and the cups are made of ice!!
this is the bar with some absolut raspberry. the bar has some non-slip sponge thingies on them to prevent the cups and bottles from slipping.
the room has lights all over the place (but u cant see them) and they change colours periodically so its kinda trippy.
bartender for 7 seconds
2 dolphins jumping. but if u look at it at an angle, it looks like they're humping. horny bastards! heh.. anyway we're only allowed to stay in there for 25 mins. its not for our safety though, its coz the room isnt that big, so by limiting our time inside, they can chase us out for the next batch of visitors to go in. more volume of pple = more $$$... capitalist bastards!!
this is the bar with my flash on. can u see the word ABSOLUT on the front? whoever carves these things must be making quite good $$...
anyway this is the vodka display in the toilet. which isnt minus 5 degrees. for obvious reasons. after that i thanked Charlene and her landlord and joined espen at a housewarming party near our apartment.
Espen is this gay dude. ok he's not really gay but he looks gay here eh. For more on Espen read my paintball entry like eons ago. anyway these 2 norwegians (espen's frens) were moving into a new apartment so there was a party. there were quite a few norwegians there and i learnt how to speak a bit. like how to say 'bottoms up' which sounds something like 'score for fun' in english. then there's 'dra til helevete' which was my trump card. it means 'go to hell'. and hello is 'cosh goorda'. something like that. which the norwegian chick above taught me. apparently there are hundreds to thousands of norwegian dialects so they all talk a bit differently. so different pple from different regions talk differently. but anyway, it is in my opinion that norwegian sounds a bit like italian. but hey that's just me.

i also met some asians there. the girl in the middle is sayaka, a jap girl who lives in HK and studies here. hahaha. complicated eh. the guy in white is kristian, this norwegian dude who's really cheeky. btw he's not really grabbing her boob. talented poser that kristian. lastly the girl in blue is shireen. a malaysian. it was fun talking to her in the local slang. i tried talking to her in malay. totall bombed. but luckily my malay insults arent that bad. =P

well after this party we went to some pub for 'the after party'. they always have after parties here. and based on my experience, they always suck. so moral of the story is. quite while u're ahead. anwyay that concludes my hectic and happenening crazy day of fun II.

Super XIV Rugby! Blues vs Brumbies

2006-04-03T05:15:00.000-07:00

So last last last saturday.. (man im so behind!) Charlene and i went to catch the Super XIV match between the Blues and the Brumbies. Well seeing as how the Blues are based in Auckland, we were 'forced' into supporting them. So we went to a local bar to meet the organisers. There we grabbed a beer and soaked in the pre match atmostphere (not much considering that most of the pple there were international students like us). But a lot of them (and us eventually) got their faces painted so it was all good fun. We then took a bus to Eden Park, home of Auckland Rugby!
the stadium was reasonably big. probably the size of highbury, so not that big lah... heh heh... anyway we (I) chose seats near the front and close to the corner flag. I was hoping that a few tries would be scored in this corner... but as the match unfolded later on.. i was to rue my arse luck. (nothing happened in our corner... NOTHING!!!)
Anyway we got some hot chips (fries) and a hotdog and watched as the teams warmed up. The Brumbies were warming up nearer to where we were. Spotted a few familiar faces like Matt Giteau, Stirling Mortlock (the captain), George Gregan (ex Aussie capt. i say ex coz i think he's retired. if im wrong dun jump on my case coz ure mom probably knows less than i do. so go jump on her! in fact... dun jus stop there.......... ok sorry.. got carried away..) and Stephen Larkham! (the legend!) managed to catch gregan with his pants down too. Charlene was quite happy to get this photo. not coz she likes him. on the contrary, she hates him coz he's arrogant. and the fact that he came late for warm-up seems to justify her claims. but hey the man is a fucking dog on the field so i'm willing to cut him a bit of slack. =PAnyway the Blues were warming up too.. on the other side of the field. see them? wearing blue? FOCUS PEOPLE!!! ;)
Anyway the Blues have Troy Flavell, Ali Williams, Keven Mealamu (the capt), Joe Rokokoko(kokokoko) and Doug howlett (who was injured!! dammit!!)
anyway before the match started, they got one spectator from every stand to go and compete for prizes for their respective stands. basically, they used this spinner thingy which is similar to the kind that shoots softballs/baseballs and tennis balls but this one shot rugby balls, high up into the air and the spectator who caught the most would win mini balls and scarves and shit for their stand. so it started and after 2 rounds, all of them had a perfect score ie they all had the caught the ball twice each. which was pretty impressive since the balls are really shot v v high up. there was even a girl competing and she was catching like a pro. impressive... anyway after 4 rounds, our representative narrowly lost out and we missed out on the goodies. nabei. y cant they jus make us queue like good singaporeans do. i bet i'd get one or 2 freebies then.
anyway the match got under way and then this streaker sailed across the field in this boat!! ok ok he's just the blues' mascot. and his boat comes with fireworks and everything man. its crazy. anyway the match got under way and it was a very scrappy 1st half.
both sides were making a lot of mistakes. the blues in particular were losing lineouts like nobody's business. it made for interesting spectating since their fans were cursing and swearing at them. i guess every country has their 'rascals' eh. I was expecting the Brumbies to hammer the Blues to be honest since they have been having a crap season. before the game the Blues were like 4th last or something while the Brumbies were like 4th or something. but in the last 15 mins of the first half, the Blues managed to pull themselves together to build a 18-0 lead. speaking of lead....
the cheerleaders rock man (see how i totally jumped to another topic by being corny? im a genius). they walk from stand to stand to perform. and they have a real cool march-to-the-place-then-swivel-&-sit-down thingy (personal demonstrations will cost u, so best u try to visualise it ureself). a few of them were a little pudgy though and some guy behind me kept shouting stuff like "how did they let a cow like u in?" and "oh my god would you look at that one!". tsk tsk.
another interesting thing is that they have this guy on a small little itsy bitsy scooter (the guy in yellow above) and bascially he brings the thingy for the rugby ball for conversions. shit i cant remember the name of it. but u know wat i mean rite? the rubber thingy? looks like an ashtray? the players rest the ball on it so that the ball can stand? c'mon.. you're not that dumb r u? anyway its really cute coz he zips out onto the field on cue and zips back again.
ok back to the action. the second half proves to be less scrappy than the first but still not much scoring going on. brumbies have several chances to score but are ultimately stopped by a resolute blues defence and some tough refereeing. the brumbies do ,however, manage to claw their way back with a try and a penalty to 21-10. but just as the chance that they might get back into the game appears, the blues manage to score another try, putting the game out of reach with 10 mins left.

and the crowd goes wild!
crowd1: "wild wild wild wild wild?"
crowd2:"wild wild"
crowd1:"Wild! wild wild wild."
you get the picture

well there werent any more points after that so it finished 26-10 to the Blues. I must be their lucky charm. maybe they can salvage their season now.After the match, we met up with Charlene's landlord who knew several Blues players. So he offered to get us a photo opportunity with one of the players. Charlene chose Rokokoko i think. If i had my way, i'd choose larkham, or gregan. but hey, i'm not complaining.
He was huge i tell u! oh the guy on my left is John, Charlene's landlord. We shook Rokokoko's hand (which is huge btw) and took a photo with him (duh). so it was a good end to a good day. im hoping to catch an international match too (maybe All Blacks v Ireland). so maybe this wouldnt be the last time i meet Rokokokokokokkoko.

bungeeeee

2006-03-29T05:09:00.000-08:00

on the 17th march (yes yes fucking long ago but ive been busy! get off my case!), i went bungy jumping off the auckland harbour bridge! well it's not that big a deal i guess, considering that it's only 40m high. there's a 134m one in queenstown... and i really want to do that one too.. but i digress...

anyway this is the bridge. quite a nice bridge i guess. good view and everything. plus ure allowed to jump off it. i mean u cant jus jump off any bridge u know (well legally anyway).

I was joined on my quest for an adrenaline overdose by the only 2 sporeans brave enuf to take the challenge! Jason and Charlene, my thrill buddies.
Yes i didn't shave... LIKE YOUR MOM! live with it.

so we got to the place, signed some indemnity forms before getting weighed. basically we have to be weighed so that the people operating the bungy know which cable to use etc. and then we waited..... and waited.... and waited... and waited some more before we put on some nifty harnesses etc and made our way towards the bridge.

We had to climb the underside of the bridge to reach our destination and it was quite worth the trip. the view on the way was fantastic! we could see the city and coz there was a boat race, there were many sailboats around too... quite shiok lah those rich pple. can just grab their boats and go for a sail around the bay on a friday evening...relak jack only...

Anyway we finally reached the 'jumping pod' which is basically this cocoon shaped thing from where we'd jump out from. there was a group ahead of us so we stayed below and watched them jump off the ledge, one by one. some screamed, some went pale, others jus had the ride of their lives. and its not only the girls who get scared mind u. there was this guy who was so kan cheong that he released his leg cable too early and was swinging around like a mad chicken. (basically there's this cord that ure supposed to pull after the 3rd 'bounce' so that you can 'sit' upright in the harness so that the blood will stop flowing to ure head)

after a while we decided to go up into the pod coz we figured that the earlier group was probably finished and we jus about timed it to perfection. moments after we got up into the pod, the guy called my name.

Shit! i didn't expect to be called so soon. i hadn't decided wat i wanted to do yet. whether i should jump backwards or forwards? whether to get dipped into the water or not? before i had any chance to respond i was sitting in the 'preparation chair' thingy waitin for the cord to be attached to my legs. I was pretty damn excited by now and i thought "eh wat the heck. since i've come all the way here, i'll just go all the way!" so when the guy asked "do u want to get wet?" i said yes. he fastened the cables and everything before asking me to stand up on the ledge.

"Can i jump backwards?"

"Sure you can. just move your leg over there....blah blah"

and there i was! millimetres close to the edge. about to do one of the craziest things ive ever done.... as the hockey boys would say.. can you imagine that?
at this point i'd like to state for the record that my ass isnt that big. my berms have just bunched up that way in the harness. and yes that green thing between my legs is a special protective guard for the thing between my legs. if u dun understand go ask ure mommy.
ok fine! its actually for the cord...

My mind was a blank. all i knew was that when the guy stopped counting from 5, i'd be plunging off the ledge, backwards, headfirst, into the water that lay 40m below....

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, GO!

Houston, we have lift-off.
Before i jumped, i set my camera to timer mode and threw it up in the air. as it somersaulted above me, i prayed hard that it would snap some part of my flailing body. ANY part. and it did not fail me, snapping my whole body as i plummeted towards the icy waters beneath. Wat a magnificent shot eh! damn wat are the odds! i love my camera...

ok fine they take aerial shots of everyone from some specially placed camera and one of the good things about jumping backwards is that the camera will capture ure face. those jumping forwards only get to see their backs.

anyway it was over in a flash. i jumped backwards, straightened out, saw the sea before i had to tuck in my chin for the impending trip underwater. SPLASH! and i wasn't kidding about the icy waters part... Brrrr... The cold water really woke me up from my blank state of mind though and i started too yell. WOOHOOOOO!!! WAT A RUSH!!!

i bounced 3 times before releasing the cord to settle in an upright position. i waved to the fishermen below who were giving me the thumbs up. i did a quick body check.

Head: intact. Limbs: working. Spine: still inside my body. ok i was in one piece. i was drenched and cold. but i was in one piece.

I had survived my first bungy jump.

Jason and Charlene soon went after me and i could tell that they had a hell of a time. they liked it so much they wanted to buy the dvd (which captures your whole jump but costs an arm and a leg). of coz me being cheapo, i din buy the dvd. ($25 leh!) i had gotten jason to video me jumping off the ledge so that was good enuf for me.

Anyway the three of us joined the following celebs at having jumped off the auckland harbour bridge. yeah i know. i dun know a lot of them too. but there was one guy in my group who din make the jump. he chickened out at the last minute. his gf was like 'c'mon! you'll regret it if u back out! u can do it!' and we were all cheering him on and encouraging him as well. but the pussy just wouldnt jump! and apparently the operator was telling charlene that there hasnt been a day since 1999 that no one has backed out and before the wuss, nobody had backed out that day! we could have broken the record! if not for the fucking fairy boy. btw (and im not kidding), he kinda looks a bit like micheal jackson, esp the nose. fucking fag. that's him right there!

my clothes are drenched for obvious reasons. only me and the tall guy at the back went into the water. though i was cold, i think the added fun was worth it. and the good thing is, the next time i jumo there, i can do other stuff like running off the ledge etc.

but i probably won't... shall save my $$ for the 134m one... MUAHAHAHA!!

ok that's it. remember kids, ALWAYS USE A RUBBER! ;)

uncle pillay

Ko taku tuakana i tana 'birthday'

2006-03-21T03:48:00.000-08:00

Ok that roughly means (and i say roughly coz my maori is still shite) it's my elder brother's birthday.

so...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALAN!!

i don't think he'll see this so if u happen to read this then see my brother (he's a tall good looking chindian) walking around, help me wish him yeah.

though im not very close to my brother... i still appreciate the little things that he does for me like letting me use the car, opening the door for me late late late at night (or early early early in the morning depending on how u see it) when i've forgotten my keys (and he doesnt grumble at all! not one little bit!), paying for my soccer games and drinks wen i play for his club, letting me eat more food at dinner/lunch, letting me have the green yakult... etc etc.

so yeah although we're not that close i do appreciate the things he does for me and all that.

so thanks alan! and have a great birthday! hope u enjoy your job and may u have a fulfilling and rewarding career!! oh and a great family too... after all your family is my family... =) i'll teach your sons (my nephews) how to build sandcastles and your daughters (my nieces) how to break them. ;)

take care and ill seeya in july.
adrian 'entertaining fantasies of being an uncle' pillay

Waitomo

2006-03-19T01:11:00.000-08:00

What's this picture for? well... coz sex sells... heh

Anyway, on the weekend of the 11th and 12th we (the sporeans) went to Waitomo (yes yes.. i know its long ago but ive been busy ok!!). Waitomo is a place with really special geography. i say that coz above ground, it has rocks jutting out of the greenest hills u'd find... then underground, it has caves...

anyway its abt 2hrs plus from auckland so we left bright and early on sat morning. On the way we stopped over at Hamilton where we had lunch. i had curry with naan and rice... good shit man... though its a bit expensive.. but good curry is always worth it eh!! shit man i miss the good cheap food in spore... ok sorry got distracted...

thereafter we drove all the way to Waitomo and our first stop was the Rabbit Shearing Shed. Basically they have this special breed of rabbits (angolian or something like that) that have really nice thick fur and they shear them to get the fur to make clothes etc. kinda like sheep i guess. anyway the cute little wabbits look like this...

yeah its the big white fur ball in front of me. by the way the rabbits in the background are soft toys in case some of you morons think otherwise and starting me "how come those behind arent so furry?" or "why are they sitting so obediently on the shelves?" *roll eyes*

Anyway the rabbits ARE very well behaved and obedient (like u can touch them and everything and they won't bite u or squeal or watever the sound it is that they make) coz they are trained that way... how do they train them? like THIS!

"Bite a tourist will you! i'll show you!" *whip! whip!*

*rabbity noise* *rabbity noise* *rabbity noise* ..... *rabbity compliance*

ok ok they just tie the rabbits like that when they need to shear them coz its just easier like that. and none of the rabbits are ever harmed in any way. other than the occasional cut or two from the shaver... but hey even humans cut themselves shaving sometimes... (ok ok I DO ok? and im not clumsy ok! its just that most of the time im sleepy... zzzz)

anyway after that we checked into our motel which has a trampoline! trust me wen i say that jumping on the trampoline is quite shack work. after 5 mins i was perspiring and tired. but good fun nonetheless.

After that we went to our first weekend activity. Adventure biking (can't remember the name lah but just go along with me ok?).

Anyway we had to wear coveralls and gumboots and helmets as the photosluts above are demonstrating. basically 'the bike' is like a motorcycle with 4 wheels. kinda like an all terrain vehicle. and we'd be going over the hilly countryside etc etc. the bikes can hit a top speed of up to 40km/h, hence the need for helmets. the boots are there coz it can get kinda muddy if it rains etc. but fortunately (or unfortunately depending on wat gets u off), it wasnt muddy wen we went. the coveralls are there coz we're biking through tons of sheep shit sometimes so it just makes u feel better that ure not getting plastered with sheep shit and can happily accelerate and tear up the track in front of you. the bike works on a gear system from 1-5 and reverse too... and u change gears the same way as on a motorcycle.

Anyway, after a quick lesson, we were all tearing down the slopes of the beautiful green hills that typify the Waitomo landscape. I took the rear so that i could take pictures and also coz i wanted to chase hapless sheep when the farmer wasnt looking. MUAHAHAHA! i have a video of one such raid. show u all when i get back... heh
It was fun zipping about the hills and soaking in the sights etc. the weather was nice too... the machine handles really well too... really makes me want to get a motorcycle license... but i shan't coz there are crazy drivers like N*** on the road.
After a while i had to change machines with grace coz her brakes were hard to press or something like that. NOT her fault AT ALL. I mean.. it's not her fault that she's puny and weak right? ;) But it was all good coz it turns out, her machine was more powerful than my original one! more power + lousier brakes = MORE SPEED

VROOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!

My only complaint was that it ended a bit abruptly i guess... i wanted to race! or speed around in open space more.. but well consolation is that the farmer let me and Jason go up to gear 5 coz he thought we could handle it (the rest were stuck on gear 3). and i took full advantage of that, flying up the slope in gear 5. good shit man...

After that we went to a nearby town for dinner. it was quite a nice town with a few maori statues around( see above). we dabao-ed fish and chips and burgers and stuff like that and brought it back to our motel where we ate in the open. While we ate, the mosquitoes had dinner on our limbs. though i had a natural forest to protect my legs, they still managed to penetrate. those bloody blood suckers!!!

After dinner we decided to go to this cave that's open to the public to see glow-worms. Glow-worms are a big reason why so many tourists come to Waitomo. basically these worms glow (duh) and in the dark caves... the view is quite spectacular.
see what i mean? ;)

anyway more about glow-worms (henceforth referred to as 'gw'). gw are found in dark wet places. basically wat they do is they emit light and when flies or insects newly hatched from their eggs in the water look up, they see this light above. and being dumb insects, they fly towards the light. there they get trapped in these hair-like things that the gw hang down and like a spider, the gw sucks them up and eats the sorry bitches. gw don't have shitholes. so wat happens to all that crap that they eat? they chemically burn them and the process generates the light that brought their food to them in the first place. ingenious eh. talk about recycling. anyway once the gw have eaten enuf they go into a cocoon, become a moth-like thing, FUCK (ok ok.. they mate) for 3 days, before the male dies and the female lays the eggs. after the female lays the eggs, being a shack and emotional bitch looking for some comefort, she looks up and what does she see? lights! so she happily flies towards the lights... becoming the supper of one of her family members... so yeah.. that's the life cycle of a gw. summarised for your learning pleasure.

caves look like this. you can't see the gw because they're so so small... but trust me... when you're in a dark dark cave and u look up and see them on the ceiling.. they look like stars... crazy (glowing) shit eh!
Anyway the next day, 6 of us went for tumu tumu toobing. well basically its caving with water and at times, we use rubber tubes to keep afloat etc. anyway because of the wet and semi dangerous nature of the activity (plus the fact that the company wants to rip us off by selling us the photos afterwards), we were barred from bringing cameras. but i can tell u that the caves look like these photos lah. hahhaa.

Anyway we all wore wetsuits, gumboots and miner hats. i say miner because the helmets had lights on them so that we can see in the cave. the good/bad thing about caves is that the temperature always remains the same (14 degrees celcius) whether its summer or winter. but the water was FUCKING COLD! but after a while we got used to it i guess. that and the heat generated from our bodies coz caving is quite a physical activity at times. and its even harder for pple who get scared of the dark and of falling and wat not. but hey... without fear, you wouldnt get good photos like this.

anyway the photo is blur coz i used my camera to take a photo of the photo after the whole thing was over, so that we wouldnt have to buy them but more on that later. anyway the whole thing was quite interesting. we put cave mud on our faces, did a jump with our tubes into the cold water, squeezed into nooks and crannies and peed into our wetsuits (dun lie! i know i'm not the only one!). anyway nothing gross about that wat... keeps you warm. and pee has disinfectant properties... heh

so after 2+ hours inside, we emerged from the cave tired but happy. well i wasnt too happy actualy coz i was expecting to be on the tube with rapids but the water we got was all slow moving. there are rapids in the caves, but our guides din bring us there i guess.. disappointing... oh well.. overall it was ok i guess..

anyway we went back, showered, changed and went back to the lodge where we could order photos of ourselves in the cave.

Garang rite! MUAHAHAHA! anyway i refused to pay the ridiculous rates that they offered so after jae suggested that i take photos of the photos, i started to take photos of all of our photos. but after a while, the staff caught on and they switched the display! capitalist bastards!! oh well, at least i managed to get a few shots eh.

anyway after that we went to the gw museum (which i found boring) before we left Waitomo to go back to Auckland.

Another good weekend spent. (random *rabbity noise* inserted here)

quick joke

2006-03-15T01:22:00.000-08:00

so thought i'd write this down before i forget it. today in maori class, my lecturer was briefing us on the oral exam we're having nex week. wen asked for more details he issued us a challenge. if anyone could make a sentence with "Defeat", "Detail" and "Defence" better than him, he would tell us more.

So one by one, a few pple tried but everytime they were shot down with 'nope, not good enuf.'
in the end, he finally revealed his 'invincible sentence'.

The cow jumps over Defence, Defeat before Detail.
=) we really kena owned man...
just another fun day at maori class... y can't engineering be like that? sigh...

Lacrosse aka LAX

2006-03-09T03:11:00.000-08:00

Last sunday I went along with the Uni's Lacrosse team for a match for this tournament. Basically we had to win the game to have any chance of making the playoffs and plus the fact that i only had one training prior to the game, i really wasn't expecting to play much if at all. but as it turns out, we were short of pple, so i had to play anyway. which i was happy about. i mean the best way to learn something is to actually do it right... although it meant that i would be entering the rough and tough world of lacrosse uninitiated... so i was expecting myself to get hit every now and then.. *gulp*

on that note (and due to special request =) ) this is a short rundown on wat the fuck lacrosse is about...

from http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Field/7689/rules/ (my comments in blue)
1)Men's lacrosse is a contact game played by ten players: a goalkeeper, three defensemen, three midfielders and three attackmen. The object of the game is to shoot the ball into the opponent's goal. (easy right?)
2)Each team must keep at least four players, including the goalie, in its defensive half of the field and three in its offensive half Three players (midfielders) may roam the entire field. (basically.. midfielders are gan shack!)
3)Men's lacrosse begins with a face-off. The ball is placed between the sticks of two squatting players at the center of the field. The official blows the whistle to begin play. Each face-off player tries to control the ball. The players in the wing areas can release; the other players must wait until one player has gained possession of the ball or the ball has crossed the goal line. (when in doubt just whack the bugger!!)
4)Players may run with the ball in the crosse, pass and catch the ball. Only the goalkeeper may touch the ball with his hands. (the crosse is the net thingy at the end of the stick)
5)A player may gain possession of the ball by dislodging it from an opponent's crosse with a stick check, which includes the controlled poking and slapping of the stick and gloved hands of the player in possession of the ball. (this one is really hard to do. coz the guy's running and all and moving his stick around so its really hard to poke the stick etc. so my preferred mode of tackling is....)
6)Body checking ( hell yeah!!) is permitted if the opponent has the ball. However, all contact must occur from the front or side, above the waist and below the shoulders. An opponent's crosse may also be stick checked if it is within five yards of a loose ball or ball in the air. (basically, if ure near the ball, u can (and will) get body checked!!)
7)If the ball or a player in possession of the ball goes out of bounds, the other team is awarded possession of the ball. If the ball goes out of bounds after an unsuccessful shot on goal, the player nearest to the ball when and where it goes out of bounds is awarded possession. (so u can shoot and miss like siao and still retain possession)
8)An attacking player cannot enter the crease around the goal, but may reach in with his stick to scoop a loose ball. (the crease is this circle around the goal. kinda like handball in this respect i guess)

the crease is the circle. the goalposts are located in the middle of the circle. so as u can see, u can go behind the goalpost ala ice hockey.

ok so those are the rules of the game. let me touch on the equipment that u wear/use.

as u can see from this dashing, handsome and oh-so-yummy model, each player has a lacrosse stick which has a 'crosse' at the end to catch/hold the ball. the ball is rubbery but pretty hard so u really dun want to have anyone throwing it at ur chest or ure crotch. ill touch on protective gear later. the type of stick differs from position to position. basically the stick u see here is for forwards and midfielders (aka middies). defenders use a long stick (about 1.7-1.9m) so that they can intercept passes and its easier for them to poke other pple's sticks. the keeper has a stick with a big ass 'crosse' so that they can cover the goal better. kinda like a fly swatter. a bit unfair maybe but wen u've been hit by a lacrosse ball, u'll come to respect keepers ill tell u that, putting their lives on the line.. god bless them.. anyway now to protective gear. the basic gear u need to wear is a helmet (a must have.. trust me...), elbow/arm guards and hand guards (coz ure allowed to chop/hit the guy on the arm and hand holding the stick to release the ball...). some pple wear shoulder pads too and a ball guard (y is it ball guard and not balls guard eh? mysteries of the universe...). of coz the keepers get more padding and shit.see here the yellow guy attempts to poke the stick/arm of the grey guy.

Anyway there are other rules like personal fouls but im too lazy to cover them. basically u can't hit anywhere other than the arms and hands and stick of the person with ure stick and u can't tackle from behind. On with the game...

so i went there earlier with the captain, alex (who's damn good) and joe this american (who played in high sch). Alex was supposed to help ref the earlier game so we went along to watch. it was a match between the top 2 teams of the league and it was quite an eye-opener. both teams boasted several NZ national team players, including the player coach, so at times, the game was played at quite a high level. Ok as far as international standards go, America and Canada have the best teams, and they're a class above the other nations like australia, sweden etc. Joe compared some of the national players to that of NCAA playing standards which isnt too bad at all lah.. so yeah.. good shit on display.. basically good teams try to pass the ball around to open up defences before rifling in a through pass for a forward to shoot from close range. but most of the players here don't do that... they're more individualistic i suppose, always trying to barge in themselves that sorta thing... guess they're too used to rugby..

anyway after a while joe and i went to warm up on our own on the next field. basically he taught me how to move the stick while im running and to shoot... so we just did our own thing while waiting for the rest of the team to come. in the end, there wasnt much of a 'rest of the team'. in total we only had 8 players. and the other guys din want to play with 8 guys coz 'it wouldnt be much fun' and we'd get hammered anyway... so we decided to concede the game and just play a friendly with players from other teams playing for us. in all we got like 4-5 imports so that we had a squad of 13. GAME ON!!!

i started at forward. was quite excited but nervous at the same time coz i din know where to go and what to do. i just played it like i would play in soccer i guess. anyway lacrosse is really fast paced so its pretty much end to end stuff. my first involvement in the game was when i shoulder-charged this guy to the ground so that my teammate could get the loose ball. i can tell u, if there's one thing the kiwis appreciate more than a goal, its a good hit, and my teammates were laughing and cheering that one. i was too coz once i hit that guy, my nerves were settled and i was ready to play!

my next involvement was getting the ball on the fast break. we were 3 on 3 at that stage with each forward having a defender on his back. i sold my defender a dummy and cut him on the outside. as i looked up to pass, i realised that the other 2 defenders were so busy following the other 2 forwards that i had a clear run on goal. i sprinted towards the goal, without knowing wat i was supposed to do. the other 2 defenders spotted me and ran back to cover. as i reached the goal, so did the defender but there was only 1 thing on my mind. i was gonna shoot or die trying. i dunno how or why i did it but i leapt across the goal, shifted my stick to the left, and just threw the ball past the onrushing keeper. an unorthodox shot by lacrosse standards (in what was essentially a handball move) but it worked!! I SCORED!!! OMG!!! (cue dramatic celebrations ala
santiago nunez in GOAL!) I threw my lacrosse stick in the air, did a few somersaults, rolled on the ground and then caught the stick in my mouth. it was 'le magnifique!'. ok ok so i lied about the celebration but the goal was real ok!

at this point i think its appropriate to insert a pause so that all of u can marvel at the sporting genius that is I. enclosed is a picture for u to pay homage to.

if u like u can donate $$ to the above-mentioned legend at www.pillayismyhero.com/donations

or phone in at 1800 TheMan or 1800 UrDaddy. Our operators are standing by.

ok back to the game. the next meaningful thing i did was to take out another guy with a shoulder charge. the key is to double-team a guy. if ure teammate is trying to tackle a guy, and that guy keeps spinning off him, just jog towards him then wen his back is turned, break into a sprint and when he spins off the next time, the only thing he will be spinning into will be your lacrosse stick at full speed. WHAM! ah yes.. the sweet sound of body to ground... =) that said dun be a prick and try to keep taking on ure man lah, u'll be in for a shoulder charge sooner rather than later...

anyway our team was doing really well especially with the help of our imports who were really good. we were all passing well and defending even better. on another fast break, i managed to fling a long pass over to joe at the far post and he finished it off with aplomb to end the first half 6-2 up.

With 2 shoulder charges, a goal and an assist, this was turning out to be a dream debut...

however, in the 2nd half (well next 2 quarters anyway), my coach asked me to play midfield. in my head, i was thinking ( ARE YOU CRAZY? ME? UNFIT PILLAY? PLAY MIDFIELD?) oh well.. he's the coach..

so i set off to do my job. patrolling the defence and attack and basically running like a dog, wishing all the time that the guy i was markng would stop running. a few km later, i was subbed out and could breathe properly at last. the other team were working themselves back into the game slowly but surely. at the end of the 3rd quarter, it was 8-6. uh oh...

i came in for the last 10 mins of the 4th quarter and decided to play a bit more defensive in midfield. i sat in front of the defence and slowed down any fastbreaks that came our way. we managed to hold them with the score at 8-7 and on a fastbreak, one of our imports scored to give us a 2 goal cushion again. that seem to deflate our opponents' spirits and we ended the game comfortably at 9-7! YES! We had won!! MUAHAHAHAHA!!

we exchanged high fives and handshakes and some fished out cans of beer from god knows where to have a well deserved drink. most of them were really impressed with my play given that it was my first time playing a competitive match. i was pretty impressed too. haha! but hey, i think its all the hockey, handball and soccer trainings etc that helped me coz u use a lot of those skills in lacrosse. so thanks to the mates who have helped me in that respect as well. ;)

the winning team. Joe is at extreme left. Alex is 3rd from left. Nex to him is our coach. I'm there wearing the number 17 and a big grin on my face.

anyway jus a bit abt the team. though we won the friendly we still lost the points and the chance to enter the playoffs. so that's the end of my lacrosse career in NZ. it was a short experience, but hell... i had a FUCKING good time. =) Thanks to the UoA lacrosse team for letting me play and for teaching the game. maybe ill go back to spore and start a team. who knows... ;) any takers?

crazy day of fun..

2006-03-05T04:07:00.000-08:00

so finally we (the sporeans) rented a suv (or issit mpv.. watever) and sought out to tour a bit of auckland. oh we recruited a new member as well (andrea from ntu) whom you'll see later on. so 7 of us took this 8-seater and set off towards piha beach first. Piha beach is on the west coast and as u will see later, is blardy gorgeous!! but before we reached there, we stopped at a tourist information centre and it had a lot of interesting things to see...

nice statue rite? i think so too..

gan brokeback lah! anyway, that aside, the view was pretty good too...

sigh... this country has too much good scenery... *swoon*.. anyway after a few photos we left for piha beach. piha beach is a really gorgeous beach and it has black sand, different from the white sand we're used to and the black sand glistens in the sunlight.... ahh.. magnifique no?

that big rock in the middle of the beach is Lion's Rock. apparently there used to be a maori tribe nearby and if they were attacked, lion's rock would be it's last line of defence. which isnt too wise i guess. i mean, if u were to run away and hid on a big ass rock like that, i'd just wait below til you're hungry or thirsty then wait for u to surrender. arent i just such the master tactician? muaahahaha! anyway the view from the top of lion's rock is fantastic too. too bad we couldnt go right to the very top coz there's loose rocks and it aint safe and all that.

but yeah... piha is such a great beach man. fit for kids, dogs and even avid surfers... even pple who wish to get themselves on tv can go there coz there's a camera crew there filming the rescues of the local lifeguards each week. so let's say if u go and pretend to drown this week, u can see ure sorry self on the telly the following week. its like baywatch without the boobs! kinda like chicken rice without the chicken really.

ang moh kids are cute eh... i mean.. hey! even noel was cute once! 2 decades ago... sigh.. i guess we'll never know wat really happened to that cute little eurasian boy... last i heard he was tricking underage asian girls... bless them..
woof! (random bark inserted here) cowabunga dudes! (yeah like u din love the TMNT. if u dun get this think beebop and rocksteady dumb ass) anyway after our fun in the sun, we ate homemade sandwiches, nuggets and patato salad. good stuff man... yum yum.. and cheap too... =)

Jason then suggested that we check out this maze on a farm thingy at Henderson. when we reached there the girl at the counter told us that entry would be $9. which turned out to be $9 well spent.
So the farm consists of a maze, farm animals, a cave of some sorts and shows for the whole family (kids they mean). we started off by carrying/cradling/harassing a few farm animals including a piglet, some rabbits, a goat and a hamster of some sort.

see the cute little piggy wiggy? (the one on the left) it was damn cute lah and if u lifted it it'd be squealing like a... erm... squealer. we were given packets of food to feed the animals with as well and most of that was gobbled down by the many greedy goats and sheep along the way. anyway some of the animals were gigantic. like buttercup, the cow.

moo! (random mooing inserted here)

we decided to do the maze last and went on a tractor ride. it was kinda relaxing i guess. we then walked around this trail feeding the animals that we came across. (sheep, goats, emus, pigs, ducks, a donkey named eddie who like me so much he decided to bite me! more on that later..

awww look at the little sheepy weepy...

and this is eddie. eddie is an ass! (literally) and he liked the food on my hand so much that after he finished it. he wanted more. and promptly proceeded to bite my hand!! luckily i jerked my hand away and managed to escape with only a bitemark. but can u imagine if his saliva had entered my blood stream!? i could have gotten Mad Donkey Disease (aka MaDD aka Mad Ass Disease MAD aka Mad Mule Disease MMaD)!!! GAsp! THE Horror!! i can just picture the headlines... "Singaporean genius and all round nice guy Adrian Pillay was killed yesterday after being infected by an ass. A nation mourns the demise of its favourite son." arent u glad im still here... heh

your mom! (random cursing inserted here)

anyway after that we all went horseback riding (just one round) on Noah, this massive horse. and i noticed 2 things. 1, horses can shit on the move. 2, they don't mind stepping in their own pee, but they'd never step on their own poop. crazy eh. u learn something new everyday. haha

after that we proceeded to the barn where there was a sheep shearing demonstration followed by a guy who showed how to crack a whip. that was pretty cool. although the guy looked like a hustler. anyway he cracked the whips pretty well.

we then threw a few horseshoes (its not easy man) before going for the maze. honestly the maze was disappointing. we finished it in 10 mins. sheesh. and the cave was quite bullshit too so yeah. anyway we ended off the visit with a cone of ice cream each. great value for $$ that one. so yeah, a good $10 trip.

we made a quick stop at a grocery store and our apartment before setting off for One Tree Hill. Basically its this hill which once had a lone tree on the top. I say once coz some wanker went to chop the tree down. hahha. fucker rite. hope he got caught. anyway it was really really cold coz the wind was super duper strong.. but the view was worth it..

and i thought this was pretty cool. some pple arranged the rocks below to form a message which can be seen from the top. damn a lot of time and energy lah!

last thing on the list for the day was a trip to mission bay. its a place by hte sea with restaurants etc. we took the scenic route, passing by the wharves on the way. get ready for yet somemore nice scenery.

we had dinner at this famous fish & chips place which was pretty good. then watched the sunset from on top of a hill... ahhh... a good end to a great day trip.

on the way back i almost drove against traffic. well theoretically i did drive against ttraffic but there wasnt any traffic to begin with so i quickly swerved back. hey.. long day lah!! give chance man! but yeah, we all made it back in one piece. heh... live to tour another weekend...

wah gan shack lah this entry. sorry for the length... =)

partying in auckland

2006-03-05T03:34:00.000-08:00

well i think the bitch thing about clubbing or pubbing in nz is that u need to be of a certain age and they only allow certain forms of recognition, and only my passport falls within that category... but hey.. who the fuck goes clubbing with their passport?! stupid laws... and i can't buy alcohol from liqour stores or supermarkets or anywhere because i dun have the proper id! and the proper id will cost me NZ$20 so they can kiss my ass!! bastards!
and even if ure old enuf, some clubs will turn u away at the door for being inappropriately dressed! wen espan and i went to a club not too long ago, he was turned away for having a hole in his shoe (and it was just a tiny hole! hardly noticeable) while i was turned away for being too casual (hey a nice T-shirt with jeans and beetlebug shoes isn't casual!!!) so we just went back to the pub we were at before and he bought me a drink in exchange for me lending him my shoes. well luckily it worked or else i'd just go and screw the bouncers! ok ok... maybe ill just go and put in a sarcastic word or two... the bouncers here are big ass maoris ok! =P

anyway it wasnt all bad that night. i managed to crash a bash for this other university which was very near to my apartments. i just told them im on exchange and hadnt gotten my matric card yet. it worked. saved myself $15. MUAHAHAHAHA!!! i am SOOO cunning!! er ok... anyway it was really good fun and they had really good bands to come in and play. i think there's a sizeable number of kiwis who like reggae music coz they're local band played reggae music and it was nice to just chill to the beats... and weed must be really easy to get too coz every now and then we'd smell the smell of weed burning nearby. anyway they sell tiger beer here so i just had to buy a bottle and share it with my frens. got to show them the pride of spore alcohol. they werent too impressed. hahaha. but hey. its cheap. cheaper than a heineken anwyay.

another thing that's stopping me from getting proper id is that the clubs here arent too good. the crowds are ok i guess. but some clubs are just really small and the music.. well... they play wat the pple want i guess but wen u play the same song twice in a nite... i think something's wrong there...
i heard its much better in queenstown though... which im going in april so hopefully the clubbing there is better..
otherwise i guess i could just get drunk on milk... ;)

things i miss

2006-03-04T02:45:00.000-08:00

well kinda jumping around a bit with regards to chronological order but wat the hell im following a mood. its been 2 weeks since ive left singapore and im hoping everyone is all rite. being here, 10 hours away from home, its kinda hard to keep tabs with wat's going on in the lives of the pple back home. the time difference here is +5 hrs... so that makes it hard to contact certain pple sometimes too. but oh well... to be honest (and i say this without a trace of arrogance) i'd say i'm missed more than i'm missing... and im definitely not proud of it... i mean.. i feel bad u know... i mean im sure my mom has had more than one sleepless night since ive been away... worrying about whether i have enuf $$ or food or warm clothing etc... but wat can i do? i call her now and then... and she seems all right.. but i know my mom worries... and worries... and worries... and that's how she is u know... i always tell her not to worry too much about me and spend more time thinking about herself... but while u could just brush it off as 'moms will be moms', my mom is really the kind to worry a lot... she's not too confident with dealing with me and my brother (and i guess that's our fault) and while i wish sometimes that she could be 'cooler' like my frens' moms, ive never seen a woman so selfless and self-sacrificing for her kids like my mom (and dad).. ( yes yes i know... im biased yada yada yada.. there are poorer pple out there etc etc) so yeah i owe them shitloads... and i know there will come a time when i can start paying them back... not that i cant do it now of coz... but me doing housework only does so much to help them rite... i know what they need and deserve is to see me self-sufficient and capable of leading a meaningful life.. then they can rest at last... and i'd like them to take care of my kids jus as my grandma took care of me... jus to bring out the inner child in them and all that... coz i know my parents havent had fun in a long time... they prbably have forgotten how to in fact.. and i hope that thru me trying to live my life to the fullest... that some of it rubs off onto them.. and they get to enjoy the luxuries that they have given to me by enjoying it thru me.. (something like that)
wow... how did i go so off tangent? or did i? hmmm...
anyway b4 i get carried away.. i'd like to thank the pple who have been sending me off for the last 2 weeks wen i was in spore... like my family, close frens, hall frens, teammates, jc classmates.. thanks so much... it feels great to be loved... hahhaha...
to thank u all (and by special request) here's the photos that i took with u guys before i left..

obviously these monkeys arent gonna read this but i tot i'd post their photo to show u the cute kids that i taught before coming for exchange... this is pri 4F of pasir ris pri sch. blardy rascals. they kept asking me to go back and teach them and that they'd miss me.. haha.. yeah like i'd believe them... kids...

so yeah... for all the vulgarity and evil that seems to ooze out of my body (especially my mouth) all the time... i still love and miss u guys man... (ranjan i know you're probably in tears now... control yourself.) til we meet again, i wish u ora matomato (the best of health)

little ole me

the inflicting of PAINtballs

2006-03-03T01:01:00.000-08:00

kia ora homies!

anyway on the first sunday since i got here, i got up bright and early to go paintballing. My apartment mate espan (the norwegian dude) and josh (also known as josephine) went along too and it was shitloads of fun!! and pain...
anyway it was organised by the hostel so we all shared a bus there. this is the motley crue. (im not inside obviously because someone has to take the photo)

yeah that big bald guy with the purple (i called him barney the whole day) sweater is espan. josh is the short asian girl in black coveralls. and this is moi!

bet u all are shaking in ure pants! uh huh.. anyway i got blue which is kinda obvious in the jungle u know... wish i had gotten green or black like the others... oh well.. guess i'd had better be more careful..

so espan and i decided to 'cheat the system' and get 800 rounds then split it coz it'd be cheaper that way. coz we din want to pay too much for 500 rounds each so we got 1 '300' pellets deal and 1 '500' pellets deal. that would cost each of us about $63. (yeah its expensive. but the fun was really worth it!)

so the first game got under way. it was pretty cool man. they actually had a mission that the teams would go thru and they modelled a mission after the D-day landings of WWII! so the 2 teams (green & others vs black and blue) would take turns to be attackers and defenders. to complete the stage u got to capture the flags that sorta thing. anyway the attackers have unlimited lives but everytime they die they got to go back to a location to 'respawn'. so at the end of the game, the number of times they respawn will be added to 2 times the amt of time they took and that'd be their score. defenders can only die twice then they're out of the game. the 2 teams then switch over and do it all again and the team with the lower score (ie die less and complete faster) wins! confusing? yeah... you're just dumb like that... MUAHAHAHA!

my team defended first and we pelted the bastards pretty good!! it was super fun dodging paintballs and running and rolling on the ground and all that. wonder why i din enjoy doing that during NS... heh...

it was 20v20 at first then it became 24v27 coz some other pple joined in later so it was really good fun! i've never played paintball on such a big scale before. in fact the last time i played was in batam and it was 2v3 (how pathetic!) and the guns were super inaccurate. so yeah.. definitely a few hundred times better this time round.

anyway we defended pretty well and managed to delay the other team for 10mins. then we switched over. the attackers start in a 'beach landing craft' (shit i forgot the proper name) like those in saving private ryan? just that its made of wood of coz. see picture above. and pple just basically get slaughtered left right and centre!!! coz there's just no cover and every mother's son is packed in that small wooden coffin. anyway this guy in my team told us to run out in 2 lines and i guess it worked coz i din get hit. muahahaha! missed me dimwits!! they should have got me when they had the chance coz i ended up capturing the first flag. at this point it seems appropriate to show you a picture of the legend that is ME.

YEAH!!! KILL THE BASTARDS!!!! ROAR!!!! ahem.. ok... er.. back to the game. so we did pretty ok for the first half but they managed to hold us for the second part which was disappointing i guess. but in the end we complated it in 8.5 mins. so i definitely thought we won it. but turns out, including the body count, we lost! and we were all surprised coz we definitely felt that we had pelted them good. before i could accuse anyone of cheating espan came up to me and in his stupid norwegian voice said ' i can't give u 100 pellets (to make it 400 each)'

"what? waddya mean u can't give me 100 pellets?"

"i fired them all. all 500. ill give u your $$ back"

that bastard! and i had been conserving fire too! waiting for the timely replenishment given that we had 1 whole game left to play. i was down to 100 pellets! NORWEGIAN BASTARD!!

"u will pay for this barney. i am going to hunt u down and shoot you like there's no tomorrow"

"ah piss off!" (which is wat he always says. that and 'i will throw u out of the window')

the next game was set in 3 fields (the earlier mission was played in 6). basically the mission was to recover coloured crates for points. more straightforward i guess. i din have as much fun as i could have coz i had to conserve pellets. so yeah i only shot wen i had a good opportunity. i decided that it'd be a good plan to infiltrate the enemy lines and lie in wait as they came back with the crates. that way my pellets wouldnt be wasted and with any luck, i'd shoot espan in the back of his bald head (MUAHAHAHAHHA) . so i flanked left and was met with heavy fire so i decided to wait it out coz reinforcements were coming. i got 2 guys before getting pinned down again. then this dude with his own gun and dreadlocks came with me and he just let it rip. his own gun turned out to have a 'machine gun' function and he was just spraying the bastards with paint. he killed this guy and as the guy was standing up to go back and respawn he shot him again (ure not supposed to shoot pple who have 'died' of coz) and said ala schwarzenegger.

"just to make sure"

boy was i glad i was on his team. anyway i was almost there now. behind enemy lines. if i could just make it past the trees. suddenly i realised that there was this guy from the other team parallel to me. and just as i realised him, he noticed me as well. we both drew and fired! our first shots missed. my second hit the branch above him and his second.... well.. hit me. GODAMMIT! i was so close.. damn! back to square one. anyway before long i was out of ammo so i decided to just poke my head up to draw fire. waste their pellets and buy my teammates time u know. so yeah i was jus jumping around like a rabbit before i got flanked and killed by 5 of em. bloody hell.

so now wat. no ammo how to play. just as i was trudging back to de-kit. i noticed there were unused pellets on the ground!! woohoo! i gingerly gathered them and loaded my gun, careful to avoid any umpires that were lurking around (coz its not allowed. duh). so ok i had 11 rounds for a whole game. splendid. oh well better than nothing i guess. so i was stuck with hiding amongst the trees and sniping but of coz i got spotted and got pinned by fire again. those trees saved me a lot of pain though. oh yeah in case i forgot to mention, paintball hits hurt. some like hell. depending on how far u were of coz. so yeah.. definitely a lot of incentive to practice those evade drills that i learnt in the army. anyway along the way i managed to pick up other unused pellets so i extended my game slowly but surely. in the end i managed to collect about 30-40 pellets and got one guy with a head shot. not a bad return i'd say.

but e moment of the day i think was when i had espan in front of me with a clear shot. i was gonna shoot him wen i realised that he had been killed and was on the way to respawn. he looked at me and froze for a while. i smiled and raised my gun, pointing my muzzle at him. should i shoot the fucker? hmmm... decisions decisions... ah screw it... it'll be wasting a round anyway.. so i let him off.. and he thanked me by showing me the finger... hahhaha!

all in all it was a great session and we had shitloads of fun. we went back to the apartment, bathed and proceeded to the park for this 'party in the park' thingy. it was nice and relaxing... sitting on the grass taking in the sights and sounds with the occasional smell of weed burning near us...

ahhh... this is the life...

an excellent sunday if u ask me...

catch up post

2006-03-02T02:02:00.000-08:00

so yeah the first week we had orientation... thankfully it wasnt the type with 'red team bomb! red team bomb! red team bomb to your mom bomb!!!' that sorta orientation... it was pretty useful i thought. there was an official welcoming ceremony, maori style and other than the fact that the speeches were long and in maori (ie din understand a word of it), i tot it was a nice touch. quite authentic if u know wat i mean.

anyway we had these people who take care of the international students organise several activities for us. like campus tours, talks about where to holiday, who to talk to for problems that sorta thing. and the climax of it all was a trip to Rangitoto island.
Rangitoto island is a dormant volcano that erupted 800 yrs ago. we had to take a ferry out there and hike to the top of it. the soil there is mostly solidified lava so yeah its pretty cool. though the 1 hr hike to the top was a little boring at times. We visited a lava cave too which was good fun i guess if u like crawling and feeling around in the dark for the way out. thereafter we had a nice picnic on the top of Rangitoto and the view was spectacular. you can see the auckland city skyland from there and all that. plus we had nice sandwiches and potato salad and sun to go with it. so yeah a nice pleasant afternoon. we also met charlene (that's her in white), this sporean who's studying in australia and on exchange in nz. and waddya know, she's frens with one of my frens. See how small Singapore is? Oh yeah the guy in the black newcastle jersey is Jason (newcastle sux btw). he was a schoolmate from ri and he's been on exchange here for a semester already so yeah he was taking us around.

the view from the top. magnifique no? macam lord of the rings sial!!

anyway during the week we also went to sky tower which overlooks the whole of Auckland. so yeah more nice scenery in store.

view from below and on top

view at night.

so yeah its not bad. has a casino inside too. shall visit that soon... heh heh heh...

ok hang in there... im almost done with the first week!

We also went to the Auckland museum as part of the orientation package. the bitch thing is its at the top of this hill and it was quite a tiring climb up the slope. anyway we finally got there and went in and its really interesting. i think it probably has the best if not one of the best collections of maori art in the world. Maoris are very good with carvings and making tools etc. so yeah there were gorgeous wood carvings all over the place. like these.

Nice right. we also watched this maori perfomance which was very entertaining and hilarious to watch.basically they displayed some maori weapons and martial arts, sang some maori songs and did the hakka at the end for good measure. good stuff. the maori songs are reallly nice. it just gives off such a nice tribal and serene kind of feeling. so yeah good stuff.

anyway to rap up my first week, i had paintball on sunday! but too shack lah ... next post..

Kia Ora Taiao

2006-03-01T18:08:00.000-08:00

Ok loosely translated that means 'Hello world' in Maori.

Not that i'm trying to act cool by showing my maori ok but just thought i'd use as much of it as possible coz im taking this maori module. so it helps my vocab.

(ok lah ok lah! i'm acting cool. Happy?)

anyway this 'blog' is just for me to post pictures and to remember my exchange in NZ by. plus i seem to have a lot of time (esp here where the nights are cold and lonely...) so i thought i'd just use the time to recollect the moments etc that i've gone thru.
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so i reached Auckland on the 18th of feb with 4 other nus students (whom i will mention later) and we settled into a student hostel which charges $178 a week. At this moment, i find it appropriate to curse the fuckers for charging us so much.

KANINABEICHAOCHEEBYE!!!! SIMI LANJIAO!!!! YOUR MOMS ARE SKANKY WHORES!!!!

ok now that that is out of the way. so this is my apartment.

Each apartment has a living room, kitchen area and toilet with 2 baths. i like my eusoff room better... there's more light and more windows. there are 4 other pple in my apartment (1 norwegian, 1 msian, 1 kiwi and 1 cambodian) and they're all guys. =( But the good thing is, my apartment is damn neat and clean. shocking eh... u shld see the other apartments with girls in them. filthy! which leaves me to conclude that girls are dirty bitches! heh..

speaking of dirty bitches, here are the other sporeans i came with.

from L to R : Jae, Annalyn, Grace, Josephine, and some random dashingly cute guy. anyway we've been settling into the university of auckland and auckland in general for the past 12 days. so if the first few posts are boring, its their fault. =)

we haven't been doing much other than grocery shopping, wandering around town, setting up bank accounts, climbing extinct volcanoes and watching brokeback mountain. I did partake in 25 v 25 paintball over the weekend but ill cover that in subsequent posts. til then. Ko to whaea!