3/11/04

Mother was knocked down by a van while working today and went to ER. She called me and I came down to ER to see her. I was bit relieved when I learned that she only got chest contusion without fracture or pneumothorax. Hope she will recover soon. The impact of a van could cause quite serious injury and pain.

14/11/04

The last baseball match of this season – vs Atom. We have very good discipline and team spirit in the warm up. I have fleeting idea that we might win this game. In the first inning, we have good start and got 5 scores. I have made the best hit, the ball fly to 3rd base direction and hit the fence…nearly a homerun!!! The best hit I ever had and the best among the team this season, the best among all the hit in this match!!

16/11/04-21/11/04

Trip to Sabah / photos

D1 On arrival, we had a brief city tour by bus. After that we arrived Magellan Sutera which was one of the best resort hotel in Sabah. The two guys felt embarrassed when they slept together in a king-sized bed, so they requested to change rooms – our rooms were then upgraded to harbour view instead of harbour view- not bad right?
The sea food was marvellous, the prawns and fish were so fresh and that the loster was very huge, I have never tasted such a large loster before!!

D2 Island trip
The sunshine was so great today and snorkelling in Mamutik was marvellous, in the shallow area there were so much corals, in the deeper water,the carols were great and with lots of fish. The fish bites!! After the trip, my back was burnt, as I forgot to put on any suntan oil on my back!

D3 Rafting in Badas. We had to change an old train after bus. Since it's too crowded in the carts, the train ad-hoc added few carts and was delayed for an hour. Chung kept sweating in the poorly ventilated cart. There were interesting scenes in the train- breast feeding in front of others, holding up seats with goods despite other passagers were standing and some young ladies in Bikini as the changing room was differernt from the starting point of rafting.

Our boat consisted of 4 of us and 2 Taiwanese [probably a couple]. The couple did not know Eng and not know what the coach said. So they did not paddle when there were rapids. In the most fierce rapid, our boat was capsized as the front of the boat was not facing the wave direction … all of us fell into the rapid. The Taiwanese girl grapped Carrie and Carrie said she could not breathe for 30 sec. Afterwards that lady grapped me from behind and I was like being homicided. Were she listened to the breifing she should know that at that time she should lie flat with face towards sky and the life jacket wouldl float her up…
Another lesson I learned – I did not practice life saving for a long time, principles were forgotten. The first thing to save a drowning person is to swim to his/her back and not to allow the drowning person to stay at my back...

The material supply of this hotel was a bit unsatisfactory – no toothpaste/ toothbrush, not enough towels, the remote control of TV was not working.
One funny thing was that we have problem with the remote control and asked the technician to come, consecutive 2 nights, the control worked when the same techician came but out of order again in the middle of the night…so stupid and funny yet wired.

Carrie and Nam was cautious, they started to take Diamox to avoid mountain sickness. I think I may tolerate without that medicine so I did not take any.

D4 Trekking - After ascended 100M, Chung quitted as he is too tired after rafting yesterday. 3 of us went on and arrived the Laban Rata guest house at 3200M by 2 30pm. Along the trail, there were beautiful scenes and we saw the special plant which could trap insects, some cute squirrels as well. We rested a night, but the sleep was not that good since the air was too dry with the heater and I drank lots of water nearly every 15 mins since mid-night

D5
We woke up at 2am and set off by 230am to go up to the summit to watch sunrise. The rocky surface of the mountain was steep and in some parts we had to use a rope for balance. I initially walked too fast and feel exhausted, But later when I followed the guide step by step, I found that his pace was very adequate and that he knew how to walk without using the rope to balance and yet safely, he walked in a zig-zag way…I then appreciated the importance of a guide. I think of it's like in real life when followed a true guide Jesus could be real good, even tho it seems the walking distance becomes longer yet actually it's easier and feel very safe as well.
We finally arrived the summit by 530am, well before the sun rise. The breeze was so cold that my fingers were freezing. The clouds were so thick and we were lucky that there were few minutes of clear view when the sunrise!
We came down from the summit and Nam slipped for nearly 10 times since the rain became heavier and heavier, perhaps his shoes were too slippery. But I was quite used to that kind of terraine, cuz it's like walking on stone stream in Hong Kong but some part of the rocks are really steep and need to use rope to “ abseil” down which was really exciting and of great fun!

Carrie became really exhausted and perhaps with the diuretic effect of Diamox and poor intake, she got acute lower limb weakness and hardly finished the last few check points, I guessed she may have hypokaleamia. She used tripple and even quariple times then mine to reach a check point. But she's very strong in will-power, she finally finished the trail at 345pm.
When we arrived Magellan Sutera, she had "paraplegia" and could not stand up, severe proximal myopathy and fell twice in the lobby and could not get up herself…needed a wheelchair to take her back to the hotel room. Luckily she recovered rapidly after a night's rest.

D6 We went to Sunday market and had a quick look. Carrie prefered to stay at hotel as she still walked very slowly.
We bought some durian ice-stick using the coins lefted…the durian ice- stick was very real…tasted like u were eating a durian!!