Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2010 - RUN AS ONE

Last Sunday, 27 June 2010 Ibu and her colleague went to the Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2010 at Dataran Merdeka. We got on the LRT at 6.15am at the Terminal Putra station and by the time the train reached Masjid Jamek station, the coaches were already full with runners ready for either the 10km or the 5km marathon. The full marathon (42km) started at 5.00am and the half marathon (21km) at 6.15am. A total of 16,500 runners participated in this year marathon. Pity the runners for the full marathon as it was raining heavily when they started running!

Ibu and Abah registered for the 5km fun run but since that day was Abah’s birthday, we decided at the last minute not to (or was it an excuse coz both of us did not train for the marathon!). Ibu arrived at Dataran Merdeka just in time for the flag off for the 10km run at 7am. A total of 8,000 runners gathered at the starting line ready to run for the marathon. It was a good experience to see all the 8,000 runners started running after the flag off and the road was filled with people as far as the eyes could see. It was an amazing sight! We saw Fahrin Ahmad who RUN FOR A CAUSE representing the Malaysia Aids Foundation for the 10km run. A few other celebrities joined the run for various charity organizations.

After the flag off, we went to the Stanchart Tent dedicated for the staff and their families and had breakfast there. Later, Aunty Shasha and Aunty Lin arrived and ready to run for the 5km. We flagged them off at 8.00 am and later made our way to the LRT station. It was a task trying to cross the road as runners were running fast towards the finishing line! Both of them finished the run about 45 minutes later. Congratulations.

Who knows we might run next year. See you at the Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2011!

Flag off for the 10km run

8,000 runners for the 10km run

The whole street was packed with runners!

The VIPs

Start & Finish

Shasha and Lin for the 5km run

They started running..or walking

The cheer leaders!!!

Stanchart tent

Winner for the full marathon

The VIP stage

Gombakclan Birthday Bash @ OneStep

The Gombakclanners celebrated their birthdays at One Step Western last Wednesday, 23 June 2010. This time it is to celebrate Tok Nana and Aunty Shasha birthdays which fall on the same day, 27 May, Tok Papa on 18 June and Abah on 27 June. Since the opening of One Step, not many of the Gombakclanners had the chance to try the food and it was a good opportunity to introduce One Step to them. It was Ibu and Tok Mamie's idea of hosting the celebration at One Step.

Although the invitation was on short notice, all of them except for Aunty Yana (missing in action!) were able to make it. Tok Nani, Tok Mamie, Tok Nana and Tok Onn families accepted the invitation and at the same time pre-ordered the food. We wanted to invite Uncle Chop and family but since it was on a weekday and they were at Putrajaya, we did not want to trouble them to come all the way to join us.

The Chef, Uncle AP was delighted with the news and immediately went to the restaurant to do the preparation. 6 lamb chops, 5 steaks and 4 chicken chops plus mushroom brushetta as the appetizer were more than enough to keep his kitchen occupied that night. What more with the astro supersports finally installed and the big screen projector he rented from Giat Mara enough to attract the crowd to watch football while enjoying their meals. This time, instead of using the gas to grill, he used charcoal to grill the meat.

As usual, every birthdays must come with a cake. Aunty Ira was kind enough to bring along a nice chocolate ice cream cake from Haagen Daz and Tok Nana added JCo doughnuts as our dessert that night. After the cake cutting, we stayed back talking while watching the World Cup Match between England V Slovenia and during the first half break, we said our goodbyes.

Thanks to everyone for coming and to Tok Nana, Tok Papa, Aunty Shasha and Abah - Hope you all had a good time and good food last night. Happy Birthdays and may you all be blessed with taqwa and imam and of course with good life, good health and wisdom. To Uncle Chop who celebrated his birthday on 26 June, Happy Birthday to you too and hope that you had a wonderful celebration.

Knowing Singapore - Day 3 & 4

Today, the third day, 14 June 2010, was supposed to be the highlight of this whole visit and the kids were looking forward to enjoying themselves in and around Sentosa Island.

So we started early again, took a taxi straight to Resorts World @ Sentosa.... I normally gave tips to those taxis who were willing to take us to our destination since they use more common sense!). It was a smooth ride in the morning into Resorts World and stopping at the Casino entrance before walking further up to the Universal Studio.....first look, we were impressed by what we saw, just like the one in Los Angeles with the blue globe turning outside its entrance.

People were already coming in although the tickets counters were closed....8,000 tickets are sold out daily and you need to book in advance and better through internet. So we went in and got SD10 dollar voucher for every guests (SD5 for food and SD5 for souvenirs)....and the fun and exploration began. We decided to go right after the entrance...passsing through the streets of New York before we arrived at Sci Fi City or the Battalestar Galatica area and we took a spinning ride on 'Accelerator'....the tickets have included all the rides in the park. The Human and Cyclone ride were still under testing and not yet opened for public....that could be interesting rides.

We moved on to the next one ie the Ancient Egypt, Revenge of the Mummy....there were a few rides but everyone, except me (jaga bag), went for the thrill ride in total darkness and they came out pucat lesi and looking at their photo, it must have been quite a scary ride! We continued enjoying ourselves around the park and shooting lots of photos and our next destination was the Lost World at the Jurassic Park....probably the best ride in the park is this one. There were the water ride and the sky ride.... we went on the Rapid Adventure but the waiting time for Canopy Flyer was just too long. The Rapid Adventure ride was fun, scary and wet....some people bought poncho but we decided not to.... at the end of it, I had to wear slippers when my shoes were soaking wet! We did not cover the Waterworld, Hollywood and Madagascar, save it for the next trip.

After that it was the 4D Shrek movie at the Land Far Far Away, another fantastic fun with all the water and air effects. We decided to have lunch at Casa Del Wild, somewhere near Madagascar (it serves halal food) before completing our tour of the Universal Studio. We had fun and we really enjoyed ourselves. So we checked out of Universal Studio, hop on the monorail and headed towards Beach Terminal and took a bus to the Underwater World. Spent sometime enjoying the underwater world plus the seal and dolphin shows until around 4.00pm. We did our jama' qasar in one of the Nursing Room at the Underwater World.

Once done, we hopped on the bus again and headed towards Imbiah Point where we visited the Merlion statue, took the sky ride and the kids enjoyed the luge ride downhill. The sky ride offers a nice view of southern Singapore and the beach, so we stayed on to watch the Songs of the Sea until dusk....another fantastic show of water fountains, lights and fire. After the show ended, we had to cram into the monorail on our way out from Sentosa to Vivo City....pack and humid with all kinds of smell.

Reached Vivo city and had dinner at Pizza Hut..... nice and satisfying. Then it was a challenge trying to get a taxi/bus back to the hotel....we moved from one station to the other across the road, got onto the 97 bus and headed towards Marina Bay then got a taxi back to hotel. Tiring but satisfied with the coverage today.

Next morning, we woke up early and it was raining all day. We chartered a 7 seater taxi to bring us to Vivo City, Harbour Front since we'll be going back by Aeroline. We had lunch at Burger King before embarking on the journey back home exactly at 2pm. We stopped both at Tuas and JB for immigration and custom check. There were African families in our bus and we met some interesting Italians along the way. We reached KL just before Maghrib.....and Pak Lang came to fetch us.

What a holiday and Singapore was a good choice for this trip.