Month: July 2007

Posted in Sports

Bronze for Papillon

Posted on by pierreo

Papillon can be French for ‘Butterfly’, or it can be a breed of dog.  It is also the pen name for a French convict who escaped from a penal colony in French Guyana.

That’s all history. 

Papillon is also the name of the Dragon Boat team I have been training and racing with for the last 14 months. Less than a month ago, we were denied a place in the semi-finals of the grueling “Singapore Festival” open race by a mere 0.5 seconds.  We knew that our next opportunity would come at the Corporate Community Games (CCG) – a multi-sport competition where corporate teams compete against each other over two week-ends.  This time, we would enter a true ‘mixed’ competition where each team was required to have five women and five men rowing.

ExxonMobil had also entered two men’s teams, which was run in the morning.  “Sea Blades” made it to the semi-finals and “Ace” made it into the finals.  Competition was tough and “Ace” placed a very respectable fourth.

All of last year, ‘Papillon’ was the under-performing team of ExxonMobil. While “Ace” and “Tiger Lilies” won the Jurong Island competition and did very well at the Singapore Regatta, and “Ace” and “Tiger Blades” did well in the CCG, ‘Papillon’ always seemed to fail at the last hurdle.

In the heats, we were first, just ahead of Glaxo Smith Kline, and well ahead of Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays (Lot’s of banks seem to find the time to enter this competition…).  The victory meant that we qualified directly for the semi-finals.  Unfortunately, we were drawn in the same semi-final as the only team to beat our time in the heats – The Police Sports Association.

When the semi-final came, we were ready and did an excellent time, just behind the Police.  Unfortunately, only the winning team qualified from each of three semis, with the next 2 best times.  We had the fourth best time of the semis and therefore qualified for the finals with the Police, OCBC (Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation), HSBC (Hong-Kong and Shanghai Bank Company) and  Keppel Shipyards. HSBC had won the competition in 2006 and had a better semis time than we did.  OCBC, Keppel and Police had won their respective semifinals.  A tough fight ahead.

The final was ‘the perfect race’.  Police and OCBC were ahead and racing each other for first place.  Papillon was fighting with HSBC and Keppel for third place.  Our ‘hard ten’ mid-way through gave us a small lead; the final charge did the rest and we ended up third, with about 1 second lead over HSBC.

Time seemed to stop.  All the efforts of the past months, all the training finally paid off.  Ben was so elated that he threw away his paddle.  Coach Patrick was silent for the first time since I met him. The rest of us were cheering and waving our paddles in the air.  From shore, a faint refrain of “EM! EM!” made it across the water. We composed ourselves enough to row back to the docks and almost capsized as all the right rowers left the boat at the same time – after all this time, we can still act like amateurs!

Presentation of the main actors – by captain Su Li:

  • Thanks William, for sacrificing your Church-going time last Sunday, to join us through the medal-winning journey.
  • Thanks Jon for rushing down straight after work to be our pacer, and always be a supportive vice-captain, negotiating with Vincent on all big/ small issues, despite your hectic schedule of TA.
  • Thanks go to Freddy for being activated at last min to be a pacer w/o any grumble, Always readily supporting us, being it to drive us/ paddles/ drinks/ food around. If Vincent is Dragon Boat “founder” then Freddy is our Papillon “god-father”.
  • Thanks to Desmond, who has not let any of us down, for remaining composed throughout the race as a pacer, Thou it’s his first race as a pacer, he had displayed extreme composure. Of course, Samuel, the pacer seat will still be yours, provided u are “running” in the gym @ UK now. Haha… which I believe u are, since u had brought the running gear thousand of miles. To reward Desmond, to let him go back to his Backpack role. Think he will love u for that. ^.^
  • Thanks to Yen Nee for being there with us, despite her photo-shot is coming soon n she needs to get ride of her tan line. She is with us, giving us the strong pull that we need to get through the Finals. I can see the joyous face in your face, after we had passed the finishing line. ^.^
  • Thanks to Marilyn, for coming down readily, despite the little girl at home waiting for Mummy to be back home. It’s not easy to be a drummer, and as Dawn summary had wrote, U did a prefect job, except that we got “Ma Ta” next to us lah… no choice, kanna caught. hehee… She was so calm where me n Desmond was panicking to ask her to pick up the white buoy. hehee…
  • Thanks to Jessica, as Freddy’s says, you’ve done 3 gruelling races in a day. That showed that age is not a barrier to keeping fit. Without your constant support last year, we might not even had a mixed team found.
  • Thanks to Pierre, who has acted as Stand-in gym coach when Patrick is not around, and for sponsoring the Post-CCG celebration dinner aka Pizza n KFC n drinks n your wonderful place. N yes, pls stay there for as long as u can, as we will be having more celebration to come. ^.^ Thanks for also making us “famous” by including us in your Blog. Maybe next time we can google for our name and it will appeared.
  • Thanks to BEN!! Because you dare to dream big and we are here!! Frankly, I’m always very pressurized by you when u start to talk “big” about winning medal. Thanks for letting me believed also that our team can DO IT!! and I now believed that “GOLD Medal” for JI is within our REACH!!
  • Thanks to our dearest n beloved Coach, who we now knows had more than coaching skills in his bag of knowledge, He is also gg to be the greatest Cook! Err,,, btw, I had told my dad about your “restaurant”. We interested to book a table this sat for my family dinner. Can hor. Table for 10 pls. ^.^
  • (by PJO) And let’s not forget Thanks for our Captain Su Li without whom the team would not be what it is today.  She does not limit her role to organising Dragon Boat events, she also doubles as our Social Secretary – constantly on hte look out for opportunities to further build the team with outside activities.

The excitement was only beginning.  The rest of the EM family was waiting for us and seemed just as happy at the results.  I floated through the  medal ceremony; we probably all did. 

 

 

smallccg_medal.jpgBackRow: Freddy, Ben, Desmond, Yen Nee, and Jonathan

Middle row: Su Li and Christy

Front row: Pierre, Jessica, Dawn, Marilynn and William

Front Front: Coach Patrick

We had a party at my apartment afterwards.  There was champagne, beer, soft drinks, excellent chilly fish, bad pizza and KFC.  We listend to, and sang along with Queen: “We are the Champions!” and listened to Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd and Lute music – quite a combination.  A good time was had by all.bronze-1s.jpg

Pictured above are: seated from left: Captain Su Li, Coach Patrick, vice-Captain Jonathan; standing from left: Christy, Dawn, Ben, Pierre, Desmond, Yen Nee and Jui Goy.

In two weeks, we have our next competition: the Jurong Island Race.  Last year, we did well in the heat, and messed up in the finals.  We have matured as a team in the last year.  We will see what that brings.

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Posted in Culture, Retrospective, Travel

Phuket – Thailand

Posted on by pierreo

I do not have something exciting to share with you every week.  However, there are many events that have occurred in the past which I never got a chance to share.  I will therefore regularly go back and re-visit, as much for my benefit as yours, some memorable events of the past.

In April 2003, I went to Phuket from where I would depart on my first live-aboard dive trip. 5 days in the Similan Islands.  I arrived on Saturday and was not due on the ship until Sunday evening.  I had one and a half day to kill and so I rented a moped to be able to move around the island a bit and go to places I had not visited before.  All went well on Saturday afternoon.  I was able to visit a good restaurant I like that is hard to get to without transportation – White Lotus, owned and operated by a Vietnamese woman who is very friendly.

On Sunday, I decided to explore the southern coast.  I left the hotel relatively early and as I go around the first bend on the main street, a couple of kids toss a glass-full of water at me… I am not sure what happened, but with the heat it actually feels good, and I do not think about it further.  As I go through the first village south of Patong Beach,  I get ‘attacked’ by a few teens with water pistols. There is definitely something going on as I see groups of people setting up large barrels of water along the road.  I am still in the dark as to what is about to happen.

As time passes more and more people are along the road and are throwing water at everything that moves.  Soon, I start to see pick-up trucks with large barrels of water in the back trying to soak the people along the side of the street.  A giant water battle is building.  And I am totally unarmed!  However, it is rather hot, I am only wearing shorts and t-shirt and I do not mind being a little wet. 

As I head back to Patong, I get a new experience: some people actually put ice in their water barrels and therefore I get the occasional really cold shower.  There are also some people trowing talcum powder, and even coloured talcum powder.

I am soon soaking wet, with blotches of green, orange, purple and red all over my clothes.  And it is almost lunch time.  With some embarrassment, I walk into a local restaurant, wondering the kind of reception I will get given my current state.  However, I guess it must be expected on this day and I have no trouble getting a table and decent food.

After lunch, I continued to explore and continued to get soaked.  The more the day progressed, the more people were out celebrating, dancing, cruising etc.. while continuing to trow water at each other.  In Patong, the main street was one big party.  Many of the local bars had setup speakers outside and were playing loud music while patrons were dancing on tables and soaking passers-by.  On the street, people were dancing on motorcycles and in the back of pick-up trucks while soaking the patrons of the bars.  And, as before, I seemed to be stuck in the middle and getting soaked from both sides … but really enjoying every minute of it.

When I got back to the hotel to check out, I was totally wet and dripping all over the floor.

I discovered later that this is a tradition at Thai New Year in Phuket.  This happens every year and is beginning to attract more and more tourists.  This was my third “New Year” celebration this year, after the “Christian New Year”, “Chinese New Year” and now “Thai New Year”.

A great experience – I was lucky to be at the right place at the right time for it.

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Posted in Sports, Travel

Cebu – Philippines

Posted on by pierreo

I am completing an excellent long week-end get-away in Cebu, Philippines. I arrived here Thursday and will leave in a few hours back to Singapore.

 

The primary reason for coming here was to do a bit of diving. The area is quite renowned for this and easily reacheable from Singapore. The secondary reason was that I had never been to the

Philippines and here was a chance to add one more country not to be missed.

I did three dives on Friday and two more on Saturday with Dindo, a local divemaster. On Saturday I was joined by another Singaporean – small world. His three friends would snorkel while we dove. All dives were wall/drift dives, the most relaxing kind, I think. We set off on top of the wall, with about 5 meters of depth and than, clearin gthe edge, descended to our agreed starting depth. Once you adjust your buoyancy, you can just let the current take you along the wall, occasionally swimming against it to look at details longer. There was a lot to see, from huge schools of jacks that almost surrounded us to the largest and smallest clown fish I had ever seen – the small one was probably only 2-3 mm long. Saw quite nice nudiebranches and some star fish that look more like a plush stuffed toy than something you would find on a reef.  One of the dives had the most inclredible anemonies I had ever seen.

One surprise on the first dive. There were two loud bangs, accompanied each by a noticeable concussion while we were at about 20 meters depth. Dindo immediately gestured to me that all was OK! to which I replied OK even though my heart rate had increased a bit and we kept going. After the dive he explained that some people still fish with explosives, but these were far away, probably more than 50 km on another island. I would not have wanted to be any closer than we were.

Saturday afternoon, after the two dives, I took a 4 hour tour of Cebu city, one of the oldest in the Philippines, and the first place where Magellan landed, also the place where he was killed (I am going to visit the actual battlefield just before I leave the Island – there is a shrine to Rajah Lapu-Lapu and a monument to Magellan on the spot where it all happened. Lapu-Lapu was the leader of the local people who opposed the Spanish invasion. It is amazing that a lot of people know about Magellan’s travels, and the fact that he died in the Philippines, but until I started reading the local history in the hotel, I did not realize that is all happened right here.

The cross that Magellan planted in Cebu is still there, now protected inside a rotunda and inside a hollow wooden cross to protect it from the local population that considers pieces of the original cross to be lucky-charms – there would be no cross left by now if it were not protected.

fortsanpedro.JPG

 

The original Fort San Pedro built by the Spanish when they came back in 1564 is still here. The first church built in the Philippines is also in Cebu. It celebrates a relic left here by Magellan and recovered by the Spanish when they came back. It is a statue of the infant Jesus – El Sancto Nino, reputedly carved in

Belgium.

 

The city of Cebu itself is growing rapidly, but is still able to protect some of the original buildings. I had a really nice tour during which I was also able to try a local “delicacy” in a local market: Coconut Wine. This is the local red wine, made from fermented coconut milk – I am not sure what they add to make it reddish. It is not bad, and very cheap. I ended up buying a bottle, for 35 pesos, or less than 1 euro, and for a moment, I was the biggest attraction in the whole market. Since Dindo is the one who told me about the coconut wine, I left the rest of the bottle for him in the dive shop as I was heading out – it is certainly not good enough to try and smuggle back to

Singapore!

I had excellent food while here too. On Friday, I decided I wanted to go to a local restaurant I had read about. Dindo indicated that it was quite good, but when I asked at the hotel, they were more reserved, even surprised that I was willing to go there, indicating that it was “not very clean” and only for locals. The hotel also recommended to take a taxi, even though the restaurant should only be a 15 minute walk away. I have never been one to shy away from adventure and a challenge and I decided to go on my own. Outside the hotel, I met a motorcycle rickshaw driver who proposed to take me there for only 50 pesos. I know he grossly overcharged me, but am I really going to complain about having to pay about 1 euro 50? I can fortunately afford it – and I am glad I took the ride. The restaurant was somewhat off the street in a small alley and I may not have found it easily on my own. I had excellent local steamed fish and grilled prawns. The restaurant was clean enough and quite comfortable, and I enjoy going where locals go – I did not see any other tourists there. I am sure locals cannot afford to go there very often though as the prices were relatively high. That might have been just for me … maybe, again, locals pay a lot less! Again, I can afford it and I am sure that it is money well spent.

When I travel to countries that are less well-off, I do not like to give money to people who just beg on the streets or at traffic lights, nor to those who are obviously trying to trap tourists. However, I try to be generous with people who help me, and with local shops, when I know that the money will stay in the local community.  I am always surprised by the genuine delight that these small, and not so small gestures always bring from the people I have been with.

Another great experience.  I think I will have to go back!

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Posted in Sports

Half a second makes all the difference

Posted on by pierreo

On Saturday, with about 5000 other people, I participated in the Singapore Dragon Boat Festival 2007.  You can read more about it in the SDBA site at www.sdba.org.sg where the final results will also be posted.

ExxonMobil Papillion, my team, was entered together with three other EM teams in the Inter-Corporate Open.  The Tiger Lillies was entered in the Inter-Corporate Ladies.  Even though we have a mixed team, since there is no mixed category, we entered the open just for the experience.

This is one of the largest Dragon Boat competitions of the season, with 115 20-person teams and 161 10-person teams entered.  It is also the longest at 800 meters.  Let me assure you, this is a really long race!

We were entered as ExxonMobil Team “A” and we had the ExxonMobil “Rookies” in our heat.  The rookies are our Veteran Team – this is their first competion.  We knew we had a tough heat, because HP always is dangerous, even their “B” team, and NewUrbanMale is improving every year.

We had a really good start, just behind HP and even with NUM.  The rest of the teams were already behind.  HP kept pulling away, but we stayed right with NUM.  I am very proud of the team as we kept rowing our rythm and our race, not trying to chase HP, or do something drastic to move ahead of NUM.  They did a first hard-10 (ten hard strokes which are designed to intimidate the opposition) and moved slightly further ahead.  We did a hard-10 and move slightly ahead at about 600 m.  For the finish, we were neck and neck, but it became clear that we had no more to give.  HP finished in 4m38; NUM did 4m43.61 and we did 4m44.11, half a second behind, and half a second out of second place, which would have qualified us for the semi-finals.  The “Rookies” finished in 4m59, richer for the experience, and hopefully better prepared for the real ‘veteran’ competitions coming later in the year.

I am very pleased with our performance.  We did a good race and were beaten by better opposition.  At least, we did not beat ourselves – we have done that before.  We should do better in the next races where we will be competing against other mixed teams.

The “refinery” team was also third in their heat.  Fortunately, ExxonMobil “Ace”, our number one men’s team finished first in their heat in a very good 4m30 and have qualified for the semi-finals.

The “Lillies” had a very tough heat and finished third, good enough to go direct to the final of the ladies competition.

EM only competes in the 10-person boats.  Just for comparison, one of the top teams in the National 20-men boat did a 3m14 time for the same 800 meters.  The longer boats are faster, but we still would have a long way to go before we could possibly come close to that!

Sunday …

The “Ace” team qualified for the finals, and finished 6th – a very good result.  One surprise: there were NO banks represented in the finals.  Usually they are the stronger teams, but this year, HP and NUM seem to dominate.

The “Lillies” were also 6th in their final, having improved their time by 8 seconds from the semi-finals.  A very good result.

It was an excellent week-end.  I also discovered a part of Singapore where I had not gone before: Bedok Reservoir.

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