Batu Caves & Camp5!

had another weekend getaway to KL on 8, 9 Nov.

main purpose was to climb... and many first for me!

first time at Batu Cave

first time climbing natural rocks

first time at Lead climbing

first time at Camp5

first time watching movie at an IMAX theatre

first time eat this super duper awesome cheesecake

first time missing the bus back home and literally went on a speed chase for it.

hahas. as usual, whenever i travel with Dickson, its bound to be an epic adventure. 

hahas. especially on Sunday because so far, everything was gg well plus the weather was too 順 (smooth-sailing), we knew something had to happen. but didn't expect it to be that epic. whahahs. 

ok again, let the photos do the talking!

supposed to go up on a friday night by train / bus, but both no tickets. so its 7.15am at beach road.

supposed to be a 5hr journey... but it took about 6.5hrs due to the wkend jam at kl.... plus the bus was travelling relatively slowly.

was studying halfway using downloaded materials into mother poon's ipad... until i discovered the vid system. hahas. watched the hk laughing哥 police movie. been wanting to watch for so long. finally! hahas

settled the accommodation that's about 15mins walk from Camp5, located at 1utama - the freakin hugeee mall.

but first... LUNCHHHHH :) really good jap-pasta food. and and and.. the store sells lotsa matcha stuff. really can go crazyy. thank God i no $$$. hahahas

and HERE I AM! helloooooo CAMP5. everyone's been talking about the best climbing gym in Asia. the routes are fairly more difficult thatnsg's gyms. ahahs. really struggled with their 5c walls. but its a different feeling altogether. though the routes were more challenging, they were some how achievable. hence, that really shiok feeling. we started climbing at about 4pm...... till it closed at about 8pm.

here's stanley at his fav mad lead wall.

played around the artifical natural wall. ahhahas. left so stupid coz it was soooo difficult. so difficult that i think i dont even need a harness coz i wouldn't climb more that 2m off the ground. ahhahs. ah huat and i was like.. "shit. tmr (at batu caves) how sia".. thinking that natural rock gg to be this tough. hahhaas. thankfully its not.

  

after that. it's dinner. ate lotsa random stuff. but the best of it all is THE CHEESECAKE. and its freakin freshly made from the oven. its like newly opened. long queue. and 1 customer can only buy 1 for 19rm !! i can really consider riding down 5 hrs just to eat this and ride back. ahhahas. though i was still coughing and all, i just had to eat the green tea ice cream. :D

then its movieeee time at an IMAX theatre! hahas. (with all our climbing gears and stuff

INTERSTELLAR

awesome movie. another of Christopher Nolan's great making.

honestly, its sooo chim that i didnt quite get it though i really like how logically factual all the sci-fi stuff sounds. hahas. dont mind watching it again!

approx 3 hr movie. started at 10.30pm. so we ended at about 1 am. ahhas. totally lost in the mall coz all the doors were locked. so we ended up exiting via the carpark. supper after that at our hotel downstairs!

DAY 2!

happy that it's all bright and sunny. initally worried coz it has been raining for the past few days. 

initial plan was to go Batu caves on Sat. but since we're late, and the weather didn't look too promising, Camp5 was first on the itenary.

but first.. breakfast! ahhas.

and my very first climb!

looking back at the quote at the walls of Camp5. true that.

climbing natural rock is really different. its not just about he adrenaline and outdoorsy feeling, but its because of the all the possibilities of the climb. really. each time u climb, once u've found a good grip of the rock after struggling abit, u really get that when-theres-a-will-theres-a-way feeling. hahas. somehow, it really feels refreshing and to some extent, therapeutic with many life lessons to learn along.

never been so high up before. i dont really have much fear of heights, so it wasn't really terrifying until i tried Lead climbing.

and its ah huat's first time at lead climbing tooo!

all thanks to stanley shifu for teaching and guiding me.

hahas. lead climbing is v different from the usual top rope. coz generally, this time, u are securing ur own anchor points at each 'check point' so when u fall, u really fall to ur last check point. and it can really be v scary. hahas. with that thought and notion, it started to get more fearful.

but really, the main lesson learn was to : 

Keep calm and climb on.

(got this online)

hahas. just like swimming in the ocean, once u panic, u sink. as for climbing, once u're not relaxed, u'll find the climb really straining and difficult.

first time at Lead.

one pic with the both of us. initially wanted to set up 2 routes so as to help take cool photos.... ahas. but we didn't have the time & space.

and soon, it was about 5pm and time to leave. :(

(btw, the walls are FOC. just need to bring ur own gears & at ur own risk)

took a cab down to berjaya times sq to take the bus back to sg. 

ahhahs. for once, we're early for the 6.30pm bus. so we decided to grab some dinner. and then we ended up... being late!!! ahhas. omg.

the bus showed no mercy and left at about 6.35pm.

stanley and ernest were alrdy up the bus and they couldn't do much to stop the persistant driver. hahahas. so we literallyy rannnn to chase for the bus a few streets down.

just then, we saw 2 girls running after us. they told us that the bus is alrdy on the highway as their friend (whom they were sending off) was in the bus.

so, they FREAKING OFFERED US TO DRIVE 30km down and chase it to the next stop (at TBS bus terminal). ahahs. reallly kind souls coz they literally ran with us all the way back to the Times Square to get the car in the carpark. then, they zooom zooom the traffic and its only then we allowed to reach the bus on time before it abandoned us again.

really super duper thankful for them if not we wouldn't have made it back to Sg on Sunday. hahas

last supper at Arab st before we ended our wkend adventure. ahhahhas.

and so.. it went viral.... ahhahhas. (one of trailblazer's friends wanted to do an article.ahahhs)

anyways. so that was the awesome wkend. definitely want to go back again and spend more time at Camp5 + eat all the good food.

and on Tues, i recieved good news!

hahahhs. I WON THIS from a staff lucky draw of the SIA Charity Run.

hahahas. i have never won any lucky draw b4, so initially, i thought it was a scam until i saw the legit email address. ahhahs. so i'm really pleasantly surprised and thankful. (secretly checked out the cost.. its about $1.5k for 3 nights with agoda rates, can be lowered till about $500. not sure which is which, but still cooool.)

very thankful that its the 7th prize also coz its at Kota Kinabalu... somewhere more affordable... ahhahas. coz other prize were like a few nights stay in japan/ australia / philippines and so on. cant afford the airtickets. and and.... this means.... Mt Kinabalu is calllinggggg. ahhahas. :D

probably plan smth out to bring mother poon and sis out to nua in the atas hotel while i go climb with my friends or smth. have never stayed in such an atas hotel b4 man! (other than a few year back at Genting with the bowlers coz there werent any other rooms left)

so yea. this week. didnt do anything else after work but STUDDYY. M11 paper this fri. 1382 pages in 4 volumes coz there's no binder big enough for everything.

hahhahas. really so much to study that  i tried so many ways of studying this.  from notes to ipad to writing to mindmaps and all sorts. thank God for the 'revision', but i hope its enough for the 108 qns coming up!