genting highlands

so my dad arrived in singapore yesterday and we went about, watched a movie (Forbidden Kingdom -- a real mixed bag, perhaps i'll write about it sometime), then we decided that we should go for a trip to Genting Highlands. should be fun. relaxing. i'd never been there too.

so here i am, late at night.. ok, not that late. i'm in Starbucks, sipping my Chamomile Blend tea, trying to stay awake until we can give my mum and sis a ring. blogging. yarss.. so what happened today.

i had two games of bowling with my dad. it's been a really long time since i last bowled (last time was during the first radar battery outing.. whenever that was) but i felt i did fairly reasonably. netted 2 spares and 1 strike each game but failed to capitalize on them -- i got scores of 98 and 97 respectively. i find that my aim goes off when i get excited / nervous / whatever and that if i clear my mind, ball goes quite straight. kinda like what happens to my golf swing. haha. i'm going to really train my golfing skills (more accurately, the lack of them) during my study in the US. can anyone say public golf course? :)

i tried rock-climbing for the first time. fun. tiring. i like it. gives purpose to all that upper-body strength building. especially chin-ups. didn't finish the one go i made today -- i dropped after i couldn't quite figure out a way to proceed. i asked one of the guys and he told me that the next step was to reach up 1-handed. given that i couldn't find any higher footholds, that would mean a 1-handed chinup, maybe boosted with a jump (it's about half a body length above my head.. or so it seemed from my vantage point). i'm going to try that tomorrow. i admit, the thought scares me, to suddenly lose control and fall, but hey, no guts no glory. if i do it right, i might be propelling my body upwards completely free of the wall before grabbing that sole handhold and setting my feet right. heh. i half expect to fall off. oh yeah, falling off is quite the experience. i did voluntarily it but boy, freaky. haha.

then i tried my hand at archery. it was a recurve bow. fun. but my arms were really tired by then. haha, i spent too much time at the wall. so 12 shots. most went way awry. but by the end, i was getting the hang of it, landed 3 arrows on the inner circle. ok, so the target board was just a few meters away and the inner circle was quite big.. my arms were tired! haha. doesn't matter. i kept making the mistake of keeping the bow drawn though -- it saps the strength from your arms really quickly.

i guess the highlight would be the earlier starbucks session (wherein i discovered i could get free wireless internet access) and i just chatted with my dad. i like the small things. people often mistake the "big kill" as what they should look forward to but each time, the kill has to get bigger to derive the same level of satisfaction. the "small kill" is really what keeps the world turning. i got that from "The Ethos Effect", a deep and really interesting (in my opinion anyway) book by L. E. Modesitt, Jr, one of my favorite authors. anyway, talked about life plans.. i think i now have a clearer picture of what to do and what to focus on. still too early to say much, but looking good.

oh, and i forgot to take photos. haha. tomorrow.