Every WWE experience is not complete without at least, a video montage.

This one is a continuation of the previous entry.
Also so you won’t have to fork out SGD$150 for a ticket to watch a wrestling show.

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This past weekend, the World Wrestling Entertainment came to Singapore and brought along their leaugue of “superstars” and “divas” with them.

I used to be quite a wrestling fanatic back in the golden era of The Rock and Stone Cold. Although now I don’t watch wrestling as much as I used to because the storylines are getting increasingly predictable, I must say I still get kick out once in a while out of the man-trash entertainment it provides .
The WWE don’t come to South-East Asia very often, so when I found out I grabbed hold of the opportunity and book my flights to Singapore for the show.

Premium Tickets to the event cost me SGD$150 but I got a pretty good seat about twenty rows away from the ring.
Don’t be fooled by the word “premium” because they’re actually one level below the SGD$350 “Diamond” seats. It’s funny how ticketing agencies always use bombastic words like “Diamond” or “Gold” or “Premium” to describe their tickets when in reality everything apart from the first few rows are second-class crap seats.

I arrived at Singapore Indoor Stadium about 10 minutes before the official starting time. By then, there were such a huge line of people outside wanting to get in that I ended up missing the start of the first match.

The queue actually went from the front entrance alllllll the way to the other side of the stadium. I was already bouncing impatiently when I heard Chris Masters’ theme music playing, but the line was still moving so slow in a lemming-like fashion.

Props to the Singaporeans for being so orderly. You won’t get something like this back home for sure.
Everyone would be all pushing one another like barbarians and the RELA people would be screaming their heads off.

Despite being late, I still stopped by the merchandise counter and got myself a Summerslam Tour T-shirt (SGD$35) and a Tour booklet (SGD$25) as souvenirs.
I then settled down at my seat at the Premium box to watch my first live WWE match in four years.
“The Nature Boy” Ric Flair Vs “The Masterpiece” Chris Masters

Chris Masters is this much younger wrestler going up against Ric Flair, an older veteran who’s been around since the times of Bret Hart and Ricky Steamboat.

Chris Masters getting ready to give Ric Flair “The Masterlock”

Ric Flair is 58 years old! The last time I saw him in Perth, he had only just returned to wrestling and I thought no way is this old man gonna last in the WWE for too long. Who would’ve thought four years later, “The Nature Boy” is still making regular apperances in the ring.
But surely he cannot be called a “BOY” anymore right?

Chris Masters tried to lock Ric Flair with his finishing move, but the old man moved away and instead made Chris Masters tap-out with his famous Figure-4 Leg Lock. The crowd went nuts for that move!
WWE Tag Team Champions Deuce & Domino Vs The Major Brothers

Deuce & Domino came out dressed like James Dean to some horrible 80s love song, which sounded kinda out-of-place on a wrestling program. The Major Brothers were so new that I haven’t even seen them on TV before.
No one was really into this match. Predictably Deuce & Domino won the match since championships never change hand on untelevised events anyway.

After the show was over, we hung around the car park area where the wrestlers were making their exit. Brian Major was nice enough to stop by and autograph my tour program book.
Michelle McCool Vs Victoria

I always thought the name “Michelle McCool” sounded like some sorta new drink from McDonalds.
Anyway, Michelle McCool came out to cheers and wolf whistles from the appreciative audience. She was wearing long black pants and a white sports bra, proudly showing off her body so fine it could make all the fat girls commit suicide three times over.

Victoria, the more ruthless of the two divas, followed next. At one point, each “diva” took turns standing on the turnbuckle to see who could get the most cheers out from the crowd.
Michelle was clearly winning by a large margin, which irritated Victoria to the point where she stomped up to her turnbuckle… but tripped and fell flat to the ground unceremoniously. That got a few chuckles out from the crowd.

Even the referee was terrified by the ladies

The match was quite brutal for a women’s match.
I was actually quite into this match myself, but some of the horny crowd members were chanting “We want puppies!”
I don’t think they meant dogs.

Victoria was womanhandling her opponent at first, but the tide eventually turned and Michelle McCool emerged victorious in the battle of the silicones.

Michelle McCool was another one who entertained the fans backstage after the show.
Elijah Burke Vs Stevie Richards

Next up was a match between ECW wrestlers Elijah Burke and Stevie Richards.
ECW used to be a another brand other than WWE and WCW. The matches in ECW those days were famous for being very violent thanks to the heavy use of weapons like tables and barbwires.

After the WWE bought ECW over, they completely screwed it up by taking away the hardcore matches and left us with stupid matches like Elijah Burke vs Stevie Richards.

Coming up… Elijah eats boots

I didn’t care about this match but I must admit Elijah Burke was pretty funny.
He spent a lot of time trying to get the audience “to shut yo mouth!”
The guy was getting so annoyed by the crowd booing him that he didn’t wanna start the match for a good ten minutes and at one stage threatened to walked out, which made the crowd boo for him EVEN MORE.

Ouch!

Elijah Burke dominated most of the match and not surprisingly, won it by cheating.
Finlay Vs Kane

This was easily the most entertaining match of the entire night.
Irish tough guy Finlay came out to a good crowd reaction, mainly because he was the first big star to come out since Ric Flair.

But when Kane‘s music came out the crowd absolutely blew the roof of the stadium off!

Even from afar, The Big Red Machine looked intimidating with his imposing figure stomping slowly to the ring.
The crowd was firmly behind Kane throughout the match. One guy from the audience even yelled, “Eh BOTAK! Faster chokeslam him lah!”

The match was back and forth, but as Kane was setting up for his finisher, Finlay’s leprechaun Hornswoggle suddenly appeared from under the ring.

Immediately the crowd erupted into cheers! It doesn’t matter that Finlay was supposed to be the bad guy. Everyone can’t help but to cheer for his little midget sidekick.
Hornswoggle distracted the referee enough for Finlay to knock Kane down with his Irish weapon.

But not so fast! Just like his half-brother The Undertaker, Kane sat right up like that didn’t hurt him at all. Finlay and Hornswoggle froze in shock.
Here’s where the funniest moment of the evening happened.
After Kane threw Finlay out the ring, Hornswoggle found himself standing face-to-face with a very angry seven foot monster.

Rather than running away like a scared pussycat, the midget remained in the ring and challenged Kane to a fight.

Even putting his green hat on Kane’s bald little head…

… AND THEN ATTEMPTED TO CHOKESLAM HIM!
If that’s not the funniest scene I’ve seen so far in professional wrestling, I don’t know what is!
Needless to say, he didn’t succeed and Kane swatted him off like housefly.

Kane then showed him how its done by planting a big chokeslam on his boss for the win, much to the crowd’s approval.

There’s a short intermission at this point and I changed into my Summerslam Tour T-shirt. By this the crowd had flooded the merchandise store and bought every single thing they had available.
When we resumed, ECW returned again with…
ECW Champion John Morrison Vs Tommy Dreamer

John Morrison looked great on TV and even better in person

John Morrison got on the mike and introduced himself as “the new face of extreme”. The guy was parading around like a snob, getting heat from the audience.

ECW Original Tommy Dreamer didn’t like that one bit and whacked him senseless, at one point even wearing his opponent’s fur coat and imitating him swaggering around. The crowd loved it!

Sometimes, men put their hands around another man’s crotch real tight

Everyone was rooting for Tommy Dreamer, but John Morrison pulled off some spectacular moves and got the win with his finisher.
I actually got a good 1GB of video from the event of the wrestlers doing some really cool moves but I’m not sure if I had enough time to edit them and post them up.
Chavo Guerrero Vs Rey Mysterio

I kinda feel sorry for Chavo Guerrero. He’s a great guy and never ignore his fans. But within a span of two years, he lost both his uncle Eddie Guerrero and best friend Chris Benoit.
In this match, he’s going up against family friend and former World Champion Rey Mysterio.

Rey Mysterio showed up on the ramp the crowd went absolutely ballistics!
This was actually our first Mysterio match in a very long time. He hasn’t been on TV since suffering from an injury some months ago, but the little Mexican fella looked to be great shape and didn’t seem like he has lost a step in the ring.

Something amusing happened during this match.
Apparently. the technical guys forgot to switch off a glaring spotlight during the match, and that affected all of us sitting in my section because we couldn’t see.

Everyone in my section started a chant to tell the technical crew to turn off the lights. But because we’re in Singapore, instead of chanting in proper English to “turn off the lights”, we shouted in our most Singlish accent ever…
“OFF THE LIGHT! OFF THE LIGHT! OFF THE LIGHT!”

The chant actually got so loud, Chavo Guerrero stopped wrestling for a while to listen, probably wondering what the hell “off the light” meant.
He thought it was some kinda Singaporean swear word! 😛

This was the easily most fast-paced match of the evening and there were a lot of high-flying action everywhere.
When Rey Mysterio finally hit Chavo Guerrero so hard he dangled dazed on the ropes, the crowd (including me) went absolutely bonkers. It was time for his 619 finisher and the returning hero did it beautifully to claim his win.
Batista Vs World Champion The Great Khali

This was supposedly the final match and main event of our night. Coincidentally, it was also the main event of the upcoming WWE Summerslam show.
Muscle man Batista made his presence felt in front of the Singaporean crowd who gave him a thunderous standing ovation.
That guy is built like a TANK. His biceps are bigger than my head and his chest larger than Tara Reid’s.

Kinda strange to see a half-Filipino wrestling an Indian for a WWE main event

Next came the Smackdown World Champion The Great Khali, who is WWE’s giant-sized wrestler from India.

That’s good enough for one member of the audience to yell out “Eh Khali! Murtabak satu!”
Singaporeans, I tell you.
“The Animal” Batista did everything he could to knock Khali off his feet, but the giant didn’t react much except raising his two arms and roar.

When The Great Khali was finally brought down to the mat, Finlay suddenly interfered and attacked Batista, causing the match to end in a disqualification.
MASSIVE boos from the crowd!

Kane then rushed into to the ring and even up the odds. The good guys cleared the ring and the baddies retreated back up the ramp.
This led to Batista issuing a tag-team challenge to The Great Khali and Finlay. He said, “Khali! If you do not accept my challenge. That means you’re a CHICKEN!”
That was when the Singaporean crowd came up with the BEST CHANT of the whole night.

“KHALI CHICKEN! KHALI CHICKEN!”

Only in Singapore, I tell you.
The Great Khali & Finlay Vs Batista & Kane

The match was pretty standard with the good guys having the upperhand, right up to when Hornswoggle made another appearance.

This time round, Kane and Batista picked up the little bastard and and instead, used him as a MIDGET BATTERING RAM.

The crowd was loving this! After they had enough fun, the good guys decided to end the match the old-fashioned way.
First they put away The Great Khali with a massive double chokeslam.

As for Finlay, let’s just say uhh… Batista decided to handle him in his own “special” way.

Hmmm… *sniff* *sniff*

No wonder they said wrestling was homo.
That’s the gayest shit in the history of gay!

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The Rainforest World Music Festival is one event Kuching folks always look forward to.

Every year, thousands of music lovers from all over Malaysia as well as other parts of the world fly in to our normally quiet little town of Kuching to celebrate good music and turn the place upside down.

The festival has grown extremely popular over the years, attracting attention from both local and international media, to a phenomenal scale that even local residents here are surprised at.

I always like the Rainforest World Music Festival.
This ain’t your typical run-of-the-mill rock concert. One of the most interesting aspects of the music fest is that the performers always bring along strange and peculiar musical instruments from their countries that no one here has ever seen, and along with that music that sounds totally different.
We’re talking about drums that look like handbags.

Guitars that look like coffins.

And pipes that look like they are made out from the TV antenna at my house.

The festival is also the only time throughout the entire year that I can play host to my friends from KL.

Angelina Jolie’s half-sister from KL, Christy Jolie-Yeoh.

Instead of always asking them to layan me whenever I’m in KL, this one of the rare times I can repay my favours and show them the best Kuching has got to offer.

Charmayne the chipmunk had too much sio bee to eat.

My experience with the Rainforest World Music Festival this year is different from the previous two years that I attended.
After finding out that my coverage of the festival for the past two years on kennysia.com has got quite a bit of attention (my blog entries was only second on Google after their official website), I e-mailed the organisers asking if they could put me on their media list.

I wasn’t putting in much hope since kennysia.com isn’t exactly a “real” publication like a newspaper or magazine anyway, but I figured it was worth a try. Hey, after all they did put through some obscure publications with a circulation so small no one has even seen it in newstands.

Behold, the power of blogs!

Surprisingly, not only did the chief of the Sarawak Tourism Board herself granted me media access to the festival, she hinted also that she might wanna further collaborate with me in the near future. How cool is that?

Holy crap, I always wanted to take that political-minister-hitting-on-the-all-important-gong photo and put it as front page headline news, like how newspapers here always do.

So this is the first time I attended the Rainforest World Music Festival not just as an audience, but as part of the media.
I must say, we get treated pretty well as the media. Among other perks, not only are we given free access to all three days of the festival, we are also allowed up close and personal to the stage so we could take really good photos.

Not that close, Joyce

Here are my Top 6 Moments of the Rainforest World Music Festival.
#6. Meeting Channel [V] VJ Marion Caunter

18 months after I spoofed her Osim uZap ad, I finally get to ask her if she’s upset by it.

Her reply: “No way, I thought it was damn hilarious!”
Thanks Marion. I can finally sleep well at night.

#5. The Black Umfolsi

What’s there not to like about these guys?
All the way from Zimbabwe, this band is what African music is all about. Just look at the amount of fur they wear on stage.

“I can see things sideways”

I don’t know what those white-coloured furry things they wore on their arms and legs are, but I think they might be African Polar Bears.
Here’s a video of them teaching the crowd how to do African Aerobics.

So delightful, so catchy, so happifying. The Black Umfolsi band is like the African-version of Mika.

#4. The Throat-Singers From Tuva, Russia

These guys here look like your typical granddad on a rocking chair, but as soon as they open their mouth they can easily blow your panties off big time.

I sing like that too when I was trying to take a crap

“Throat-Singing” is an art originating from the Russian-Mongolia border.
They sound a bit like what would happen when Darth Vader did karaoke in Mongolian. But when the guys from Huun Huur Tu paired it with their traditional instruments and a DJ spinning in a background, the result was absolutely mind-blowing.

The crowd loves these guys.
Who would’ve thought a couple of oldies have the ability rock the thousands of revellers hot on the dance floor?

#3. Hot Bodies At The Rainforest Fest

For the guys, there are sizzling hot babes.

Babes.

Babes.

Babes.

Babes.
The girls there ain’t missing out either. There were plenty of eye candy for their viewing pleasure.

In fact there were so many sweaty smelly half-naked guys at the festival, it was almost like the movie 300.

King Leonidas wants to PARTAYYYY.

#2 Nicole Tan’s Antics

Nicole was really drama throughout the entire three days of the event.
On the first night of the festival, she met and had this HUGE crush on the violinist of the Scottish band Shooglenifty.

Honestly, I don’t know what is so special about grandpa.
What does he have that I don’t?
I mean, he looked like some homeless guy I would rescue from the streets.

Nicole Tan’s boyfriend. Got a dollah?

On the third night of the festival, we encountered a vendor selling glowsticks.

I bought two each for ourselves. But that girl became so fascinated by those glowsticks she disappeared from our group. We couldn’t even reach her on the phone.
Then some half an hour later, Nicole finally returned to us.

With her whole body all covered in those darn glowsticks.
Apparently, she got bored from all the musical performances on stage she decided to help the glowstick vendor sell his wares.

With a hot chick assisting him, that lucky bugger sold out all his glowsticks in half an hour.
Before long, Shooglenifty appeared on stage again.

Our part-time-glow-stick seller screamed so loud, Grandpa must’ve pissed in his pants.


#1 The Hottest Band From The Festival
Without a doubt, the number one hottest band from the festival goes to our very own Aseana Percussion Unit.

Hailing from Kuala Lumpur, this colourful band specialises in drums. They’ll hit on anything and everything, including their fellow band member’s head.

One of the most popular member of the band was this dreadlocked Chinese guy Justin Lim.

The ladies in the crowd absolutely love him. And the bugger knows it!
It was like, he beat the drum just once, the ladies all gasped in ecstacy.

Every time he beat the drum, their panties dropped a little bit. The faster he beat, the further their panties drop.
By the time he’s finished his super-ultra-mega-fast drum solo, he would’ve left the ladies all sweaty and breathless and pregnant with his baby.

The Aseana Percussion Unit is simply amazing lah.
These guys are so passionate about music, they don’t just play their drums.

They freaking EAT them.

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What do you get when you put 100 bloggers in a room full of free food?

Lots and lots of cameras in action, of course!
The day before the Penang Bridge Marathon, I was invited by Nuffnang to attend their Orient’s Voice North Malaysian Bloggers’ Gathering at the Food Loft, Gurney Plaza.

It was by all measures a resounding success.
I hadn’t been to a large-scale bloggers’ gathering since the Blogger.SG Singapore Bloggers Convention two years ago. As most people following my blog back then would’ve remembered, that event was infamously immortalised by that one boobie-baring incident seen around the world .

You would have thought Malaysians are more tame and more conservative than our Singaporean counterparts. But noooo… In fact, Malaysians are WILDER.
At this bloggers’ gathering, something even better happened.
Much to the delight of all the horny guys in attendance not only were we treated to a set of beautiful naked boobs, we actually had a NAKED WOMAN baring it all inside the restaurant! Just for us. Naked woman you know?!
Warning:If you are easily offended, do not scroll further.

Nah. Naked woman.
Can play violin one somemore. Dun pray pray.

I like big butts and I cannot lie.

*muah* I lub u.

Food Loft is a Marche-like restaurant located on the 4th floor of Gurney Plaza. You’re given a barcode card when you walk in, then you get the chance to walk around the market-like area to see what dishes are available.
When you’re ready to order, just let them scan your card and they’ll bring your food right over to you.

Yes, it’s almost like your local kopitiam food court.
But this one stylo a bit. Because they got sweeping views of the ocean and then got a naked woman in the restaurant.
Does your local kopitiam food court have naked woman?

Due to my limited dietary options pre-marathon, I had the spaghetti marinara. Not the best I’ve tasted, but it was pretty alright.
Too bad not many of us really had time to sit down and enjoy our food anyway. Everyone basically spent the good one hour and a half running around taking photos.

Myself and sexyshortskirt

And photos.

And photos.

And MORE photos.

With nicolekiss.

So much camera flashes until I began losing my sanity.

Next thing I know, I was putting on Nicole’s baby pink jacket.

Pwetty or not? ^_^
Some time during the middle of our shenanigans, I was sat down and interviewed by the charismatic Cedric Ang. Some crazy guy called Daniel Ooi jumped on the opportunity and asked me to contribute my body hair to auction off for charity.
I didn’t wanna do it, but this is for a good cause. So what the heck right?

I don’t know whether to feel sorry for myself or feel more sorry for Nicole.
Especially when it comes to the part where she had to cut off my nose hair.

Nah, can see or not?

Luckily we stopped at just nose hair.
If we cut off anything more than that, you might have to pay money to read kennysia.com

Together with the winner of our charity auction, hotsluttybaby

See that look on my face?
That’s the look of OMG-YOU-JUST-PAID-RM20-FOR-A-FEW-STRANDS-OF-MY-CHEST-HAIR-YOU-SICKO!

The funniest thing happened on the Monday after the Nuffnang Bloggers’ Gathering.
Apparently, my name appeared on national newspaper The Star Metro. No, not for becoming the first overweight person to finish the Penang Bridge Marathon in world record-breaking time.
But for this.

HAHAHAAA!
Kenny Sia mobbed by Penang fans!
Pardon me, but when you describe someone as being “mobbed by fans”, it conjures up the image of some wild media frenzy that look something like this.


Now, compare that to the “mobbing” I received at the hands of my Penang “fans”.

WALAU! Eh you “mobs” can appear more excited and less bored-looking or not!?

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Last year, at the end of my 42km race, I said to myself, “never ever am I gonna do this again.”
15 months after I spoke those exact words, here I was, preparing myself for my second marathon race in Penang. 🙂

I woke up at 2am on Sunday 24th June, having just napped for four hours.
My head was still bleary from not enough sleep. But it was time. Time to kick ass!
Calmly, I geared up and took the lift down to the lobby, breathing a few deep breaths to keep myself as relaxed as possible. To everyone else, it was obvious that I was nervous as hell.

Timothy and Co were by my hotel ready to give me a lift to USM. The gang had only just finished clubbing at Momo, and they were clearly still high from it.
I was trying to keep myself calm but along the way, these people gave me such uplifting encouragement as “Go Kenny! We’ll cheer for you… in our sleep!”
Such great friends I have.

The roads to USM were closed. By the time we reached our destination it was already 20 minutes till race starts. I thought I could just dump my bag there and just get ready.
But not so fast, cowboy.
From where the road was blocked off to where I was supposed to be, they made us walk another 1km! KNNCCB. I knew I was late so I ran as fast as I could to the registration area. Clearly I wasn’t the only one. Many other participants were already working up a sweat trying to get there before it’s too late. Why they blocked the road so far away, I have no idea.

I was at the starting line literally seconds before the race was supposed to begin. By then I was already panting and sweating profusely. All my calming techniques had obviously failed big time.
“BANG!”
3am, the gun went off. And the game began.

From the look of things, it seems as if this Penang Bridge Marathon is going to be easier than the KL one that I did last year. The route is straighter, the temperature is cooler, and apart from the incline going up the long bridge, the path seems a lot flatter, which is a good thing.
With the amount of training I had put in over the past few months, I was feeling confident that I was gonna perform a lot better than I did last year.

It’s only after I started the race that I realised how different this marathon is compared to my previous experience.
Sure, the island weather was cool. But the problem is, it was too cool. So cool in fact, that I was practically running there shivering in my pants.
The combination of sweat on my body and wind blowing against me was too much for the jiggly fats around my waist to handle.

The second thing is that the route was too boringly monotonous.
Imagine getting onto the bridge and you see this.

Twenty minutes later, you look up and you see this.

Forty minutes later, you look up again and IT’S STILL THE SAME DAMN THING!

It’s enough to force any runner to go crazy and jump off the bridge, ending the misery once and for all.
But despite all these unexpected challenges figuring into the race, I though I was doing alright. For most of the initial 15km I was sticking to my goal pace of 6’50” per km.

Soon after I made the U-turn at the Prai toll stations, one of my worst fears came true.
An excruciatingly sharp pain attacked my right calf muscle. It’s the dreaded leg cramp. Maybe it was the cold wind, but I certainly did not expect a cramp to emerge so early into the race.
I tried to mask the pain by rubbing a good amount of analgesic cream onto my calf, but medication can only work so much. It wasn’t long before my left calf muscle began to hurt as well. Immediately I was forced to reduce my pace to a fast walk.

As if getting cramp attacks so early into the race wasn’t bad enough, I had to miss several water stations, simply because they ran out of water. It’s hardly surprising, considering there were some 21,000 participants in the race. The half and quarter marathoners had already snatched up all the drinks before I could even reach them.
So what do you do when you are thirsty like mad and knowing that you still had a long way to go?
You pick up those unfinished drinks other people threw away on the floor, wipe away the dirt and drink from it.
Trust me, when you are dehydrated like that, you just don’t care anymore.

Everything just kept getting worse and worse as I exited the bridge and returned to Penang Island.
I remembered at one point during the race, some pebbles got into my shoes and I tried to remove them. But as soon as I bend my knees, my entire leg tightened and an unbearable cramp took control of my calves.
It was so excruciatingly painful I had to abandon the idea of removing the pebbles and just walk the remaining 18km distance with those damn pebbles in my shoes.

With persistent cramps on my calves, aches on my lower back, nasty pebbles under my feet, that remaining 18km was the toughest I had to endure.
From the Penang Bridge exit, I walked all the way past Queensbay Mall right up to the Seagate Factory, before U-turning back all the way past the Penang Bridge again to the Marine Police building, and then making another U-turn all the way back before I arrive at the crowded USM gates.
The end was near.

To bring a very anti-climatic race to an end, I crossed the finishing line at 6 hours 28 minutes.
A mere 5 minute improvement from my previous marathon time, and a far fetch from the 5 hour goal time I was aiming for. Needless to say, I was utterly disappointed. 🙁

I don’t know what exactly went wrong. Everything in my training seems ok, so why did I bomb out?
Was it because I sprinted and over-exerted myself to the starting line? Did I have not enough carbohydrates before and during the race? Was I not prepared for the cooler weather here and the effect that had on my knees?

Whatever it was, this race goes to prove that no matter how confident I was, no matter how easy the track appeared to be, I should never ever underestimate a marathon race.
The sour grape in me could go on and blame the multitude of external factors for my less-than-satisfactory performance this race: that the road block was placed too far away from the starting line; that there were no isotonic drinks provided until 20km into the race; that my pedometer actually measured 44km for what was supposed to be a 42km race.
But hey, I’m better than that. 😉 I accept my defeat.

They don’t have to rub salt into my wound though.
From the finishing line at USM, I had to walk another 500m to the left baggage counter at another location to pick up my bag. Before the race, I had left my phone and wallet in there for safekeeping. But when I opened up my wallet, the RM30 I left in there was stolen.

BASTARD! That was supposed to be my taxi fare back to the hotel!
What to do? This is Malaysia for ya. Welcome to Visit Malaysia Year 2007, people.
Despite all the bad luck and dodgy organising, I must say I really enjoyed this race. It’s an amazing experience to conquer Malaysia’s Tallest Mountain, then 6 weeks later to go on an conquer Malaysia’s Longest Bridge. Am I a patriotic or what?

They often say, a marathon is not a race against others, but a race against yourself.
As much as I was gutted knowing that I had only improved by 5 minutes this year, I do know that there is always a next time, in a different city, for me to exceed myself once again. Meanwhile, I shall take a well-deserved hiatus from my workout and eat all my favourite unhealthy hawker food before returning to the gym to resume my workout once again.

You’ll never look at the Penang Bridge the same way again after you’ve crossed the beautiful structure twice on foot.
After running 42km, I am so freaking sore than my legs still hurt everytime I bend my knees.
Ever tried walking without bending your knees?
Trust me, it ain’t easy. Especially with Nicole Tan filming and laughing her head off at you.

Don’t laugh. I said don’t laugh!

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SEGi College Malaysia recently unveiled their brand new flagship campus in Kota Damansara. I was invited over to write about them during their Open Day and OMG it was HUUUUUGGEEEEE.

As if everything in Damansara is not big enough.
People here already live in HUGE condos, walk around HUGE shopping malls and living off their HUGE paychecks. With the addition of the college campus, Kota Damansara has just gotten bigger.

I thought their new campus building looks kinda like a mosque from the outside, but SEGi College insists that it was Roman-inspired. Whatever lah.
Seriously though, I won’t be surprised if our Prime Minister mistakenly walked into it because SEGi College looks so much like his office in Putrajaya.

The whole campus looks straight-up spectacular. Walking up some huge staircase into their lobby, I was like “Whoa! This isn’t a place where people come to study. This is a 5-star hotel!”
Reinforcing the whole Roman theme are some more Roman statues scattered all over the place.

The place is so Roman, I felt like I should come in here wearing a toga.

Don’t you think this picture looks FUNNY?
It’s like the statue is trying to tell the little boy something.

Haha.
Anyway, I embeded myself to a student counsellor and took the tour around campus.

The whole place just looks downright amazing. Places of education used to resemble more like a prison, so this is quite a pleasant change.

They really pamper their student these days. The outdoor setting tastefully decorated with plants and statues; the indoor area all fully air-conditioned and equipped with wireless internet so students don’t have to break a sweat when they’re cramming for exams.

SEGi College has been around for 30 years and is the country’s largest group of private colleges.
The new Kota Damansara campus is now accepting July-intake students, offering courses ranging from the more popular ones like business and engineering …

… to creative arts …

… to the more niche ones like psychology and nursing.

Speaking of nursing, their nursing department put on the most interesting exhibition ever.
I had so much fun with their displays. Like scolding them.


“OI! USE YOUR BRAIN LAH! No brain ah?! Nah, give you.”


“Hey congratulations. Your weight loss is a success!”


“See lah! This is what happens when you study too much and forgot to eat.”

!!!
Damn skull.

The SEGi College Kota Damansara campus looks so gorgeous it can make anyone feel like going back to becoming a student again.
A hostel is built onsite next to some excellent sporting facilities, including a gym, a squash court and an indoor multipurpose hall that could be used for badminton and tennis.

It’s even got a swimming pool located smack in the middle of their Roman-esque piazza. How cool is that?
Although from what I know happens in colleges, I don’t think this swimming pool is gonna be used so much for actual swimming, but to throw your friends in during their birthdays. 😛

Heck, the college is so awesome, it even grew a set of BALLS!

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Taking a break from my adventures travelling, kennysia.com brings to you exclusive coverage on the grand final of recent Miss Malaysia Universe 2007 pageant.

The contest began two weeks ago after a national call to search for “real woman”.

Makes you wonder what they’ve been doing all these while. Searching for a “fake woman”?

The grand final was held at the Palace of the Golden Horse at the Mines Resort. It was a grand affair with tickets costing up to RM220 per person.
Normally when you have to pay that amount of money for dinner, you expect good food served with great wine.
Well, this must be the first time I attended an expensive dinner function that instead of wine, we were served MILK.

Then again, it’s not like we came for the food anyway. 😛
The pageant itself is as cliched as beauty pageants get. After the usual boring speech by the Datuk, it didn’t take long for the 16 grand finalists, dressed in elegant batik, to come out much to the delight of the crowd.

I must say, the line-up this year is pretty (no pun intended) impressive.
Normally when it comes to beauty pageants in Malaysia, half the contestants look like their face kena crashed by lorry. But this year, all of them look absolutely fantastic.

Maybe the search for “real woman” did work after all.
Here are some of my favourites.

Contestant #1: Caroline, a 22-year-old student from Sabah.
She later won the title of Miss Congeniality.

Contestant #4: Tanya, from Penang.
Her body is freaking toned and FIT to the ‘T’.

Contestant #11: Nai Hsing, from KL.
Blessed with a pair of huge Japanese anime character-like eyes, she’s every contestants’ favourite to bag the title of Miss Malaysia.

And of course, not forgetting our blogosphere’s very own Contestant #7 from Malacca. 😉

Traditionally, there’s never a swimsuit parade in any beauty pageants in conservative Malaysia.
This year, thanks to a swimwear sponsor, the contestants were all required to catwalk in their bikinis as part of the contest. Needless to say that certainly makes for a much more interesting show. 🙂

Kinda make me wish I were one of the judges, then I can quality examine them without any guilt. Heh.
Disappointingly, there wasn’t a talent show in the contest. Usually that’s the most interesting part of any beauty pageants. I was looking forward to Contestant #7 swallowing a live sago worm as part of her talent show.

Soon, the judges decided and announced their Top 5. Sadly, apart from Contestant #11, none of my personal favourites got in! Heck, even our humble Malaccan iguana-eating girl isn’t one of them.


The question posed to the Top 5 was “What is a real woman?”
Those girls, arms on hips, will then have to go all philosphical and answer stuff like “A real woman is one that is confident and beautiful inside and out.”
Deep. I thought a real woman is one with boobs and vaginas. Not those Ah Gua you see in Pattaya.

When it finally comes down to awarding the titles of Miss Malaysia Universe, Sue Ann Cheng (14) bagged the 2nd Runner-up prize, everyone’s favourite Goh Nai Hsing (11) ended up with the title of 1st Runner-up.
And the title of Miss Malaysia Universe 2007 goes to…

Miss Adelaine Chin.
Just like in the Oscars, the other two finalists who didn’t win have to try their best to pretend to be happy and cheer for the winner.

Adelaine will now represents Malaysia to compete in Donald Trump’s Miss Universe in Mexico City next month.
Here’s some videos I took during the pageant.

I might add, for complicated reasons, that all videos and photos here are taken by Kenny Sia, but is the copyright of Pageant Promotions. I gotta mention this otherwise they wouldn’t allow me to take any photos.

Adelaine wasn’t the only person lucky that night. I got lucky as well… when I won a lucky draw.
Fine, all I got was some cheap T-shirt and swimming goggles from Prosun. Their creative packaging rocks. 😛

But that’s not the end of the night.
After the show, Dominic and I hung around the hotel a bit to catch up with Contestant #7.

It was nearly 3am and she was hungry for supper. That’s understandable since she had to watch her diet for the past 10 days. So she called up the other girls to ask if they would wanna join for supper.

I would be happy if one or two of them to join. Maybe three, max.
But no…

There was EIGHT.
EIGHT beauties, all of whom who just competed in the Miss Malaysia Universe pageant, came down to join us for supper at 3 in the morning.

We’re talking about HALF the competition here, complete with make up, body art, fake eyelashes and fake nails still on, cramming into the backseat of the vehicle.
These girls must be really hungry.

It was like one of those Guinness Book of World Records thing where they try to squeeze in as many people as possible into the car. But we had it with beautiful women instead of a bunch kiasu idiots.
Trust me, I was dying to move to the backseat myself.

If this is not what dreams are made of, I don’t know what is.

Mamak food never tasted so good.

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Return flight tickets to Kuala Lumpur: RM150

Accommodation in Bukit Bintang: RM130
Tickets to watch Lee Hom live in concert: RM138

…
Have your camera battery died on you 30 seconds before the show starts: PRICELESS!

Despite returning without even a single photo of the actual concert, I gotta say I find myself thoroughly entertained by this Chinese-American singer. Though I paid good money to go to his concert, I am not by any measure a crazed fan of Lee Hom, which is why sitting next to an auntie screaming like a 15-year-old schoolgirl the whole night through felt kinda weird.
Worst, the auntie looked scarily like my high school teacher.

Lee Hom belted out classics after classics, showcasing his incredible talent in guitar, piano, violin, drums, a traditional Chinese instrument called “er hu”, and even thrown in a surprise in the form of JJ Lin much to the delight of the 25,000 strong crowd packed to the brim at Bukit Jalil stadium this past Chap Goh Meh.

The closest thing I have to a photo of Lee Hom in concert – his shadow.

From a guy who’s not even a big fan of Lee Hom, I must say I’m very impressed.
If only I had the photos to show you guys.

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When I was in KL last weekend, coincidentally the PC Fair was going on so I dropped by KLCC to check it out.

Wah! The place was people mountain people sea. Luckily, there were heaps to see. Otherwise so crowded can die dot com.
So what’s there to see at the PC Fair?

Toshiba was selling some juicy notebooks.

Yum. I can imagine that sitting on my laptop.

OKI was promoting their printing solution.

I’m not a fan of laser printers, but I thought this model is not bad.

BenQ was pushing their LCD monitors.

Hoho, I just want one of those so I can push their buttons anytime I want.

Another Toshiba booth was selling their thumb drives.

Forget about thumb drives, I felt like getting a hard drive already.

Epson wants to sell some ink.

Good idea, because after looking at so much good stuff, I must’ve accidentally spilled my ink.

With so many to choose from, what did I go home with?
Nothing.

Just a smelly little mouse pad, that’s all. 🙁

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