joshua_’s Blog

Let’s play basketball

Local councils have been urged to build basketball courts for the Under-12 age group.
Deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah made the call at the first leg of the AND1 Streetball Challenge at the Summit USJ recently.
“Basketball is an interesting sport. I am very happy to be among the youngsters, who have gathered for the Challenge. Unfortunately, there is only one court for the Under-12 age group in the country. Unless and until we have basketball courts for this age group, it will not be possible for Malaysians to excel in the game.
“So we request local councils to build one basketball court, catering for the Under-12 age group, in each district. Then we will have a bigger group of young boys and girls active in the game. I was also informed that 369 teams had signed up for the event. It is a good day for basketball,’’ said Saifuddin.
He also commended the organisers — Ossia World of Golf — for initiating the Challenge, which brought together youngsters for a an exciting time.

Download Entry Forms:

http://www.4shared.com/file/105499124/4eb638b5/Klang__back_.html?dirPwdVerified=b28367f6

Nigerian touch to streetball challenge
Wednesday June 3, 2009 By NG WEI LOON

FORMER Nigerian junior cager Micheal Ogheneme will be joining the top local freestylists to drum up support for the remaining three legs of AND1 Streetball Challenge three-on-three basketball event.
The 25-year-old, who featured as a point guard for his national side at the World Junior Under-21 meet in Argentina in 2005, is on basketball scholarship to pursue his undergraduate studies in business at HELP University College.
“I am also playing and coaching the university team. I expect to finish my studies in three years and hope to continue with the Masters degree,” said Ogheneme, who also emerged as the top 15 promising players in the African continent for the Basketball Without Borders campaign hosted by North America’s National Basketball Association (NBA) in 2004.
The lanky figure, who stands at 1.98m, was also part of the victorious Islanders Basketball Club lifting the Nigerian national league title for four consecutive years (2003-2006) and had the privilege to captain the side in 2005 and 2006.
After going through a dry spell without high level competition since residing here in September, Oghe-neme is itching to get back into top flight action.

Raising the bar: (From left) Ng clowning around with Ogheneme, Nabil, Ismadi and Anirudh.

“I have been playing basketball for a long time. I also started with streetball when I was growing up at the age of 16. It is nice that streetball also has a strong following here,” he said.
The four other former In Search of Freestylists winners from the previous three editions in team are Nabil Ra’uf Harun, Anirudh Aravind, Mohd Ismadi Hamidi and Lam Wei Ken.
Recently, Ogheneme joined the trio of Nabil, Anirudh and Ismadi to share their thoughts on the progress of the Milo In Search of Freestylists with Milo sports marketing manager Ng Ping Loong.
Ng acknowledged that the youngsters brought up constructive suggestions to inject more excitement into the freestyle contest.
“They are role models inspiring the budding competitors to keep on striving for improvement. They have great ideas to raise the bar and increase the degree of difficulty. But, they have not forgotten about the fun element to encourage others to take up the challenge,” he added.

Posted by AND1 Streetball Malaysia at 6:37 PM

Monday, June 1, 2009

Streetball Challenge in Klang

Streetball Challenge in Klang
Monday June 1, 2009 By Y.P. SIVAM
WCT, the venue sponsors for the third leg of the AND1 Streetball Challenge, will set up a special counter to accept registration forms.
The third leg of the challenge will be held at the AEON Bukit Tinggi, Klang, on June 28.

A team: Tew (centre) with members of the organising committee for the AND1 Streetball Challenge.

WCT sales and marketing general manager Stewart Tew said they were pleased to be part of the challenge for the fifth consecutive season.“We will be distributing forms at our headquarters. And we will also accept the forms.“We want to play a role in making the event a big success. The AEON has become a strategic location for Klang folks. It will be interesting to see youngsters from the Klang Valley gather at the AEON for an exciting basketball event,’’ said Tew.The challenge is organised by Ossia World of Golf, the distributors of AND1 brand in Malaysia, and supported by Milo as the official beverage, StarMetro is the official media, Fly FM, the official radio station while WCT is the official venue sponsor. The Malaysian Basketball Association (MABA) have sanctioned the challenge.Ossia World of Golf executive director Saw Swee Leong said Klang was an important venue for the challenge.“We have always had encouraging participation in Klang. Like in the previous seasons, we are expecting a maximum of 350 teams. Last year, we had to turn away about 50 teams as we could not accept them for logistics reasons.“We hope teams will register early to avoid disappointment,’’ said Saw.WCT, on their part, will also promote the challenge with activities at AEON. Ossia World of Golf will also conduct a series of coaching clinics as part of their promotional activities.Saw said they would like to see more youngsters getting involved in the challenge to improve their skills.“Eventually we hope to see some of them graduating to play for their schools and districts. That’s the reason we have created the StarMetro Promising Player award.“The winner, in each leg, will get the chance to train with the National Juniors. If they are impressive, they will be roped into the programme,’’ said Saw.Besides the challenge, participants will also get the chance to be involved in other activities like In search of Freetsylist competition, In search of MC competition, Beat box competition and AND1 Streetball video game challenge as well as lucky draw offering AND1 limited edition NBA & Mixtape signature shoes.

Venue: AEON Bandar Bukit Tinggi, Klang Date: June 28

Categories (six): Boys’ Under-13, Boys’ Under-15, Boys’ Under-18, Boys’ Under-21, Girls’ Under-15 and Girls’ Under-18

Entry Fee: RM90 per team. Each player will receive a jersey and each team will be given a ball. Closing Date: June 24

Prizes: Basketball shoes and goodies for the top three teams in each category.

Registration Centres :One Sports Trading (03-3342 9955)WCT Land Klang (03-3324 3255)Echo ParkSunway Pyramid (03-5638 1121), Mid Valley (03-2282 0127), Times Square (03-2144 0211), Sungai Wang (03-2141 7127)World of SportsTropicana City Mall (03-7728 0620), Subang Parade (03-5631 9578)Hoops Station Summit USJ (03-8023 1229)

PartnersOfficial beverage: Milo

Official media: StarMetro

Official radio: Fly Fm

Sanctioned by: Malaysian Basketball Association (MABA)

Enquiries: 012-239 2171 (Ong), 012-9779147( Loh)

Website:

Durian season was here a few weeks back. And if you’re in Penang, you’d know where to find some good durians. It’s definitely none other than Balik Pulau.

Gosh! I didn’t know it had been 2 weeks since this activity take place. Time flies… (my usual phrase :P)

So, 2 weeks ago the group of Taiping bikers made a visit to Penang Island just to get a taste of the famous Balik Pulau durians. Going through the twist and turn of Balik Pulau hilly road, we reach this place…er…middle of no where, and we stop down.

Our cars and motorbikes are parked just like that by the road side. Not that we purposely want to simply park but there’s no other option. The road do not even have a road shoulder.

How the parking is done in Balik Pulau

We then walk down the trail to the durian farm. It’s just a very short walk downhill.

At the end of the trail is a heap of durians waiting to be eaten! There’s a hut for us to sit around while enjoying the durians.

There are different types of durians for us to try: ang hair (which translates to red prawn), ang jin (red yolk?), D14 or something — couldn’t really remember the number. Some are sticky, some less sticky, some sweet, some comes with a taste of bitter. I just eat and eat and eat, not knowing which is which. Well, my preference? I like sweet type, and not too sticky that it sticks to my throat.

There’s a guy who’s responsibility is to open durian for us to eat. I think he’s the seller or something, I don’t know. My responsibility is just to eat and take photo, so I don’t care so much who the uncle is.

The bikers must have liked the durians very much that some of them even brought back some for their families. But how does a man on bike carry the spiky durians all the way back to Taiping?

Creativity struck and this uncle removed the thorns of the durians just so it can fit into his small little side pocket of the bike.

Not enough taking one back, he tied another durian very near to his back side. I wonder if he got poke by the thorns on his way back to Taiping.

I went hiking today, it was no ordinary hike. Long post ahead.

Thanks to my friend for forwarding the chain e-mail to me. In the email was a list of participants and very little detail about the hike. It said that a bus will be hire, for RM70, to fetch us to Teluk Bahang, the starting point. Time will be 7am to 3pm. The end destination would be Penang Hill. I quickly scan through the name list looking for a familiar one. None. Out of the 21 in the list, only know 5 person’s name from Altera. I know their name coz they work in the same floor as me, my knowledge of them is only as far as meeting them on my way to toilet or pantry.

After a moment of thinking, I decided to join this unfamiliar group of people to go hiking. It is very difficult to be able to get a group of people to go hiking together, what’s more, it is consider ‘The Longest Hiking Trail in Penang’. I don’t have a lot of active friends who are willing to do outdoor activity with me, so it was like a GOLDEN opportunity. I added my name into the list and was included in the loop.

We were to meet at Asia Cafe and park our car at Air Hitam, the foothill of Penang Hill. Then board a school bus which will fetch us to Teluk Bahang.

Actually, this trip is part of a fitness training for some of them in the group. Next week they are going to climb Mount KK in Sabah.

At 8.20am, we started our journey. I don’t know what to expect as this is the first time I’m trying this out. We hike, we hike and we hike. The first part was kinda easy, just a stroll along the nature trail. The group separated, I was in the first group, the other group behind is slowing down, i guess they stop frequently for photos kua…we tried waiting for them but the tour leader ask us to go first, he said no need wait for everybody.

So those of us who were in front walk at our own pace without stopping to wait for the others. There were 5 of us in this small group: Hup Chin, Wan Fee, Kok Siong, Teng Chow and me. Oh ya, and this wild dog, it was following us from the starting point, leading the way. When we stop for rest, it also stops and wait with us. If one of us is too fast, it will stop and block the way..haha..I felt safe with this dog guiding us, safe from snake and maybe some other wild animals.

After walking for about one hour, we reached station 10, the first station leading to Penang Hill. The station number goes smaller as we’re reaching Penang Hill.

We tried to wait for the others at station 10. 10 to 15 mins passed and there was still no sign of them, so we decided to continue the journey.

This is definitely a tough trail, after 2 hours, my shirt and pants are fully drenched in sweat. Cannot take clear pictures anymore, hands shaking.

Terribly exhausted, very very tired. We had to go uphill, downhill, uphill, downhill….passing through a few hills. The famous hills we pass through are Laksamana Hill and Tiger Hill.

After a very very tough and long hike, we reach Eagle’s point at 10.30am.

Met 2 guys there, one of them is a pro in hiking. He was telling us all sorts of story from his previous hiking experience. We rest for about half and hour at Eagle’s point.

After the Eagle’s point, it was all downhill. Going downhill was even more difficult and scary than uphill. It was very steep and slippery. After all the downhill, my leg was trembling and at one point, my leg couldn’t support myself and I slip and fell. Hit my backside and scratched my arm, other than that I’m fine. Luckily didn’t strain my ankle, if not duno how to go get out of the forest.

The pro hiker and his friend come along with us. He keep on telling us that we’re almost there…haha…after tens of times of ‘we’re almost there’, we were still not reaching. Other than cheating us all the way, he also gave us great help by letting us know in advance what to expect. He’ll said ‘up front is a short uphill path’, or ‘it’s steep, becareful’, or ‘when you see a stream up ahead, you’re almost reaching’.

A few steps to reaching station 1, the dog who had been with us all the while suddenly bark and run back to us. I got scared, there must be something ahead, if not the dog wouldn’t have bark like that. All this while, there was not a sound from this dog and suddenly it bark so fiercely. All of us stopped and waited, look around us not hoping to see any wild animals. After awhile, the dog started moving forward again and we follow it. We don’t see anything, the dog must have scared the thing -watever it was- away. And a few steps ahead is THE TAR ROAD TO PENANG HILL!!! VICTORY, WE MADE IT! It was 12.00pm when we reach station 1.

It’ll be another 4km of tar road to reach Penang Hill. We rest at station 1, take photos of our tired faces and let our tired legs a break. At this moment, I can squeeze sweat out from my towel and shirt and pants. I have never sweat this much before, never, not until water can be squeeze out from my clothes.

Brought along a spare shirt, but i did not put it in a plastic bag, straight away throw into bag. I sweat so badly that the shirt in the bag got partially wet also.

We took 1 whole hours to reach Penang Hill using the tar road.

Sit down at the small foodcourt and had the best food of my life, ais kacang and nasi lemak. Maybe coz we were tired and hungry, the food taste so delicious

After the savory meal, we took the tram downhill. Then from the station, we walk back to our car. It was around 3.30pm when I reach my car.

23 of us started the journey, and now only 5 of us going back. We contacted the rest while we were having ais kacang, at that time they just reach Eagle’s point. I can see dark clouds was forming, I hope they were not chase by the rain. One of them had a cramp, we estimated that they will reach foothill at least around 5 or 6pm. The 5 of us was so tired, we couldn’t sit and wait for the rest. So we said our goodbyes and go our separate ways.

Wow! What an experience. Luv it!

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