Travelling Home.

Taking the plane home and the captain reminds us firmly to remain belted to our seats.

The stewards patrol the aisles militantly, politely barking at us to prop up our trays, straighten our seats and pull up our window shades, failure of which will cause the plane to spiral madly out of control, leaving all of us screaming and ruing the twenty degrees of economic chair tilt that we indulged in, almost the certain cause of our plummeting death.

It is as I release the window shades that the sun streams in to the plane cabin and squeezes my eyes close.

I open it again, and we are hovering just slightly above the clouds. Five years ago, I would have marveled at this incredible sight, but now experience has dulled the child-like fascination with flying.

How did I get here? How did my eyes and brain get used to such a sight as flying as not to be amazed by it any more?

When I was younger, air travel used to be a novelty for the family. Yes, we would drive interstate on our family vacations and there were times I sat in the carriage of the train in my travels to Singapore, but I was almost twenty-one when I took my first ever flight. We traveled as a family to Melbourne to watch my brother graduate.

Here I am, thousands of miles above the earth, having a view once only belonging to birds, a view that Icarus would have given his left wing to witness, defying gravity and all I can think of is 'meh'.

It is in this moment that I choose once more to let the little boy out again, a small smile etched on my face as we pierced through the cotton fields in the sky, almost feeling the brush of vanilla fairy floss on my face as we plunged through the puffy blankets, our vision momentarily blinded before the earth burst before us below, all different shades of green and brown and orange.

The natural chaos of the forests had been manicured by human industry into palm oil plantations and residential houses. Far-running rivers and roads dissect the land into artificial territories, and below us a million Malaysian stories are unfolding, a million rituals are kept and all these rush at me at once and tell me that I am home.


*****************************************


'Rows and flows, of angel hair,
And ice cream castles in the air, 
And feathered canyons everywhere. 
I've looked at clouds that way.
But now, they only block the sun, 
They rain and they snow on everyone,
So many things I could have done,
But clouds got in my way.'

Joni Mitchell, 'Both Sides Now'. 

The One That Got Away.

It was my first year in Melbourne and the university. It was like being back in your first day of primary school. Except that we came into the start of Semester 5, which meant that everybody knew everybody else, and we were intruding into a very large clique. The new kids on campus.

You were either crying secretly (young adults are not allowed to cry openly), wishing that you were back in the comforts of your home some 6,300 kilometres away, or you were wide-eyed and overly friendly, trying to win the trust of the suspicious natives. Most of them were so cemented in their respective circle of friends that we built our own clique, at least among five or six of us who had come over.

We started making friends cautiously among the more welcoming ones in our batch, and inevitably it was the Asian group who started to open up their circles to welcome us in. (Like attracts like, I guess. I can't explain why I only have a handful of non-Asian friends here in Australia).

The boys who had come over with me were soon becoming fast friends and we spent a lot of time together over meals and holidays. We talked about everything under the sun, and as always, the topic would always fall back to the one subject that freshly post-adolescent boys talk about - girls.

I had barely noticed any of the girls in our batch (no, not because I was looking at the boys, idiot. *flashes wedding ring*) because I suspect I was being overwhelmed by everything else in Australia - living away from home, trying to find accommodation, figuring out how to best budget my money, trying to keep my head above the water with my studies and learning to make new friends. Romantic love is always a luxury, something to be pondered upon and nursed only when you have kicked out of survival mode.

My friend, on the other hand, whose eyes were always roving around everywhere except the blackboard during lectures, started pointing out some of the more attractive girls in our batch. He mentioned the name of a girl who I knew about and shared a class with, but had not thought very much of, until, well, he said she was quite pretty.

Here's the first lesson - sometimes something, be it an object or a person, can pass unnoticed and does not carry any special value until someone else you trust has said Hey, look here - this is valuable. That's the premise of Facebook, I guess (hopefully that's how you got here).

I started paying attention to her a bit more in class, and, against my better judgement, struck up conversation with her. She seemed friendly enough, and quite readily chatted back. Our conversations grew longer and easier, and her eyes seemed to light up whenever she laughed.

Or that's how I saw it through my rose-tinted glasses. (Rose-tinted glasses - distorting reality one delusion at a time. Get yours now!)

I waited until right after my exams before I made my move. We were migrating as a student herd away from the examination hall, all of us chatty and elated that the exams were finally over with the mid-year holidays to look forward to, when I popped the question - 'Urm, hey, do you want to go out for coffee some time?'

Her girlfriends around her did the 'Oooh...' thing that adolescent girls do when a guy asks that question, and she was caught off-guard, but managed to regain her composure and stammered out a cheery 'Urm, yeah, sure! Here's my number!'

I smiled to myself, secretly fist-pumping within (self-five!), and we parted ways, with me walking with a particular spring in my step.

But...

There's always a but. I played it cool (looking calm on the outside with all the eagerness of an puppy with ADHD on the inside), letting a few days slip by during the first day of holidays before I finally made that call to her.

It was an awkward first conversation over the phone, filled with enough small talk to drown a Smurf before I ended the conversation with the primary intention of the call - So, when's a good time for us to catch up over coffee?

Silence.

Here's some excuses I've prepared earlier:

'... shopping with my sister on Chapel street for her wedding dress...'
'... then lunch with friends tomorrow...'
'... catching up with some other friends on Thursday...'
'... rearranging my wardrobe on Saturday. Been putting that off for awhile...'

I know when I am getting blown off. We ended the conversation pretty quickly after that, and so I put down the phone with a sigh.

Something moved in me that day, though. Maybe it was the fact that I was now in a new country. It's time to turn over a new leaf, to be brave, nothing to fear but fear itself and all that, and I decided to try something that I had never tried before in pursuit of a girl - persistence.

The very next day I call her again and say, Hey look, I would really love to meet up. Why don't you tell me when's a good time.

She panicked this time, pulled out her Book of Excuses again, and flipped right to the page marked 'In Case of Emergency, say this...'

'Yeah, I'm not sure but I definitely won't be able to do this afternoon, because I'm going out to lunch with my boyfriend, right, and then we are going to...'

She kept talking nervously after that but it was all just in one ear and out the next.

Boyfriend. Right.

All my brittle newfound determination and dogged Salesmen-of-the-year-like persistence suddenly just gave way beneath me.

What happened to me for the next six months I can't explain to you. The pain that I felt from that girl's rejection, a girl who I knew barely anything about and who, if I really thought about it, meant nothing to me, was almost physical in nature. Her unattainability had suddenly made her even more desirable and me more miserable.

It is never in my nature to ever come between a couple, and so I gave her up there and then, standing on the sidelines instead, eating tubs of ice-cream and singing myself to sleep with self-pitying renditions of All By Myself on my pillow wet with tears.

Okay, so it wasn't that dramatic but it hurt. A lot. Significantly out of proportion to the situation. The old Self-Esteem took a downright beating. But Time is kind, and a great physician of all hurts, and in about six months I was finally able to let go and move on.

Sounds like a long time for someone I barely knew. Here's the second lesson - love is a crazy, inexplicable thing. The matters of the heart are beyond the laws of arithmetics and reasoning. But if you're really, really lucky, and you wish really, really hard, one day you will meet someone who will give you the ability to look back at life - and love - and laugh.

With relief.    

Other People's Stories: (Nearly) Taken in Thailand

My friends, a wonderful married couple now, recount a time when she was almost kidnapped in Thailand, a country they still visit almost yearly.

There were six of us, right, and we were trying to get a cab to take us to our next destination. There were two cabs there, and so the three guys stood there negotiating with one of the taxi drivers while the girls were sitting in the other cab. 

There were two girls at the back while I sat in front, with the door open, one leg out of the car. That's when our cab suddenly took off, right, and I had to reach for the car door to close it! I yelled at the taxi driver to Stop!! Stop!! but he just kept speeding away. 

Yeah, we were like 'What the _?' when we saw the other cab suddenly take off, right? 'Cause we never told that guy where we were going.

Man, I tell you, that look on B_'s face was one I will never forget. She turned towards me, her eyes wide open and dilated with fear and she was banging both arms against the window, yelling out to me.

We hopped into our cab, and told him to follow the other cab. We tried to catch up with the other cab, but he was driving too quickly, and he sped through the maze of back-alleys and small lanes until we lost him.

We were yelling at our taxi driver to call his friend in the other cab. He rang the friend's mobile but the friend would not answer. 

All that ran through my head was like, Oh man, what am I going to tell her parents, man. 

All three of us girls were shocked, silent with fear and stunned to the point of being unable to react. 
Yeah, you know what saved us? 

Thailand traffic.

We were caught up in a jam on a main road, and saw our chance to escape. We bolted out of the cab, and threw some baht onto the seats and just ran and ran, through like, eight lanes of traffic. 

We finally found a landmark and called the boys to come and get us. 

Thank God, man. I shudder to think what the guy's intentions were for us. 

Yeah, so, travel tip for Thailand. Make sure the guy is always the first to get into the cab, and the last to leave. I heard about a guy who was loading their shopping into the taxi's trunk when the cab took off with his wife in the backseat and she was never seen again.

These things are rare lah you know, but...

His voice trails off, and his eyes peer into an alternate universe for a moment where the girls did not escape, and he shudders a little and shakes his head back into a reality where she is across the table from him, smiling.

Rainbows, Unicorns and Light Sabres.

So a friend was sitting down with some girls at dinner the other day, and one of them asks, 'So, what's a good pickup line for a guy?'

That immediately put my friend deep into thought, and after much consideration he said,

'Tell him you love Star Wars.'

*************************************

We were having a discussion yesterday, this friend and I, when the topic came onto girls we used to like. We chanced upon an attribute that these girls used to share - guyishness.

Now don't get me wrong. I am a man who loves it when girls celebrate their femininity - the touches of make-up, agonising over their clothes, accessorising, melting over animals or pretty things.

What exactly is guyishness?

When I look back at my previous relationships and women I have been infatuated with, one theme seems to come out - they thought like boys. They wouldn't agonise if they didn't hear from you for a day, they weren't afraid to get themselves dirty and sweaty chasing the soccer ball around the field or rock-climbing, they weren't afraid to laugh out loud at irreverent jokes. A girl who insults me back in good humour when I throw one jokingly at her has won my heart.


Hell Hath No Fury 

It breaks my heart sometimes when I hear stories from my girl friends about how life was like back in their schools, especially if it was an all-girls' school. In a boys' school, when guys disagree, they tend to confront, whether in shouting matches or coming to blows, and then it is over. In a girls' school, vengeance and jealousy is a slow burning process, spanning days to years, filled with scheming, passive-aggressive bullying, mind games and alliances designed to alienate, embarrass and destroy.

I see some wonderful women who carry these scars into adulthood and it makes me want to go back into their past and throw their tormentors into shark-infested waters.

I don't understand what it is that makes this mean-spiritedness and cattiness acceptable behaviour. When Taylor Swift deals with this issue in her song 'Mean', my strongest impression is that she probably wasn't singing about boys.

***************************************


Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Men are so decent, such regular chaps;
Ready to help you through any mishaps;
Ready to buck you up whenever you're glum.
Why can't a woman be a chum?
                                                       -Professor Henry Higgins, My Fair Lady (1964)

This rant from the old musical My Fair Lady suggests that this observation, although misdirected with sexist overtones, is not a new one. Perhaps the cry does come from somewhere deeper.

So what makes them so attractive? Perhaps it is the observation that women who think like guys are easier to get along with and are quick to forgive. In a selfish way, they will probably share a few similar interests as well, which means a better chance of time spent together. Ask any guy whether they would like a girlfriend who is a gamer and see how many of them will tell you no.

****************************************

At the risk of losing her as just another 'one of the guys', we have to remember that at the core of every woman is tenderness. She still wants to be won over, loved and treated right, but she doesn't need you to be her knight in shining armour cantering in valiantly to save her from All of Life's Problems.

Because she's got this, thank you very much. And it may be you that needs the saving.

*****************************************


I read somewhere once that women feel more in love with their partners when they see them help out with the housework or with the kids. (From the annals of the scientifically-researched and clinically-tested Woman's Day magazine) I must admit I felt a similar surge of love the other day when Karen single-handedly assembled some furniture for the home (while I worked hard on the Playstation 3...

...no, of course not! What kind of a husband do you take me for?!)

(I was actually sleeping.)

I wonder if there are more men like me out there in this day and age who feel the same way about wanting women who are not girly girls. Perhaps in a deeper subconscious level, it may be a matter of natural selection.

I know the issue of sexuality and gender roles is such a gray one, but take it from me how you will. I am, after all, not exactly the manliest man - cars fail to excite me, I love my computer games, sports are to be watched and talked about, but not played in real life. I sing love songs, cry at movies and write blogs. How I ever got married is beyond me.

Which brings us to the next question. What kind of guys do girls fall for? 

Thoughts On Turning Thirty-Two.

Today I turn thirty-two.

I look at my life and I see how richly blessed I am - a loving wife and best friend, surrounded by family and friends who I love and who love me, and I am happy at work.

It is strange then, that today, I think about dying.

Don't get me wrong. I am not contemplating suicide, or have received bad news and I'm certainly not depressed.

I have seen three deaths in the past three weeks in my ED. Two of them were young and unexpectedly sudden, and no amount of miracle of modern medicine could bring them back.

A lot of us fear death. We try and fight it off with health supplements and exercising regularly. Others build monuments unto themselves - we get a wing of a hospital building named after us, we build statues or get our names written in history books, we write blogs that will last forever in cyberspace. (erhem)

We try and grasp at immortality, hoping that one day someone will remember us, whisper our name, and knew that we somehow mattered. But buildings are torn down, statues will crumble, and blogs can easily be deleted.

All my life, there have been moments when I have simply thought that I would rather be dead. Most of the time, it is right before something stressful is about to happen, with all the anxious anticipation leading up to it. I cannot count the number of times that I have prayed for God to take me right before some major exam (He never obliged) or when I had to address a huge crowd, or (when I was a little more junior) some night shifts at work where I had to be in charge of the Emergency Department.

The other times I have thought about dying is when I look back at a life well lived, and then having that passing thought of 'You know what, I could die right now, and it would be fine.'

I do not fear death. Suffering, perhaps, but not death.

The main reason for that, I think, is a quiet confidence in my God. I do not claim to be a model Christian, I am not sure if I have even won one soul to His Kingdom and I lead a life that some would raise their eyebrows at.

But I have a quiet assurance in who my God is. I have heard Him roaring in the hurricanes during the storms of my life, I have heard His whispers when I am surrounded by nature. I catch up with Him from time to time, praying in my car on the long drives to Bendigo and the Northern, understanding His heart in church on Sundays, wrestling with Him when I see injustices in a broken world. I see His fingerprints all over the story of my life and I rejoice when I recognise it in the stories my friends tell me.

I find His penmanship in my Bible but also in movies like The Dark Knight and Matrix and Avatar and the myriad of other stories that deal with sin and salvation. 

And I know this - that I can trust Him. That I have journeyed with Him through my father's disability, through my own surgery and through times of great rejoicing as well, and I know that His heart is good. And hopefully one day, when I do cross over into the other side, He will look up at me and say 'Hey, I know you.'

The Bucks Stops Here (Final Part)

Activity Three: Dinner and That's Super, Man!

We drove for an hour and a half back to the city after our adventures in Torquay, and headed to our next destination - Squire's Loft in the city for our Man Meal.

Smile for the camera,
unsuspecting victim!

And so we sat over ribs, and steaks and mounds of chips, each of us tired and hungry from the day's exertions. By this time Alex had joined us for dinner, and we recounted the day's events to him as we wolfed down our meals.

Then came the session of questioning by my brother and everyone else present. They had asked Karen a few personal questions about our relationship and I had to get every one correct, otherwise I was punished.

It was at this moment, when I thought that this was as bad as it got, when my brother suddenly pulled out this costume he had kept hidden in a plastic bag. It was a Superman costume.

My heart sank immediately. I was going to say my stomach was filled with butterflies but by this time,  the butterflies were competing with steak, fries, ribs and drinks. My brother led me up to the bathroom upstairs and I changed into the outfit. I was terrified about what they were going to ask me to do next.

I walked down the stairs and was greeted by cheers, both from the bucks and the other patrons gathered there.

Oh, dear Lord.

I look like I'm in boxers.
And nothing else.

My brother pulled out my tasksheet for the night - I had to ask random women in Melbourne for their names, phone numbers, to rate my hotness, and to see if they would give me a kiss and a hug.

Each women held a promise of a maximum of 18 points, which meant that I had to ask a minimum of 6 women that night for their details. The questions were marked accordingly - 2 points for a real phone number, 1 point for a fake one. 4 points if they kissed me on the lips, 3 points if they kissed me on the cheek, and 2 points if they kissed the paper I was holding.

Reluctantly, the Man of Steel-A-Little-Nervous-About-This went out into the Melbourne night with its hordes of drunken revellers. I was sure I would die or at the very least, get beaten up tonight.

I was trying to remember if we left a Super tip that night.

***********************************************

The first women we approached were thankfully a little drunk and very obliging. I got two women outside a pub on a quiet street to answer my questions in quick succession, and soon I was flying (hurhur) - 24 points! This was going to be a breeze!

Some wonderfully sporting patrons.

My bucks saw that thought creep into my head, and then laid down the law. Oi, you're only allowed to ask one girl per street, they said.

One girl per... Luckily I wore my underpants on the outside, otherwise I would have soiled it.

And so, began my journey into the heart of town, and the Saturday night crowd.



************************************************

The first major street we walked down was Bourke Street. The harmless, faceless shopping strip in the daytime suddenly was filled with every eye upon me, and it didn't help that my friends kept singing the Superman theme song (Da da da dum, da da dum, Da da da dum, DA DA DUM!) every time I crossed the street.

I approached women who seemed nice, enough - Asian if I could (usually more obliging) although I had some really nice Caucasian women join in on the fun. And so it was a cycle of  'Excuse me miss, I'm sorry to trouble you, but it's my bucks, and my friends are b@stards, and I would like to ask if I could take five minutes of your time to answer some questions for me?'

That's me - The Apologetic Man Of Steel. I felt like I was trying to convince them to join World Vision or Save The Children. (work done by actual superheroes)

************************************************

Some highlights of the night:

1) A few adventurous women who kindly played along and answered my questions, rating me a 10 on a hotness scale, who said that yes, they would date me, and kissed me on the cheek (no one dared kiss me on my lips. Thankfully.) (I am a carrier of 2 communicable diseases. Haha!)

Melbourne city welcomes superheroes.

2) The random drunk guys who yelled out Superman! at me or the girls flapped my cape behind me as I stood at the traffic lights waiting for it to turn green (law-abiding superhero, that's me.)

3) The best comment for the night was from a young kid who found out I was getting married who asked, 'You're getting married? That's like, committing yourself to one pussy for the rest of your life, man!' to which I shot back, 'Better make it a good one then!'

4) People singing the Superman theme upon seeing me, or some variation of it. (I'm sorry, why is everyone telling me to Superman that ho?)

5) Having my Super-nipple tweaked by a guy as I walked past him (okay, so it wasn't a highlight, it was more like a WTF can't you see this uniform and know what I am capable of doing to you moment?)



***************************************

And so after an hour of walking through the heart of the city and getting sequentially loved/rejected by Melbourne's women that night, we ended up in Fed Square close to midnight. I had 85 points and was almost on the home stretch.

Her invisible plane is parked atop that cop car behind us.

That was when we saw Wonder Woman.

It was a rub your eyes, are you kidding me, this is too good to be true moment. There she was, standing in all her Wonder Glory waiting for her partner The Riddler to get his fries.

My bucks pushed me up to her and I started my awkward questions. Luckily, she was a great sport and answered all my questions in her Scottish Wonder-accent.

I got a 14 out of 18 possible points, which brought my total up to 99 marks. Some of my bucks wanted me to go up to one more girl but the others said that this was a perfect way of ending the night.

Relieved, I swung my cape around and we headed back towards the city. We were all smiling after an enjoyable buck's day, and night, and ending it on a high.

But the night was not yet over.

************************************

We were walking along Swanston Street, approaching Flinder's Lane when suddenly there was the sickening sound of crunching glass, followed by a collective gasp from the Saturday night crowd which suddenly came to a standstill.

It was eerily quiet for two seconds before you could hear a couple of the girls saying 'Oh my God, look away! Don't look, Becky!'

Instinct told me an accident had happened and years of emergency training had conditioned me to run towards the danger rather than away from it.

A man lay crumpled on the floor, the offending car stopped a few metres away from him, the windshield spidered from where his head had hit it.

His friend was squatting over him, and a group of men had gathered around him, seeing if they could help.

'Someone call an ambulance,' I said.

'I can help, I am an emergency doctor.'

His friend, a big guy with thick rimmed spectacles looked up at me, visibly tense, and shouted at me, 'Mate, I'm a paramedic. Piss off!'

I looked up at him, before realising that I was still in my Superman costume and told him, 'No, you don't understand, I am an emergency doctor.'

'No, you're drunk and dressed in a Superman costume, and this is a real emergency, so piss off!'

We would have wasted a good few minutes reasoning this way but luckily Alex, a senior emergency registrar friend of mine who was dressed in a more respectable clothes crouched beside me and said 'We're emergency doctors at the Northern. We can help.'

It was only then when the friend relaxed and we discussed about how best to manage the victim. There was a trickle of blood under his head and I was a little worried when I had trouble finding a pulse, but soon the victim groaned and began to rouse.

'Mate, you're in the city. You've just been involved in an accident, and the ambulance is on the way. Now stay still, all right?' He couldn't remember that it was Saturday, or that he was in the city, and was quite obviously concussed, but looked otherwise all right.

The police had begun to arrive and started forming a parameter around the victim. Not two minutes had passed when the sirens of an ambulance pierced through the night, the flashing red and blue lights bringing salvation.

We soon collectively log-rolled the man onto his back, where the bleeding gash above his left eyebrow became evident, which we put a pressure dressing on before helping him onto the stretcher.

My good friend Anthony took this awesome shot.

The police and paramedics saw that the man was awake, at least, and relaxed a little. Soon the inevitable wisecracks came - 'Thanks, Superman! Couldn't have done it without you!' or 'Saving the day again huh?' or 'They pay you overtime for this?'.

I gave my statement to the police officer, who asked quietly whether I thought this would go pear-shaped, and I said to him, he'll probably be okay. You could see the young blonde driver in the distance, being comforted as she was still shaken by the accident.

There was a veil of seriousness amongst my friends as we departed from what was a near-tragic situation but that soon lifted as we told them that he was going to be okay. Soon they were joking and laughing again, everyone going on about how truly epic this night had turned out to be, and how they had it all on their cameras.

One friend joked that no matter how amazing his buck's turns out to be one day when he finally gets married, he will say 'Ah, but it isn't Heng Khuen's buck's.'

We said our goodbyes, and I finally got home and crawled out of my spandex suit (Quick joke: Why is Superman's suit always tight? Because he wears a size S), plonking down on my couch and nestling to sleep, tired after an extraordinary day.

The rest of what happens to the story you know about.

Special thanks to my brother for planning the buck's (including the accident, some joked) and to all my friends who celebrated my last week of singlehood with me.

Who knows why these things happen, but let's just say that today was proof that my God has a wonderful sense of timing and humour.

Super friends.

The Bucks Stops Here (Part 2)

Activity Two: Shouting Until You're Horse

After a quick lunch at Anglesea, we said goodbye to Ciaran who had to leave for a friend's 30th. We drove to Aireys Inlet for the next part of our buck's - horse-riding. 

Horse-riding conjures up all these wonderful images - of the elegant Rohirrim riders of Rohan in Lord Of the Rings or of the majestic William Wallace atop his horse in Braveheart convincing his Scottish countrymen to remind the English that 'they may take our lives, but they will never take OUR ...FREEDOM!'

You know, these guys.

(P.S. How about your mullet, Braveheart?
Can we take that instead?)

All the armoured-knight and kilt-laden fantasies disappeared the moment we opened our car door and took a huge whiff of reality - the scent of horse manure. It was a smell we needed to get used to, yet it took all our strength not to close our car doors again. 

"Horse Poo 4 Sale - $2" somehow didn't have the same poetry as Mel Gibson's stirring speech. 

Although the horse might beg to differ.

Most of us there - with the exception of my brother, Jonathan and Wai Hong - were first-timers.We were keen, however, to develop our masculine instincts for taming these graceful yet wild beasts which men have travelled on for thousands of years.

As beginners, however, we were given the sedate horses. Horses with names like Chucky, and Bayley, and Lorrie (and Sleepy, and Doc and Grumpy).

I think my horse was named Chucky because that's what you
felt like doing after riding him for awhile.
Chucky, hurhurhur.

We were given a quick ten minute lesson on where to put our feet into the stirrups, how to hold the reins, and how to get the horses to move forward, stop and turn. 

Having immediately forgotten everything we were taught, we were then helped up onto the horses, and headed off into the direction of the well-worn trail path with our somewhat sedate horses. (They were really so sedate I'm tempted to call them horsies).

About ten minutes into the trail walk, our instructor turns around and tells us that we were going to learn how to trot now. She taught us how to kick our horses in the side and how to time our rhythm with that of the trotting horse. We were supposed to rise with each trot and fall as the horse lands.

Apply generously to bottom.

Supposed to, being the operative word here. Having all the coordination of a drunken sailor with a middle ear infection, I somehow managed to sit as the horse's body rose and stand as the horse's body fell. Which is the same effect as having your ass/groin paddled consistently for a 60-second period. Which is bad news for all intentions of having children in the future. (Sorry, Mum).

****************************************

That was not the only drama of the day. En route to the beach, where my brother was insistent we would canter with the wind whipping into our hairs while lasso-ing unsuspecting sunbathers, the lead horse suddenly got spooked by strong winds and took off.

The other horses, never having ever had to think for themselves before, bolted as well and soon we were cantering through the small paths in the forest for a good thirty seconds. I was grabbing hard onto my saddle and pulled on the reins with all my might, telling Chucky to slow the hell down. All my horse whispering worked, and soon Chucky slowed down from his blistering pace.

There was an eerie silence as I looked up and saw our instructors' shocked face looking back towards me, her eyes surveying the damage. Her open mouth betrayed the fact that all was not well behind me.

I turned around and saw that two of the riders were on the ground, having been thrown off their horses.

One of them was Hawch, who had taken to jumping off his bolting horse, and attempted to cushion the floor by rolling on his shoulder. The other was my brother, and he wasn't moving at first.

I turned Chucky around and approached them slowly. Both my brother and Hawch soon started groaning and painfully got themselves up, dusting themselves off before checking for damage. Both of them were a little bruised, but thankfully nothing seemed broken.

The mood of the party had dampened then. This close shave served as a reminder about how potentially dangerous today's activities could have been. Hawch and my brother walked a distance before being convinced by the instructor to get back on to their horses, which they did gingerly and a little reluctantly.

It was all a cautious walk with the horses from this point, as both our instructors talked between themselves to figure out what went wrong back there. The trodden dirt paths soon turned into gravel roads as we approached civilisation - we were now in a residential area, giving way to cars, and waiting patiently while the horses pooped or peed at will.

Today's interesting lesson about horses - when male horses pee, their generous penises come out, and then they bucket out their pee, as if they were putting out a small forest fire, and then, just like magic, their penis retracts completely out of sight. That is a party trick I would lov... erm, never mind.

Haha! You thought I was going to put a picture of a horse's 
you-know-what here, weren't you?
I think this one's best left to your imagination!

We all stopped our horses at a car park near the beach. The wind whipped strongly against our faces. Our two instructors, already wary from today's accident, had a discussion between themselves and then decided that it was probably unwise to continue on to canter on the beach.

We all agreed, being a little shaken by the incident, although my brother was still keen to go ahead as he wanted to complete our experience.

Majority won in the end, and we turned around and walked our horses back the way we came. The trip home was less eventful, thankfully. We even managed to trot for a bit of it, our collective confidence returning.

One of the unforgettable moments we had to capture with the cameras of our minds was the breathtaking view of the lagoon shimmering in the evening sun beneath us as we made our way down the hills.

We all made it back in one piece, and were relieved to get off our horses, our gait a little unsteady from being on the rocking horses for a good part of two hours. We each let out a laugh of relief that we weren't too severely injured, and removed our protective helmets and boots, taking photos before heading for our next destination.

No one died! High fives all around!

The Bucks Stops Here (Part 1)

My brother had been planning my buck's night for awhile now, keeping it a secret and flashing his silly grin whenever I tried to worm out of him what he had in store for me. All he had to say was that it would be 'epic', and I am always worried whenever my brother says that, because:

1) It may not be epic.

2) It may turn out epic, but in a bad way.

We got up bright and early Saturday morning and convened at his house in Royal Parade. There were nine of us - Ciaran, Anthony, Jonathan, Wai Hong, Haw Chuan, Ben, Juwen, my brother and myself. 

Pleased to meet you. Prepare to be hurt. 

After a round of quick introductions, we hopped into three cars and made our way to Torquay where our day was about to begin.

Activity One: Surfin' In The AUS

We made it to Torquay about ten minutes late, and we walked into the surf shop and quickly paid for our lessons before heading off to the beach. 

Smiling, because ignorance of the impending pain is bliss. 

The beach was a fifteen minute drive away, and we got lost on the way, which made us even later. Our two instructors were not pleased about this, and one kept barking at us to quickly get changed and pick up our surfboards while the other one was nicer, and kept away all our car keys. 

We were shown the basics of surfing by having some mock exercises on the beach - the nicer guy made us form a circle and then showed us all the nuances of surfing - 

1) First, grab the sides of the surfboard - the "rails" - when you see the white waves about a sufboard's length away from you

2) Then paddle really, really hard as if you were being attacked by sharks

3) When the wave hits you, clamber up on your knees while keeping your hands touching the deck of the surfboard

4) Put your right or left leg through your hands

5) Stand up with one foot in front of the other

6) Maintain your balance

7) Congratulations, you are officially surfing

There were some of us who were naturals at this - Juwen was riding the waves on his first attempt while Ciaran was obviously a beast at surfing and tackled the waves with ease.

All of us had some measure of success. All, except for one. 

Guess which one. 

Well, let's just say that after two hours of toil and a repeat demonstration on the beach by the nicer instructor, I managed to get to step 5) for all of one second before falling butt-first into the sea. 

It was the best one second I've ever had on a surf-board.

I was this guy for all of one second.

My brother, who's usually quite nice, looked at me and even he conceded 'You, and balance, you're not really friends, are you?'

'Friends? We're not even acquaintances!'

Two hours later, drained by the cold water, battling the waves and repeated butt-falling, we walked out of the sea, exhausted but exhilarated from trying our hands (and butts) at surfing. It was a first for many of us, we walked out with surfboards in hand, feeling like real men, having conquered the waves.

All, except for one.

Guess which one.