~ The beauty of nature lies in its imperfections ~

Saturday, August 23, 2008

The good folk at Moto-V



Have you ever wished to find the goodness in humans?

Well, it happened last night when we were invited to the Moto V gathering at Buddeez Cafe in Tanjong Katong Rd. The members were most interested in our fund raising event, because Brenden and Ruth had made special effort to start a thread about our going to S.A. More importantly, they literally "Passed the hat around", gathering $400 in cash & wine sales just for us.

The little impromptu handing over ceremony was officiated by Alan, while we all stood gamefully by the roadside for a photo to mark the occasion.


So, many many thanks to the good folk at Moto V. And who ever says bikers are rufty tufty types with Hells Angels inclinations should spend an evening with these people. Moto V is a good ambassador for the public face of motorbiking!

And here's the thread which they've created on their website, specially for us!


Photos from our Nokia N82. The night scene mode really rocks!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Sponsors & Sponsorships!

We had a MOST pleasant surprise from a corporate sponsorship from Cityneon! They had given us a cash sum with the simple message : go out there and do Singapore proud!

This is (of course) the bestest situation any fund raiser can wish for : )

Friday, August 15, 2008

Fundraising Tie Up with CornerStone Wines



We’re excited to announce our most recent collaboration with CornerStone Wines as part of our Enduro Africa fundraising.

Info about them can be found at http://www.cornerstonewines.com/

The items we have are :
- Red Wine : Chianti 2006, Tuscany, Italy @ S$24
- Red Grape Sparkling Juice @ S$5.50
- White Grape Sparkling Juice @ S$5.50

The Chianti is a customized blend of Tuscan Sangiovese and eventual addition of Canaiolo grapes. Purplish red, Floral bouquet with notes of mammola. Balance of fruit & soft tannins for easy drinking. Medium bodied claret. Made specially to match Asian cuisines.

CornerStone Sparkling Juices are made & bottled in France, delicious choice for non-alcoholics... no preservatives or sugar added.

Email to rosalind14@gmail.com to purchase now!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Weekend Ride to Musang Kenyir Resort 8-11 Aug

This trip was planned at least 2 months ago, waiting for the good time & willing people to join us. It's also part of our training for Enduro Africa, for the long saddle time. Helps to train the butt!!
10 hours of riding by countryside roads along the eastern coast, & the weather couldn't be better. It's also our first trip with the Canon G9.

We met at GP Esso at 7am on Friday. First stop, Yong Peng for fishball noodle breakfast, followed by DURIANS! Quality was excellent. Smooth creamy & fleshy...

Riding past Kuantan & Kuala Trengganu, we met Mr Chong on the way at Gawi jetty at around 5pm & we followed his car to the bike parking area. Carefully parking our bikes & covering them, we left on the boat to the resort.

The wooden chalets were built in a row on stilts & facing the lake. Peaceful place, set in the jungle. Simple rooms with fan & attached bathroom. Because we were at an altitude, the air was cool, especially in the evenings.


Saturday morning, Tony & Catherine were out early in the lake trying to catch some breakfast.

Today's plan was to go to the waterfalls. It took us a hike of at least half hour in the jungle before we finally got to the falls.

Great view & cool waters welcomed us after the hot & sweaty hike. We climbed over to the large rocky platform...

Back to the resort for lunch... listening to Mr Chong tell stories!

Post lunch, some of us decided to take the boat out again for some fishing. Especially excited are Hubert & Tony... suspect that's their main purpose for this trip. According to web info, this area is supposed to be an angler's paradise.

Tony in soft sand.... which promptly swallowed his leg up to knee level. Undeterred, both of them continue crawling on all fours & still managed to cast their fishing lines!

Sunday - a day entirely spent on fishing. Woke up & were at the jetty by 7am to take the boat out before breakfast. Managed to catch a glimpse of a wild young elephant near the water. When it noticed us & our cameras & fingers pointing excitedly, it trumpeted (maybe angrily) and ran off into the trees to hide.

Not much luck with fishing, we came to an area of shallow waters, to have a dip. Water was clear & gently flowing as it was just a short distance from a waterfall. The shin deep water was just perfect for lazing & enjoying the company.

Having tired ourselves out, lunch was served. For all 3 days, Mr Chong was our personal chef, cooking up pro-standard dishes, which we promptly polished off in no time. Apparently he learnt his skills from friends in the food business.

Here we are, lounging around & chatting the afternoon away, contemplating to go out for another fishing trip or not. Then the sunny weather took a turn & the distant dark cloud moved over & we were in a middle of a torrential downpour!

Glad that we're not out in the lake. We stayed in, watching the raindrops on the water surface & felt so relaxed... The magpie which was around earlier stopped chirping .... but soon after came back again to chirp. Signalling that the rain is stopping soon, indeed it was just a passing shower!

Dinner that evening was a nice BBQ with lots of food. Great treat to end our stay, with lamb chops stealing the show.

On Radio 91.3FM

7 August 2008.
Dark clouds loomed & it stormed as I made my way to the studio... reached there with soggy feet & clammy trousers.

We're going on air with The Married Men crew - Rod Monteiro, Andre Hoeden & Audrey Lim. First time on radio for the 2 of us, & so excited! Brought our Canon G9 to take pictures with the celebrities at work ;P

The DJs seemed to be having so much fun at work, I don't think it even feels like work! But according to them, there's lots of preparation before each show can be presented, so that's what we don't see or hear about. What's true is that there's a whole lot of amazing hi tech stuff in the studio that they're using.

We talked about Enduro Africa on air & shamelessly publicised this blog to the whole nation. So those of you who've actually come to this site because you heard us on air, THANK YOU!!

Here they are in between the interview, Andre & Audrey having a chat, while Rod is pressing the 101 buttons & switches to make sure the next song or jingle gets in correctly..... Cool yah!

Here's their website, with schedules listed in there : http://www.radio913.com/

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Singapore Bike Fest on 2-3 Aug 2008

Last weekend, bikers all over the island gathered at Kallang Leisure Park, for the S'pore Bike Fest 2008. Convoys roared into the parking area, one on each day, attracting cheers from the crowd. Bike stunts were also the draw for most.

Organisers Team 27, very kindly allowed us to publicise our Enduro Africa project at their booth. With poster & laptop in tow, we got a video running and had leaflets to distribute.


Much credit goes to the earlier article in Motorculture magazine, as some of the bikers read about our trip & were asking us more questions... Glad to say, we managed to sell a couple of Sins vouchers and about 20 bars of chocolates to supportive friends. Others simply donated cash to support our cause.

Behind our booth was the private collection of a guy who has great tastes in restoring classic Japanese motorbikes. Looking at those classics inspired us to get our own classic bike someday.


On the 2nd day, we parked our Transalps at the bike park & set up a mini display with a poster between the 2 bikes. Must have attracted some curious stares outside too!

Live band played into the night & Singha beer was the drink of the event. The open air pub atmosphere ended each night.

With Peter & Jack from Team 27...

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Hooking up with some hardware

In preparations for the ride, we had been thinking about what equipment to bring....
starting off with the hardware like phones and cameras.

So we have settled on a Canon G9 digital camera, a Nokia N82 and a Nokia E90. Here are our thoughts on choosing this equipment....

Being lifelong canon fans, we felt the Canon G9 is the only camera which could do advanced photos, take movies, while retracting into a small package that fits smoothly inside a riding jacket pocket. As we only recently got the camera, no photos worthy of posting, so we'll write more about this another day.

Nokia N82 & E90 - simple combination, really. Both phones have GPS enabled maps, so we WON'T get lost. N82 is touted as a blogging phone with kick-ass 5MP digital camera focussing via a Carl-Zeiss lens. E90 is for those longer rest sessions where we feel like penning down random thoughts thru a qwerty keyboard.

Guess we'll be using quite a bit of this new kit in the coming months!