Crikey!

People, I'm back frooooom...

Yep, for those who didn't know, I was in Perth for the last 9 days for the Asia Pacific Floorball Competition (APAC) 2008.

My journey started all the way from the north, Penang Island, travelled down to KL and from KL took a bus down to...

Kluang!

Followed Merv to his beloved hometown and tasted that renown Kluang Station coffee...
Went to the original coffee shop ok... Good stuff.
Ohhhh.. And guess what man... Of all things to bump into while we were in Kluang minding our own business... We saw this... *Jeng*Jeng*Jeng*...

What the crap is the USM bus doing in a place like Kluang anyways??! Haha...
Funny wei...
Anyway, after spending two night at Kluang, Merv and I travelled down to Singapore.
Why Singapore?
You see, we are on a tight budget and thus, we need to get on a budget airplane.

Tigerairways!

Seriously, Tigerairways' dirt cheap.
The catch?
Being a budget flight, the services are all "budgeted".
Yes, even the stewardess, if you know what I mean... :P

Arrived in Perth on Saturday night about 9.15pm and boy, it was cold.
I for one can't really tahan cold lar but it was nice nonetheless...
We stayed over at this place, 'Beatty Lodge', located in a small cozy lil' town called Leederville, just a train stop away from Perth City.

Yep, they welcomed the whole Floorball jinbang! ;)

The following 5 days were all about the sport...
Floorball, floorball and more floorball.

Floorball Mania...

This APAC only 5 teams/4 countries participated; Australia (the host), Australia Under-19, Korea, Singapore and Malaysia.
By the looks of it, we were the underdogs.
Singapore, previous champ, though without several key players, still were the favourites of the competition.
Eventually, as predicted, they won it again.

Australia vs. Korea

Australia vs. Singapore

Malaysia!

It's always hard to relate the excitement of floorball that I have to my friends for the simple reason that it's not a well known sports.
Being there, at the competition, though with fellow rivals and competitors, it was nice knowing that we all shared a common fascination and interest towards this urban sports that is still finding its way into the mainstream.
The Koreans were exceptionally friendly.
More over, their fighting spirit and stamina is ridiculously strong.
They were my favourite team, not the best, but the most spirited.

The Koreans with the Malaysians.

After playing, of course we being Malaysians have to eat puas-puas...
Subway became our best friend!

We practically had at least a meal at Subway every day cause it was
considerably cheaper and more filling as compared to
the other shops that were around there.

This APAC has been significant to me in more ways than one.
Some say it has more negative effect than that of positive.
I for one, like the math formula, believes that negative and negative becomes positive, it all depends on how the individuals inteprets and accepts it.
Either way, I believe these things that we saw, we heard and we experienced before, during and after the competition has helped us discover things about ourselves, both as a person and a player.
I learnt to take a blow in the face while at the same time "let nothing move you (me)".
Everything counts for a blessing - all those cheers, all those jeers, all those praise, all those criticism, all those jokes, all those seriousness...

All those team talks.

For me, as a player, I felt 2 consistent things;

Inadequate in abilities and pressured by expectations.
As my team mates will say, "mental tak kuattttt"... :)
Nonetheless, I am blessed to be part of the team second time round.
What more with my good buddy, Mervin...

And a bunch of crazy team mates...

(Yes, like I said, crazy team mates... )

As much as it was a sports expedition, it was also a personal time-out for me.
Appreciating the natural surroundings and the weather in Perth, the cool breeze and the greenery park, lingering thoughts popped in my head every once in a while;
faces appeared, feelings swept by, facts uncovered and future untold.
I love the breeze.

Imagine...