Endtroducing...djball aka charleshui

12 Aug - 9th Sept 2012 I didn't realized I still put this post in the draft...what a career highlight that should be recorded!! It was sudden. 4 weeks of business trip to Sydney for coverage and staff training! What more should I ask for! Sydney air is fresh, sky is blue, weather is cold and sometime windy in August. Fraser Suites is great and spacious! It was the great explosure from career and also from the sports I like. My first time to work oversea, knowing how the sports in everyone bloodstream, they cycle to work, go running or gym during lunch, run or cycle back home, swim training is like their daily meal, Thursday shopping day, Friday afternoon start drinking, weekend morning training follow by brunch and cup of coffee, Sydney coffee is surprisingly great with strong Italian influrences no wonder Starbucks failed. Joining vladswim every Tue, Thur,  5pm off from work, 6pm already in the water, feeling was surreal! Mon, Wed I'd go running at Botanic Garden and the Domai...

What is the motivation to do Bangkok Triathlon? Swimming in the Chao Phraya River? Bangkok is our backyard, if you think of the scene that only one hard morning and then all you can do is spending a few days and staying at the luxury hotel, enjoying great services, dining out at the nice restaurant at the reasonable prices, go shopping and party! Why not?! Especially that Bangkok Triathlon had been successfully organized for a few years since 2009 when Chrissie Wellington was still in TeamBB and won the race! The race had also been constantly attracting few hundred local and expat, the distance had also been extended from standard OD to 1.8k swim/55k bike/10k similar to LPT. Our friend Michal Bueck won overall champion last year and highly recommend this race! “The water in the river is a lot better than Science Park and Plover Cove in HK!”. So I decided to do it this year! Enrollment fee and travelling costs is reasonable! Only THB2500 for early bird entry, HK$8500 for 5D4N...

Motivation of doing this LPT because of the outperform in 2009, I wouldn't expect if this would not be better than last year, however... Training for this LPT is zero if I compare with last year, I didn't do any specific hill climb, didn't strengthen the upper body, didn't work on the core, didn't do any long run after the ironman Taiwan, I don't want to put any excuse from work stress but apparently it's quite true. Preparation?! After ironman Taiwan, my left knee was quite weak, only done 1 30k hilly ride, 50% club training (mainly swim), 1 x 40k cycling time trial, 1 x 10k run, that's it. Logistic-wise, this time is much simpler, we stayed in the laguna beach hotel is where nearest the swim start, transition, finish area, pasta party, simple and easy, we had a connected room with Fred and Su so we still got the feeling of sharing the villa, we can also hit the beach and cheap cafe with walking distance! Nice! Our new friend Tim and ...

This is really true in my experience of Como hotels: paradise - is not just where you go, but where people understand you.

The motivation to do this race started from year 2005 as a supporter with Alan, Madoka, Yann and Andrew Loong, what a good date! I actually signed it up in 2007 but got pull out by work schedule, finally done this until year 2009. I didn't really write race report for so long and here is my story. This is the course just slightly longer than OD distance so physically i should absolutely capable of doing this one, just the part I've concerned on the descending the steep hills, Lucky me to test ride most of the course on Friday so the confidence was there after climbing and descending those short but steep hills but unlucky that I might catch flu after that 2hrs ride in the heat, sudden change of weather when HK is quite cool. Sat night and race morning was feeling quite sick but I still walking okay so let's give it a "Tri"! The swim layout was a 1.2k ocean swim in triangle layout plus 600m swim across lagun, race mood was super with MC and dance music ...

Yoga master Without climbing the mountain, we can go Yoga class in the morning, we have the same Yoga teacher and the class only have two of us. Felt like the postures were moving to more intermediate level as he known our level after the first class. After the class, we chated for a while during the watermelon time, he not only is a yoga teacher, but also a lifestyle promoter to promote the living with good physical and mental health, he has strong organic belief and his voice is very claim and peaceful. It doesn't convince me to go with his path but at some point I was inspired. I felt I catch a little trick in Yoga compare with scretching for sports. Again we went for the big breakfast, I miss the pool, it was super sunny day, but G want to visit the nearby temple, let's go and take a look! Goodbye Bali! After temple, I couldn't wait jumping back to the pool, for some swim for some shot, checked out at 1pm, time to go airport, and say goodbye to Swam, and to Bali, the Is...

We started the day by yoga class! The yoga teacher already waiting but only two of us attend the class, it was another very nice experience in doing Yoga and looking over the rice field and blue sky! Also very good to scretch our body by some simple yoga postures, breathing, inhale, focus and relax...watermelon and some lemongrass, furit serves after the class, I like this! The breakfast at the Chedi Club resturant is quite a lot even for both of us! There are glass of smoothies, bread/toast basket, fruit plate, sausage, egg, coffee, tea...and they are all from the organic farm in the resort!!! We spent the day in the swimming pool, swimming, taking pictures, while G busy reading the guide book to climb the volcano!!! Oh No... Climb the mountain?! She looked determinant, and ambitous! I actually prepared the gear, I packed windbreaker, head-light, power gel into my bag...G confirmed with Swam for the arrangement, 2:30am wake-up, 3am pickup to the starting point, 4am start walking so wi...

18 September - 20 September Honeymoon at The Chedi Club Ubud The limousine from The Chedi Club arrived at 12:30pm when we checked out the villa in our living room. Then we headed to the Ubud, the middle part of Bali, where we've been missing in the last five years. We grabbed from drinks and food from the mini-bar of The Gangsa so we could keep eating and drinking on the way to Ubud! The Chedi Club is at Tanah Gajah, 15mins away from the central of Ubud. It was surrounded by all sides by green rice fields, we were welcomed and greeted by our dedicated butler called Swam. Swam is a smart young guy I guess he is at late-20. He drove the buggy and showed us arround the facility in the resort and our room facility. The Chedi Club started since 2005, it was a private garden owned by the Indoesian architect and then he invited GHM group to invent it to the resort. It has about 20 villas and suites and they are all self-contained units. This is an extension of The Club at Legian concept, ...

16 September - 18 September It was about free activities for G family in the morning as they checked out and head to airport in the afternoon. Uluwatu visit So it set us free for the morning so we hired a car to go Uluwatu and G would like to look at the Bvlgari Resort and the Uluwatu temple. Uluwatu is the new developed area in the southern part of Bali, the cliff side resort alone the edge is spectacular! We spent some time on the cliff side lounge of Bvlgari for a drink and laidback with the sense for a while, that's really good to have sometime looking at the endless ocean and idle our mind. We then moved on to the Uluwatu Temple, the local people stopped us for the entry fee for the temple and the guide, he said he would protect us from the monkey. The price was resonable, and we were advised to take off the sunglassess as the monkey will grab it off and break it! The temple is not really special in compare with the temple in HK Lautau Island, as we cannot go inside so we just...

We joint John for the breakfast after swim, G was arranging tour for family. John was very happy and telling how exciting was Seminkya nightlife and everywhere fabulous he and Raymond had been explored! G family was sitting on the other side and waiting for the tour. The air soon to be clean up so Alanie and Keith accompanied the family to go sight-seeing in Uluwatu and Tanah Lot for the day. Chiam had already brought Stephanie, Lyn and Elsie to Seminkya for Spa and massage! So we stayed with John in Nusa Dua so we could finally enjoy the sun and sea with 45mins jogging to Grand Hyatt and then swim a little in the beach and quality 15mins sun bathing! Send all friends home in the airport! During John checked out in the lobby we met Irene, Sheran, Yan and Joy so we hired a van to go airport altogether! Sheran and Joy stayed for a few hours as they took HK Express... In the airport departure hall, we waited for Chiam and the girls, Chi and Nat, Winnie, Elaine, Lew and Fok already went in...

Honeymoon?! Not yet! Hui's family As that's the day my parent and my brother Eric will back to Hong Kong, we have our responsiblity to stay with them. We did have some plan to go sight-seeing but schedule was so tight as my dad is kind of consveratism, rather traditional, very safe, need to make sure arriving at the airport 2 hours before the flight. So we decided to have a leisure buffet breakfast and hanging around the hotel until they checked-out the room. My brother and Sing seized the last minutes to go shopping! Bill from Ritz-Carlton At the time, Made and his staff from Ritz arrived at Westin for our final payment, we invited them to our room and settled the bill, he also present their card and wedding gift to us which is a very nice wooden handicraft!! The invoice from Ritz-Carlton is very clearly breaking down all the beverages we've consumed in the party, their service is very professional, polite and even more than we were expecting! I hereby hightly recommended ...

Buffet breakfast at about 8am and our families already there! This morning would be pre-wedding shot and make-up trial by Ki and Cha Ling, afternoon would be wedding rehearsal in Ritz Carlton, evening would be sunset dinner with all friends just arrived! After the breakfast Alanie and Keith, Ki and Cha Ling arrived at our room, they are all the playful-minded happy people! G was easy to be influenced so she quickly got back the mood! By the time Cha Ling was seeing the dress of G and trying the make-up, Alanie and Keith brought Ki to walk around the Westin and look for some scene, I was typing G's complaint letter on the blackberry and sending to any room service manager, executive manager....anyone we could shot! A few minutes after pressing the send, my telephone ring and he was the Room Service Manager, acknowledging the receive of the email and understanding our problem, we agreed to talk about it during lunch break as we were busy preparing for the wedding shot, G didn't w...

Before the alarm clock ring, my dad already called me and said "We are just on the bus A12, how about you?" Of course I replied "Yes we wake up already!" I just washed my eyes and it was 5:40am. G and I both waked up, washed up, frankly I couldn't say we were happy in that morning. Sonic fat-Kin, the van driver, already arrived at our building on time, 6:15am, G wasn't ready yet, so I moved all pieces of luggage to the Van first... I put my wedding dress and shoes altogether with some photography/lighting equipments from our photographer Ki into one luggage, that's solely for wedding; I used an Orca triathlon training bag which big enough for all holiday clothes, that's solely for vocation. My hand-carry bag included the vintage film camera by Ki and freshly made mooncake by Mary as the gift of wedding. G had two luggage for all the clothes and wedding decorative materials, including our guestbooks, pre-wedding photo albums... We also had one box of ...