Collin Ng's Blog

I was in my mid 20s, then I was working as passenger handling officer with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines at the airport.  I have had encountered many unpleasant situations with passengers but I still remember this one quite well, that year should be in 1987.  I was on the afternoon shift but I came to office early.  I received a call from the counter that a passenger arrived after the closure of the check-in and demanded to be checked in.  Our flight was heading to Jakarta.  I then radioed my Station Manager, Henk van Dinther who was handling the flight if he could allow one 'last minute passenger' and approval was granted.  I rushed straight down to process the check-in.  She was a young American lady, not exactly nice in her disposition when I met her.  As I was helping to expedite with the check-in and before handling over the boarding pass to her, I asked for the airpo...

Group picture before rolling off The Asia continent is the largest land mass in the world and if this cycling event has sounded intimidating to many, the opposite is actually true.   It was to be my first organising a leisure cycling tour to this idyllic region in Malaysia from Singapore.   Instead of cycling from Singapore and navigating through the busy road in Johor Bahru, I chose to transport everyone by coach and then commenced our cycle in Pekan Nenas town in Pontian region.   This is the safest option and that is key. In all there were 18 of us comprising 15 ladies and five men including me and the total distance covered was about 70 km and over two days.   It was a leisure ride, not meant for speedsters and the route is mostly flat.   But importantly, there was no heavy traffic to contend with. The cycling tour was scheduled on 8 June, Saturday and we had to gather outside Outram MRT station for our coach by 0630 hrs. ...

I thought last year Sundown will be my last time running the full marathon when I clocked my personal time but for reasons not known to me either, I decided to sign up for it again.  Then Dora also signed up and CK was convinced by her to give this another shot.  Chua and Catherine needed no coaxing, it was a kind of a ritual for them.    This time, I didn't train much in running as I was involved more into cycling.  The gruelling 'Baan Dada Charity Ride' in Thailand in March this year followed by OCBC Super Challenge in April.  The longest distance in training I did was 15km.  Sheepishly, I was hoping the cycling mileage I have clocked can sort of make up for it...fingers crossed. For the first time, Sundown Marathon 2013 separated the 10 km & 21 km (grouped as one) event and the 42 km event which I thought was a wise move, for better crowd control though logistically...