Collin Ng's Blog

It is the time of the year where I will post my last entry before the clock strikes past midnight into the new year.  In the first quarter of the year, I have decided to quit my full time job and go with my passion.  Having crossed half a century mark, it is a risk I must say and I should know better.  I have faced business failures and I won't want to be caught in a tight financial situation again.  Fear not, I told myself.  All I need is to manage my expectation and I should be fine. I like to organise outdoor events and this is my passion.  It is also my livelihood now.  With times on my side, I have had organised quite a number of cycling and hiking tours in the one year period.  Thanks to Sandy, I am pleased that I have the opportunity to collaborate with Star Cruises where we launched our first ever cruise and cycle tour which brought us to Phuket and Langkawi in October this year.  Following our successive maiden run, our second cr...

Note from me: On the eve of the New Year, this contribution is from a good friend of mine who prefers to stay anonymous and I am pleased to post it on my blog.   Quote A bespectacled old lady walked up to me and thrust a packet of dried herbs under my nose, and without waiting for any response from me, pointed at a date and said, “what’s this?” (in mandarin). In a flash, I looked at what I was wearing – a purple and pink sweater – and wondered if she could have considered me an NTUC staff. “Cannot be what,” I thought to myself. But then since the packet was still under my nose and her forefinger was still poking at “Nov” and she was still asking me, “what’s this ah?” I decided to heck it and told her (in mandarin) that it means the month of November 2014. She didn’t say a word of thanks and just shuffled away. I also walked on my way but I was surprised at my subsequent thoughts. Initially, I was irritated at such an ungrateful and rude woman. Golly, do such uncouth p...

The recent ‘Little India’ incident is a wake-up call and it shows that we can never take things for granted no matter how secure and safe our city is.  We must always be vigilant and be prepared.  Ours is a not a perfect place, definitely not but I won’t swoop this place with another place in any part of the world.  If I hope to land a perfect place, it can only appear in my dream.  I remember I was 20 and was serving NS.  We were sent to Australia for a month or so training stint.  That year was 1982.  In between training, we had one day rest & recreation (R&R) in this small town called Rockhampton.  My army buddies and I were happily roaming the town.  We walked past a pub and few white men who had a drink too much suddenly barged out.  We did not even provoke them but they started to call us “names” and even challenged us to a fight.  We were on foreign soil and we were definitely out-numbered.  We just kept q...

I should be among the disgruntled lot but when I dug deeper, I did not.  It was tough growing up in the 60s and 70s with 4 other siblings.  Our parents are illiterate and birth control was never their agenda as we popped up one or two years apart of each other.  I am the second in the family.  We were not taught values from day one as life was a struggle for us.  The neighbourhood we were in was shady where gang fights were norm.  I remember I was bullied by a teenage gangster who threw cigarette into my singlet for no rhyme or reason.  I was about ten then.  That gangster still lives around the neighbourhood but he is an old man now.  I still see him on few occasions.  One can forgive but will never forget.  The flat we were living in was one-hall type with a common corridor shared by all.  Even a fart can be heard from far.  There is no room for privacy, we slept in the hall and sometimes my brothers and I slept in the...

After our run, me on left, Catherine, Dora, Howie and CK It is the biggest marathon event in Singapore, probably in the region too.  I first ran my first Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore event (SCMS) in 2007 where I participated in the 10 km run and since then, it has been a yearly ritual for me.  It was my third half marathon run with SCMS.  My first was in 2009 where I clocked 1 hr 56 mins, second was last year where I paced Winnie and this year's run was to be my third.  I did 2 full marathons at SCMS too.  I was hoping to clock my personal best for this event and if possible, go under 1 hour 50 mins - a tall order to say the least.  To prepare for that, I had been doing more runs with my run kakis.     SCMS 2013 was scheduled on 1 Dec 2013, Sunday and as expected, participants were over 50,000 strong.  The 21 km event attracted 12,000 runners and the flag off was at the bridge that will lead us to Sentosa.  The 21 km rou...