Collin Ng's Blog

It is my last entry of the year.  Has 2018 been a good year for me?  Well, it has been a so-so year with nothing much to shout about.  We kick-started the year with our signature event, Run For Light which went well.  We were then engaged to manage two run events, Narpani Run and The RAD Race which ended well too.  Other key events like 3Ten Run and Urban Aquathlon were staged well though sign up number did not meet our expectation.  Event scene in Singapore is getting tougher each year.                  On personal well being, I must admit I have been too laid back and save for periodic running, I practically don't do other form of exercises.  Noticeably, waistline has expanded somewhat and inevitably, few dreadful kgs are added too.  Yep, I must be watchful and jolly well buck up come the new year.  Health is wealth, nothing else matters.    What's in store for 2019?  As usual...

In Malay language, the older sibling in a family is respectfully addressed as 'abang' and the younger one is 'adik.  This is how it begins when abang and adik were once one big happy family.  Both brothers have grown up and adik decided to have his own family.  They went separate ways.  Adik settled for a smaller piece of the pie while his abang has the rest.  Among siblings and understandably too, they are always some arguments but each time, adik gave in because he advocates 'prosper-thy-neighbour' policy.  For the longest time, adik still has to depend on his abang's vast natural resources for some essentials to survive.  From time-to-time, wherever abang is not happy (or jealous with the rapid rise of adik's fortune), he will threaten to cut the essential supply.  Fortunately, this has remained a verbal threat which did not escalate to something catastrophic.   On the surface, abang and adik still remain very cordial to each othe...

It was still in the late 80s, I joined some of my friends to spend a short vacation in Batam.  Then, there were two resorts, namely Batam View Beach Resort and Turi Beach Beach Resort.. Both were quite pricey then, given there were not many good class resorts in the region and Bintan had yet to be developed as a tourist destination.   If I can remember well, a room night stay could have easily cost us around S$200 and it was in the late 80s where our wages were much lower then and competition was definitely less intense.  Batam View and Turi Beach were the only two good class resorts in the Nongsa area.  Finally, we chose Turi Beach, attracted by their standalone rustic wooden villas which has since been totally transformed into modern concrete blocks.  Batam View is a 5-storey building block which has commanding view of the South China Sea.  During our stay, we went to Batam View Beach Resort for their discotheque at the basement.  It was quite ...

If I can recall my first trip to Batam was either in 1985 or 1986.  I was still with KLM based at the airport.  A friend had suggested a weekend day trip to Batam which was already a ‘talked-about thingy’ in town.  One of the main attractions, if not the only attraction was the chance to purchase duty free items on the return.  I had no inkling on how this island so near Singapore was like and so, I joined the big wave of weekend crowd on one Sunday.  The departure was at Finger Pier Terminal in Tanjong Pagar.  The biggest ferry operator was Auto Batam (the company has changed few ownerships over the years and if I am not wrong, it is called Sindo now) and looking at the mad rush on weekends, they should be doing roaring business.  Personally, I will avoid big crowd if I can help it and I was in for a ‘rude shock’ when I arrived at Clifford Pier.  It was so packed like sardines and people were practically shoving each other to move in.  ...

Life was very simple when growing up in the 60s.  Our house was a no-frills type that came with no rooms and the common corridor was shared by rows of other households.  Our family of seven somehow managed to squeeze into this tiny house.  Our door was always open and so too for some of our neighbours.  As kids, the common corridor was our playground.  We chased after each other, we shouted at the top of our voice, we played 'masak masak' with the girls and we even managed to cycle along the narrow corridor without major collision.  Yep, some adults did not like our noise decibels and we were sometimes chased away. Dialects like Hokkien and Cantonese were commonly spoken and 'cursing' from the grown-ups was a common thingy.  We spoke Cantonese at home though we are Hokkien.  Communication with the other children was mostly in Hokkien too. I have had few childhood friends but we have lost contact completely when we moved out in the late 70s....

It is the last post that reflects on year 2017 before the clock strikes past midnight.  How has year 2017 been for me?  First off and with slight tinge of disappointment, some lofty targets set for the early part of the year were missed as we inched forward.  There was an ambitious plan to partner someone to launch a business proposal which I thought was was quite unique and definitely one of its kind here but the investors 'did not bite' despite our best presentation effort put forth.  Thus, the business idea has to put on back burner for now. 😞 On the event front, our signature run events like Run For Light and Urban Aquathlon were successfully launched.  While the bottomline was nothing to gloat about but I enjoyed the whole process for both events.  Run For Light and Urban Aquathlon will continue to be featured in year 2018 and of course, I am hoping for a better outing this time.  Though we initiated OCC 3Ten Run in 2015 but we decided not to...

Group pic on first day of ride in Balik Pulau  Time really flies and this was to be our 8th edition of our cycle cruise since our maiden trip in October 2013.  This time our adventure took us to Penang, Krabi and Phuket.  In our previous trips, we visited Penang and Phuket at least twice and Krabi was our first.  This trip was scheduled on 10 March where we flew with Silkair to Penang, cycled for 2 days and then joined Superstar Libra which will take us to sunny Krabi and Phuket to continue our cycling adventure. Beaten track with padi fields in between and mountains from a distance in Balik Pulau  We were supposed to have 32 of us including me as the tour leader but one had suddenly taken ill, thus 31 of us at last count.  There were few familiar faces in this trip.  Michelle and Aaron who did twice with us, Philip and his wife who did thrice and this time, they brought their younger daughter, Amanda along, Ronald, his wife an...

Nowadays sensation news, be it real or fake will reach to the masses almost in an instance, all thanks to the availability of social media platforms.  In the early years where the masses relied heavily on mainstream media for news feed and it means receiving it one day later at the earliest. How did we manage army mobilisation exercise in the 80s where even pager had yet to make an entrant to the communication sphere?  If I can remember well, there were two types of mobilisation, one is the 'silent mobilisation' and the other is 'open mobilisation'.  Silent mobilisation posed the biggest challenge to recall personnel back, given the tight time frame and the contrary, activating open mobilisation was rendered much easier.  The latter required a core team comprising person overall in-charge to second in-charge, to third in-charge, so on & so forth.  The I/Cs will be given a list of people's contacts to get in touch with once the recall was activated. ...

I have not been posting many articles on my blog for the entire year of 2016.  Yes, I have been too laid back I have to admit 😏.  However, no matter how laid back I can be over the one long year, I will always make it a point to post my last entry of the year before the clock strikes past midnight...yes, that is the ritual of sorts for me. Looking back at 2016.  The few milestones that I can be proud of should be the Compressport Rail Corridor Run in January and the blueseventy Aquathlon event at Orchid Country Club in July this year. On Compressport Rail Corridor Run, we were hoping to get 5,000 runners in our inaugural event - our collaboration with Compressport.  Boy, as we shouted more and especially the news from the authority announcing the closure of the green corridor belt for three years due to pipe laying project, we were able to capitalise on it by telling the running community that ours will be the last rail corridor race.  The sign up simply to...

Wow, this is my first post for 2016 and since it is 3 days before our national day, I will write something that relates to our national day (I'll try as I really do not have any specific subject to talk about). Last year was SG50 and it was celebrated in a big way, given it was our golden jubilee celebration. Alas, the demise of LKY who was at every of our NDP but sadly, he could not celebrate SG50 with us.  This year is SG51 and the celebration may be scaled down compared to last year, I can still feel the NDP mood among us.  Just few days ago, we organised a walk event for Canon Singapore with SG51 celebration in mind too.  The plan was to end the event with a national day song, Count On Me, Singapore to be sang by all.  There was no rehearsal and we just have to sing along which was led by one senior Canon employee.  I immediately felt the patriotism in me when the song was played.  I jumped on the stage and sang my heart out.  I don't sing well ...

This is my last posting for 2015 and typical of me, I will do it on the eve of the New Year before the clock strikes past midnight going into 2016.  My Chinese horoscope has indicated 2015 will be a good year for those born in the year of the tiger and, phew...I am among them.  No, I am not the superstitious type in case some think I am but 2015 on whole has proven to be not too bad a year for me.  That said, Chinese horoscope has indicated 2016 will not be that smooth sailing for those who were born in the tiger year.  Notwithstanding, I believe in working hard, be truthful to ourselves and to others and it does not matter what one's horoscope says.       When I decided to leave my comfort zone more than 3 years ago, where I used to draw a decent pay,  I was already contemplating to go into organising outdoor event or training related stuff.  Some concerned friends did advise against leaving my comfort zone to go into uncharted territory ...

Group Picture Taken At Ya Kun I have not been running SCMS event in the last two years until Feng messaged me to replace her in this morning Ekiden event under 'Team PainKillers' and I agreed right away since I didn't sign up many run events for this year.  There are 6 runners to the team and each of us will have to run 7 km to complete the 42 km distance and passing the sash to another runner when one runner holding the sash has reached the designated checkpoint.  In our team, I only know Daniel.  On the eve of the event, I managed to be introduced to Norman who will be taking over the sash from me.  The order of our relay team was as follows: Daniel will take the first leg, I will be the second runner followed by Norman, Andrew, Max and Raymond. Picture Taken at Padang I got up this morning at about 0345 hrs and drove to Leisure Mall to catch the shuttle bus which will take the Ekiden runners to their respective start points.  My start point was a...

Everyone should have encountered frightening moment at least once in their life.  I have had encountered few but I remember two incidents fairly well. That year was 1982 and I was still serving NS.  It was our hard earned 3 days rest & recreation trip (R&R) in Brisbane city after more than a month of army training in the wilderness.  We went to Dream World, it was already a highly developed outdoor entertainment park then.  My army mates and I were queuing up to board a boat which will take us through the man-made river and into the man-made safari.  At the entrance, there was this big notice warning us that a lion had escaped from the zoo and was on the loose.  I happened to read that notice but it didn't bother me.  As we were slowly moving, there were crocodiles in the river and some other animals.  We knew these were not real.  As we went into this man-made cave, it was quite dark and while the boat was gliding through, I saw a...

When we served our recruit days during NS stint, each of us was assigned a buddy.  Both buddies had to work together and if one happened to have erred, both were punished as a result.  It is called buddy system and I believe it should still be practised now. I was from the first mono-intake which means we did our recruit training and after passing out, continued on as guardsman vocation till we ROD in the same unit throughout our NS stint.  My unit was called 3 Guards located in the rustic Kranji area then.  The camp has since been re-located where the present Yew Tee HDB flats are.       Upon enlisting, everyone was assigned to their buddy but I had two buddies, as we were the remaining last three after evenly sorting out the rest.  Lang and Tong (not their real names) were my recruit days buddies.  Both used to live in the same neighbourhood and prior to enlistment, they know each other in their growing up days but they were not close ...

Australia is everything Singapore is not.  They have no shortage of land while we are land-scare. They have abundance natural resources while we have none of it.  They are generous with handouts to their citizens while we are definitely less generous.  Australia can afford to change five Prime Ministers in short span of five years but many of us here do not believe abrupt removal of Prime Minister one time too many will do us good.  Given their sheer size and wealth aplenty, they can afford to shut away from the outside world and still survive while we will sink almost immediately once we shut our doors.  Suffice to say, Australia is an ideal destination any immigrant would dream to settle on.       My first encounter with Australia was in 1982 and it was my first overseas trip.  It was not a holiday trip for I can barely afford as a young adult.  It was an army stint as a NS soldier. Australia was already a highly developed country w...

I am always been on the side of ruling party since the day I am allowed to vote.  PAP has been too domineering and in the early years, I can still remember when election was called, they were immediately returned to power as more than half of the seats were not contested by opposition parties.  It happened not once but I think at least twice.  Lives were much simpler then.  People were content with a roof over their head and enough to eat.  Without a hinterland after gaining full independence, the government under LKY were focused on making sure the 'needs' of the people more than the 'wants' were met.  We were a rapidly growing economy. We were named the 'Four Little Dragons' of Asia, an accolade we shared with Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. Lives are so much better now than before though we complain about high cost of living here.  Our people are better educated now and have travelled to many places.  Then, we were mostly relying on mains...

Everyone is talking about it and many say election will happen in September this year.  PM Lee did not attempt to hide saying it is soon in his last weekend NDP speech.  I say September is likely the month where our election will take place and I am certainly looking forward to it.  Already, opposition parties have started to make their rounds and some parties are still quibbling over who is to contest in which ward to avoid third corner fight. I live in MacPherson and it is now a single ward under incumbent, Tin Pei Ling from PAP.  This is going to be one of the hotly contested wards.  Nicole Seah of NSP then was making waves at this ward and I must admit she has held herself well despite her young age.  By my own admission, Tin Pei Ling did not fare as well as Nicole during the last election.  Nicole is no longer interested to contest and now both NSP and WP are laying claim to this ward.  WP is now a branded opposition other opposition parti...

It was a party thrown to the officers and crew onboard Renaissance One  We were still trading in Sabah water then and that year was 1994.  It was our first party celebration in appreciation to the Master, officers and crew for their support. Though I don't drink, I did drink a little so as not to disappoint the rest.  Everyone was in a party mood.  We played games, had a lot of fun and plenty of booze (non-stop, unfortunately).  The party just went on and on.  Some were highly intoxicated.  When the party was at its climax, someone reported a fight.  Dropping everything, I rushed off to the scene with a few of us.  One gaming crew was quite badly beaten up by a stronger deck & engine crew.  Before, we could even settle down, another fight broke out somewhere again.  We rushed over to check out.  Pandemonium was everywhere and it was akin to a riot onboard.  Again, another fight happened.  It was never ending. ...

It was on board one of our vessels, "Renaissance I" when a passenger complained that he felt something unnatural in the room.  Not long later, another one complained sighting familiar encounter.  Then, the Filipino crew claimed they saw something they were not supposed to see.  Soon, words went around that the ship was haunted.  Our boss was concerned it will affect our load and therefore, decided to engage a taoist priest (sifu) to exorcise the spirits. Through a recommendation, this particular 'sifu' was introduced to us.  My colleague and I brought him to the ship to conduct an inspection.  He had with him a small coffin which he carried in his hand.  When we were showing him around the ship, he will sometimes make a stop and then, placed the small coffin on the floor.  He will then open the coffin cover and then shut it, sensed around the place and then, continued on.  He repeated this few times.  After the inspection, he told us...

My note:  This is written by a former colleague in the cruising industry who is a retired master mariner and it appeared in the ST forum recently.  Given his training and profession, he has always stressed on maritime safety.  The recent Taiwan party incident which took 2 lives so far and sadly, more might follow has triggered him to pen his thought. It is my pleasure to append his article on my blog for the better guidance of the readers.     Quote At least two died and hundreds were injured in Taiwan when clouds of multi-coloured corn starch sprayed on the crowds exploded and engulfed the young revellers in flames ("S'porean among 500 injured in Taiwan festival fire". Monday, and "Colour Run to continue in Singapore", Thursday). The cause is likely to be cigarette lighters or heat from stage lights.  The manufacturer had marked the powder as "flammable" , but the organisers ignored the warning.  They said they had never heard that such an ac...