Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Selamat Hari Raya


To dear friends and readers,

Wishing my muslim friends a blessed 'Hari Raya'



Langkawi Retreat 2008


Geopark hotel in Langkawi


Aqua yoga

Tracy having a break




In deep thoughts....





Froo relaxing at the waterfalls.... :)

Froo Froo took over my place in the cable ride.





Back on dry land safe and sound. :0) Love to travel, just not to crazy about flying high in the air. The trip was good fun and it was great to see Wei Ling and Paalu again. Unfortunately after all the adventure in Langkawi, I caught a very bad cold and sorethroat.

I think it was all the travelling in and out of the plane, and having to wake up early in the mornings. The start of the journey was already pretty tiring. I arrived at 12.15am at Boulevard Hotel, Mid Valley in KL. The hotel was very nice and cost $175 RM per room per night. The room was spacious, clean and the washroom pleasant enough to sit in and read the papers during the 'business' hour. I stayed with Tracy in the same room, pre warned her about my tendency to talk in my sleep plus snoring. She was too tired to think what I told her. All she remembered when I spoke to her was how she was upset on losing her IPOD before falling back to sleep again.

We woke up early shortly after my arrival at 4.30am. Our taxis were arriving at 6am sharp for our 8am flight. So much for my holiday snooze! We dragged our feet to the lobby and all we could think of was bed, bed, bed, bed.....

The flight to Langkawi was okay. I've been to Langkawi before and thought it was pretty okay. At least we had a programme to follow on arrival. Paalu and Wei Ling was there to receive us. We drove to GeoPark Hotel, on arrival the cable car hanging in the clouds caught my attention. Heights, flying in the air and cable cars are not my strongest points in life. I felt nauseated looking at the cable cars riding to and fro in the air. The girls started teasing me and said I had to get on it. I just told them they'd have to knocked me out and tie me up first.

GeoPark hotel was surrounded by little retail shops,lovely gardens,various restaurants,a small size swimming pool and animal pets. The rooms were pleasant and clean. We started the afternoon off with an introduction to every body in the group. The attendants were yoga teachers and students, all with either 1 year or a few years experience in yoga. After the yoga session, my sorethroat was feeling all itchy and tight already. I had to miss going out in the night. I don't think I missed anything since the girls came back with just a few buys and some dried goods.

We had another early night and woke up at 5am for the 6.30am ashtanga vinyasa at the beach. The things we do for yoga!!!!! Luckily my throat felt better that morning. Thinking I had fully recovered, I decided to join the group. It was a lovely beach and lucky us, there weren't any sandflies!!!!! It was very different to do yoga on the beach. The sands kept sliding into my yoga mat and within 15 minutes, I had sands all over my hands and legs. But having to do it by the sea was so nice. The sound of the ocean waves was soothing and blue skies were amazing. It was definitely worth it! Paalu got us to do a few yoga moves that I haven't seen before but it was fun. One of students was a professional photographer, and the shots he took were amazing. There was a shot where we had to do headstands near the shoreline. That was hard!!!! We were doing heandstand on a slope close to the seashore and trying to kick the legs up was very challenging.

For the rest of the day, we studied numerology and how numbers (when you calculated it accordingly) affects our destinys and characters. Very interesting! After that we did more yoga asanas (Okay, I think as a yoga teacher I was at MAX doing all the yogas for the week!!!) and then aqua yoga. I was achy and my cold returned in the evening. I shouldn't have gone into the pool. As the saying goes, 'No pain no gain'.

We left Langkawi the next day. I felt the weekend was over too quickly. Can't believe I'm back in Brunei already. Felt like I never left!

Back in KL, we just went shopping. What else other than to eat and shop? Bought more yoga CDs and books. Didn't get to go to Kinokuniya (Is that the right spelling for it?) as I was in KL for a night only.

So, back in Brunei now with a very bad cold and sorethroat. Had to cancel my classes and stay in bed. I did think I was better last night but woke up early this morning and sounded worse than a toad. I was croaking and would have sounded like a dying frog if I tried to conduct a class. Sorry guys! But hopefully I will see you soon after 1st day of Hari Raya.

Ps. Tracy finally found her ipod in her 'kamsumui' bag. I have no clue why she left it 'there'.