This entry is a little different to the others as I won't actually rank anything, I'm just listing down stuff from number 30 to number 1 based on when they happened. This was my favourite entry to work on, just looking back at the things I've done in this decade, remember all the good times and the bad and I just wanted to share a few stuff that did happen to me. I've actually been working on this for a few months so if it feels disjointed, sorry about that!
So here is my list of the 30 things I've done for this decade of 2010's, as I write this brining in the new decade while here in Tokyo, Japan, celebrating my 30th birthday here. The 20s were good to me!
30) Graduated from ITE (March 2010)
I'll be honest, when I started in ITE, I didn't think it would go well for me. For those who don't know, ITE students here in Singapore tend to be looked down upon because we never got the good grades in Secondary School.
I really enjoyed my two years there. Made a lot of friends which was a change from primary/secondary school days, some of which I still keep in contact with. I was proud of my time there and it set me on my way in the Accounting field.
29) Trip to Vancouver & Calgary in Canada (June 2010)
This was my third visit to Canada. My two previous visits back in 2001 and 2005 were just to Vancouver so this one was more special as I got to visit Calgary for the first time and it's become one of my favorite cities I've ever visited. There's not much going on there but that's the kind of places I can see myself staying at. The weather however scares me.
It was just before I started my two years of National Service with the Singapore Army. So it was nice to see parts of Vancouver and Calgary with my family there. My favourite part of the trip was visiting Banff. It might one of the most beautiful parts of the world I've ever seen. The mountain area was amazing to see abd experience near the top and to think I didn't even get to see Lake Louise!
28) Properly started my F1 model car collection (Early 2010)
I've always been an F1 fan and I did buy a few 1:43 F1 model when I was younger but started playing around with it when those models are really just meant for displays and well just collecting.
So in early 2010, having saved some money, I started to buy a few cars. And I bought some more. And the collection grew from there. Thousands have been spent and as we speak, I now have 99 1:43 F1 model cars. Yup.
27) Enlisted in the Army (August 2010)
August 2nd 2010. The day I enlisted. Giving up my pink IC for the army green IC for two years. I thought I would suffer and dread those two years.
It was the opposite. I didn't suffer as much and I learnt a lot from my two years there. I've learnt a lot of life lessons and have continued to use them 8 years after finishing my service. I still don the green uniform fir my Reservist, and will be doing my 6th of 10 cycles in early January 2020.
26) Bought my first Camera (Febuary 2011)
A lot of money was spent on this but it was well worth it. I got my first Camera and it was actually a DSLR camera, mainly to capture pictures of F1 cars but I would end up using it for more things. The camera was a Nikon D5100.
I thought myself how to use the camera which wasn't the best ideas but I can at least say that I learnt it the hard way, by doing it myself with a lot of practice. The camera should have only lasted a good 5-6 years but it was still going strong for me right up till this past October when the renovation workers at my house carelessly moved around my stuff and damaged my Camera!
I did enjoy taking pictures of the places I visited like Melbourne, San Francisco, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo and many more. Sure most of the time it was for F1 races but I also got some good pictures out of it from New Japan wrestling events, gaming and comic conventions. I had my fun but it does suck not having a camera with me on this trip I'm on at the moment.
25) First F1 Grand Prix race live (September 2011)
I've been an F1 fan all my life but it was only until 2011 that I got to see a race live in person and not my usual way of watching on the TV. And when I had that experience of watching it live, I was hooked. Every year since then, I've watched the Singapore GP live in person.
If you're wondering why it took me forever, well F1 tickets aren't the cheapest things in the world sadly, especially those in regards to the Singapore GP, touted as one of the most expensive races to visit. It has a great atmosphere and some nice support races but you don't really get much worth out of your seats. You do get to see the cars more closer than other places, albeit for a few seconds. Still, that first race got the ball rolling for me and as we speak, I've been to 16 F1 races and even 2 IndyCar races. Speaking of the second race...
24) Went to Melbourne for the first time to watch the F1 Australian GP (March 2012)
The second F1 race I saw live was actually in Albert Park, Melbourne! And I really enjoyed my time there, it was so much fun, way better than the Singapore GP I'd say because the focus is on the racing side of things and car related stuff unlike the concerts back home, most of which I don't really care about.
And not just that, there's a driver's autograph session for everyone unlike having to be a selected few for the Singapore GP and there's side events on the Thursday too! I'd really recommend a visit to Melbourne for anyone and the race itself.
I enjoyed exploring the city too, really liked it. There's just too much to see and do, I usually don't get all the things I want to see and do finished in time. Great Ocean Road is a must see for anyone wanting to visit Melbourne in the future, it's a true wonder to see.
23) ORD Loh! Califronia trip after completing 2-year National Service (August 2012)
August 1st 2012, that's the day I finished my National Service for the Singapore Army so how did I celebrate my new found freedom? By getting on a plane 2 days later for a 16 hour flight to San Francisco, California, USA for two months!
Had a lot of fun spending my time there with my family who I hadn't visited in a long while. From Golden Gate to Cliff Cave, Berkeley to Sacramento and even a road trip down to Burbank to see the sights of Los Angeles and even visit Disneyland over in SCU! It was nice to just relax and not worry about anything in the world and just live life in America, going to Costco to get stuff and eating the good stuff like In N Out and Taco Bell! Can't wait for my next visit there, especially to see my nephew and niece someday!
I also got to watch an IndyCar race in Sonoma which was really cool. The circuit was amazing, you could see 70% from anywhere. It was also one of my most favourite races ever as I got to see my favourite IndyCar driver Ryan Briscoe, the same guy responsible for getting me hooked onto IndyCar in the first place, take his final race win in Sonoma before leaving the series a year later.
I don't care if I was the only idiot jumping up and down when he took the chequered flag in first place but that's what racing is about, you gotta be there for the good times and I was there to see my guy win, no one will ever take that away from me. He hadn't won a race in 2 years as well so that was perfect timing.
22) Started life as an SIM student (October 2012)
After life in the army, it was back to school and I enrolled into Singapore Institute of Management (SIM) for my Accounting studies, first Diploma and then Degree. The first two years of Diploma life was fun, got me ready for the Uni life later on and made a lot of new friends there. And as we speak, I am still a student in SIM.
Yup. Maybe enrolling into a programme from University of London wasn't the smartest idea but I intended on graduating from it this year and finish it right.
But I'm grateful for my time there. I've made so many good friends there and still talk to some of them now. Some I even consider my closest friends these days, you know who you are and I appreciate what you guys have done for me all these years.
21) Went to Kuala Lumpur for the F1 Malaysian GP, three visits in six years (April 2013)
So for some reason, it never crossed my mind to visit Sepang for the F1 race over in Kuala Lumpur. I mean the races have been held since 1999 and I was already watching F1 at that time and tickets for the Malaysian GP were some of the cheapest I've ever seen. And no matter which seat you took, you're almost guaranteed a good view, sometimes even 60% of the track itself. That's the beauty of visiting a natural circuit and not a street circuit.
The first year was alright but the second and third visits were even better (2015 and the last Malaysian GP in 2017). I had seats at Turn 1 for both those races and to date, I still think those were the best seats I've had watching a race. Overtaking galore going down into Turn 1 and sometimes Turn 2 and with that a few collisions along the way too. And also the race winning move from Max Verstappen on Lewis Hamilton in the 2017 race. I do hope Sepang gets an F1 race back sometime in the future, I really wouldn't mind making the trip down.
20) Go karting with F1 legend David Coulthard (September 2013)
This one was surreal. I tried my luck in a contest, not thinking I'd win it. They picked 5 people, and of those 5, 4 of them won because they shared videos of them doing go-karting. The last one? Well it was my picture of my F1 collection, which the people in charge said they were impressed with and liked it the best. Told you I was the biggest F1 fan out there!
It was cool to meet the legend himself, David Coulthard. I had been a fan of his during the McLaren days and of course I brought a long my F1 model car and his book for him to sign. It felt surreal just even having the chance to chat to him. Like his reputation, he was a pure gentleman. A real pleasure to speak to. Must be those Scottish genes.
I managed to make the top class final but I was clearly the slowest of that bunch as I was the only one in that group to have not done any proper go-karting, but I guess it said something that I even made the main final while some with more experience than me ended up slower than me. I was just having my own race, I managed to be faster than another guy which was nice. And at the end, Coulthard decided to wait at the line to let everyone pass him so I thought I'd have a moment. I slowed down right next to him and mention to him about a little sprint race which he was more than happy to do. He won but just by 0.04s. We had a good laugh about it. Still one of my favourite things I got to do ever. Thank you UBS for that moment!
19) Diploma Gradutation (May 2014)
We did it!
18) Watched a WWE show and an IndyCar race on back to back days in the United States (August 2014)
After graduating with a Diploma, my parents thought I should give my cousins a visit and off I went to California yet again. Another two month stay, but also managed to squeeze in a short trip to Calgary to see my aunt there. 2014 sure was a crazy year, visiting 3 different countries, Australia, USA and Canada!
When I came back, the next two days were just adrenaline packed. First up I got to see a WWE show at the old Acro Arean in Sacramento. I had always wanted to see a show in it's home base in the US so it was cool to experience it with the Sacramento crowd. The show was great!
The next day it was off to Sonoma Valley for the IndyCar race. The first time I was there, I sat at the pit grandstand but this time I had the action seat, Turn 2 where quite a number of overtakes were happening and I could see about 75% of the circuit. This time it was Scott Dixon who won the race. still enjoyed it.
17) Watched a Football match live for the first time (August 2014)
Also during my trip to California my cousins and I managed to catch a football (soccer) match in Berkeley. Not just some random friendly too, it was for the ICC tournament, the biggest pre-season tournament out there. It was between Real Madrid and Inter Milan, two of the biggest European teams in the world doing battle in California.
The stadium was huge! 60,000+ fans jammed packed! Most of them were obviously cheering for Madrid but of course my hatred for them lead me to cheer for Milan, especially because they had Nemanja Vidic on their side who used to play for Manchester United. Madrid didn't bring all of it's top stars but they did bring Gareth Bale who I'm still a fan of, and he did score a great goal. Milan equalised and we got a good old penalty shootout which Inter won thankfully haha. Since then I've watched a few more matches but none involving my team Manchester United. Until this year.
16) Saw a Stand-up Comedy show and a Concert (May 2015)
I love stand up comedy and I love music so it was only a matter of time before I caught a show for both genres live. On the comedy side of things, it had to be a Russell Peters show. He was on fire that first time I saw him. Really enjoyed the show, I was laughing my ass off. I went to see him again a year later. Kevin Hart was another one I saw and he was amazing too. I missed a chance to watch Gabirel Igelasis, big fan of his stuff too.
A few weeks later I finally saw a proper concert. And I meant a proper one because the ones at the Singapore GP because they usually only lasted an hours or so. Still it was cool to see all these artists live in action for once instead of the radio and I had fun listening to them. For the mini concerts at the Singapore GP, I've seen the likes of:
- Shakira (2011)
- G-Dragon (2011)
- Maroon 5 (2012, 2015)
- Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds (2012)
- Katy Perry (2012)
- The Dhol Foundation (2013)
- Ziggy Marley (2014)
- The Sam Willows (2015)
- Tabitha Nauser (2017)
- The Lion City Boy (2018)
- Liam Gallgher (2018)
- Muse (2019)
- Gwen Stefani (2019)
Of those, obviously my two favourites were the two whose music I listen to all the time, that being Noel and Liam Gallagher, formerly of Oasis (my favourite musical band of all time). I had a blast seeing them live for once having listened to their songs all these time.
As for an actual concert, I got to see another of my favourite musicians from Manchester, that being Johnny Marr. My favourite kind of music are the UK rock ones, especially those who still belive in good ol rock and roll with guitars so guys like Marr, the Gallagher brothers, Kasabian and Stereophonics are my kind of music. So far Johnny's gig is still the only one I've been to.
15) Meeting my hereos (2010-2019)
So I changed an entry here just to fit this in because I had no idea how to put this one in. I've been lucky enough to bump into and meet many F1 drivers and wrestlers all of them I look up to because of they are the true brave warriors walking amongst us. The F1 guys are always fighting a beast like an F1 car for over two hours with all the stress and pressure that goes into these races and all the information they have to deal with. I'll never understand how they do it but will continue to appreciate the art of racing. And the wrestlers, they continue to sacrifice their bodies for our entertainment and while many will continue to bash them, I will always appreciate the art of wrestling.
First up the racing guys, be it F1, V8 Supercars or anything else (but I've mainly seen those guys). The list of drivers I've met is actually longer than I thought so here it goes:
- Sebastien Bourdais (2008 at a Puma store)
- Sebastian Vettel (2008 at the same Puma store a few hours later after meeting Bourdais)
- Jarno Trulli (2009 at a Toyota meet and greet session)
- Heikki Kovalainen (2011 at Marina Square)
- Nico Hulkenberg (2011 at Orchard Road meet & greet)
- Narian Karthikeyan (2011 on the way to the circuit)
- Sebastian Vettel (2012 at the Australian GP autograph session)
- Mark Webber (2012 at the Australian GP autograph session)
- Sergio Perez (2012 at the Australian GP autograph session)
- Garth Tander (2012 at the Australian GP paddock area)
- Heinz-Harald Frentzen (2012 at the Australian GP support series paddock area)
- Romain Grosjean (2012 at the Melbourne airport)
- Bruno Senna (2012 at the Melbourne airpot)
- Fernando Alonso (2013 at the Kuala Lumpur airport)
- David Coulthard (2013 at the UBS go kart event)
- James Calado (2013 on the way to the circuit)
- Valtteri Bottas (2014 at the Australian GP autograph session)
- Felipe Massa (2014 at the Australian GP autograph session)
- Will Davison (2014 at the Australian GP autograph session)
- Lee Holdsworth (2014 at the Australian GP autograph session)
- Scott McLaughlin (2014 at the Australian GP autograph session)
- Criag Lowndes (2014 at the Australian GP autograph session)
- Mark Webber (2014 at the Australian GP autograph session)
- Zsolt Baumgartner (2014 at the Australian GP autograph session)
- Alexander Rossi (2014 on the way to the circuit in Singapore)
- Jean Eric Vergne (2014 at the Singapore GP entrance)
- Daniil Kvyat (2014 at the Singapore GP entrance)
- Marcus Ericsson (2014 at the Singapore GP entrance)
- Criag Lowndes (2014 at the Singapore GP at a random bridge)
- Max Verstappen (2015 at a meet and greet in Singapore)
- Daniel Ricciardo (2015 at a meet and greet in Singapore)
- Karun Chandhok (2016 at the Singapore GP entrance)
- Carlos Sainz (2016 at the Singapore GP entrance)
- Daniel Ricciardo (2016 at the Singapore GP entrance)
- Felipe Nasr (2016 at the Singapore GP entrance)
- Jolyon Palmer (2016 at the Singapore GP entrance)
- Daniil Kvyat (2019 at the Singapore GP entrance)
- Antonio Giovinazzi (2019 at the Singapore GP entrance)
And also for a few seconds that I saw them I got Paul di Resta, Nico Hulkenberg (twice), Charles Pic, Kamui Kobayashi, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Daniel Ricciardo to sign a page or one of my F1 car models. And also a shoutout to my friends Yuey Tan and Claire Jedrek, when I met them I was just a fan and they've always been nice to me and now consider me a friend so thanks for that!
As for the wrestlers, the list isn't that long but still a few I was lucky enough to see, mostly the New Japan Pro Wrestling guys:
- Booker T (2011 at a meet and greet in Singapore)
- Daniel Bryan (2015 at a meet and greet in Singapore)
- Emma (2017 at the airport)
- Rocky Romero (2018 near the Tokyo Dome)
- Tama Tonga (2018 near the Tokyo Dome)
- Michael Elgin (2018 near the Tokyo Dome)
- Hiku Leo (2018 near the Tokyo Dome)
- Minoru Suzuki (2018 at his store in Harajuku)
- Kenny Omega (2018 at the Haoming store)
- Marty Scurll (2018 twice in a day, first at a signing and then at a hotel lobby)
- Trent Berreta (2018 at a hotel)
- Will Ospreay (2018 at a hotel)
- Gado and Jedo (2018 at a hotel)
- Jay White (2018 at a McDonalds of all places)
- Taka Michinoku (2018 at G1 climax meet and greet)
Yeah this entry took me a long time to check everything. Didn't want to miss anyone out.
14) First visit to Japan for the F1 Japanese Grand Prix (October 2015)
After so many times of resisting the idea, I finally made the trip to Japan. I didn't think there was much for me there but how wrong was I. I fell in love with the country, it was amazing. The people were always nice even though I couldn't speak their language and always helpful too. There were plenty of thing that I would see, especially those relating to wrestling, racing, video games or Pokemon.
I enjoyed my visit to Tokyo so much, it's become a yearly thing for me to visit Tokyo now. I've been there every year since, usually for New Years. But for the first visit, I was also in Nagoya to watch the Japanese F1 GP at Suzuka. The circuit was probably the best I've ever seen, every view was amazing, rain or shine. The atmosphere was electric, well worth the visit. Just the travelling and the language can be a pain.
13) Saw Star Wars at Midnight! (December 2015)
Before this, I've never actually watched a movie at the stroke of midnight but for the first Star Wars movie in 12 years or so, I had to catch it right away. And The Force Awakens was amazing. Well worth going for a midnight show. For the next two Star Wars movie, we'd watch it on opening day as well, just so we wouldn't get spoiled and while others may have disliked the next two entries, I quite enjoyed them.
12) Visit to Bangkok (April 2016)
I never thought I'd go to Bangkok as it just seems like there was nothing much for me to see there. And it was true, there really was nothing for me there. I followed my brother who was there to host an event. Nice place but it's just not for me.
11) Saw a New Japan Pro Wrestling show (June 2016)
Second visit to Tokyo, did most of the same stuff except for one thing, which was to see a wrestling show live. At this point I still wasn't familiar with New Japan but I knew about it and started having an interest in it just because AJ Styles, one of my favourite wrestlers of all time, had just joined the company.
I was impressed with the whole show even though I didn't know most of the guys there. I did recognize a few like Matt Sydal, Rocky Romero, Sanada, Will Ospreay and Juice Robinson to name a few. I started to follow NJPW a little more closely after that and now I'm a fan of their product, having seen a few more shows and attended the last two Wrestle Kingdoms (their biggest shows of the year) and days away from making it three in a row.
10) Joined a Pokemon TCG event for the first time since returning to the game (October 2016)
I've always been a Pokemon and never stopped playing the video games but I did stop playing the TCG for many years. I started when the very first Base set came out in 1999 and continued collecting and playing cards up until 2003 when I started to focus more on my studies. So one day out of the blue, my brother and I decided, let's start collecting Pokemon cards again. I bought a theme deck (the one with Creep Show Gengar in it) and got hooked again. I started learning the game again on the online version PTCGO and I knew, I had to get back into it.
So when I chanced upon a post from Maxsoft about this Pre-Release event for the Evolution set, I just had to try my luck and see what this was about. I started watching Pokemon TCG videos online to see what this event was about, and the first one I saw was TrainerTV (shoutout to my friend Aaron, he's still doing amazing videos and getting the channel back).
I went into the event knowing a bit more and just wanting to have fun and I did. I had some fun games and got to meet some cool new people who had the same interest as me. I went for the next Pre Release event, and the next one, and the next one, and since then my life has changed. Now I'm playing the game weekly having met a lot of friends, locally and overseas, and really enjoyed being a part of the Pokemon TCG community. This may have been the best thing to happen to me, this little hobby ended up with me making so many friends and now trying to make this hobby into something even more. I'm now doing stats work for the Singapore guys but also internationally with the PokeStats crew.
9) Won Pokemon TCG weekly league event for the first time (October 2017)
I'll be honest, I wasn't very good at the game when I started out, I didn't know what I was doing most of the time. I didn't quite understand a few things. Having learnt the game a little better online, watching videos and building better decks, I could see I was improving in the game, starting to consistently get 2 wins out of 3 games in the league games each week but still no 3-0 record.
That changed in October. I was still on Metagross-GX but I decided to build a new version with the recently released Zoroark-GX to add draw power and a secondary attacker. That idea of mine worked and I won all three games and for the first time ended up first out of 20+ players at a local league. Since then I've won local leagues a few more times and recently won a few bigger tournaments, namely a League Challenge and our own Singapore Pro Circuit Invitational event.
8) Watched New Japan's two biggest PPVs - Wrestle Kingdom and G1 Climax (2018)
The New Years trip to Tokyo has been an annual thing now, this being the 3rd year in a row I'm hear for it but also to watch New Japan's biggest event of the year, their Wrestle Kingdom event every January 4th so a nice combo of a New Years/My Birthday/Wrestle Kingdom trip.
Tokyo Dome is a huge place, 40,00 of us wrestling fans there sitting in for 3-4 hours to watch some of the best wrestling anywhere in the world and since it was the big event, these guys tend to step up their games and deliver some of the best matches of the year. This first one in 2018 was special as one of my favourite wrestlers of all time, Chris Jericho, was making a special one off appearance (or so we thought) for New Japan to wrestle his fellow Winnipegian Kenny Omega. It was genuinely one of the best matches I've seen.
Later that year, I went to Tokyo again in August to visit my brother and to watch the second biggest event New Japan would host, the G1 Climax finals. The G1 was a long tournament that runs from June to August to see who would earn the chance to face the World Champion at the big show, Wrestle Kingdom. There we got to see a classic, Omega vs Ibushi and also Okada vs Tanahashi. Two amazing matches in back to back nights.
7) Got snowed on for the first time since 2005 (January 2019)
Back in Tokyo earlier in the year and we made the trip over to Nikko. And what did we see when we reached the top of the mountain area? Snow! And better yet, it started snowing! This was the first time I had been properly snowed on since 2005 back in Vancouver. Do the maths, that was a long 14 years ago! It felt nice touching snow again. The coolest thing I saw was this waterfall but instead of water falling, it was snow!
6) Made Top 8 at the Singapore SPE event (May 2019)
This was a very nice and welcome surprise to happen! At this point, I still hadn't really achieved much in the game itself. Just one top 8 finish at a League Challenge and that was all the championship points I have ever scored, just 8CP to my name going into this event. I had been practising a lot trying to refine my Reshiram & Charizard-GX deck and felt quite good about the deck but still, I didn't think much about how I'd do. I had just finished my year end exams the week prior anyway.
What ended up happening was something even I couldn't imagine would happen. I started out with a win but would end up losing my next two matches. So after 3 rounds, I was sitting at a 1/2/0 record, pretty much little to no hope of getting a top 8 but possibly still enough for a top 16 finish and some CP if I can win out my matches and just don't lose. I ended up winning the rest of my remaining rounds, 4 round wins in a row to put me 5/2/0 after 7 swiss rounds.
When they announced the top 8, I was shocked to hear my name in 8th place. We had done some maths and figured out that I might just miss out because of my weak resistance but what saved me was the fact that two guys who had to play a win and in match decided to take a draw thinking they were safe to get in but somehow they didn't factor in a 5/2/0 possibly making it. So there we were, little old me would play against one of the top players in Oceania and Singapore, Jit Min, in top 8. Sure I lost but I did my best. And hey now I do have an achievement next to my name in this game.
5) Saying goodbye to my cousin Jaggi (June 2019)
This hit me the hardest out of anything to have ever happened. Growing up there was always just the three of us kids in our own age group in my mother's side of the family, myself, my brother and my cousin Jaggi. We grew up with each other, us often staying with him after our classes, watching TV, playing games, going on adventures. You name it, we did it.
So it hit me very hard to get the phone call on June 11th from my uncle to tell me that my dear cousin Jaggi had passed away so suddenly. He was only 33 years old too. I had last seen him at the re-opening of his and my uncle's shop, named after him, Jaggi's at it's original spot in race course. He was busy that day and I remember the last thing he said to me was "thanks for coming and no worries, we always have another time to catch up yeah?". Sadly we never did get that time.
I just couldn't understand how a healthy 33 year old could suddenly succumb to a stroke. It's been months and there's not a single day that I don't think about him nor does my mother or my brother and obviously his immediate family, especially his daughter and his younger brother who I would stay with for the next two months after his passing. Saying goodbye to him was the hardest thing I ever did in my life.
And till his day, I'm still very affected by his passing. I started feeling something weird, I could feel chest pains and was worried something might happen to me too. Turns out it was just heart palpitations. I still do feel chest pains once in a while, even these days when I'm in Japan. We did a checkup and the doctor said I was fine, nothing to be worried about. But his passing has made me very paranoid, and I'll admit, I still do overthink things. Why does my chest feel this way? Why am I feeling pains in these places? Why does my head hurt?
So yes, his passing has changed me. And I'm still trying to learn to deal with these changes, physically and mentally. I am trying to get myself in better shape too, exercising more regularly, and I just need to tell myself everything is fine, like my mum keeps reminding me. I still miss you big boss!
4) Saw my favourite football team, Manchester United, live for the first time (July 2019)
After all these years of cheering for them on the TV (25 years at least), I finally got to see my team, Manchester United, live in living colour for a match. It was the Intercontinetal Championship Cup thing where the Red Devils were playing against Inter Milan (ironically they were the first team I ever saw playing live) at the National Stadium in Singapore.
The atmosphere was amazing, it felt surreal to be seated amongst fellow Red Devil fans watching our team play. And sure enough, Manchester United won 1-0! I do hope that one day I'll watch them live in action but instead of some random stadium, at their home stadium at Old Trafford in Manchester.
3) Made changes in my daily habits in an attempt to get healthier (August 2019)
After my cousin's passings, I was in a bad place and thought things were happening to me. After a doctor check up, he confirmed to me that I was perfectly fine, just needed to exercise a bit more to raise my metabolism level. I decided now was the time to finally get myself back to a decent enough shape.
I cut eating my favourite food Chicken Rice to a limit of just 2 days in a week when it used to be maybe 4 or 5. I completely stopped drinking Chrysanthemum Tea, which used to be my favourite drink, and cut down on other stuff I used to eat. I started to exercise a bit more. I would re-new that after another health scare back in October when I had some issues that caused me to have low blood pressure readings.
I had been suffering with firstly toothaches, then headaches and finally pains in my ear on the left side. That started a chain of events. I had the fever, and then through an early cleansing, I had vertigo, almost passing out. And one night I could feel my blood just rushing to my head for some reason and my left side of my body felt numb, I woke up right away an rushed to my parents. Turns out I was very dehydrated, the blood pressure reading showed that instead of high blood pressure like my family has, it was the opposite, low!
Since then I started eating more salty things to make my reading higher and since then it's stayed that way. Funny how the things I used to avoid, are now the things helping me get better. That two months period wasn't the best, I had visited the doctor a total of 5 times, and missed lectures for a total of 4 days and stopped playing Pokemon TCG for two weeks. I'm still trying to better myself, it's for my own good.
2) Went to Malaysia to play in a tournament - Kuala Lumpur Pokemon TCG Regional (December 2019)
I finally bit the bullet and decided to play in a tournament overseas for the first time and of course it was to be the biggest event for us in South East Asia, the KL Regionals. I had always wanted to try my hand at a big level event like a Regional and in our area, only KL tends to get it and it's once a year too so this was likely the biggest one any of us would play with the exception of the Oceania Internationals every February in Australia.
I went into this event without the best of preparations. I had stuck with my Reshiram & Charizard-GX deck that did well for me in the first quarter of the 2019-2020 season but at the Singapore SPE, I did badly and was in need to find a backup deck for the KL Regional. I ended up focusing on Mewtwo & Mew-GX and Charizard TEU.
As much as I wanted to go with the best deck in Mew3, I wasn't comfortable enough or confident enough to go with it for a nine swiss round event. I went with my comfort pick in Charizard from Team Up. Sadly I didn't get the best of matchups and ended up with a 3/4/2 record to finish 161st out of 282 players. Perhaps my hopes of making it to the world championships in London for 2020 are now all but over, having not scored points in both the Singapore SPE or the KL Regional. Or do I still keep trying to make it happen?
1) Ending the decade with another visit to Japan and visiting parts I've not been to (December 2019)
And here we are. As I type this out in my hotel room in Akihabara in Tokyo, we've just come off a 5-day trip around Japan. We landed in Tokyo and on the very next day took a flight out to Nagasaki. On this trip I've been fortunate enough to seen new places in Japan. Nagasaki was cool, I really liked that they had a tram system in the city similar to Melbourne. There was a lot of history surrounding the place so it was cool to check out those places and learn more about what happened and how the city handled it to what it has become today.
Saga was another place we visited, from the shrine to a park and some random spots. Hakata was the next place we stayed at. We saw the Dazaifu shrine, Ohori Park, some random places in Karatsu, and an observatory spot in Mt Kagamiyama.
And now we're back in Akihabara, Tokyo. It's December 30th, with the New Years approaching. I'm still feeling pains, sometimes the chest or the shoulders and still overthinking things as usual. I just can't help but feel that way these days sadly. 2019 has been a good year and one that has thought me many things, good and bad. Generally, the 10s has been mostly good to me. It's been fun, something I'd guess I can't say much for the 20s.
Thanks for reading and I wish all of you a very happy new year, all the very best for 2020, make it a good one with good fortune, good wealth and hopefully excel at whatever you may decide to work on. See you all next decade!
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