my proudest moment as a singaporean..
today i experienced my proudest moment as a singaporean.. the cheers and the jeers together with the other fans at the kallang stadium.. when singapore took on thailand in the first leg of the finals of the asean football championships.. whenever the referee makes good or bad decisions, or whenever the thai players fall upon minimal contact with any singapore players.. it was like re-living the old malaysia cup days..
till this day i still remember my first malaysia cup game in many many years back when singapore took on sarawak.. where we won 1-0, no idea who the scorer was back then, but all i know is that the team in red is the one i am suppose to cheer on for..
fast forward to today.. i am quite lucky, as for the past couple of years, i watched singapore played 4 games and then won all for.. the first was against myanmar where we won the then tiger cup 2004 semi finals 2nd leg 4-2 (aggregate 8-5), after that we were up against indonesia, where we won tiger cup 2004 finals 2nd leg 2-1 (aggregate 5-2), the next was last sundays game, against malaysia in the asean football championships 2006 semi finals 2nd leg, where we were held to a draw 1-1, and won after a penalty shoot out 5-4 (aggregate 2-2)..
and before the national stadium is to be demolished, i watched the last game the lions might have played.. against thailand in the in the asean football championships 2006 finals 1st leg, 2-1 winners, though they played lousier.. the thais also displayed poor sportsmanship, threatening to boycott the game after a controversial penalty decision was given in singapore's way, which led to their 2nd goal.. for those who missed the game.. here are the match reports..
SINGAPORE, January 31 (Asean Football Championship) - Singapore ended their long winless streak against Thailand, grabbing a controversial 2-1 win in the first leg of the Asean Football Championship final at the National Stadium on Wednesday.
The Lions had not beaten the Thais in a competitive match since 1977 but a second half penalty by Mustafic Fahruddin settled the match in favour of the home side. The penalty was awarded after Noh Alam Shah went down in the Thai box under challenge from Niweat Siriwong and sparked a furious reaction from the Thais who walked off the pitch for 15 minutes before finally being convinced to return. Alam Shah had earlier opened the scoring for Singapore with his 10th goal of the tournament in the 17th minute but the Thais got back on level terms five minutes after the break when a superb through ball released Pipat Thonkanya, who rounded goalkeeper Lionel Lewis to equalise. The return leg will be played at the Supachalasai Stadium in Bangkok on Sunday. As expected, Thai skipper Kiatisuk Senamuang was ruled out by a knee injury and replaced by Pipat, while Singapore made three changes with captain Aide Iskandar returning from suspension to replace Baihakki Khaizan in central defence, while Mohamed Noh Rahman and Fazrul Nawaz came in for Isa Halim and the injured Hafiz Osman. A capacity crowd of 55,000 was present for what was likely to be the final competitive match at the National Stadium and the majority were on their feet after 17 minutes when the home side took the lead. The ball was played to Indra Sahdan, whose effort was blocked by Niweat Siriwong and deflected outside the box to Mustafic Fahruddin. Fahruddin's shot was poor but fell nicely at the feet of Alam Shah, who controlled the ball with his back to goal before turning and firing a right-footed shot into the lower left hand corner of the Thai goal. Apart from that one bright moment, the opening half was a frantic and physical affair which saw four players booked by Malaysian referee C.Ravichandran - Nirut Surasiang for Thailand and Fazrul Nawaz, Fahruddin and Muhammad Ridhuan for Singapore. Two minutes into the second half, Singapore had an opportunity to extend their lead when the ball was lofted into the box to Fazrul, who was denied a shot by a brave challenge by Thai goalkeeper Kittisak Rawangpa. On 50 minutes, the Thais were back on level terms with virtually their first opening of the game after a superb through ball by Nirut caught the Singapore defence square, releasing Pipat. The Thai forward coolly rounded goalkeeper Lionel Lewis before slotting the ball into the unguarded net for the equaliser. Singapore had a good shout for a penalty in the 56th minute when Khairul Amri was pulled back by Jetsada Jitsawad in the Thai box but referee Ravichandran was not interested. Buoyed by their equaliser, the Thais proved far more effective in attack and Nirut went close with a long-range drive from 30 metres that was nervously pushed out for a corner by Lewis.
The Thais stepped up the pressure and had chances to take the lead with Pipat scooping the ball over the crossbar following a corner in the 75th minute and Datsakorn firing in another long range effort two minutes later which was kept out by a flying save by Lewis. The match was plunged into controversy in the 82nd minute when referee C.Ravichandran pointed to the spot after Alam Shah tumbled in the box under challenge from Niweat. The Thais protested by walking off the pitch in protest and refused to return for 15 minutes. Thai team manager Thavatchai Sajakul spent several minutes discussing the matter with match commissioner Mohamad Ameen before finally convincing his team to return. When the action finally resumed, Fahruddin kept his cool to fire the ball into the top right corner of the Thai net. With seconds remaining, Singapore's Shi Jia Yi crossed into the box but Amri failed to get his header on target. and with that, it sums up a beautiful day for me.. thanks to all those who were there with me at the stadium to watch this truly amazing victory.. cheerios to the lions!!
a bored afternoon..
i'm tired and i'm hungry but i'm happy.. currently waiting for my next lesson at 3.30pm, but after that, i can go home!
life has been kind to me.. alot of times, i think to myself of how lucky i am to be born in singapore.. as compared to some other poverty-stricken african countries.. one of my friends, bbear, also asked me to live my life to mother teresa's final analysis..
that's why no matter how i'm physically feeling (e.g tired or hungry), i always try to keep myself happy.. that's the way to go to a much happier and fruitful life..
dinner last night..
as the title mentions, this post is about my dinner last night.. after craving for tons of salmon sashimi for like the past 3 weeks, yesterday i went to triple 3 to have their dinner buffet..
the restaurant only opens at 6.30pm for dinner, but peipei and i reached there at 7.00pm, as we initially thought it opened only at that time.. but nevertheless, we had hell of a good time there.. the salmon and tuna sashimi, together with the live oysters, was very fresh.. there was no fishy smells as compared if serve by other local restaurants.. the medium-done beef steak there was fabulous, so was the boiled black chicken soup, asam fish and many many other more that i cannot recall.. haha.. the food there was simply too good.. yummy yummy!!
mahjong..
last night while playing mahjong with a couple of my friends, my friend and i got ourselves a new nick name.. haha it was a fun game, though i lost to peipei some money (which i always do)..
during one of the rounds, when the banker throwed the dice, after some mental calculation, without the banker taking the tiles, i took my tiles first, causing everyone to be confused (FYI, i took the correct set of tiles)..
then robson commented.. "hey your name linus chia leh, not flash chia you know? not everyone like you, can count so fast leh.." and so, the nick name flash chia emerged, and it had been used the whole night.. lolz~
then in another round, peipei had 'eaten' 9 cards of the bamboo suit, and so for people who knows how to play mahjong, it is called 'bao bamboos'.. robson also had a very good suit too, 'ping hu' waiting for cards to game already.. thus whenever he took a card and it was not the one he wanted, regardless whether it was bamboo or not.. he still threw it out..
alex, my other friend commented, "eh robson.. you not scared huh? she waiting for bamboo cards leh", to which robson simply replied "you mean you didn't know my name? i am called huang da dan".. haha the whole table erupted in laughter, in the end, it was me with a "chicken" game, or 'ji hu'..
wakeboarding
yesterday i tried my hand at
wakeboarding.. it was overall a fun time, except that i spent most of my time lying in the muddy water in the canal near
punggol (beside
TPE).. altogether i took 6 tries before i could stand up straight and properly
wakeboard, but due to my incorrect posture, i was back into the water very soon again..
at least i did better that one of my other beginner friends,
bruno, who took a total of 9 times before he could stand up straight, but due to his experience in sailing, he could stand up straight for a much longer time that i do..
arghh..
my other 2 friends are quite good at
wakeboarding, particularly boon, who is a part time
wakeboard instructor every weekend at
punggol marina.. he could do 360 degree flips, change leg
effortlessly and
wakeboard with either hand..
jason, who
wakeboarded before, was also not bad as he had some experience in wakeboarding before..
well we'll be probably trying wakeboard again the week after next.. except for the high cost, i don't see myself not trying it again..
condolences..
my sincerest condolences to my close friend who lost her grandfather on new years eve (31/12/06).. and who will be cremated later in the day.. may you have the strength and courage to face all things that will be coming your way..
happy new year 2007!!
today has been an eventful day.. let me tell you the details..
at 9am, i was woken up by 2 friends, alec and olsen, when they kept calling me (like a morning call).. you see, i was suppose to play soccer with them.. and so, at 9.40am, i hopped into alec's car and we went to tampines together to kick some balls..
after around 4 hours of playing soccer, i hitched a ride form alec again and headed back towards yishun again.. but on the way back, we saw a major accident along yishun road (along the reservoir), in which a red car collide with a motorcycle.. the red car smashed head on into a tree at the side of the road, and the motorcycle laid badly smashed on its side, not far from the red car.. i didn't see any puddles of blood around, and neither did i see any ambulance (it may have already left).. so i was happy (hopefully) that no one was seriously injured or died in the accident..
after lunch with peipei, i made my way down church for the new year carnival, held at the church compound.. i was actually suppose to help to man a stall selling indonesian curry, but i came down an hour after the carnival started, and by the time i reached, the stuff was nearly sold out.. thus i just bummed around eating food and having drinks with $50 worth of coupons that i bought..
then its off to DXO at esplanade with the same group of friends that i played soccer with, early in the morning.. we went there to drink, as well as for counting down the new year..
however in the midst of clubbing, i recieved an sms from my close friend, who said that she will end the year 2006 on a sad note.. upon bugging and bugging, she finally revealed that her grandfather passed away in the morning.. here am i enjoying myself, and there, my close friend is mourning the passing of a family member.. am i such a friend? thus i decided the next best thing that i can do is just to visit her at her grandfather's funeral in the next couple of days, as well as pay my last respects..
what a way to end the year, with both sadness and happiness.. all i can say now is.. tomorrow will be better!! ('ming tian hui gen how')
