Flashback ... continued

Saturday ...

First day of competition. There's an opening ceremony. The weather was ultra humid ... it always is in Singapore. We had a march pass in the open field. Thankfully it was a little cloudy else I might just have fainted in the middle of the ceremony. I was getting a little dehydrated by the end of the ceremony. Nothing fancy about the march. Just a bunch of people babbling on a podium, a brass band playing, the various colors of each team's tracksuits, oath recitation and lighting of the torch.

Time for the first match. Here's how it goes for the squash competition. It's a team event consisting of 5 players (3 men and 2 ladies) and 3 reserves (2 men and 1 lady), played round-robin style. The 2 teams with the highest score at the end will play in the finals. Game play goes 1st men, 1st ladies, 2nd men, 2nd ladies and lastly 3rd men. I play 1st ladies. Today we play team Dunlop Malaysia (DMIB) in the morning and team Singapore Sports Club (SSC) after lunch. My first match was a breeze. Team DMIB didn't have a ladies team but the men wanted to play so they roped in a girl who hasn't a clue how to play the game. Beat her 9-0, 9-0. Me big bully ... *heh* *heh*. They could have rested me for this game. My 2nd ladies/3rd ladies could have taken her without a sweat. 2nd ladies got a walkover cause they didn't have a player. We also won the men's games. Don't remember if we won all 3 men's. But we beat DMIB. Time for lunch. Pathetic excuse for lunch provided by the host. We had rice with 1/2 a bunch of 'siew buk choy', 2 fish balls and small amount of sweat sour chicken ... cold.

Second match. I was a bit shaky for this match. Saw SSC's 1st ladies play against Sime Darby Plantations. She's got beautiful serve. I'm not too great a receiving volleys especially backhands. So, I kinda freaked myself out even before I went in for the game. I do that a lot. Managed to beat her 9-0 in the first game although with loads of mistakes. Second game was even worse. Multiple service faults!!! Service faults! Hate that. What the heck went wrong with my services that afternoon I have yet to find out. But they were horrible. I'm lucky to beat her 9-6 or was it 9-4 ... something like that. If I had playing my usual game with no sense of fear whatsoever, I think I should have been able to beat her 9-0, 9-0 easily. Stupid me. What's wrong with me? Why do I scare myself silly even when I know I'd be able to beat her? Nevermind.

It was easy victory for the 2nd ladies again. The men usually have more to fight out that the ladies do. But in the end, SDSC (that's my team) still prevailed. Yay! However, there was an incident, our 1st men single knocked and dislocated his knee during his game. Had to be taken to the hospital although he insisted that he could still finish the game. We didn't think he could and told him so and made him go with the medic to the Medic Room before he could be taken to the hospital. He's okay now. Not too great an injury but he couldn't play anymore and so his wife drove him home the next day

That night, the 2nd men single, Azlan, gave us a dinner treat that night, he's a manager. He said he'll claim it from the MD - our 1st men single. Not sure if he did. Anyway, we took the MRT (Mass Rail Transit), Singapore's rail service, to Boay Quay. Had a delicious, hearty dinner of seafood with the Singapore River as a backdrop. Lovely place. Boay Quay is a stretch along the Singapore River which houses numerous little pubs/discos and eateries ranging from seafood to indian food. They're celebrating Holloweens a little early in Singapore. We saw several vampy looking girls and skeletal guys, a french maid, a girl in arabian costume and a whole lot of other costumes. I think the french maid and arabian girl needs a little more assets to fill out their duties. ;) ... back to hotel and to bed. My roommate, team captain, Lorrin must have been really tired. She flipped through several TV channels before settling on a beach volley ball game and fell promptly asleep ... ha ha. I was reading my book and one moment she's awake and the next time I looked up, she KOed. :) I went to bed too as I was falling asleep reading.


... watch out for Flashback ... the final installment!