Quo Shu at Swan City, Sibu

As some of you know, I was gone last weekend. I went off to Sibu with my aunt, cousins, a few friends and my Wushu coach.
They invited me to join them as they go there to compete in a Wushu competition. I, of course, could not possibly join to compete. I've been out of practise/training for over half a year!! wait... possibly even a year now!!!

Anyway... we left on Friday noon by bus... fricking 7 hours ride there... with 3 stops along the way.
Man... just sitting still there can make you feel so exhausted. The bus ride was not very comfortable... very not good for my easily aching body... sigh.
Was so glad when the bus finally reached Sibu's bus station.
Turned out that we would be taken care of by the organising committee members of the competition for most of our time there.
When we arrived, we were greeted by some of the members. We were provided transports to go to the place we'd be staying for the time.. Eden Inn.
oh.. by the way, we left Miri at around noon, and arrived Sibu at about 7 or earlier.
once at the inn, we dropped our stuffs in our rooms and then immediately went off to join a dinner function at a nearby restaurant, where the rest of the Wushu committee and competiting teams were already.

Looking at the number of people that were gonna be involved in the competition, my cousins and friends kept joking about the pressure they were already feeling and not wanting to join the competition anymore.
The people in my Wushu group, my cousins and friends, weren't that great. They started over a year or two only, and had only experienced one competition in Miri and none at all for one of my cousins.
So it was understandable why they'd think that way.
But the coach clearly said, this competition was more for experience than medals. If we can win some, that's good, but if not, it's all right as long as you got to experience the heat of the competition.

Anyway, back to the function, the main organising committee had the usual welcoming speeches for all of us, while we were given our food.
After the speeches, they went on with their so-called 'happy hour'... with karaoke singing.
Man, was the table next to ours noisy.... make that.... tables...
There was a large group of guys, a few Wushu 'clans' that were close friends, make such ruckus that night... ruckus as in cheers, whistles and claps... man... could've probably gone deaf if they kept it up.
The few 'clans' were from Kuching and Brunei, I think. Not too sure.
They cheered and clapped for some of those that went up to sing... their fellow mates or those very senior committee members, including one very old man that could pass as one of those wise old Kung Fu masters you see in those martial arts movies.... white long beard and all... haha!
After the function, the committee members actually decided to have all of us walk back to our hotels/inns. I didn't mind and so were many of the others too.
It was kinda messy, but we all got back to our hotels/inn without trouble with the help of our guides, who were four of those committee members.

Our coach had actually wanted my cousins and friends to run through their wushu styles a few times before all of us going to sleep at 10pm to prepare for the competition that started immediately the next morning at 8am.
But we only reached back in our rooms after 10pm. Taking our turns to shower and some of them practising their Wushu styles, definitely it'd be at least an hour.
By the way, there were four males and five females of us. Two rooms were booked for us. So the boys, including our coach, slept at one room, while the girls, including my aunt, slept at the other room, just the one after to ours.
Both rooms had a pair of double beds, so it just suited our number of boys. The ladies had moved their beds right next to one another to accomodate for one more person.... but were greeted by a whole lot of dust bunnies under the bed.
Speaking of which, we had quite a few troubles that first night....
First off was the air-conditioner in the girls' room. It wouldn't turn on. When asked the innkeeper, turned out the switch to turn on that air-conditioner was not turned on, down at the main counter of the inn.
Next were those dust bunnies. As suggested by my aunt, I actually went down to borrow a broom from them to clean the place up.
After that was done, the shower in the girl's room suddenly burst after one of my friends was done and wouldn't stop pouring. The innkeeper got to call a regular plumber and good thing, the problem was settled quite quickly that night.

K. Woke up at 6am and we prepared to leave soon. The committee members would be picking us up to the competition venue by 7.30am. The place was at a large hall in a school compound, Sacred Heart Secondary School (though I'm not too sure if it's just a secondary school)
We were the first ones to arrive there, but turned out the hall was not even opened yet. So had to wait for a while. While waiting, my aunt and I walked to the nearby shophouses to look for a coffee shop to buy some breakfast for all of us.
Urgh... made a bad choice of either the shop or the food ordered. Wasn't nice at all and most of us couldn't finish them... sadly... Maybe it was the way we HAD to eat those noodles...
Miri is somewhat better when it comes to taking away food. They provide those white boxes and at least that disposable chopsticks and spoons.
Sibu, they have the food placed in plastic bags and they didn't even have those disposable spoons. It was very charming.... I guess it encourages people to eat at the shop than takng it elsewhere.
So.. imagine a small plastic bag of noodles that's already been left long enough to wrap itself up like a tight ball. Now imagine how you'd have to eat them without any sort of utensils. Not very enjoyable.

Anyway, the competition went on with a little slow start, cause I supposed punctuality was not abide that morning, but whatever. We had a looong day ahead as there were a lot of categories that were scheduled to take place that day alone.
There were also a lot of participants... and all of them, except my group, were very experienced and most of them performed very beautifully.
Some of them easily scored an average score above 8 (out of 10). though their scores got there cause of their past experiences in such competitions... it's like their level in Wushu.
My group didn't stand much chance against them all. Most of the time, our averages were just around 7.0 - 7.5 only, while not many of them got less than 7.5 even.

Though I was there not as a participant, turned out I had my use for that competition.. as a cameraman.
My coach had a video camera that he taught me basically how to operate the night before.
I was to record the performances of my cousins and friends, and also some of those other participants that did very well.
Man, I wish I can put in a few videos of those really good ones.
Amongst them, was this one little girl. Man, when she first performed, she completely blew us. There were also a number of young kids in the competition, besides her, and they all did reasonably excellent. But amongst them all, she performed the best, in my view.
She was with the clan from Kuching... the clan that had the most members in the competition and most of them very experienced. They practically swept the competition in all the categories that they were in.

Speaking of the best, let me embarass one of my friends... haha.
Man, he performed reasonably ok in the beginning, but soon he lost himself to nervousness. Haha!
He actually paused in the middle of his performance for the longest of time!!
It was like as if he was lagging over there like you do in the first-person shooter game, Counterstrike!
In the end, he skipped a few steps and proceeded to finish his performance... whcih still lagged a few times along the way... HHAHA!

Anyway, after the day was finally done, we all felt pretty exhausted... which reminds me.. man, during the opening ceremony, after the guest of honor had finally arrived later that morning, he gave one of the longest speeches I can remember... sigh...
If it was in a language I could comprehend well, I wouldn't have been as bored.... but it was in Chinese... which practically everyone knows I am terrible at!!
During his speech though, the girls actually were able to make a few new friends from the other clans... haha.

Anyway, after the day's competition, we waited for our ride back to the inn... as it turned out, we may have been the first to the place, but we were the last to leave too.. sigh...
Had our dinner at the restaurant at the ground floor of the small inn. It was pretty all right.
After that, back to our rooms... some practised their styles while I chatted with my aunt about ghosts and such... hehe...
Man! In the middle of our conversation, suddenly an eerie, horror sort of music echoed in the room! Shocked me, my aunt and one of my cousins that was still awake at that time. Then I realised... 'Wait... I heard that music before....'
It was one of my friends' handphone ringing... Her mother was calling.... My friend actually had a horror music be the ringtone for her mother!!
Reason why I've heard that music before was cause she told us about it earlier that day...


The second day of the competition, the last, was definitely gonna be shorter than yesterday... cause they were less categories to compete now. Took some more recordings that day... and again, my friend I mentioned earlier embarrassed himself, though he managed to finish his performance still... haha.
After the closing ceremony, we got back to the inn about noon time and had a change of clothing or shower to prepare to go out to do some shopping somewhere... hehe.
Man, when we got back at the inn, it's like our coach had a change of personality... before he was like... all business and only joked around... after the competition was finally done... the gloves went off....
We had pillow fights, we pile-up on one another, he pulled some pants down, etc... hahaa....

Anyway... A friend of my cousin's in Sibu came and brought us to a mall, Everrise. Man... it's such a crowd, plus with the rain outside
I mostly visited the VCDs/DVDs/Game shops... I had nothing much to window shop for....
Man, the cds sold there are a few ringgits cheaper, but were of worse qualities than the ones in Miri...
At least, in Miri, there aren't the silhoutted figures of people moving in the cinema... sheesh...
Anyway, couple of hours later, 4.30pm, headed back to the inn to prepare to go out to another dinner function. This time it's at the different restaurant, and with more guests.
The restaurant ain't great at all... though it had the usual classy Chinese restaurant resemblance.... red table cloths, large round tables, a large stage, chinese paintings and even their own DJ. but then you'd notice... the plastic chairs like those from the street coffee shops, disposable wooden chopsticks, dirty old spoons and plates...
The food is all rihgt though... though not that great...
Hhehehe... speaking of food... we actually played 'Paper-Rock-Scissors' and had the punishment to eat what's on the dish... to finish practically every last piece that remained in the plate.
Hahaha... it was fun and exciting.. especially when everyone is like so stuffed.

ok.. after the dinner function and back at the inn, some of us decided to went to the nearby park to have a look around and take some photos... the park was decorated with lightings, Christmas banners and a large lit tree, and it also had a large statue of a Swan, surrounded by little statues of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals. It was quite beautiful there.
We even had ice-cream at the cafe that was placed right there... quite an enjoyable cold night....
After getting back to the inn, I went to shower.... and then joined the coach with a couple of my friends to play a card game of 'Big 2'..... and we played all the way til 4.30am.. hahah!
It was fun... and the coach was the first to fall.... well.. guess it's understandable as he's been busy the last few days... while taking care of us too...

We slept for a few hours til 9 in the morning... showered and then had breakfast, before we had to go to the bus station... sent off by the familiar committee members...
and then another 7-hour ride back to Miri, plus three stops.... haha... passed the time by playing 'Big 2' again.. hahaa... Needed to do a lot of adjustments... but finally got to play the game comfortably....
Man... the first ride was very uncomfortable... the second was worse.... I actually felt sick onboard and and one point, I felt like vomitting.... urgh.... might've been a bad can of milo that I drank along the way....
Thankfully, with a bite of a medicinal sweet my friend had, I started feeling better.

Sigh... so there's my time at Sibu.... minus the comparisons between Miri and Sibu...it's been quite fun for me there...
No worries... Nothing to bother so much but the Wushu competition... constantly with friends.... it was a fun time there...
After watching all those participants, it made me wanna continue practising Wushu again... and so I am... though very painfully... my body's so out of shape....
anyway... that's basically all for this post... til the next one!