Pretty good way to spend your Valentine’s day if you have not had any plans yet

Here are the details

Start point: sun plaza park
End point/picnic ground: east coast park area c4
Date/day: 14 feb 09/saturday
Reporting time: 0645hours
Flag-off: 0800 hours
Registration fee: $15 (inclusive of bike and helmet rental fee and attractive goodie bag)

Check out more details and register at http://makegreenthenewpink.wordpress.com/

Special thanks to Taxi Pool volunteers: Shi, Mahesh and Jess. Also thanks to Baveen (did I get your name correct?) for helping to guide the first group up. Really appreciate your help!

It really excites me to be able to bring people together and help them experience nature and adventure. We don’t have many patches of native forest left here in Singapore, and Bukit Timah Nature Reserve is one of them.

For those who’ve been trekking, I’m sure you’d feel that Bukit Timah Hill is nothing compared to the other more challenging treks overseas. But still, this is a good start, right?

I will post up the photos once I get them.

Update: Here are some photos by Shi! (click on the photo to view more!)

Photo Credit: Shi

More photos from Yati

… and yes, I’ll definitely organise an overseas trip next year!

They will set off for Everest in April 2009! I know a friend who knows one of the mountaineers personally, so I’m really happy for them!

I don’t aspire to climb Everest (only Kilimanjaro!), but I know it’s like a dream come true for these ladies to know that at least the funding is settled.

Check out the official website for the Singapore Women’s Everest Team, and their blogs too!

There will be a New Balance warehouse sale from today until Saturday. So for those who are going on treks during the December period, this might be a good place for you to get some good clothing for your treks.

Well, New Balance is more of a sports brand than an outdoor or adventure brand, but I’m sure they do have quick dry apparel which are very useful for treks. They do have outdoor footwear but I’ll leave it to you to decide if they are good quality (I don’t know cos I’ve never tried them )

Here are the details:

Through this list, I hope that I can help to connect you with other people interested in trekking, so for example, if you are organising a trek and you hope to find some company, you can contact me and I can help you broadcast out. Do sign up for the community at the blog sidebar if you are interested to be part of the community!

Actually, I would love to use a forum for this purpose instead, but from my own experience, forums need a lot of time and effort for moderation… and I doubt I will be able to spend that time doing that! So I guess email is the next best alternative yeah?

We talked about trekking, skating, and some of the other outdoors sports – and it struck me that I haven’t been doing outdoor stuff for a very long time now. Yesterday’s session re-ignited my life for the outdoors, and I think I should get back to schedule, at least for a skating session every week.

I think it would be tough for us to all meet and do things together as every one of us get busy with our one schedules… but I think again that most of us go on a trip not because of the trip, but because we enjoy each other’s company so much. After all, counting the number of years since we go to know each other in the Rovers committee, its been almost 3 years.

Its sad but true that many trekkers trek alone, or at the most, in a pair. I think the fun in outdoor sports does not lie only in bathing in the hot sun or shivering in the cold rain, but also with the people are with. I really hope that the small group of us (there are only like 5 left in this group amongst the 15 comm members!) can stick together for activities.

The train provides oxygen to every seat, and over 500 kilometres of the track runs over the frozen earth! I’m so amazed and awed by what is going on outside my little country! I think this shall be “one of the things I must do before I leave this world”! What an adventure it would be!

It says:

Over the past 100 years, the glaciers on Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak in Tanzania, have been melting away at an impressive rate, and scientists say the glaciers could disappear by the next century.

Here’s another article about Mount Kilimanjaro showing signs of global warming, written also, just about a week ago. It says there that an estimated 82% of the ice atop Kilimanjaro’s peak has been melted, comparing the models in 1912 and 2001.

Its sad isn’t it? At the rate that mankind is using up mother earth’s resources and destroying nature, how many more generations do you think is there to live?

Why not? It’s the biggest adventure you could possibly take. It’s one of the most meaningful things you could possibly do in life. You should become a better person for it. Because to many people waste their lives working their butts off so they can sit in front of the biggest TV they can possibly afford. Because your life has no value unless you give it some. Because the planet is in a rapid state of change, culturally and enviromentally, things I want to see today may not be there to be seen in 20 years time

Wonderful stuff Daniel!

I think it boils down to a few reasons:

1. Satisfaction - Comparing the number of people who haved peaked Mount Kinabalu, for example, versus the number of people who have been to the Manukan Island beach resort… obviously, less people have been to the peak! And that is the satisfaction. Being able to say “Hey, I’ve been there, and not any tom, dick or harry can make it up there.”
2. Achievement - Sometimes we just HAVE to get there. Like… if I don’t climb this mountain, I’m gonna lie on my death bed unrest!
3. Health - While beach resort holidays are relaxing, it is also sometimes quite bad for health! At least, climbing up the mountain lets you put your muscles at work while on holiday! Not many get to do this during your day 9 – 5 job!
4. Company - When you have a close group of friends of the same interest, you tend to push each other… one mountain leads to another, automatically!
5. Nature - While the sceneries of some mountains may not be as beautiful as advertised, I think many of us just want to see “untouched land”, basically we are sick and tired of concrete walls. We want to see animals and insects, mud and soil, the clouds and the sun!

So which category do you fall into? To be frank, I even don’t know about myself. Does it matter? I just love it!