LIFE OF A NBA BALLER

Over the years I've had the opportunity to experience some pretty sweet sporting events first hand. In 2000 I attended the NBA All-Star game in Oakland and witnessed a collection of the best basketball players in the world on the same court. In 2001 I went to Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa and watched Baltimore crush the NY Giants. While the Super Bowl and even the All-Star game were once in a lifetime experiences the trips I've taken with the Golden State Warriors the past 2 years have been more of an insider's experience. Most recently, last weekend I got to fly with the Warriors on the team's charter plane up to Portland for their game against the Blazers. Getting to travel with the team you learn a few things about the life of an NBA player:

1. Flying on a charter plane beats commercial by a mile.

2. Thanks to the player's union you only stay in 4 or 5 star hotels. This is written into the CBA (collective bargaining agreement). As a result on our trip we ended up staying in the Benson Hotel, which is apparently where the President stays when he visits Portland. Not too shabby.

3. When on the road you must use an alias when you check in at the before mentioned 4 or 5 star hotel (presumably to thwart the groupies and autograph seekers). Some of the better aliases used by some of the Warriors were Rick James & Bart Simpson.

4. It's good to be a NIKE guy in Portland. We got invited to the Nike Employee Store in Beaverton where they have all the latest Nike gear not yet out in the stores and all for 50% off. Of course if you are actually a player under contract with Nike you get it all for free.

5. Even if you get blown out by an inferior team, in a game you really had to win to keep pace in the playoff race, you still get a steak dinner on the charter flight back home and your Bentley, Rolls or Benz is still waiting for you in the private lot when you land. Win or lose, life is good.

On the game itself, Baron Davis, or B. Dizzle according to the hotel roster, was a last minute scratch and the Warriors played terribly without him. As the TV play-by-play guy joked on the media bus after the game, "We should just run a scroll at the bottom of the screen reminding the viewers: WITH BARON GOOD, WITHOUT BARON BAD." And they were bad. Stephen Jackson didn't disappoint either, living up to the semi-crazy rep he's gotten the past couple of years stemming from his role in the Palace brawl, by getting a technical for tossing the ball at the ref's feet and then getting tossed from the game for continuing to argue the call. On the Portland side, Brandon Roy should clearly be the rookie of the year. He was the best player on the court. Despite their record the Blazers actually have some nice young talent on their squad. And since they are in the western conference if you translated their record to the east they probably would be in the playoff mix (see the Toronto Raptors). So a stinker of a game but a fun trip. Of course Baron was back last night at home and the Warriors routed the Mavs ending their 17-game winning streak. With Baron good...living the NBA lifestyle even better.

WATERFRONT 5K

So I won't announce this with as much fan fare as the miracle mile attempt which I fell flat on my face with last year, but I've decided to get back on the horse and dust off the running sneaks. Though, this time instead of targeting a 4:59 mile, because there doesn't seem to be any mile races in spring or summer, I'm hopping on board the 5k circuit. 5k, or 3.1 miles, is the next distance up from the mile and they are much more plentiful in terms of the number of races.

To prove, to myself, that I'm more serious about sticking with the running this time I decided to join a running club called Dolphins South End Runners. They are one of the better-established running clubs in SF, having been around for 40 years. They have races almost every weekend, not all 5k's necessarily, but are fairly low key stressing personal bests and the social element of having fun + running. And since their motto is "Start slow and taper off" which pretty much described my attempt last year to resurrect the running regime I figured it was a good fit.

So yesterday, after only really training 2 weeks, I ran my first 5k down on the Embarcadero. Out of 110 runners I finished 16th overall and 4th in my age group (30-39). Ironically enough my time, 21:13, was actually the identical time to the last 5k race I ran back in 2003 during the original running regime. So not a bad first effort, though well off the winning pace. Here are the complete results:



When I was actually running consistently a few years back, which I detailed in the previous Miracle Mile post, my best 5k time was 20:09. So I'm hoping over time as I get in shape to try to better that mark. Next race I'm tentatively targeting is on 4/8. More updates to follow.

BACK TO SINGAPORE

Wrapping up the trip, we rolled out of KL Saturday morning and a 6-hour bus ride later we arrived back in Singapore that afternoon. After being turned away from the hostel we originally stayed at on the front end of the trip because it was full we ended up finding a better place just down the road but still in the Bugis Village/Little India quarter. Since we were departing for home the next day our only two main objectives were to go see Raffles Hotel, named after Sir Stamford Raffles the founder of Singapore, and then make it to the night safari. Time permitting I was also hoping we could make our way back to Chinatown to make a return trip to this great dim sum stall we had eaten a week ago when we first arrived. We successfully went 3-3.

After cruising by Raffles Hotel where there really isn't much to do other than look at it, and since we or rather I wasn't appropriately dressed since apparently gentlemen must be wearing long pants to enter the hotel if they are not guests we just took the obligatory pic from the exterior and then made our way to Chinatown in search of dim sum. The weather was a little spotty, which if you've noticed has been the running theme of the trip. Having learned our lesson in KL, when it really started to open up we simply found a dry covering and waited a few minutes for it to subside. The rain passed, at least temporarily, and we were chowing down on some shrimp dumplings, pot stickers and sipping on a refreshing homemade green apple fruit drink in no time.

After re-fueling we made our way back to the hostel to double check our game plan for the night safari (if you recall, which you probably don't since it's been over a month since I wrote about the first visit to Singapore, we unsuccessfully tried to make it to the night safari on the front end of the trip). But this time even rain, which was coming down at a pretty good clip most of the subway and then 45-minute bus ride to the safari, didn't deter us. By the time we arrived the rain had slowed down. And since it was a Saturday night it was pretty crowded even with the rain. The night safari set up was much more Disney world than I expected, complete with the gift shops, performances and a covered tram that takes you around the safari. That being said, it was still pretty cool. The safari itself is an hour-guided tour on the tram. At the midway point you can also get out and walk on paths to check out some other vantage points of the animals. But we saw everything from lions, tigers, elephants, rhinos, hippos, giraffes, even capybaras which are the world's largest rodents that live in South America and which we saw when in Bolivia. Each section of the safari was a different geographical habitat. So you moved from the Himalayan foothills to Africa to Asia to South America, etc. Quite nicely done and our guide mixed in some eco-propaganda that forced the captive audience to ponder our impact on the animal world. Nothing like making tourists pay to get lectured. What really makes it great is that since it's a night safari in some cases you can't really even see the barrier protecting you from the animals and so often you felt quite close, almost too close, to the animals. Unfortunately there was no flash photography, and they were serious about it actually stopping the tram several times when people snapped pics, so we didn't get any photos of the animals. But if you want to see what we would have photographed, you can click here to check out some of the animals.

The next morning we packed up and made our way to the airport for our long flight home. Note if you ever are stuck in the Taipei airport with a couple hour layover, like we had, they have free massage chairs. Just ask for the tokens in the duty free shops. That's it, sorry for the long delay in getting all the posts up. The trip was a blast; we're already planning our next adventure.

KUALA LUMPUR

As we were leaving Pangkor Island via the ferry we actually hadn't yet decided our next destination. When we previously decided it was time to shove off from the beach we had thought we'd head to Kuala Lumpur to get a taste of the big city in Malaysia before heading back down to Singapore. But we had a few people give us mixed reviews about KL, as everyone in Malaysia calls it, that we paused to reconsider. At breakfast the morning of our departure our French woman friend was trying to persuade us to instead visit Melaka, a smaller more colonial looking city on the coast, which temporarily had us swayed in that direction. But while on the ferry we reconsidered and upon disembarking in Lumut we boarded a bus bound for Kuala Lumpur after all, and we were glad we did. KL ended up being very different from Singapore, the other big city we visited on the trip, in that where Singapore felt small, clean and safe, KL was big, frenetic and not as sterile, not that I felt Singapore was sterile. But Kuala Lumpur was definitely more like your typical big Asian city, along the lines of Bangkok.



We arrived in KL late afternoon. Our bus dropped us in the heart of Chinatown so we found a hostel close to the bus station. That evening we walked around Chinatown and checked out the main Jl Petaling market that has everything from sneakers to watches to hand bags galore. It's suspect as to whether they are all just knock-offs or whether because most of the items are made either in China or Indonesia they just get the overruns (or are stolen) from the factory to sell at cost. Probably a mix of both. Either way there are bargains a plenty. We didn't make any purchases that first night but rather just sized up our opposition to get our bargaining skills ready for the next day. After dinner it started to slightly rain so we ducked into a pub for a beer. The slight rain turned into a sustained downpour and our one beer ended up turning into several. We passed the time talking to a couple from Calgary who was on a 6-month trip around the world. From Venezuela to Egypt to Dubai they regaled us with stories of each spot and new must see places that we had to add to our already too long list of future trip destinations.

On Friday morning we woke up early to head over to the Golden Triangle, KL's business district, which contains most of the big high-rise buildings including the Petronas Towers, formerly the world's tallest buildings until 2004. You're allowed to go up to the sky bridge that connects the two towers together 41 floors above the ground. Due to the high demand of the sky bridge they limit the number of people who can go up it every day, which requires you to go over early in the morning to get a ticket for a time slot at some point during the day. Since our sky bridge passes weren't until later in the afternoon we set out to check out the rest of the city. Cutting across the town we decided to stop in the Chinatown market so I could buy a pair of sneaks as my flip-flops were hurting my feet and my other shoes, my hiking shoes, were pretty much too muddy from the jungle to really break out. After some hard bartering I scored a sweet pair of 3-stripe Adidas for the low low cost of $10 US. Not a bad deal.

After donning the newly purchased sneakers we continued on to the Lake Gardens district which sits on the hillside slightly above the city itself. It's essentially a large park that contains a variety of museums and other sights. Our first top was the National Planetarium, which wasn't impressive at all, but netted a visit mainly because of the cool air-conditioning we could feel pumping inside. From there we cruised by the Bird Park, which is apparently the largest outdoor covered bird park in the world. We opted not to enter but instead just walked along the outside viewing the birds from the street. Lastly, we made our way to the Tasik Perdana Lake, which sits at the center of the gardens. Though it was pretty much just a brown muddy lake. After walking around the gardens we made our way back to Chinatown for some lunch and for another cruise through the market as we had a few minutes to kill still before catching the subway back to the Petronas Towers for our sky bridge visit. It was about this point that the skies opened up sending everyone scrambling for cover from the rain. We waited it out for a few minutes before having to go ahead and make a run for it so we wouldn't miss our sky bridge time slot. Our crappy umbrellas provided virtually no cover and the streets were quickly flooding making it a hilarious and wet run to the subway. Just about everyone else had stopped in their tracks to wait out the deluge, except the two of us who were sprinting down the sidewalks, jumping over puddles and trying our best to stay beneath the few awnings that were providing brief cover. This was the hardest I’ve ever seen it rain so needless to say by the time we made it the few blocks to the subway we were drenched, new sneaks and all. Though by the time we arrived at the Petronas Towers it had stopped raining and a short time thereafter we were more or less dry due to the high humidity and warm weather. Live and learn.



Despite the fact that it was still a little overcast and stormy from the rain shower that had just passed over, the sky bridge yielded some great views of the city below. Due to the amount of people that they herd in and out of the sky bridge each day, for free no less, you only get about 10 minutes on the actual bridge itself. Click here to check out a quick video I shot of the tower from the sky bridge vantage point.

After taking in the Petronas Towers we decided to tackle the KL Tower next. The KL Tower is the 5th tallest radio tower in the world and looks much like the CN Tower in Toronto or the Seattle Space needle. From the top we were considerably higher than the sky bridge and actually had some great views of the Petronas Towers that we had just come from. Following the KL Tower we walked back in twilight to Chinatown for our last night in KL. We braved the market one last time, finally ready to do some real shopping and managed to pick up a few good items, including a Rolex for K's dad (which I'm quite sure was the real thing given it's $3 US cost). The next morning we boarded a bus for a 6-hour ride back to Singapore.