Arsenal Asia Tour 2011

Yo, I went to watch the first match of Arsenal Asia Tour 2011, the friendly match against Malaysia on this Wednesday. Wednesday was also the day I got all the marks for my mid-term test. Therefore, I can conclude here. I got 63/100 for Business Analysis, 32/50 for Governance, Risk and Ethics and 85/100 for Corporate Reporting.

After the Business Analysis's lecture which was conducted by Dr Amy, I straight away rushed to my cousin's house to drop my bag, then moved to Bukit Jalil Nasional Stadium. I went there as fast as possible and it just took me around 50 minutes to be there. Straight after the lecture, my Tailo called me. He told me that the stadium had been crowded even though it was just 6p.m..

When I was there, there were a great number of stalls selling Arsenal and Malaysia's souvenir and even the football jersey. Even though Tailo and I were not the Gunners' fans, we still supported them. I brought 3 breads there for our dinner but the guards checked our bags before we entered and outside food and drinks were not allowed to enter. Hence, we ate the bread outside the stadium and threw away our bottles of water. Due to this, my Tailo and Eu Gene lost RM5 for their drinks. However, even though it stated that no camera and filming were allowed in the stadium at the back of the ticket, there were still a lot of fans taking camera in and snapping photos. The guards allowed it.

Outside the stadium.

They were buying drinks. Before that, I heard the owner asked them whether they wanted cigarette or not.

Okay, got ready to enter the stadium.

We had to pass through this narrow pathway. I couldn't imagine how the people carrying big bag passed through it as it was paramount narrow! After passing through it, your body would be 'molested' by these voluntary guards. They would asked you whether you smoked.

Our seats were at Green Gate and we had to climb up approximately 3 floors for our seats. While climbing, took a picture first. 1, 2, smile...

We managed to find 3 seats at the centre part, we were damn lucky on that day. The stadium was not fulled. This might be due to the match was held on Wednesday but not weekends.

Why I took these pictures? Can you see someone who looks like Theo Walcott sitting over there. Initially, I thought he was Walcott and I thought that Walcott was so friendly and willing to mix with fans. At last, he was a Malays.

This was the match arena. You can see that we could find a great spot there. Our angle was perfect. This was my Tailo and my first time watching a football match live! Our fist time had been contributed to the Gunners even though we were the Red Devils' loyal supporters.

This was the screen. Too sad that the whole stadium just had one screen. I wondered how the spectators sitting over there watched the football stars.

This was the clock.

While waiting for the football stars, let's took some pictures first.

While seating, there appeared two fans wearing Manchester United's jersey searching for seats. As a consequence, they were 'booed' terribly by the Gunners' fans. Some of them even asked them to leave! Luckily, Tailo and I were wearing casual.

You can see two different colours of hair here. Red ones supported the Gunners while the yellow ones supported the Malaysia.

This was my ticket.

Before the match started, four Malaysian goalkeepers came out for stretching. Nonetheless, I found their stretching ways ridiculous and they just threw the ball to each other.

Can you see the boy wearing No. 8 Nasri jersey? Do you know what was he doing? He was smoking! I think he is still under-age, isn't he? In Mandarin, we called this “毛都还没长齐”!

Okay, now all the Malaysia team came out for warming up.

Now, it's Arsenal's goalkeepers turn.

Whole squad of the Gunners coming out for stretching. They practised passing, dribbling, shooting, 'monkey' and even forming two small teams to play. The cameraman was so nice, he managed to find Samir Nasri and focused on him. Nasri smiled, this was the first time I found him so handsome, haha...

The roof of the stadium, obviously got 2 big holes.

Okay, the entrance ceremony of the match.

Okay, match started. Arsenal was having a formation of 4-5-1.

Arsenal were wearing blue jersey and you can see that how far the two keepers standing from their goal post.

Arsene Wenger was sitting on the bench.

First goal occurred roughly after 8 minutes of time. It was the first pass through created by Arsenal and the Malaysian defender was so nervous to tackle Jack Wilshere in the penalty box. Aaron Ramsey made the first goal. At the first half of the match, the crowd cheered whenever Theo Walcott touched the ball. At the second half, the spectators cheered when Andrey Arshavin, Robin Van Persie and Samir Nasri touched the ball. Samir Nasri even made some skills on the field but too bad that he didn't score. To me, Arsenal were not giving their best as most of them were jogging instead of running at a wind speed as they do in English Premier League. However, their jogging speed was more than enough to play with Malaysia. Malaysian players were too weak, in Mandarin we called that as “豆腐”. A slight touch on them would cause them falling down and there was bias on the judgement of the referees.

This was Arsenal's side. See how far Wojciech Szczesny was standing from his goal post.

This was Malaysian's side.

You can notice that there were more reporters and cameramen on Malaysian's side. I didn't think this was due to their patriotism towards Malaysia but they wanted to catch the best shot from the Arsenal. They wanted to snap the pictures on how Arsenal attacked the Malaysian team.

4-0 was the score. Goal scorers were Aaron Ramsey (penalty), Theo Walcott, Carlos Vela and Tomas Rosicky. If they gave their best, I thought this was not the score. Nonetheless, the youngsters were very hardworking. Theo Walcott even waved to us, what an honour! Some bad remarks here were that there was no replay in a live match, unlike what we watched on TV and the audio system was terribly bad!

Then we went back to my cousin's house by walking and it took us around 1 hour to reach our destination. The next day, after having our breakfast, I borrowed the car from my cousin to fetch Tailo and Eu Gene to K.T.M. station. Then, I lapped to college. Luckily, I was not late.

Yesterday, my friend C.JH asked me to part with him for the badminton competition. This was because his existing partner was absent due to his part-time job. We were in semi-finals but too sad that we lost. It was okay to me but certainly I hoped to win a medal. After the last match, I changed my cloth and went back. It was raining at the time. If I were not participating in the competition, I wouldn't got wet.

My old injuries happened again. Now, my feet and arms were pain! Looks like it will take me around 2 weeks to recover. Hopefully I could get well soon.

709

Yo, what's up everybody, it's me, Recca here. What is 709? If you're a Malaysian, you must know it, mustn't you? It refers to 9th of July, which was the date I went to Kuala Lumpur to continue my study after the two-week break.

On this day, quite a number of people demonstrated on the street. However, they were all defeated by the policemen. Some of them even were caught or jailed. My family was worried about me so much as they were scared of the incident of 513 to happen again on that day. Nonetheless, it was okay to me because I was there to study, not to participate in that demonstration.

Therefore, when I reached Duta Station (which was different from the station which I usually use, Puduraya Station as the station and many of the roads and highways were blocked), a policeman asked me who was I waiting for. His name was Hady, brought a handgun with him while the other one was holding of sub-machine gun, model 32 in Counter-Strike Condition Zero version. I replied him that I was waiting for my family. Then he asked where did I stay. He said I was better to take the RapidKL which was waiting for passengers and switch for Monorail and change to Star LRT in order to go to my cousin's house. However, I brought so many bags there and hence I refused by saying that I wanted to wait for them to pick me up. He humiliated me by pointing to his watch saying that there was already 7:30p.m..

Luckily, my uncle came to fetch me about 15 minutes later. Then I teased him back by saying:" Mereka dah sampai, tapi lu mia bas masih tunggu, haha..." He just smiled. My uncle was fast because he was a lorry driver who knew almost all the roads in Peninsular Malaysia. Even though most of the roads were blocked, he still could find an alternative way to come.

To me, government should not against the demonstration because they always speak publicly that they are always willing and ready to listen to people. Nonetheless, what they showed me was the opposite. I support demonstration as long as they don't break the public facilities and infrastructures or even cause damages. This kind of demonstration is very common in overseas. This can act as a way to convey the message to the government but it won't work in Malaysia.

After the TARc visit on Tuesday, I went to visit my ex-colleagues on Wednesday. We chatted a lot and had an enjoyable lunch together. I drank the so-called 古早味 white coffee in office but the white coffee was no long the Old Town white coffee or Mocha which I used to drink. As usual, my boss went back earlier but suddenly he called me to help him solving a mathematics calculation related to triangle and the degree within it (it was called pythagorous thereom if I'm not mistaken) because he needed to know it to make a tender for a project. I found it difficult since I had 'returned' the formula to my teacher but I could solve it at last. However, I needed a scientific calculator. There was no scientific calculator available, so I just made an estimation for it. Luckily Steffi's brother helped us and it showed that my estimation was not different too far from the exact answer.

At night, I gathered with my primary school's friends, Sam and C.T.H. by having dinner at Straits Quay. This was Sam and my first time there. After that, we moved to the new Tesco nearby and we met Y.C.H. our role student of the year during our graduation ceremony. Then, we went for pool. C.T.H. always doubts me as a new bird after seeing how I play. Honestly, that was just my forth time (if I'm not wrong) playing pool so far. I don't lie to my friends one, so trust me! Later, we went to 洗布桥 to have our supper.

Thursday, I was so glad to play badminton with my friends. Anthony, Sam and Kee attended. I parted with an uncle to fight against the two youths who were under training with a coach. We lost 2-1 but this was my first time to win them with a score of 21-15. I asked my friend whether did he win them before but he said no. Thus, I was so excited to win them once even though this might be the only once in my lifetime because the closest score before that was 17-21. Nonetheless, the another uncle's attitude towards my friend, Anthony was disgusting me a lot. I was so furious about it and I wanted to revenge so much! I want to train and win his son all the times to show him that he needs to change his behaviour.

I watched Pirate of Caribbean-On the Stranger Tides with my Tailo on Friday in WCinemax of Island Plaza. What a coincidence, this was our first time been there even though it has been there for years. We had a bad first impression as the road was designed to be one-way and we found it very difficult to reach our destination. Even though the directory showed the cinema was on Level 4. We still had to go up one floor using the stairs after reaching Level 4 by lift. This was totally insane!

We were late due to massive traffic jam in the rain, especially on the road of PCGHS, those from Penang, I believed that you knew what I was talking about. We initially planned to watch at 12:30p.m. but it was already 1p.m. when we reached there. Therefore, we booked the ticket for 3:15p.m. session. We headed to KFC to have our lunch because my Tailo said the KFC in USA didn't offer spicy flavour. We chatted in the KFC, too bad that KFC didn't offer free drinks refill service. He showed me his iPod and taught me a lot of things.

Later, we moved to Cold Storage at the basement. We were walking without any direction and motive while chatting. He told me lots of his story in USA. When it was almost timed, we headed to the cinema. Before we entered, we ordered a popcorn with his free voucher. There were just we two in the cinema for the first half an hour. Before the movie started, there was no audio, thus I scouted out and we didn't switch off or silent our cell phone. Eu Gene called Tailo suddenly and he was so shocked that the whole cinema was occupied by us. Later, two girls entered and another two guys for the subsequent a quarter of time. Thus, the whole cinema just got 6 spectators. This might be due to the old movie.

I admired Jack Sparrow so much and I found that we had the same philosophy. We have our aim and motive but we will accomplish them in a relax way, not like some others who often force themselves to the extreme. We enjoy our life and the process. My Tailo even imitated Jack Sparrow's way of talking and walking. He seemed funny and I liked it.

Saturday, I made myself available to visit my grandpa. He smiled when he saw me. I knew that he always miss me. As usual, he wanted to feed me durians but I refused by giving him a reason that I wanted to have my hair cut after that. He complained me for just visiting him thrice in this two-week time. Sorry, I was really fully occupied!

So this was my two-week holidays' schedule. I didn't study at all and hence I start to regret now after seeing the study texts. I know that I'm far behind from my course mates now but I won't relinquish. For your information, I just managed to get 63 marks for my Business Analysis's mid-term test after the second review by my tutor. The marks were not convincing due to some of my careless mistakes but at least, it let me knew where did I get wrong so that rectification could be made.