Most enjoyable time of my life!

I had an enjoyable 2 days at Genting Highlands (Pahang, Malaysia) on the 17th and 18th of January 2004. Here's how it all started:

On the week of 5th January 2004, the local radio station (Light & Easy) was giving away 4 passes to watch David Gates live in concert at the Arena of Stars, Genting which also includes a 2 Days / 1 Night stay at the Resort hotel and a copy of David Gates` latest SongBook CD.

When I heard about this contest, I told myself - "I'm going to try my best and win this contest no matter what". So it began from that Monday onwards as i kept on calling into the radio station whenever i heard the "cue to call" for the contest to try my luck. I kept trying until Thursday morning around 10 a.m (can't remember the exact time but it was definitely morning), the cue to call was mentioned and I quickly dialled the radio station's number.

When I first called, the phone was engaged. So I immediately call again, waiting in anticipation for the phone to ring this time. To my surprise, it did ring and moments later, the radio DJ picked up the phone and said "hello, you're the lucky caller number 9". I was shocked at first and said "Oh my god, really?" and the DJ said "Yes" and he took my particulars down and told me to hang on the line (he was preparing to record my voice and play it on air later).

Note: To win the contest you have to be the 9th caller with a password and in this case, it was simply - "David Gates".

He started by mentioning the promotional line for the contest which is normal (but it was sooo long as I wanted to say something LOL). Then, he asked "how are you feeling today?" and I said "I feel great, but it's going to be better." and he replied "Well i'm sure you would". Next he asked me "what's the password?" and I said "is it David Gates?" and he said "Yes! Congratulations and I hope you enjoy the concert" and that was it.

My heart was still pounding as I ran downstairs and told my mom about it and she was ecstatic. My mom asked "but I didn't hear your voice over the radio?" and I said, "they'll play it soon after this song". True enough, my recorded voice was played after the current song was over. This was the first time that i've ever won anything from a radio station. Well actually the second time, but the first time was last year when I was supposed to win 2 movie tickets to watch "John Q" starring Denzel Washington. However, I did not receive the movie tickets and this time, I was more worried and so I decided to call the radio station up and the DJ said that I should contact the promotions department which I did and the lady said that they will call me on Monday for further details.

Come monday, I received a phone call in the morning and the lady from the promotions department asked me to collect the prize tomorrow (13th Jan 2004) between 10:30 a.m to 12:00 noon. So the next day, I went to ASTRO (to collect my prize) and true enough, I got the 4 concert tickets and a letter stating that the package includes a 2 Days / 1 Night stay at the resort hotel. As for the David Gates` CD, it was delivered to my house by courier a few days later.

I invited 3 friends to go to Genting - Kevin, Carmen and Navin (Kevin and Carmen are a couple). Kevin said he would drive us all the way to Genting and it was fantastic. As it was my first time going to Genting (no kidding!), I didn't feel that well while Kevin was driving (as the roads were winding and couple with the fact that I don't travel often). The journey to and from Genting was the most difficult one that I had to endure. But it was worth it :)

Here's a picture of me on the stage for the freebies at First World Plaza:


Yours truly on stage!
Let's see what happened in Genting (just a rough explanation as I can't really remember everything):

Saturday 17th January 2004:

Approximately 11 a.m, we checked into the Resort Hotel. Kevin and I called our parents to let them know that we've reached there safely. Then we went into our hotel rooms, look around, put down our bags and stuff and went off. Soon after, we went to First World Plaza and the 3 of them played Q-Bowling (a miniaturized bowling game). After that, we went on to play the real bowling game.

Once the bowling game was over, we went on to walk around First World Plaza until 1:20 p.m to stop for lunch. While we were eating, Carmen said she is going to the First World stage area as they're giving away some freebies. Shortly after Kevin finished eating, he went to the First World stage area to find Carmen and returned a few minutes later with some good news - they've won some prizes which includes vouchers and freebies worth RM200!

Our first stop was Snow World and we had a fun time there messing around and playing with the snow (and it sure was freezing inside there). After that, we went to watch a Chinese comedy movie for about 2 hours. Once the movie was over, we went for Bowling (again!) but this time, it was for FREE, thanks to the free bowling tickets we got from the vouchers earlier. But before that, we met Martin, a guy who works at the Thai embassy while we were queuing up to get our cinema tickets earlier. He gave us some bowling tickets as well that he didn't really need (as he won some freebies too) and we invited him to play bowling with us.

After the bowling game, we walked around until 7:20 p.m and went for dinner at KFC. Once dinner was over, we returned to our hotel rooms to take a shower before going to the David Gates concert. We then proceeded to the Arena Of Stars to watch David Gates live in concert. The concert was simply amazing and his songs sounded almost like the ones on the SongBook album. After almost every song, he cracked some jokes and I suppose he did this mainly to take a quick break from singing.

The last two songs were the best - Everything I Own and If. At the end of Everything I Own, he played the chorus one more time and invited the whole crowd to sing together. Shortly, he said goodbye and went off...at that time, I was thinking "this can't be the end, there's still one more hit song that he hasn't played". True enough, he returned and finished the concert with "IF" which is a beautiful love song that i keep hearing over and over again for the past couple of years. Then the concert was over. The crowd wanted more but sadly, that was the end of his first and last concert here in Malaysia.

The four of us went to the Monte Carlo casino after the concert for a game or two. Me and Navin went to upgrade our WorldCard there while Carmen was busy playing a card game. The three of us (Kevin, Navin and myself) played the Slot Machines but did not win anything (in fact we lost all of our money). Carmen was the lucky one as she won some money while playing the card game.

We then went to Coffee Bean for a drink and talked about the day. As it was getting a little late, we decided to go back to our hotel rooms and call it a day.

Cool Stuff that we won today:
- 3 Tickets to "Sky Venture" (yep!)
- 4 Cinema Tickets
- A couple of bowling tickets
- Some Tickets for Snow World
- 4 Tickets to watch Fantastica (A New Age Circus)

Sunday 18th January 2004:
This is the most "action-packed" day of them all. It started off with Navin repeatedly ringing Kevin and Carmen's hotel room bell. As they were still sleeping (around 8:30 a.m), Kevin got up with a blurry face and asked us to wait for them. After almost an hour, we went to redeem the Fantastica tickets that Carmen won yesterday (Fantastica is essentially a new age circus).

We had to wait until 10 a.m for the counter to open before we could redeem the tickets. Shortly after, we went for breakfast and after that, we tried our luck at the First World stage again (but this time all four of us went together). Guess what? We won prizes again (all four of us)! Since the prizes were more or less the same ones that Kevin and Carmen won yesterday, we decided to sell them at half price for each voucher. In the end, we managed to sell almost every single voucher and made quite a lot of money and divided the "loot" among the four of us.

Then Navin felt like bowling again and we went to watch him bowl (alone). Then we went to "Sky Venture" to book our place with the 3 Tickets and paid some money for the last ticket (which was on discount thanks to the WorldCard) so that all four of us could go. We then waited until the time came and went into the Sky Venture room and met a guy called John Davenport who was here on holiday (and took some pictures of him with Kevin & Carmen too).

We had to suit up for Sky Venture and then proceeded to the briefing room where we were given a short briefing on what to do in the Wind Tunnel. As we are not supposed to speak in the Wind Tunnel (due to the loud noise), we had to use sign languages to communicate with the trainer and he taught us how to bend and straighten our legs and also how to position ourselves in the wind tunnel to control the movement.

After the briefing, we were all raring to go and I was the first one to out into the Wind Tunnel with the instructor (oh my god!). Inside the Wind Tunnel, I felt scared, excited, and a bit dizzy and all kinds of different emotions went through my mind. It was rather difficult to balance at first because after all, this is the first time we went for Sky Venture. We were given two rounds for this - the first round can be considered as an experimental round so that we can familiarize ourselves with the environment inside the tunnel. Everyone took turns to go into the Wind Tunnel with the instructor. Should we fail to balance ourselves, the instructor would grab us and tell us what to do by showing signs (as we have been briefed on this earlier).

The funniest moment was when Carmen went into the tunnel - she was screaming all the way inside the tunnel (LOL). The second round was when the instructor "flew" with us and took us all the way up, down and spun us around the wind tunnel. I felt dizzy at that point and showed "two thumbs down" to indicate that I wanted out. The instructor somehow continued and shortly after, I was out of the wind tunnel and back into the waiting line, seating next to the rest of my friends.

That was definitely the most exciting moment of my life - to be able to "fly" like a bird inside that wind tunnel. It goes without doubt that if I had the chance again, I would definitely want to experience Sky Venture again!

As the Fantastica Circus show was about to start, we quickly packed and got out of there (but not before collecting our Certificates to certify that we have flown in the winds of 195km/hour or greater at the Genting Sky Venture). It was the perfect time for us to rest after Sky Venture as we sat down and enjoyed the awesome performance of the Fantastica circus team. The performance was awesome although it was a little dragging towards the end (the show lasted around 2 hours).

We then went back to our hotel rooms and packed our stuff before proceeding to the check-out counter and left for "lunch/dinner" at Gohtong Jaya and went straight home right after our meal.

That was the best two days of my life and hope someday to return to Genting for a second outing (and for Sky Venture again!). Almost everything was given away for FREE except for our food, transportation and other miscellaneous costs. And that concludes one of the "dream come true" moments of my life.


Here are the pictures that two of my friends took while we were at Genting Highlands:

Genting 2004 Pictures

Genting 2004 Pictures (Kevin's Camera)