Tour de France, football and singing Negaraku in Germany

Last month, I went to Paris (waste money again!) and coincidentally it was the final leg of Le Tour de France! Something nice about Europe is that you can see a lot of world -famous event here. But always with a price. The cyclists rounded Champs de Elysee for 8 laps before ending the torturous 2 weeks ride. The moment I reached there, I ran straight to have a glimpse at the track, but there are dozens of people in front. Just to take a photo, I need to take up my hand high and snap shots randomly. Damn those tall 'kuai lo'! So when finally the riders came, I put up my hand again and wow! suddenly everybody in front of me have their camera up! I can't even see a bit of anything, just people's head!

For football: this is religion. I went to Old Trafford (same wasting money) to see Manchester United but ended up just taking a tour around the stadium. Even money can't buy the tickets as mostly are reserved for club members and season tickets. In Germany, I am determined to watch at least a game of football. So on a very cold winter day last November, Douglas and I bought a ticket through eBay and managed to see Bayern München (best) versus Bochum (terrible). But frankly, all there was is shouting and cursing. We can't really see when was the goal and there was no replay. So we just shout when we saw the tiny players celebrate! That is when we know it is a goal. And there was a crazy drunk guy behind that we scared will kill us if Bayern lose but fortunately won 3-1....

There was time when weird things do happen. Duisburg (the place I am staying) organise the World Games 2005 on 14-24 July 2005. Sort of like the olympic, just added sports like dancing, fin-swimming, sumo, dragon-boat race and "tarik tali" . Games like squash and bowling which has Malaysian athletes were also held. So, I happen to go and see the final squash game between Nicol David (MAS, rank 3) against Rachel Grinham (AUS, rank 1). It happens so fast, Nicol easily beat Rachel in one hour plus with the score 9-4, 10-9, 9-1. Not much excitement but at least a Malaysian won! "The men final was much tense." And then, the award ceremony. Haha... We need to sing Negaraku! I "nearly" forget how to sing it after sooo many years. But the negaraku version is the slow old version. Ohh... so proud! Now, at last, the world know that Malaysia flag is very similar to USA flag but with one big star and a moon!