Overcoming Fears with a Friend.

On a sunny Friday, just two days ago, I had the blessed chance of being Azura's guest while shooting for her upcoming show for Astro Prima titled 'Langit dan Bumi' of which she co-hosts with Alam. They were shooting in Sunway Pyramid and Sunway Lagoon. I remember her telling me that we were going to do the G-Force ride, also known as a human sling shot. Silently, that freaked me out, but externally, I held a rather bold front and said, "Sure, I'm up for that!"

So, we started the day shooting in Sunway Pyramid, having to switch my lingual mode to Bahasa Malaysia (BM) since the show is shot in our country's national language. I have to admit, my BM isn't as fluent as it used to be. I guess it is true that when I stop using the language, I gradually forget. (I shifted to a private school that used English as its medium of communication when I was 16, though I know there is no excuse.)

On the spot, I found out we were going ice skating. Though I silently had a gut feeling that we were going to do it and even dressed for it, nothing could prepare me for a sweat-out ice skating attempt on the supposedly chilly ice skating ring. I was drenched in sweat after shooting at the ice skating ring - no photographs of that because my camera was in the locker, THANK GOD. Unfortunately, the crew filmed it, and I won't know if they will air the part of me FALLING on ice until the show is out in October. Do let me know if you happen to watch that episode yeah? It is on Channel 105 on Astro.

After being given 'Film Crew' passes to enter Sunway Lagoon, we hit it off with the G-Force ride. I had an overwhelming amount of fear before going on that ride, while Azura on the other hand has done it in Singapore five times over. She was reassuring me that it was do-able and that we will come out of it alive - which totally got me laughing. The pre-ride jitters were filmed on camera. I can only imagine how the footage of us on the ride would look like on television. Yes, they fixed up their portable camera on the ride itself shooting us while we were screaming our hearts out, till it came to a point that we just burst out in laughter. The ride didn't turn out as bad as I had imagined it to be in my mind, although the spinning was horrifyingly dizzy. Only then did I realise that I totally overplayed the fear in my mind. The mind is tricky.

After being swung into the air, spun around a couple of times before descending back on the ground, we climbed up seven-storeys worth of stairs to get to the suspension bridge of Sunway Lagoon only to leap off it with a bungee jump. I have been longing to do the bungee jump since its opening, but when they prepped me up for the jump and got me to stand at the edge of the platform, the fear was just beyond words. Even typing this out makes my hands sweat!

They advise you not to look down, but due to the fact that you have to place your feet halfway out of the platform, you end up looking down anyway - which totally gave me chills down my spine. I vividly remember the guy saying, "Look straight at the hotel, don't look down." I spread both my arms wide, prepared for the jump and as they counted down, "5..4..3..2..1..," I leaned forward. Nothing topped that feeling. To be exact, it was not happiness, it was not fear that I felt when I leaped, it was nothing. That was the most amazing part of the leap; the neutrality of emotions.

Azura's bungee jump episode was extra long because she took some time to let go. (She's going to say it wasn't that long because she's awesome like that, hahaha - you know I love you, babs!) BUT, when she finally took that leap and joined me at the bottom, her entire self transformed. You can only imagine her post-jump excitement, skipping around like a popping popcorn. Impulsively, we took up the offer when Stanley screamed from the bridge asking if we wanted to have another jump. This time, we did it TOGETHER!

Watch this video and have a good laugh at our bungee jump!

The new surfing experience on the Flow Rider was a good work out. I woke up with jelly-like shoulders the next morning! I have never surfed anything other than the internet, so it was very much a foreign experience for me. We began by jumping into the waves with our body on the board attempting to just stay on the board for as long as possible. Slowly but surely, we began attempting to kneel on our knees while braving the gushing machine-made waves, which mind you, is extremely strong. I speak from experience because as you can watch from the video below, I fell off the board and the waves literally pushed me all the way back to the top and I was practically sitting there stuck because the waves were too strong for me to stand back up - until the guard came to my rescue and literally pulled me out of it. No kidding!

Azura was almost a natural on the Flow Rider! And I have to say, she certainly has the expressions for television. When I was trying to get on my knees on the board, it required me to first press the board down while braving the waves, then once it is stable, attempt to kneel on my knees - all with a serious, focused face on, but somehow, Azura manages to do it all with a wide smile on her face. And, if her outfit doesn't scream out expertise, I stand witness to her natural talent. To understand that talent, watch the video and go figure. *winks*

All in all, it was a good Friday. Besides having myself a good time and overcoming my fears, I couldn't have asked for a better person to have done a tandem (duo) bungee jump with! When we were sitting in the surf pool after the entire day of shooting, we looked up at the suspension bridge and saw two people prepping for a bungee jump together, and I remember her saying, "Luckily we trust each other." Indeed, babs. Indeed.

To humour you a little, here is a short clip of us fooling around behind the camera - after the crew supposedly stopped filming. Why not share a giggle? :)

Middle photographs, taken when I was 8 years old.

Photographs on the side, taken last year and this year.

When Daddy went through our day's photographs and videos, he asked me to do a past and present photograph collage and said to ask Azura this; "Don't you ever grow old?" Daddy cracks me up all the time.

Thank you for everything, babs!

Loves,
Ee Ping