Mixed Doubles Finals
Derrick Ng/Alex Bruce vs Toby Ng/Grace Gao
Men’s Doubles Finals
Derrick Ng/Adrian Liu vs Toby Ng/Jon Vandervet
1
Some of you may know, I decided to try a 30 day “Raw Food Diet” starting the New Year. For most of the month of December, I have been slowly changing and adapting my diet so it wouldn’t be as difficult to stop eating cooked food all of a sudden. For the most part, I was eating only 1 cooked meal a day while the rest was all raw. I did go through a detox during this time for I did experience headaches, sore throat, mucus, coughing, small breakouts, and even a slight fever on one day.
So here are some of my rules for my 30 day raw food diet. Please note, I said “my” rules!! It’s not realistic for me to be 100% raw right away for I already have dates in January where I am already subject to eat out! So I will try my best to eat raw as much as I can! So being raw, I am eating raw vegetables, fruits, and nuts. I will not be eating any meat, drinking any milk, or eating any bread. If it’s been cooked, baked, pasteurized, roasted, etc. I will not be consuming it.
Because I have been eating mostly raw for the past while, I have felt a significant difference. For the past while, or ever since I can remember, I have always felt a need for a nap during the day. I would wake up tired, then feeling pretty good for the first hour of the day, then I’m tired for the rest of the day always having that feeling of wanting to go back to bed. Since going mostly raw, I would wake up at around 630AM, by 7AM I’m feeling great and energized, and throughout the whole day I would feel just as energized and awake without any need of taking a nap. I also had problems with dry eyes when wearing contacts. Before after a few hours of wear (sometimes even less), my eyes would be irritated and red from the dryness. Now I can pretty much wear contacts throughout the whole day without drenching my eyes with eye drops. Other than that, I just feel healthier in general and with that, I just feel happier too! I do know that when I do eat cooked food, I really don’t feel as great. The other day I ate a pretty heavy cooked meal during the day and an hour later I was tired as hell and had to take a long nap.
I will try my best to keep updating with how my diet is going. I will post up what I’m eating from time to time and will update with my weight and body fat%.
Day 1 (01-Jan-12): Weight: 159.4 lbs // Body fat %: 8.7%
Breakfast: Banana Cereal
-3 Bananas
-1/2 cup filtered water
-1/2 cup coconut milk
-2 tbsp raw hemp hearts
Blend 1 banana with water and coconut milk until nice and smooth. Slice 2 bananas into pieces and place into the blended banana milk. Sprinkle hemp hearts on top.
I have been travelling around the world for some time now and since my first trip, I have been looking for ways to make travelling easier. Now I have a list of some things that I would not want to leave without!
Ticket stubs from May 2011-present.
1. My laptop
I have an LG P300 which I got from my friend for a good deal! 13.3″ and only weights 3 lbs. Super light and affordable. It does everything I need it to do. When travelling to tournaments, it’s important for me to keep connected to those back home and my laptop does just that. Also awesome for watching tons of movies and tv series.
Favourite TV Series
-Breaking Bad
-Dexter
-How I Met Your Mother
-Big Bang Theory
-Modern Family
-Game of Thrones
-Spartacus
About to watch: The Wire Season 1-5
2. Samsung Galaxy S
Packed with some fun games, it burns time while waiting. Travelling means waiting in line for at airports, waiting for shuttles, waiting for time to go by. It’s also good to have when there is WIFI at the badminton venue and I do not have my laptop. This is also my primary camera since it’s way more portable and convenient!
Favourite games:
-Mahjong and Friends Free (The real deal mahjong. Not the match the tiles to get rid of it mj.)
-BlastMonkey (Addicting game that requires you to shoot a monkey to collect all the bananas before reaching the goal!)
-Bejewelled (Classic favourite)
-Wordzup (Random letters to make random words)
3. Ipod
Who can live without music? I know I can’t. It makes walking more pleasurable and it also helps focus me before my match.
Recent tracks I’m listening to:
–Skrillex
–Armin Van Buuren (Universal Religion)
Headphones:
-Klipsch S4 (Awesome earbud type headphones. Look em up, they are unbeatable for their quality and sound)
4. Travel Adapter/Converter & Power Bar
It’s necessary to have an adapter/converter when travelling overseas. You really don’t want to be frying your electronics! It would definitely ruin any trip! I also bring a power bar to plug into the adapter/converter so then there’s just more plugs to be used.
Tip #1: Do not bring the power bar as your carry on. I have done this and in Guatemala they took it away. Not all airports will confiscate it since I have carried it on many times before but why take the chance. I do not understand why they took it away still… Seriously, was I going to find a plug on a plane, plug it in, and try to hurt somebody by getting them to stick their finger in it??
Tip #2: Ikea sells power bars in packs of 2 for around $5.
5. Rolling Vacuum Bags
You can buy these on ebay for cheap so don’t pay for the ones that cost $20 for 3 (SM, M, and L) bags. In HK you can buy many different sizes for around $1 CAD too. These bags not only save you a lot of room in your luggage but it is also waterproof, dust proof, and air tight. But beware, since you are saving a lot of room, it is easy to over-pack and essentially have an over-weight luggage.
6. Eye mask & Ear Plugs
I really like having an eye mask when travelling. When you need to sleep, you need to sleep! On planes I find it annoying when the person next to you has their light on or has the window open while you are trying to sleep. The eye mask easily fixes that problem. It also helps if your roommates need to wake up before you do and needs to turn on the light in the morning while you’re trying to sleep in. Earplugs, I don’t use them because I can usually sleep through anything but for most who are sound sensitive, earplugs work great.
7. Sunglasses
Protect your eyes! Doesn’t hurt to look stylish too, hehe.
8. Book(s)
Reading does not only help pass the time but it also educates. I strictly read non-fiction books (mostly all business books) because I think it’s better time spent than reading about prepubescent boys playing with magic (no offence).
Books I’m reading:
-Power of Focus (Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Les Hewitt)
-Why not you? Why not now? (Brig Hart)
Recommended Books:
-How to Win Friends and Influence People (Dale Carnegie)
-Anything written by Robert Kiyosaki
9. Notebook
It’s important to have something to write stuff in. Whether it’s somebody you meet and you want to write down their contact information, or just random information that is important to your travels, I found having a notebook very useful. Yes you can use your phone but I guess I’m more old fashion. I like writing my notes with pen and paper much better.
10. MonaVie
When travelling, especially on airplanes, it’s easy to get sick. Having some MonaVie Active not only boost my immune system so I do not fall ill, it’s also my daily supplement of glucosamine I need to keep my shoulder pain free in order to play well. I also bring MonaVie RVL powder and bars. The shake is good when I’m hungry or when I just finished a hard match. It has enough protein to help with my starving muscles and it’s also the most nutrient dense per calorie shake there is. It’s probably the healthiest thing I put into my body during my trips as well!
You can email me if you want to know where to get this stuff! (derrick@mvallstars.com)
I hope you enjoyed reading my Top 10 Travel Essentials. I hope this will help some of you who are about to travel! I’m off to pack for my next tournament in Puerto Rico.
Take care everybody!
Sorry, due to internet really sucking here, I was forced to go downstairs to use the crappy computers at the hotel for £1/20 minutes… I will update when I get internet! I’m so sorry! I have some more pictures too!
But to quickly update, Toby Ng and Grace Gao lost this morning to an English/Scottish pair while David Snider lost his singles to a Finnish singles player. Michelle Li will start the day tomorrow with her singles and Adrian and I will play Boe and Mogensen on the TV court tomorrow night!
Hey everybody, sorry for the short post but the internet is extremely slow and it takes around an hour to upload a few pictures… Just to update, Adrian and I won my first match against Thailand, 29-17, 21-19!! We were down 20-18 in the first and 19-18 in the second! Fortunately we were able to keep focused and came out with a positive result!
I will post more tomorrow! Up next, #2 in the world Boe/Mogenson!
Thanks for all your support so far!
Today I slept in pretty late because we didn’t have any practice times until 12:00PM. There was a football (soccer) match at the outdoor stadium next to our hotel so it was quite loud outside!
IMAGE SUPPOSE TO BE HERE BUT INTERNET IS TOO SLOW TO UPLOAD o_O!!!
Anyways, for breakfast I had some Shin Ramyun (spicy korean noodles) which I brought to try and save money. I was and actually still am suffering from the runs.. FML*!! Day before play and Im not feeling too great… So 30 minutes before noon I went down to the lobby to meet the team to walk over to our practice session. Holy crap the downstairs bar and the streets were packed with people drinking! At the arena, we had 3 courts in the main hall for 30 minutes. To take full use of the courts, it was toby and grace, joyce and adrian, and alex and i playing mixed doubles rotating each team around. Stephan, Dave and Michelle were on another court and Charmaine was rallying with Jeff White on our last court with whichever mixed team that was not playing mixed on the other half. It was quite short but was glad to get one last hit in the main hall before the tournament started. Again, the hall had no draft but the lights were still quite bright. You could actually feel the heat off the lights when standing on the court!
See how bright the lights are!
IMAGE SUPPOSE TO BE HERE BUT INTERNET IS TOO SLOW TO UPLOAD o_O!!!
As you can see team China had the courts after us! They brought a LOT of people like usual…. Since the whole team was there, we had a quick team meeting with the coaches after practice. We talked mainly about Pan Ams Games and the National Team Camp.
Afterwards, I came back to the hotel and chilled. I started watching Modern Family! If you don’t know what the sitcom is about, it’s about these 3 families, which turns out to be 1 big family, and pretty much how disfunctional it is! It’s quite funny and I find it’s a lot better than a lot of the new TV series out there!!
While watching Modern Family, I also tried using this portable ultrasound device I got to help my elbow… but right when I started using it, smoke started coming out of it!
IMAGE SUPPOSE TO BE HERE BUT INTERNET IS TOO SLOW TO UPLOAD o_O!!!
Tomorrow is my first match against Thailand. I play at 6:40PM and I’ve got a practice at 10AM. Let’s hope my elbow and my stomach start feeling a bit better…
Sorry, Images will be posted as soon as they are uploaded!! Internet really sucks here… well everywhere I travel to!!
I started my trip with my flight from Vancouver (YVR) to London Gatwick (LGW). Being self funded, I was too cheap to book to the BWF Recommended landing airport, London Heathrow. I took Air Transat (operated by Thomas Cook. They do not post that anywhere at the Airport and you will literally be walking up and down the international departure area for a long time before finding out you’re suppose to line up at Thomas Cook.. Yes, bloody stupid). Unfortunately I was stuck with a middle seat for the duration of the 9h40m flight! I boarded the plane,found my seat and holy crap, was this airplane ever cramped as hell!! You definitely get a lot less leg space than normal airplanes! If you were to fly to London on a budget, then yes… book with Air Transat/Thomas Cook to London Gatwick (Only around $500).. but with a cheap price tag, here are the pros/cons of this flight:
PROS:
1. Non-stop to London
2. Decent service/hospitality
3. Personal TVs (well not much of a pro if you consider the cons)
4. Cheap fare
CONS:
1. Extremely cramped seats
2. You must pay for any drinks or snacks. Very expensive. 330ml Pepsi is around $2.50 CAD
3. TVs are tiny and have some grid on it so it makes it hard to see
4. You’re not allowed to wear head bud type earphones as the plane takes off or lands.
5. Only the dual prong male end headphone jacks are available
6. TVs only have 2 movies that repeat itself over and over and a 4 other channels. 1 music channel, 1 sitcom channels, 1 kids cartoon channel, and 1 british humour channel… (tried watching… not very humerous =)
7. TVs are unreliable. My flight today, the TVs and reading lamp system apparently overheated and all the powers to the chairs were turned off. Last time I flew business with Air Transat, same thing happened.
I got off the flight with a pretty stiff back and not a lot of sleep. Some guy behind me kept kneeing the back of my chair and kicking the chair so I turned around and told him to please stop kicking the chair. His response was “Sorry, I have long legs..” Now getting off the flight, I realize this smart ass was shorter than me.. long legs my ass. Sit up straight!!
So because I landed in Gatwick instead of Heathrow, it was up to me to take the train to my hotel. I landed at around 7:30AM and by the time I got through customs and picked up my luggage, it was 9AM! Airport takes FOREVER to send the baggage up! I ended up taking 3 different trains (without getting lost! Phew..!!) and made it to my hotel. That took me quite a while because by the time I got the hotel, it was 11:45AM. What a journey it was…
Since Badminton Canada wasn’t funding the team to play World Championships, the entire team is staying at the Ibis Hotel near Wembley Stadium. It’s a cheaper hotel than the tournament hotel but hey, beggars can’t be choosers! I’m just glad to have a room to stay in (unlike my last night at Indonesia Premier Super Series.)
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 View from hotel room at night |
As the day passed by the rest of the Canadian team started to check in. Everybody is here except for Michelle who arrives tomorrow morning and Charmaine Reid who we have no idea where she is! We walked over to the indoor stadium where competition was going to be held for a quick hit. We only had 40 minutes to practice for Denmark had the court after us. The venue is absolutely stunning and I’m sorry I do not have a picture yet! I couldn’t feel much of a draft but the lights are quite bright!
After practice, the team went down to Whitherspoons Pub for dinner. The food there was quite cheap and they quality was fair. They also had quite the assortments of condiments!
Tomorrow is the last day before games start. Team Canada has 1 more practice at the main hall. Hopefully everybody will be over the jet lag and will feel ready to compete! I, myself am suffering from some pretty bad golfer’s elbow. There’s a huge knot almost the size of a golf ball on the inside of my forearm making it quite painful to extend my arm or squeeze and rotate. Hopefully the pain will go away by my first match =…
Time to sleep and get ready for Day 2!
For the past week I have been training with Kim Dong Moon in Calgary. I have trained with Kim 2 years ago and boy, did I learn a lot back then. Two years later, and a much better player, WOW, do I still have a lot to learn. The intricate details of footwork and timing, using my momentum, the way to position myself to see the opposition’s racket position, to putting a purpose to each and every one of my shots and much, much more… this is definitely the AP course of all badminton lessons!! I even had Kim watch a couple of my recent matches and already on the first point he paused the video to tell me what I was doing wrong!
Now here’s the kicker… Kim offered me this training for free. He even let me stay at his house to save money on hotel. I give all my gratitude to Kim, his hospitality and his generousity. I wish I could thank you more but I guess the best I can do is to do well in my up coming tournaments.
But with Korean training comes Korean habits.. and one is you gotta know how to drink! I definitely gained back my calories in beer but at least I came out with better knowledge on how to improve my game. But on Monday night, Kim’s sister and law (Ra’s sister?) came over with her husband and son to cook dinner! We had some delicious Korean style rice rolls! While they were preparing dinner, their 7 year old boy came and played PS3 with me. He was pretty funny! He kept wanting to play… but the PS3 being Toby’s, the selection of games were quite limited!! Most the games were rated “Mature”!! We ended up playing Street Fighter 4… I let him win a few times… but once I beat him back, he wanted to play another game! He wanted to play Resident Evil but I told him that it’s scary. After that, he said he didnt’ want to play. So he wanted to play rainbow 6. We played a bit but he couldnt get the controls correct and was having a hard time staying alive. So then he complained he wanted to play something else. He didnt want to play any of the sports game (nhl, mlb, golf) but I told him that those were the only games he could choose from! So he ended up choosing golf. We played 1 hole but he couldnt get the timing right so he wanted to change games again! He ended up choosing Heavenly Sword. I let him play by himself and it seem like he was getting the hang of it so I just let him alone.. hehehe… Anyways, soon after it was time for dinner. Take a look at how Kim Dong Moon makes his Korean style rice roll!
Tomorrow is my last day of training in Calgary before I fly back to Vancouver for a day before leaving to World Championships in London. Luckily I booked one of my flights with my dad’s British Airways miles so coming back from London to Vancouver only set me back around $500. Unfortunately to save money I had to fly to London Gatwick instead of the recommended airport, London Heathrow, to save myself some around a thousand dollars! But now I have to figure out UK’s train system alone and hopefully make it to my hotel safe and sound!
I can’t wait to train with Kim again at the end of August for I know it’s going to be another learning experience. Thanks again to Kim Dong Moon. You are a life saver to Canadian Badminton. I hope one day to have your wisdom and experience.
Derrick Ng - Badminton Athlete and Entrepreneur 