on my own: relay for life, penang 2009!!!

okay, i bet a lot of you out there are wondering what relay for life is all about. it is actually a cancer awareness campaign to raise fees for poorer cancer patients and also to further the research on cancer. in fact, this was actually started by an american who went around the park asking for funds in a full 24-hour period in 1985. the thing that you can say about this guy is that 'wow, he is really super!' to be honest i can't stand walking non-stop for 10 hours without wanting to give up, let alone 24 hours. ah, life is so good that some people don't even have to walk for an hour per day. anyway, we only need to stay there for 16 hours and walk for a minimum of an hour.

the event actually took place in penang's one and only youth park in tanjong bungah. if you ever go to penang, go there, it's really fun, i personally think that it is even nicer than the new york parks that you watch in shows minus the bird feeding part, in which you have monkeys replacing them in penang. but if you get caught feeding them, you'll get a hefty sum of fines on your head.

me and yee hooi at one of the swings in youth park!!!

anyway after we set up our tents, we practically rush to the playgrounds like small kids. haha, to feel the wind blowing through my face again was great! i miss my swings, but definitely not my childhood.

another vain pose

ready, set, not yet go lar!

anyway, the whole event haven't started yet when we got there by 4.30pm. wanna see our tent?

our tent!

you know, i never thought that tents are so easy to set up. the tents are actually really really large sacks which have four small plastic (with holes) attached to each end of the square sack. there's actually a long slit x in the middle of the tent, so all you have to do is put the long rods that they have provided through the slits and the make sure that each ends of those rods are firmly stuck into each of the small plastic holes and voila, you have a tent. of course nobody wants their tents to topple over under strong winds, so using the hook-like nail, you nail the plastic end to the ground. my tent is not bad right? but of course, even dummies can set up this kind of tents.

before the start of the event, we saw people selling paper sacks in one of the stalls and i thought, why would people want to buy those ugly paper sacks (no offense of those who drew pics on those sacks! i didn't know at the time!) with really amateurish pictures (which really looked like it from afar!)! i thought maybe people were just gullible to this kind of things so i didn't think much about it until i saw them setting those paper sacks on the field in an oval manner. then they started to light up the candle which are put inside the sack. this is THE EFFECT!

the EFFECT!

it was raining at the time, i remember one or two of the sacks going aflame. one of the sacks kept burning very close to two people who appeared very heated in their conversation. the person i think was aware of the situation but just did nothing until a man stomp the flaming sack to cinders. but the whole scene was so beautiful that i actually felt tears lodged behind my throat. at the time, i thought the whole scene was very meaningful, because admidst all the rain and wind at that time, hundreds of lanterns just stood still and strong without burning up even though all the sacks were made from plain paper. it was as if god wanted to pass this message to us, to none believers, i think i can safely say that mother nature just wanted to convey the message that ' even though we look frail, we are actually much much stronger than we originally thought.

some of the sacks that was being set up in the field were actually good wishes or letters to their loved one who had cancer. one of the sacks that i read was actually for a mother who had died of cancer, it wrote 'you'll be always in our heart... within our soul...'. beautiful is the only word for the aching sense that i got when i read it. fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, childrens, friends... their letters and wishes were all there. but then the only thing that i regretted for the whole event was actually because my phone can't seem to show words that are present on the sacks. but then there are cute pictures too, i'll let the pics do the job of description...