Diatribe Of A Mad Bassist

I’m off to Korea.. if I can manage to get some internet connection, you will see daily updates… otherwise.. I’ll update when I’m back… yeah…

Just bought a T-shirt from this online store… nice… visit it at http://llashh.multiply.com

We had our final session in Taiwan for this trip.. the pastors did the body surf again.. haha.. and of course.. Sendy Bolang sing song….

She really did very well… our resident Diva indeed…

After the session, we packed up and headed for the airport.. Took China Airlines again… thank God the new flights now have individual screens…

But the shows kinda CMI…

One last shot of Taiwan… before 4.5 hours in the air and finally….

HOME!!!!!

It’s great to be back… but what did I bring back from my first long haul mission trip?

It’s one thing to hear how God is using the church to impact the youths of Taiwan.. it’s another thing to be there and see it for myself…

It’s a humbling experience and learnt how to minister with my instrument much better.. I’ve learnt how to flow with Pst Kong and Pst Tan.. I’ve learnt the importance of tolerance when working in a group.. Most importantly, I’ve learnt that it’s a tremendous honour to be able to serve God with my gifts and talents… Thank God for everything on this trip.. to the mission team : Thank you all for working hard together for the Kingdom of God.. it’s been a fruitful trip!

Man.. what a day… started the day feeling absolutely crappy with flu… but thank God for June’s medication.. feel better now..

In Japan we saw the Loser bank.. in Taiwan we got the Loser Breakfast…

We saw the miracle of the 5 loaves and 2 fish happen right in front of our eyes today…

Basically Pst Tan got them to break bread and each person to give it to someone that he/she truly appreciates or feel has impacted them during this camp…

We started with 12 plates of bread.. which probably has about 10 pieces of bread or so… and keeping in mind there were about 600 over people present at the meeting… and we had plenty and plenty and plenty of bread left over! Felt really humbled when Pst Tan fed me the bread and said “thanks for serving”… but the point is this.. many of us had a lot of bread.. and they weren’t like crumbs.. there were fairly large pieces… so 12 plates of bread among 600 over people.. with lots left over.. just doesn’t make sense.. Miracle? Yes.. amazing.. mind blowing…

People were still breaking bread and sharing it with one another after the crowd was dismissed.. man

Matt took Sean, Jessel and me to Jin Ma Yi…Golden Ants.. makes me itch.. but it’s a guitar shop… and man.. they had lots of stuff…

Finally got my strap that I’ve been wanting and looking for months…

FIR performed again tonight…

Apparently Ah Qing left his gear in the cab or something.. so had to end up using Jessel’s guitar and effects.. haha..

Anyway, it’s the second last session and it seems the crowd still isn’t losing much energy yet…

They basically come running in shouting their team’s name into every session.. man.. the loudest and rowdiest crowd of the 3 camps for sure…

Apparently Fei-er and Ah Qing wore matching clothes by coincidence… haha.. it’s the love connection man…

Pst Jenny dubbed this the new FIR.. which Ah Qing said it’s the spiritual FIR.. haha.. and I said with Matt they should call it FIRM…

Speaking of Pst Jenny..

She’s really one motherly person.. yet she’s looking cooler and younger each time I see her..

Random shot of me and Brandon looking stupid backstage… well.. just me lookin stupid..

Here’s me and Tze En and Yun Chang.. my happening SOT classmates from last year.. two mighty men of God in Taiwan..

Went to Shi Lin for a little while.. and saw the illegal stalls running for cover…

But they will appear again in a few minutes…

Alright.. gonna head home tomorrow.. gonna be blogging from home yeah! Miss home…

Some

Man.. the day started rather routinely… feeling really tired.. and all of us are falling sick.. so please keep praying for us…

Anyway for the night session.. our diva decided to show up in a Cheong Sam..

Here she is with Alicia..

Here’s our food table.. with bubble tea and foot long makis (rice wrap) on the menu tonight..

Liu Geng Hong was our guest performer tonight..

Pst Tan preached a great message tonight that really touched the hearts of the many people there… especially the men..

And then at our closing song.. the highlight of the day came.. Pst Tan surprised us all by jumping into the crowd for a body surf… the crowd went crazy… it took me by surprise so I never managed to get it on camera.. but he urged my dear zone pastor, Pst Zhuang to do it.. so here.. brace yourself…

Whoo! I’ve a happening pastor!!!

Ok.. coming back soon… one more full day tomorrow and one final session on Friday morning before we head back.. and then the 4 of us musicians and Ally have to play for all 4 services this weekend.. pray for strength!

Word of the day: Cacat Mental…Yup..that’s what we are now..anyway… had some free time in the day so went to Dan Shui Old Street again.. bought some local snacks and stuff..

The view from the riverside.. many shops around there

Sean, Jessel and I then went across the road and ate at this Katsu Don restaurant..

Had Pork Curry Katsu Don..

Introducing Ninja Matt.. He had cough.. apparently from me.. haha..
I was cut by Proverbs 9:10

Dunno what I mean? Here..

Here’s the Proverbs 9:10 that cut me.. cut by the zero..

To make things worse… I left a blood stain on the new white door they installed over the weekend..

WHOO! But we cleaned it off…

Finally met Tze-En’s baby.. and Tze-En’s wife Vicky..

We had an older crowd this time.. more college students…

But they were the loudest of all.. it was so loud that we could barely hear ourselves properly..

Overall thank God it was a good meeting… Many new friends got saved! God is great!

We start of our morning sound check with Jessel playing the circus melody.. and Sean and I joining in with Another One Bites The Dust.. and found that the two songs can actually be played simultaneously..

Had our last session.. Thank God again Pst Kong was super happy.. the kids here in Kaohsiung are also warmer and more  ‘on’ than the ones in the first camp in Taipei.. well.. tomorrow kicks off the final camp in this trip.. let’s pray for everything to be great…

We headed to the High Speed Rail station to catch our train back to Taipei.. I went to 7-11 to get a drink and lo and behold I found this…

Yes.. BEER flavoured green tea.. tastes funky…

Saw this at the vending machine on our train.. right.. i love to drink lactic acid…

Two hours later.. we arrived back in Taipei

We headed back to the same hotel in Dan Shui.. just that this time we got a much bigger room.. with a queen sized bed and a single bed.. sharing with Jessel and Sean…

Ok.. I’m lazy to flip the photo.. but that’s Taipei 101 in the distance..

That’s one of the many MRT stations in the network..

This token is the ticket for the train ride..

Met Faith with Matt for dinner.. this dinner with her was long overdue.. like what 4 years?

Well, we had Japanese BBQ and steamboat… nice

The restaurant is near New Life Church.. so after the meal.. Matt and Faith brought me over for a short tour..

Here is the New Life band practicing.. and the bassist is Xiao Qian from Cherry Boom.. AH… WHITE LAKLAND.. I want!

Ok.. here’s Faith..

And here’s Matty..

Ok that’s all for today.. Tomorrow night’s the big kick off for Camp 3..

Day 7. We had two sessions today and in both sessions I was given a chance to do a bass solo.. did it 3 times in all (sang the song twice in the first session). Did my typical slap and pop bass to smoke thru.. thank God it went well.. even Pst Kong said it was good.. so yeah.. Praise God!

Our hotel is right behind a railway line.. yes the building behind is our hotel…

We had a somewhat combined band tonight for the night session.. Matt came over to join us on guitar, this girl Tian Tian who is a mother of 2 at 20 on keys and Katie (centre of pic) from Pst Wayne’s church led praise and worship.. as Sean says in his pseudo Aussie accent.. AWWsome..

Jessel was up to his usual monkey business…

The kids here in Kaohsiung are more rah-rah than those in Taipei.. even for their campfire they had fireworks…

Since the session ended early, we had time for some RnR.. so we went to Rui Feng Ye Shi.. or Rui Feng night market..

Stall selling bread…

Jessel, Sean and I had steak at this stall… for about 6 bucks.. we got this…

Power rite..

After which we walked about for a little while before heading back to the hotel..

But not before I got my fried oyster omelette… (with violent protests from Ariel included…)

Sorry for the unfocused shot.. haha..

But really thank God for everything thus far.. Pst Kong has been very happy with the band this trip.. so praise God for that..

Tomorrow will be the last session here before we head back to Taipei.. and get some free time before our final leg kicks off on Tues night.. so till then…

OK.. nothing much happened today.. basically played for 2 sessions.. Pst Kong was happy overall so great.. Thank God… really..

Here we are during our morning soundcheck.. I’ve a new found respect for Ally, she is losing her voice and yet she still gives her all when she song leads… and she delivers.. She’s really moving from glory to glory…

Well… Jessel has the pics of China woman on his blog.. on mine I have.. the Singapore man…

No prizes for guessing who.. (just see the previous entry)…

This poor skinny dog was following us…it had the “please feed me” look… finally Ariel fed it with a piece of chicken from her lunch…

Back at the night session..we had been given really nice and sweet fruits the last few sessions.. tonight I had the juciest grapes I’ve ever eaten… man… and the guava is great too…

Not to mention that the bubble tea on the top of the pic had so much pearls in it that it’s a meal by itself…

Here’s the boss and Ariel speaking to the crowd.. really just serves God tirelessly.. and he doesn’t get paid for this…

To those people who were speaking to me around 9 plus.. this was what I looked like while talking to you… and check out Sean trying to do a “TH” on me…

By the time the night meetings end and after packing up.. we usually arrive at the hotel at about 12am.. so pretty much nothing left to eat except 7-11 food.. which still offers more variety than the ones back home.. but pretty sick of not eating real food… until I saw this stall outside the 7-11… selling BBQ meat.. bought a piece of chicken… not bad but not fantastic either.. but well.. better than nothing also..

Right.. lost track of which day is which.. it all feels the same to me… alright.. off to bed.. Jessel and I have been trying to wake up for breakfast.. but we end up deciding whether breakfast or 30 mins extra sleep is more important.. so far it’s the latter.. we will aim to eat breakfast again tmr.. so I’m off..

We had our last session in Taipei today and moved on to our next leg of the trip to the other end of Taiwan which is Kaohsiung.. or high hero… We travelled by bullet train which cut a 5 hour long journey to a mere 1.5 hours..

Taipei High Speed Rail Station…

Two divas sitting behind me…

We finally arrived at Kaohsiung at exactly 1.36pm.. which was what was stated on the ticket stub… prompt…amazed..

The weather here is hotter than in Taipei.. but still berable… we then went to our hotel for a quick shower.. but man.. the hotel is amazing.. super new… super high tech… Jessel and I were trying to figure out where to slot in the key card.. then we realised there is a scanner on the door.. so u just tap the card and the door is opened.. cool..

The room is bigger and the bed more comfortable than our hotel in Taipei.. which is good cos we need our rests…

Yes… plasma tv…unfortunately, my bed is RIGHT NEXT to the toilet.. with pretty translucent doors I must add..

Anyway we had to travel 40mins by bus to a university on top of some hill for our meeting…

The campus is huge man…

And so is the stage…

And thank God I’ve been getting really good equipments to use.. this time I’m using an Ampeg..

There’s a bigger crowd than the one in our first leg..

Bryan joined us for this leg of the trip.. and well.. he was tired la.. and I was ASKED to take this pic.. not my idea.. haha

Right.. please really pray for me.. my shoulder is hurting more and more.. hurt like mad during the long meeting just now… and pls pray for Pst Zhuang.. having very bad stomach flu and food poisoning…

Alright.. till the next update