Thank you everyone for making this “The Moment” of my life. It’s gonna be long. I should get it published as a book. Like Beckham…

THE MOMENT I heard our team’s name being announced. Everything came true! Finally… WE WON!!

Let’s rewind back to 5 months ago. Kai Yit just graduated from University of Malaya, looking for job while I was having school holidays but in the midst of preparing for camp and industrial attachment. Just a casual internet surfing I accidentally bumped into an advertisement about this “Best Trip of the World” competition organised by Taiwan Tourism Bureau.

BooN -- “Hey.. There’s a travel competition like the Australia Best Job in the World in Taiwan.”

Kaito -- “What is that?”

BooN -- “The Australia Best Job in the World? About hiring an islander to take care of the island and make it a … … … … blah blah”

Kaito -- “No. I don’t care about Australia. What’s about Taiwan’s part?”

And we were in the competition slightly 5 minutes after that.

But first problem was communication. At the starting stage we almost conducted our discussion through emails. I was in Singapore while Kai Yit was in KL. It was so difficult to get a thing done and took much longer to decide on a thing. Luckily I made several trips back to KL whenever I was free. At this stage, we never expect ourselves to go that far. All in our mind was to spend our time to have fun while working together to come out with the best plan ever!!

The first round required us to submit 2 things. A proposal for 4 days 3 nights with a clear theme with places that we were going to visit together with a 1-minute video of team introduction. So whenever I return to KL, we would spend endless day time in Starbucks, Kim Gary, Old Town… Almost all places that has got WiFi in KL for discussions… We wanted to do something really really big and serious this time. So we decided to give our full attention into it.

Once we were so frustrated, so many themes to be explored in Taiwan… Which one to go with? Be very special~~ Be very discreet~~

It was luck again when Kai Yit stumbled on an aboriginal song. He showed me the next day and immediately we fell in love with the theme “The Search for Aboriginal Melody”. What a beautiful yet creative theme for 4 days in Taiwan! We never had the chance to explore the aboriginal races in Malaysia so why not now with a chance to see it there?! That’s how we got our theme.

For the video, we were so excited about making our first introduction video and decided to do our shooting in KLCC as the location best represented our country. We felt that the video was very important as it would give the very first impression to the judges. So we took a very special approach as the first part of the video was very serious introducing the theme of our journey and in the later part of the video unleashing our energetic and young team doing all the fun stuff.

It worked.

July 10 marked the first step ever to our 1 million dream! We were so shocked when it was announced that our team made into the World’s Top 50 in the competition. We stumbled, we stunned but we went on! We quickly picked up our pace as we didn’t have much time to prepare. My school was starting in 3 weeks’ time and Kai Yit had just found his job. We couldn’t delay our trip any further but to have it in 2 weeks’ time, and we hadn’t even started a booking yet that time.

2 weeks from July 10 to July 25, we had the biggest storm before the trip. Flight tickets, accommodation and transportation arrangement, meals, exact location of places and much much more to worry. We had so little time yet we faced more and more troubles along the way. We were both students without credit card so it was really a trouble for bookings. We both had laptop of “centuries-old” and we were worry that it might not function well (for video-editing) … We tested and tested and reviewed and reviewed …

July 26. We were set!

And go! Taiwan here we are!!

The week we had in Taiwan were both exciting and exhausting. We would spend the whole day playing nonstop and yet night we were busy typing and editing videos for our blog as a requirement in the competition. The day would start at 4 or 5am when we woke up in super blur condition and it would end at about 2 or 3am right after we satisfied with the progress of our products. We had only 1 week in Taiwan and so our team had more to do compared to other teams where they could do the video and submitted them later on in Taiwan. But we were fine. We had so much trouble on the trip, the equipments kept malfunctioning, the laptop kept jamming, the batteries kept running out… But we were fine.

I remembered that we were not after the 1 million prize money that time. We were purely executing our duties and responsibilities as we were given a chance as the World’s Top 50 in the competition and the opportunity, and so we worked our best while having our great time there. I couldn’t deny that I wished I can just enjoy the whole trip without doing the blogging and video. But we glad that we were able to share our amazing experience with the world after that!

Our first news article appeared on Nanyang Siang Pau. We never expect that the news would keep on appearing for 6 or 7 times after that!!

Just a quick fact on our achievement.

Highest views on 4-day travel video

1800+ fans and supporters on our BKT Facebook Fans Page from more than 20 countries

More than 40 bloggers supporting our team on their blog (list below)

More than 20,000 views on our travelogue in Cari & Backpackers forum

Featured at least 7 times  on newspapers

Featured 2 times on local Chinese radio station 988FM and AI.fm (+ 1 in Taiwan radio radio channel)

Featured 3 times in magazine

Countless features in online media

September 10.

Our team won the “Most Popular Team” for the Chinese category. Though a little unexpected but we were confident that time with our effort that time. We knew our hard work had started to pay off and thus we pushed ourselves even further in each round. In the final round, the “miracle” happened!!

OK I won’t deny that I was the one who came out with the crazy idea. I was actually half-jokingly suggested the idea and I never expect Kai Yit to nod his head. At first it was just a random joke, but Kai Yit nod his head, SHOCKINGLY!! (perhaps he wanted to do it for long? we’ll never know…)

To sort of like “perfect” it, we found another 3 victims who also nodded their head (how come so easy de?!) but we were deeply regret the moment we were forced to wear the dress on. It was hard. Really hard. I was damn regret the moment I was trying to fit my fat body into the dress… But we learnt to push down our dignity and learnt to appreciate women more. It was hard to be a women, really. We learnt it the hard way and so please believe us!

All I wanted to say was I am lucky to have these guys as my friends. Where can you find such crazy friends that would do such things together with you?! (with no pay of course! All we treat was a Bak Kut Teh meal… so pity huh?!)

Well some people asked me what made me wanna go that far to dress up like that for the competition? Am I confident that I will win it? That’s why I did it?

NO. The answer was NO. I never predict anything closer than TOP 3 that time. The competition was huge. So many great teams out there that deserve to win. I did it purely because I don’t want to be typical. I couldn’t deny that I wanted to grab attention but wasn’t it the real meaning of doing the video? So let me present to you the greatest video with more than 30,000 views!

Amazing huh? =.=”

Catching up with studies and work, we never stop chasing our dreams. Pulling votes from time to time, we got huge response from all over the countries, and that’s when we started to believe in ourselves. And we knew we can do it!

So we pushed ourselves even more! Sharing our experience face to face with people in my university, breaking into the school compound to get support directly from students like me!

And we met many people with same passion as us in travelling, in sharing our overseas experience through such events… We received even more support then.

My life had became more random than ever. I never been to and fro between the city of KL and Singapore so many times in my life. Averagely I would be taking buses (often I just hopped on.. without much planning ahead) every 2 weeks. My sleeping times were disrupted. My blood pressure had increased. My workload had been more than ever. My financial crisis was bigger than ever!! (Imagine per round trip cost RM100 and how much it would cost you to travel in 5 months?) It’s a good chance for me to polish my social life as well as to get adapt to the flexibility as well. I won’t say I love to travel that much but I started to getting used to it. It wasn’t that bad after all.

And 5 months had passed just like that!

November 1 when the competition had ended, our team never rest. We compiled all of our effort into a full report and sent to the committee as a reference. We did it as a duty and responsibility. Then we rested and continued with our daily life. I was waiting anxiously until November 11 Wednesday, I received a call from Taiwan during my class. I almost yelled and screamed but I didn’t. I was told that Bak Kut Teh had made it into the Final Top 3 and we were asked to attend the ceremony on Sunday November 15.

But we were told to keep it as a secret and confidential.

I was excited but I couldn’t tell anyone. (Except my family) But I was afraid that I lost. I had the hardest time in my life in that few days. What if I lost? What if I gone to Taiwan and lost? How would I feel?

But think again. 5 months. We walked so far. We had done so much. We had done enough. Win or lose. We are in Top 3 of the World! How many teams can do that? We didn’t even thinking of winning at the starting of this competition and yet we walked this far. In my mind, I am already a winner. Yes. Winning or losing is just a formality of a competition, as long as you know you had done your best, you are a winner.

So we flew to Taipei with a relax mind. Though nervous at some moment, but we mainly spent our time with our freed mind.

November 15 was the day. We were walked to the venue. They hid us in a room avoiding the media before they brought us in and showed us the final 4 results.

We were so nervous in that room. Haha… Knowing that we were so close in the end! And we met…

West meets 东! Another top 3 finalist, Althea Lin and Ben, a strong team and young couple from the USA. We were friends since months ago chatting on facebook but it was the first time we met. A really great pleasure to meet them, nice people and they brought their baby too!!

It’s always to have a baby with you cause they are the medicine to everything!! We were playing with the baby and we never realised that it’s time to announce the results!

And so we were brought to the live venue for the media centre. My first time that we were surrounded by so many media.

The Moment

To better facilitate you to imagine the live event. We recorded THE MOMENT in the live news below.

It all came true with that sentence.

It all came true.

We always hear “Nothing is Impossible” but we never believe it fully until we face it. From zero in June, we are now literally winning our first million dollar in 5 months. It looked surreal, but it all came true. That’s why I couldn’t control my emotions and cried when I heard our name was called.

No, sorry. I wasn’t as strong (emotionally) as you think. Out of happiness, I cried. Out of excitement, I cried. Out of the perspective that we never let our supporters down, I cried. For so many reasons it’s worth for me to tear for awhile. It’s THE MOMENT of my life.

Seriously, it all came true with our effort, with our friends’ support, with all our supporters’ votes, with everyone together in achieving this. This is an honor I want to share with you all. Really appreciate your support all these moments. I always watch reality show where the final winner walks away with prizes and I never expect that today would be the day that I won and walked away with the top prize.

Thank you very much!

This is THE MOMENT of my life.

Blogs that posting our BKT final video and e-book

以下是轉載我們精華短片和電子書的部落客（25名）：

http://angwoeishang.blogspot.com/

http://lyx911.blogspot.com/

http://zouyuhui.blogspot.com/

http://therealkylelai.tumblr.com/

http://vtcwisme.blogspot.com/

http://thatmygoal.blogspot.com/

http://mylifecreation.blogspot.com/

http://blog.omy.sg/fifthavenue/

http://thomas--world.blogspot.com/

http://pikulingu.blogspot.com/

http://lovestoryhouse.blogspot.com/

http://baiqin.blogspot.com/

http://oldstonehome.blogspot.com/

http://vivalive33.blogspot.com/

http://cheehueiblog.blogspot.com/

http://www.ifublog.com/danyanpi/

http://www.ahbing.com/

http://kuahownland.blogspot.com/

http://blog.udn.com/sherpa/

http://daifeijay.blogspot.com/

://zazapo.blogspot.com/

://lisa717.blogspot.com/

http://infinityken88.blogspot.com/

http://kenny-o-logy.blogspot.com/

http://kankisu.blogspot.com/

http://www.akiraceo.com/

Blogs that supported our 4-day travel video experience

以下是轉載我們四天旅遊短片的部落客（15名）：

http://www.howard-u.com/

http://yenniedoll.blogspot.com/

http://bryanlyt.com/

http://hpility.com/

http://daifeijay.blogspot.com/

http://snowpiano99.blogspot.com/

http://lyx911.blogspot.com/

http://guoxingdeblog.blogspot.com/

http://leonlkw86.blogspot.com/

http://jeffwonderland.blogspot.com/

http://muncheeloo.blogspot.com/

http://angwoeishang.blogspot.com/

http://thatmygoal.blogspot.com/

http://thomas--world.blogspot.com/

http://cacingkk.blogspot.com/

p.s: Next post will be in the weekend I suppose, as I have exams and job interview on Friday and this is a super long post. You can read it for days I guess… lol… Will post more about my media experience in Taiwan, first time ever there were more than 10 mics pointing at me… =.=”

But after days by days… Well… Maybe I still have the genes but definitely I don’t have the “energy” and “body” to handle the difficult movements. Remember a video we put up last week to grab attention trying to win a million bucks in a Taiwan Travel competition??

No?! You never see it before?! Impossible!! I kinda like spam it everywhere on the internet, anyway here’s a copy and you can have a look.

So the thing is, there are some people who thinks our dance were retarded (or at least they meant it that way). Well, I admit we are not professional and we are all dancing noobs, as long as I can tell is that we worked hard for the choreography and at least we made it without BIG disaster… lol

But I can guarantee you another thing, go vote for me, if I won, I will dance something like this below in Taiwan (during my 1 month holiday as a free trip) as a gratitude to thank all of you.

Yea.. Of course I know how difficult it is to b-boying like them. But I will try my best. Afterall I think I got the gene.. lol Want to see me dance like them? Vote for me!! Go to http://3.ly/howtovote to vote for me ya!! Remember you can vote everyday with your account.

p.s. I have been watching a lot of these dancing videos from “So You Think You Can Dance” and “America Best Dance Crew” and they were so great!! Haha… Like them so much!!

Holiday in KL?

Busy studying?

Struggle for competition?

Watch the following and you will know. Why I was away for 2 weeks…

Why did I do that? I don’t know. Guess I had already “SHOWHAND” in this final round of the competition and hopefully I’m gonna win something…

Visit http://taiwan.boonming.com to know about my big plan and vote for me. Sacrificed too much already…