Did a headstand for one full minute!

 

After shooting all day yesterday at Be Yoga, I reckon I've become just that bit more flexible.  

 

KY dropped by for a limbo rock competition in his work shirt...hello?  

 

It turns out that the first person Henry Golding met in Malaysia was Ninie Ahmad so I interviewed him to get the low down on her for Project Alpha! While I was at it, I found out what his "type" was (on cam la...was working, not hitting on him ;)

Naturally, I was wondering whether Henry does yoga and he said "to be honest, occasionally I would do a class here and there. Ninie has to drag me tho" lol  

 

It was an electric atmosphere during the limbo rock coz the bar was getting insanely low (beneath knee level) and everyone sort of held their breath till the person made it over to the other side. We captured all this on film but it doesn't compare to being there. 

 

Niki Cheong was amazed every time the bar got lowered yet again. What?? and my chinese stylist from A Cut Above out of nowhere was giving Ninie a run for her money! 

We had no idea this shy quiet fella could do my hair AND the limbo so well. They were the only 2 standing at the end of this competition but Ninie won! 

 

Then I had to rush to KLIA for an airport scene to send klubbkidd off to Sarawak. I got there before him but it was easy to spot his shocking red hair from across the terminal! We were rushing so I told him to use the Malaysia Airlines self check-in kiosk. 

Not many people are aware of this and it can save you lining up with your trolley. The boarding pass just comes straight out of the machine. So much easier! If you have bags, there's a designated row to drop them off so you still don't have to line up!

Then I was back in the make up chair or rather floor *chuckle* to continue shooting Ninie Ahmad. If I'm not on my berry, I'm plugged into my lap top with my wiggy. It's been one jam packed weekend so moment I have any time to sit, I find myself catching up on work emails

After doing some gravity defying poses, the crew followed Ninie back to her apartment since she was in between classes. Ninie Ahmad is an Adidas brand ambassador to the bone. She has scores of Adidas shoes, clothes and even stationary but get this. She even bathes with Adidas shower gel

I ran into Sunitha from Harpers Bazaar magazine at the "Be Happy right here, right now"

   

Sunitha was saying yoga was doing wonders for her both pysically and mentally. After a class, she walks our feeling like a different woman :)

 

I spoke to the speaker Vinay Kumar on "Be Happy right here right now" who was explaining that you cannot find happiness from the world or outside yourself. It must come from within. 

  

If happiness to you is your precious car, the problem is if anything happened to your car, it's as though it's happening to you (yet you are NOT a car) so your happiness is at the mercy of the external world.

.

 

The kyanite.tv  crew going a bit nuts after so many hours of filming. Now they're trying to attempt some yoga poses themselves but it looks all wrong like they're about to start a race.

 It has been a while since I've done a head stand so I was hoping I would be able to stay perfectly still for it. They wanted to try and get as many people together in a room to stand on their heads for a full minute.

 

It doesn't sound long but believe me, when you're balancing on your head, one whole minute is pretty long! It really does take concentration. I folded my legs into lotus which I found more stable ;)

   

 

Last time I was standing on my head was with Jehan Miskin on Langkawi beach. It was right after we filmed our very last scene for Health Buzz. I'll never forget it. The sky was vibrant orange and hues of purple. Our usually boisterous crew were just silent in awe and tourists jsut sat to watch the sky keep changing colour. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I'd ever seen. Some of the best things in life are free! :)

Cameras rolling......action!

We were shooting Niki Cheong for Project Alpha this morning (it's hard to believe he's older than 30) Well, I wanted to interview someone close to him to get the low down *wink* and Niki had the perfect special guest on set who's known him almost forever and she's also family. Some of you may or may not know this but Elaine Daly (below) and Niki Cheong are first cousins!

"So tell me Elaine, what was he like as a kid? any embarrassing stories.....?" and there were sooo many interesting insights about these cousins (she calls him by his Chinese name by the way ;). On the surface, you may not think they have a lot in common coz they seem really different but they're in sync on fashion, relationships (just wait for the ep to come out la! you'll see what I mean ;) More on Niki later on....

I then rushed to cover the Adidas Stella McCartney event to interview Ninie Ahmad who is one of the brand ambassadors of Adidas and she's also one of our Season 2 bloggers.

Amber Chia who also does yoga was telling me that she recently watched 'The Secret' 

 

She was really inspired by it and she now really believes in the power of positive thinking. 

 

Ninie Ahmad posing with the models. Somehow, she's managed to get them to do semi yoga poses in high heels.

 

Fauziah Ghous will probably kill me for this but I really wanna run her bloopers. So cute la...she kept cracking me up, the crew too because every time she fluffed a line, she would start giggling. 

 

I interviewed Jessica (brand manager of Adidas Malaysia) on why they picked Ninie Ahmad as their brand ambassador and she was telling me how hardworking and dedicated Ninie was. Though Jessica works on Adidas clothing, she also likes Adidas Fragrance particularly their shower gel :)

 

Ninie said we must come to her open day at Be Yoga tomorrow. She's trying to break the Malaysian Book of Records for no. of people standing on their heads! There's also gonna be a yoga/limbo competition. This I have to see!

 

Talk about living and breathing the yoga life. Ninie was just talking to someone about yoga and before you know it, she's kicking off her high heel shoes and I see her standing on her head!  

 

I was told she never really stops doing yoga. Well, I believe it now. I bet if you ran into her at a party, you could ask for a demo and she'll probably do one for you on the spot *chuckle*

 

Well, I'm gonna try her hot yoga class in the morning. Never done hot yoga before. Wish me luck!! I'm sure my make up might start melting off while filming her tomorrow yikes! It's gonna be tough but I'm really looking forward to it. 

 

I'll be multi tasking! Filming Project Alpha but working out at the same time. If I have a break in between classes or scenes, I promise I'll get my P1 Wiggy out and start uploading the shots. Ok, I better hit the sack. Long day ahead. Nightey all! zzz  :)

Shooting in The Lost World of Tambun

 

It took me a while to get used to how shaolintiger.com (on left) speaks. He sounds like a chinese dvd seller. I'm serious! When we were having dinner by the road side in Ipoh, he was ordering all his favourite dishes and seemed surprised I didn't know them "I tell you ah, I'm more Chinese than you wan!" 

When our food arrived (and we were all starving, mind you), KYspeaks (on right) stopped us from touching the dishes so I thought he wanted us to pray first? but he needed to photograph everything first *eyes rolling* these adorable food bloggers, I tell you lol 

Cheesie reminds me of a Barbie doll  but Japanese version. You know she even speaks and reads Japanese even though she's Malaysian. She's so darn cute albeit a bit impractical. She showed up in Tambun with fashion leggings, a trolley suitcase and funky high heels OMG. I asked her how she was gonna walk round the theme park in "those things" but she said she would be fine. "Vanity first" she chirps with her purple lenses and perfect eye lashes ;) 

 

She's a blogger through and through. Even falls asleep in between scenes still holding on to her blackberry. Can't blame her though coz the monkey in the petting zoo actually bit her blackberry and dented it! 

This is Malaysia's very own Reese Witherspoon. Kimberlycun.com really reminded me of her. Something about the lips and the shape of her face. We had a great chat about our dogs :)

I'm glad I did my one on one interview with shaolintiger sitting down or I would've got a neck ache. Can u imagine he's 6ft 5!! 

Speaking about tigers, we went to see the Siberian tigers in Tiger valley. Their eyes are so penetrating...they're truly magnificent creatures and it made my heart sink when I saw the sign board saying that they're only 300-400 left in the world!!! I knew they were endangered but I didn't realise that they were on the brink of extinction. As for tigers in general, they're only 5000 to 7000 left on our planet coz humans have been forcing all these animals out of their homes with deforestation etc. We can't just sit idly by and keep "taking" from Mother Nature coz we've taken too much upsetting the ecosystem and balance of life. 

It's not just the environmental issues killing them, it's people slaughtering them for their different body parts despite any proven scientific or medical evidence to this day. I filmed a message about tigers right there and then which I'm gonna upload on Ruumz causes once I'm done (since they encourage the public to support any cause of your choice).   

Sunway's Lost World of Tambun is surrounded by limestone hills dating back 400 million years! It's prehistoric. When you're walking toward the needle of Tambun, it's hard to not be awestruck. The limestone walls are immense. You almost expect a dinosaur to come running out of the caves ;) 

 

Half the people in my crew had been to Ipoh but never knew this place existed or that the caves were that ancient. Even the bloggers had been to Ipoh but they had never been to this incredible spot before (but they certainly knew where to eat! ;)

It was such a  fun weekend. It didn't feel like "work" and all the bloggers were so easy to film coz they hang out with each other all the time so they had natural chemistry on cam. They were constantly teasing each other. At every animal enclosure, they worked out how heavy the animal was by teasing Cheesie "OMG that animal is 8 times heavier than Cheesie" "Gosh, even the phython weighs more than Cheesie!" ;)

 

It feels great to be back on set again. Just before Xmas I was filming in the Borneo jungle (where I lived with the dusun hill tribes. It was really beautiful) so it was nice to be back in the outdoors this weekend. There's something so therapeutic about it. Nature's good for the soul :)

 

Project Alpha Season 2, uncovering Malaysia's top bloggers will be out in April but I'll keep you guys in da loop (yes I promise to blog more often ok) so that you can keep in touch with the whole production process. Piecing together so much footage is gonna be a sort of pleasurable hell but it WILL be hellish coz we have cameras rolling reality style (this is unscripted) so there will be so much footage to choose from n edit down. Better buy some microwaveable popcorn me thinks ;) We're gonna be camping in the editing suite! :)

Project Alpha Season 2:

Adidas Fragrance - Official Main sponsor 

P1 W1max - Official Broadband sponsor 

Malaysia Airlines - Official flight Sponsor

Rimmel London - Official Make up Sponsor

Shooting Azwan Ali on Project Alpha

 

I really didn't know what to expect when I first met Azwan Ali but I knew within a few seconds of meeting him, that I wanted him on Project Alpha. For good or for bad, he was the stuff of reality TV. He had great camera presence and he really makes an entrance.

 

On Project Alpha (uncovering Malaysia's top bloggers),they all come from diversely different walks of life but there was no one quite like him on the show. Actually, I must correct myself. I'm not sure if I know anyone personally like Azwan. Period haha ;) 

 

Goodness, he told us he was expecting 100 celebrities at his event. I thought it was just a figure of speech. He wasn't kidding! There were so many that I lost count! We asked everyone we could find what they thought of Azwan Ali! ;)

 

Diana Danielle in the make up chair who told me she saw me on Pillow Talk, gosh, she must've been like 13? coz I think she's only 18 now ;) She was really accommodating and sweet with the whole crew and she had a lot of positive things to say about Azwan. This wasn't the case with everyone *chuckle* but that's what makes Azwan such an interesting character. Very colourful indeed! ;)

It was great having Redmummy there as well. I wanted a blogger to help me cover the event especially coz my Malay is not strong so she was my co host for this segment and we went around together interviewing everyone :)

Mawi and his wife Ekin (above) and Hans Isaac (below) telling us that they had no idea what Azwan was up to. Many were speculating on whether it was a gimmick la or one of Azwan's 

grand jokes ;) Amy (below) really doesn't look his age.

   

 

Actually, no one knew what the purpose of the event was. Even though we were covering it, we also didn't know! It's exactly what Azwan wanted. 

That's why he labelled this event "full of secrets" There were 7 secrets in total he was unveiling and him being on Project Alpha was one of them. Project Alpha Season 2 has the same main sponsor returning which is Adidas Fragrance yay!

We now also have P1 W1max as our official broadband sponsor :) Redmummy and I asked the celebs to tell us what they're passionate about in a short, simple message to cam. A lot of them spoke about saving the environment. It was interesting to see what's closest to their heart. Hans naturally cares about marine life as a diver, Aznil spoke about children, Syafinaz Selamat on Aids etc etc. 

 

We interviewed so many celebs. There were so many heartwarming messages. Once they're all nicely edited and compiled, you can catch them all on Ruumz Causes Since I asked everyone what they thought of Azwan, I thought I'd leave you with a few words of my own :) Excuse my bare face. All my Rimmel make up from the shoot (thank you A Cut Above team) has all been cleansed off coz I'm bout to hit the sack. Been shooting since 730am.

I'm on set right now at Sunway's Lost World of Tambun returning tomorrow. I held a python today in the petting zoo yikes!! Next week, we are flying to Kuching and Sabah but next month, guess what????? Project Alpha will be flying to London (Malaysia Airlines official flight sponsor) to cover an exclusive story! I can't wait but I'm gonna have to get some serious winter wear brrr and when the show goes LIVE, you will see and hear it on ERA fm, HITZ radio/tv/online, kyanite.tv, nuffnang.com and the dailychilli