Went to Kota Kinabalu for Rotaract District Assembly from the 15th - 19th of June 2005 with the Rotaractors of D3310.The Rotaract Club of Marina City sent 4 delegates for this RDA comprising of DRR Adrian Er, Rtr Jerry Lim, Rtr David Chung & myself.We took a cab from Queen's Street up to Johor Bahru Senai Airport. After the formalities of checking in with the front desk of Air Asia, we boarded the plane to Kota Kinabalu Airport. When we got to KK Airport, Randy as well as members of Rotaract Club of KK and Sorensen from Rotaract Club of Kuching were there to welcome and receive us. We had our dinner together. After that some of us went for durians fellowship and some of us went for a couple of drinks to catch up with each other, especially that we have not seen each other for a long time. RDA was par excellence with Rotaractors from RID3300 and RID 3400 there as well.We had our workshop and sessions to guide on the dos and don'ts of being a Rotaract Club President, and also forming our BODs, membership development. There were sharing sessions as well as exchanging ideas with other Rotaractors of the other District. For example we had Tutik Anastasia and Agus Heryanto from Indonesia to share with us their projects at the Rotaract Club of Bali Kuta.Cheers to OC President Rotaractor Jack Hang and his hardworking committee for organizing such a wonderful RDA.We also took up the challenge to climb Mount Kinabalu. The peak Low's Peak is named after Sir Hugh Low, who made the first recorded attempt to scale the peak in 1851. He never made it to the top, but his assistant did & got the peak named after him anyway. The peak is sacred to the Kadazan people as they believe it to be the resting place of their dead.Mt Kinabalu, which lies in Sabah in northern Borneo, is at 4100 m the highest peak between the Himalayas and Papua New Guinea. The climb begins at the Timpohon gate (1866 m altitude) and climbers usually make it to the Laban Rata resthouse at 3300 m on day one. Most of the climbers leave the next morning between 2am and 3am in order to reach the summit at 6am to experience the spectacular sunrise. For myself, I was some where near to Donkey Ears's Peak (7.5km) when the attitude up there was making it very difficult for me to breathe. For every 10 steps I took to move forward, I got to pause and stop to rest before going further. I didn't want to give up given that I was already so near to Low's Peak (8.72km) especially having came so far already. Johari Yap and his wife & Jason and his girlfriend Rachel (RAC Kota Malacca) gave up at the Sayat - Sayat Hut.When they gave up, I almost gave up as well. There were nobody I know beside me anymore. It was so scary, I had only a couple of Sabahans' mountain guides beside me. At that moment I saw the Lance Armstrong's LiveStrong wristband that PP Jerry gave me before our ascend up Mt Kinabalu. It sort of gave me the courage to go forward especially that the Joharis and the Jasons decided to give up because of the extreme weather conditions. To make things worse, the grounds were getting very slippery as the fogs were coming in and there was a lady from Melbourne who I had a couple of words with at Laban Rata resort before giving up too.At that moment, I asked God to give me the strength to reach Low's Peak. I believe God heard me cause he sent Joanne. Joanne who was from the Rotaract Club of Ampang was almost giving up somewhere near the South's Peak. I was so relieved and happy to see her cos I don't want to leave Kinabalu with regrets in my life. We walk slowly and encouraged each other. When I stopped to take a rest, Joanne will stopped to encourage me on. When she wanted to give up I will encourage her too until both of us got to Ugly Sister Peak. We heaved a sigh of relief when we saw our friends at USP taking photos and our fellow Rotaractors cheering us on. President Jack, PE Wee Yik Chuang, President Dharma, Kathy & Andrew, Suresh & Dayana, Keagan & David, Michael, Randy, Boon, Neraj. I sweared that I almost cried when I saw all of them. They gave me the hope and made me believe that I can do it too.Upstairs Low's Peak the rest already descended. Randy Chong, Nicholas Boon & Michael Choy were there beside me together with my dear Joanne and Yoke Keng. The sight was unbelievable until I was moved to tears on top of Low's Peak.Many thank to IPP Jack our OC for kickstarting our Journey Through Rotaract!!

YIRS,Matthew