Sunday, November 16, 2008

'Have been traveling... We left 03Sep08 for Paris to attend the 15th Dieppe International Kite Festival (6-14Sep).

Dieppe is still as glorious as ever. Nice kite people, good organization, good food, amazing kites...
'Had the chance to meet an old friend- Michael Steltzer of Berlin, and he was organizing the Potsdam International Kite Festival (19-21Sep). So who's gonna miss this chance? Not us!

It was another week of the good life... German beers, sausages, tours, etc. But it was too good to last. We left Berlin 24Sep.

Like clockwork, the Amihan wind season arrived early October, and we just had enough time to prepare for the 3rd Shenzen International Kite Festival (6-11Nov). We did appear in an early morning TV show at ABS-CBN which featured traditional Filipino kites.

Shenzen has grown since we were there a year ago. Chinese tea, Tsingtao beer, roast pigeon, dimsum, noodles, Chinese chicken, steamed fish, oysters, Chinese vegetables, pork dumplings, and more food than we can take in one sitting.

But then, there was also more than enough wind which broke strong lines, fiberglass and carbon spars. Several kites were blown out to sea. Peter Lynn's giant shark and fish kites broke lines dove into the sea, but were fortunately retrieved at the cost of several hundred yuans paid out to the boatmen. Sami Sayegh of Lebanon lost his giant snake kite. The Korean team lost more than a hundred kites when their long kite train snapped its line in a sudden strong gust. My medium size crown snapped it's line twice and a strong gust bent-open the metal clamp.

18Nov, I'm flying to Singapore to meet with Peter Lynn, Scott Skinner and Ali Fujino of the Drachen Foundation, Hj Hussin Haron of the Malaysian Kite Council, a group from the Jakarta Kitefliers Association and the Singapore Kite Association.

We are dividing the ''loot" which Peter Lynn gave the ASEAN Kite Council (AKC) as donation. It's a container-load of excess kite materials from Holland. 700 rolls of rip-stop fabric, a ton of carbon fiber tubes, 10,000 pieces of 10mm fiberglass tubes, kite buggies and parts, kiteboarding equipments, rolls and rolls of dyneema lines, more, more, more.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

OOOPS! I checked the YouTube vid I posted earlier, and it says that the URL malfunctioned. What to do? On top of that is a blank search box. Put in Pasir Gudang International Kite Festival 2008 and several YouTube selections will appear. Click /watch the one posted by Virtual Malaysia. It's a cool video. Check me out somewhere in 1:22 (orange shirt) and 3:37 flying a PeterLynn kite. Buddy L. is in 3:13 jacking off his kite, hahaha.
WOW! Look at that, my last post was in October 07. I must have been pretty busy. Oh yes, Jan 08 was so hectic that I declined the Gujarat International Kite Festival invitation (Jan12-16). Then the bad news about my 82 year-old Dad (Pepe) being rushed to the ICU due to multiple organ malfunction. I had to rush back to Davao to check on his health condition.

Thank God, he slowly recovered after several dialysis and blood transfusion procedures. He's still in his sick bed, but at least out of the hospital. He manages to take several steps at a time, but moves around in his wheel-chair. I hope he recovers fully so we can fly kites together and sing "Saranggola ni Pepe".

During that time, I have to fly back and forth from Manila to Davao since the organizer's meetings for the 12th Phil. Internationa Hot Air Balloon Fiesta (PIHABF) are ongoing. Then the big PIHABF event (7-10Feb).

PIHABF 08 done! Fly to Singapore a week after that with Buddy L. to attend the 13th Pasir Gudang International Kite festival in Johor , Malaysia. Check us out in action, watch- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr

March 14-18, Me and Lauro De Guzman flew to Guam for the 4th Kites for Wishes event of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Great hotel, great food, great flying field!

April 18, I flew to Xiamen, then Wenshou to Qingdao. I attended the 2nd Congress of the International Kite Federation (IKF). I was appointed IKF Official for Marketing and Promotions, a special Sub-Committee. April 19-23 was the 25th Weifang International Kite Festival, which unfortunately was rained out. But, we were there in the cold rain, still flying kites. I guess our strenght and determination came from the Tsingtao Beer we were drinking all the time. Fabulous event!

Now there! That covers up for the several months I was out. I'm posting some photos of these past events (hopefully).