Why ah???

Sneezing is like eating peanuts or chips... you never stop at one...

Ping Pong Crazy!

More acquisitions...

First off, the Kokutaku Cho Super Cho Tokusen 10mm JPEN table tennis blade. I heard that only 150 pieces are made each year and like my current 9mm Super Cho Tokusen, uses top grade kiso hinoki (Japanese Cypress) from trees at least 300-500 years of age. This one is too precious to use and I will just be keeping it somewhere...
















Next is something I wanted to try for a long time. I wanted to try the most difficult style (but also the most traditional to the Chinese) - Chinese Penholder with short pip (pimple) rubber. So I decided to get a DHS (aka Double Happiness) Hurricane Hao which DHS created specifically for Wang Hao (current No 1 player in the world).
















I put a DHS Hurricane 3 with the newer (and softer) #19 sponge on the forehand and the well known short pip rubber, Friendship 927 802-40 on the back. This configuration will allow me to play my traditional looping style and also give me the option to use short pip straightforward play when needed. I can even choose to twiddle for some surprises.







Copyright (c) Kelvin Tan

An Evening With Stepan Sarpaneva

Share in my experience with the watchmaker from Finland!

Click on the photo to read about it...




Copyright (c) Kelvin Tan

Melaka, Malacca Makes It to UNESCO

News link here.

Congratulations to my beloved hometown... once known as Sleepy Hollow!

"Melaka and George Town, historic cities of the Straits of Malacca (Malaysia) have developed over 500 years of trading and cultural exchanges between East and West in the Straits of Malacca. The influences of Asia and Europe have endowed the towns with a specific multicultural heritage that is both tangible and intangible. With its government buildings, churches, squares and fortifications, Melaka demonstrates the early stages of this history originating in the 15th-century Malay sultanate and the Portuguese and Dutch periods beginning in the early 16th century. Featuring residential and commercial buildings, George Town represents the British era from the end of the 18th century. The two towns constitute a unique architectural and cultural townscape without parallel anywhere in East and Southeast Asia."

The Subtlety Of Manglish

"He's one of a kind!"

is so different in meaning when compared to...

"He's very one kind lah!"

Hinoki Is Gorgeous

Whoever thought that table tennis blades can be items worth investing in. This blade made with kiso hinoki (japanese cypress) - wood that's at least 300 years old. Such wood, when harvested, is kept to air and dry over a year before being refined further into the shape of the blade you see below (with a luxurious thickness of at least 10mm). Hinoki used for such blades need to be of a certain age in order to achieve the uniform tight grain you see in the pictures below. The Butterfly Kim Taek Soo gets its name from a famous Korean table tennis player and is perhaps the most famous high end single ply japanese penholder (jpen) grip blade from Butterfly using the aforementioned precious wood. Butterfly also produces 2 other high end hinoki single ply jpen blades namely, Cypress Max and the super rare Cypress Special (which can only be obtained from Butterfly via special order). More on the Butterfly Kim Taek Soo here.
















In any case, look at the very cute keyholder from Xiom. It looks to also be made from hinoki (though most certainly of lower hinoki quality). The back has Ryu Seung Min's signature - the current Olympic champion and Xiom's ambassador.













Copyright (c) Kelvin Tan