Paint-balling in Wicklow

Woohoo!!! I just came back from playing paint-ball with my buddies.

It was fantastic. A really really really cool site. The Skirmish paint ball site has 6 different arenas. All of which have different game types and scenarios. Each arena being unique and providing a new set of obstacles. And each arena is HUGE. We played 25 versus 26 there comprising of boy and girls.

I was in red team. We soon started discussing strategies and roles. Esmond was sort of the commander. And Jonathan and I were his two right hand men. Oooooh we were in for a rockin good time. I have had prior experience playing paint ball back in Malaysia with my friends there (pro). Esmond and Jon have been through their Singapore national service. Thus we three were the commanding officers of the team.

First arena
Goal: capture and hold a fortress in the middle of the arena (really just a long stretch of wall with windows)
Lives: Infinite respawn at starting point.
Round 1:
In this game we blitz the field. We got the fortress before any of the opponents were in sight. We held the fortress quite soundly and ended winning round 1.

Round 2:
We swapped sides. Having held the base the earlier round, we planned to rush the middle and in the event of a failed rush we would flank the sides. We soon realised that the distance to the fortress is much further for that starting point. So we resorted to plan B. I flanked them on the right and killed 3 enemies behind their lines. The marshal on that side was coaching me the whole way. He was going "go for it. Run up fast. Get 'em from behind".

Then I died. I was too busy trying to kill more guys along the wall that I didn't realise one guy creeping up next to me. He pointed the gun in my face and went "you're dead! Go home". By the time I respawned we had taken the fortress and we held it for the remaining duration of the game.

Second arena:
Goal: Defend or attack a house (on stilts). Win by retrieving two bags placed in the front of the house and crossing the outer perimeter. Only one person can retrieve the bag at a time and nobody on the attacking side can enter the inner perimeter of the house with a gun.
Lives: defenders have 1 life while attackers have infinite lives with a respawn point at the starting point.

Round 3: We were the attackers. This one was quite bad. Me and two others went around the back and tried to draw some attention. But we couldn't make much of an effect. I think there were 3 people in the house guarding the rear and pinning us all down. We got 1 bag. But could not retrieve the second. Everyone who went in got pelted viciously. But, when we entered the dead zone after the game, the marshal said "due to copious amounts of cheating by the blue team, the time to defend the house will be halved for the red team. Apparently there were people who did not own up to being shot.

Round 4: Defense. It was a good defense. Esmond was in the center coordinating and communicating. I was guarding the right side. Got quite a few kills due to a very nice angle. We won.

Third arena
Goal: Rescue a hostage (one of your teammates) or prevent the rescue attempt.
Lives: Defenders have only 1 life. Attackers can respawn at starting point.

Round5: We were attacking. We tried to flank them from both left and right sides. The girls would be heading through the middle if possible. We couldn't penetrate on the right side. From what I hear, about 2 people manage to go around the left side and enter through the back. But died while attempting the rescue. The girls also managed to get quite far, but were all shot down. We could not rescue the hostage in time.

Round 6: Defending was rather easy. Everyone just picked a nice place to wait out and hold off the attack for as long as possible. We eventually won but when I was leaving the area, I was shocked to see that our front defense were completely wiped out. If the game went on a minute or 2 longer we might have lost.

Forth arena aka: aeroplane
Goal: capture a flag in enemy base and cross a bridge from their base to our starting point (defenders have a tower)
Lives: same as always.

Round 7: We attacked. Esmond, Jonathan and me flanked the enemy on the left while the others approach from the center and the right. Esmond and Jon continued to flank them to come around from the back. I pushed in through the left side. The 3 of us nearly wiped out their entire team. Sadly, as I was infiltrating I was shot in the ass by a teammate (why can't some people just aim?). Anyway we got the flag and safely brought it to our base. Woohoo....

Round 8: Defending was quite a task. The enemy stormed in through the middle and left. We had a hard time keeping them at bay. After a while their attack was subdued and they began another attack on the right. I took up position behind a tree to the right side. Me and 2 others held of their advance. But as one of their guys was running in, he shot me even though all 3 of us had shot him much earlier. I was a bit pissed off but I just owned up to it. Thankfully we won that game as well. Yayyyyy....so far 6 wins to 2.

Fifth arena
Goal: capture the flag with a catch (you must advance to the enemy base with the flag)
Lives: 1 life

Round 9: This game was really just a finish up game to use up all our remaining pellets. We ended up loosing because most of our players ran out of pellets first and were overwhelmed.

All and all it was a great experience and I would definitely go for it again next year. A bit pricey but well worth the money (75 euros/RM338 in total). I had an awesome time. And I'm sure everybody who went enjoyed it too.

End result: 6 wins 3 loses
Score: 27 kills (about 7 of which are unconfirmed kills) and 7 deaths.
Pellets used: 800

More food

Ok there's a lot I have to catch up on. I've been to loads of places and done many many things in my time of absence from this blog. But thats another story for another day. If I were to write all that stuff now, I'd probably be writing a trilogy of novels.

For now, just to keep the blog alive:
Heres some of my latest works.

Faith's wantons. I helped with some (the crappy looking ones).


Baked fish with carrots and ginger. Didn't turn out that nice but this is only my second time cooking fish. I blame the fish.



Fried chicken with apple, red onion and honey. So good. I'm gonna be making this more often. So nice and sweet.


Carbonara. Tried to make it as close as possible to the real deal. But failed. Used crappy bacon and even crappier tesco value cheese. Used egg and cream. It still tasted alright like. I'm still happy with it.



Spicy noodles. Soaked the noodles in dark soy sauce. Strained well. And finally fried with a little bit of oyster sauce and bacon. Garnished with spring onions and served with chilli, soy sauce and lettuce. Made it a wee bit too spicy for my taste because i soaked chilli in soy sauce and then I poured all that soy sauce on to the noodles.


Pork peasant style (Roasted pork with olive oil, sage and honey). Served with mashed sweet potato (Faith's master piece).
It was so stressful to make the mashed potato. We boiled the sweet potato for way too short. And realised it too late. So we had to pain stakingly mash the sweet potatoes which were still frozen in the middle.

Just made this 2 hours ago. Golden fried rice. Ok step by step now:
Fried garlic in a wok until brown.
Added 2 eggs.
Added the rice immediately.
Fried for a few minutes.
Added oyster sauce, chili flakes and pepper.
Once finished frying, added fried bacon.
Garnished with spring onions.

Not too great but I like it.