Oh…for all of you who are wondering whether TARA5 is right around the corner this year…Unfortunately, we won’t be racing around the world this time around so let’s keep those fingers crossed so that we’ll be back in 2012 to do it!

Thanks again for all your love and support and we’ll catch up again soon!

Congratulations to Richard and Andrea…and I apologize for that goofy-looking guy in the background too!  

Last night, we finally got to see the highly-anticipated finale episode to The Amazing Race Asia Season Four.  To really get into celebration mode, AXN organized a finale party at the Sky Roof of the one and only Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore.  Although it has been raining pretty much everyday here, we were blessed with great dry weather high in the sky.  I think even the “Powers that be from Above” wanted to know who won this exciting season of TARA.

After I gave a quick welcome speech to all of our guests, it was time for Jack Lim from AXN to thank all of our sponsors for the show…

And once we presented all the Pit Stop prizes to each of the teams that arrived first, it was finally time to watch this pulse-pounding episode!

CCongratulations to the Richards for winning The Amazing Race Asia!  Ricky Ow from AXN and Michael McKay from ActiveTV were invited on stage to present the coveted prize of $100,000 USD…

And after that, it was time to invite all ten teams on stage for some quick pix before the party really gets started…

But wait just a minute…just when you thought you had seen everything “Amazing” for the evening, Richard Hardin proposed to his girlfriend completely out of nowhere and surprised not only her but everyone that night!

Congratulations, Richard and Andrea!  I have a video of the proposal so I will try to share that with all of you soon too.

With the night’s formalities out of the way, it was now time to finally relax and enjoy catching up with all of the teams.  Dom Lau from E! News was also present to catch all of the action for his show…

Thank you all once again for watching The Amazing Race Asia.  And like I have said before, none of this would have ever been possible without all of your love and support.  It certainly has been one “Ride of a Lifetime,” and I KNOW all of us thoroughly enjoyed this fourth season.

I suppose the only question left to ask now is…

“Are you ready for TARA5?”  

…Because I sure am!@$#%

There’s only a few days left before the finale of The Amazing Race Asia!  Are you excited?  I can’t wait to announce who the winner will be for this pulse-pounding fourth season finale.  As if the race wasn’t enough of an adrenaline rush, I went to try out the big barrel at Wavehouse Sentosa this past weekend.  I’ve always been on the smaller and tamer Flow Rider so I didn’t know what to expect.

Well, after getting pounded repeatedly with each successive wipeout, I finally started to understand the “motion of the (manmade) ocean”…and had waves of fun!

While some rides saw some improvement over the previous runs…

…I would occasionally wipe out quickly and get washed through the tube which swirls its victims around like a giant toilet bowl!

I don’t know how many times I must have fallen that day, but my daughter Sage couldn’t bear watching me “getting hurt” anymore and pleaded with me to stop.

And like any old Dawg that doesn’t learn new tricks, I of course continued a while longer.

Today, I am certainly paying the price with a body that is bruised and battered.  But that doesn’t really matter because I had one helluva fun day!

And if you have seen the newest trailer for the finale episode of TARA4, then I have a hunch you know what the teams might be doing too, huh?  ;-P

Well, it’s been a while since I last posted a blog so I figured it’s time to get back into the swing of things.  I’ve been pretty busy with my paternal duties, but work will soon pick up once again, which means I will continue to post up some more blogs.  In the meantime, I am going to share some pictures I took from tonight’s episode of The Amazing Race Asia.  Maybe you can even guess whether we are still in Brisbane, Australia, or not?

During the course of the race, I always make an effort to take pictures even though our film crew has very little time to stay at one place for too long.  Along the way, I occasionally come across a “gem” of a shot like the one above.  I really like how “raw” this photo turned out of the old lady begging on the street.  I made sure to give her a contribution for the shot taken too.

Something about black & white shots just adds much more character with less color.  Ironic, huh?  Here’s another picture of my cameraman Yves on the same day…

Now, there’s been some people who are curious as to whether this shot below had undergone the sinister clutches of Adobe Photoshop?

…and the answer is an emphatic NO.  I have never been a big fan of all the touching up and “corrections” that goes into pictures these days.  Talk about false advertisement.  People should be taken literally for who they are, and not completely “re-digitized” to mislead and influence the public.  Whenever I go for a shoot, I make the effort to request that they hopefully minimize the amount of “D.I.” and “post production” work.  It’s way too prevalent these days, and it still befuddles me why people even bother putting on make-up before a shoot when the digital imagist is still going to “make up” for everything after the shoot.  I’d  better stop this rant because I could go on forever.  Now let me tell you how it (and I) “went down” in the picture above.

Basically, I simply climbed on top of this cement structure to figure out my lines…

Once we nailed the shot…

…I simply took a deep breath and jumped down.  Simple.  Just like dat!

Tonight’s episode is uber-cool for me because I get to do a PTC (Piece to Camera) with an underwater camera starting from underneath the water…

I guess that’s about all I can (or should) say until the race airs later tonight on AXN.  Be ready for another stunning Pit Stop location too!

And when the work is done, it’s time to yell “Victory” just like Johnny Drama in Entourage!

In the previous episode of TARA4 (Episode 4), I had the pleasure of not one but actually three greeters in Gaulle, Sri Lanka, to help me in welcoming the arriving teams…

Although we had a difficult time communicating because I couldn’t speak Hindi or Tamil and none of them could speak English or Mandarin, I figured I’d take a few of my favorite “aerial” shots…

Soon thereafter, the main greeter starting getting into the mix too!

The next thing you know, we were both doing our thang as we patiently waited for the teams to make their way to this Pit Stop…

And once we got tired (and I was probably too sweaty) to continue dancing around, we all enjoyed grooving to the beat of our percussionists!

Yeah…this was truly a special Pit Stop experience for me, and it was so much fun to use means other than conventional language to communicate with my newfound Sri Lankan buddies.

And on that note, the next exciting episode of TARA4 airs tonight on AXN.  I think a few of you already know where we will be dropping into next.  But if you don’t, then here’s a picture of a stunning volcano to get you “ashing” for more!  ;-P

Here is the recent covershoot I did for M2 Men’s Magazine (October) in Malaysia, which should already be out in newsstands…

Thanks again to the editor Lennard Gui for hooking me up with these shots first until I get my hands on a hard copy.

This is also the shoot I did for the September issue of Women’s Weekly in Singapore…

Alrighty, that’s it for now.  There should be more coming in so look out for it right here!

From the Singapore Formula One Grand Prix to the newest season of The Amazing Race Asia, there’s going to be a lot of racing coming up in the next few days.  In fact, I’ve actually been quite busy over the past week with hosting several events including the Walton Investment Group’s “Myth from Fact” this past weekend…

This “traveling show” has now moved its operations to Malaysia this week so I stayed back in Singapore before I flew out on my next trip to Bangkok for the Anlene Wider Brand Team Meating.  This regional event involved an “Amazing Race” component and so I was invited to participate in their own version as the teams raced from Sukhothai Hotel onto the crowded, congested streets of Bangkok in Tuk Tuks….

Once the race was completed, it was time for a night of fun on a cruise ship to enjoy Bangkok at night.  Actually, I was really impressed with how beautiful the view was with many temples that were lit up for the attraction.  I was also in charge of announcing various awards so that kept me busy…

…and once the business was outta the way, it was time to mingle with the Anlene team and take some pictures with everyone.

The following day, I flew back to Singapore so I could attend the 150th Anniversary of Tag Heuer watches at Marina Bay Sands.  A certain Formula One World Champion driver named Jenson Button was also in attendance…

Jenson Button was a natural on stage and kept the crowd entertained with his humor and enthusiasm throughout the evening.  He even brought his girlfriend along to “pick up” a Tag Heuer too…

Not only that, Jenson also signed and donated his racing helmet to a local charity in Singapore to raise funds.

For me, the most entertaining portion of the evening was watching local ambassadors Li Lin and Tay Ping Hui along with the rest trying to cut the 150th Anniversary cake, which was totally frozen…

Well, that’s it for now so let’s take one more picture with Li Lin and Ping Hui before we get ready to officially kick off The Amazing Race Asia once and for all throughout Asia on AXN!  Finally!$@%#