heyyy everyone(:
im back from pulau ubin OBS lying on my bed with aircon!
aircon. so nice. hahaha. anyway im here to post about the 5 day camp
i think its gonnnnna be long. haha after this i shall do the essay.
{edit/ shit. i think i just realised im posting highly in detail. =/ }
DAY 1woo. Everyone seemed to be complaining and whining about OBS. haha. Seemed like almost everyone was dreading it. Took a bus to Punggol Jetty and then a boat to Pulau Ubin camp 2. haha people were applying sun block everywhere and rubbing on insect repellant on every area of exposed skin xD hahaha.
We got off the jetty, walked up a slight slope to a huge parade square. On the left was a line of stores, in front a run down not-look-alike-multipurposehall. xD haha. on the right was the again notlookalike dining hall. it contained the female toilet and 2 rows of sinks. outside. haha yup thats the dining hall.
Okay, we put down our bags, waited a little and soon got posted into our different groups. Everyone seemed to be a little lost and unhappy in their unfamiliar group. =/ I got into Marco Polo. x) Then we got introduced to our instructors. Mine was Kiah Hong. haha. Then we did some admin stuff for a longggg longg time. Then we went to sort out the stores and the stuff inside. Since we were hungry and couldnt wait to get everything over and done with, i guess my group got a little fed up with him cause he seemed to be folding the tents and stuff slowly. Opps.): sorry.
Then we went to get our food supply for 5 days. (but we got more in the end anw x) okay fast forward. Our first activity was some trust game. The other 14 of us had to hold this mat, while one person just fell over the edge. Haha at the end we made kiah fall too! HAHA. funny. we keep making him do stuff. and we were trying to guess his weight before he fell. but he really is very heavy T.T After this we went on to belaying station to practice belaying.
In the evening we went down to this long patch of grass with trees around to pitch our tents. Pitching tent is hard work but i think we got the hang of it by the third day haha. Had to find rocks to knock in the pegs, use jack knife to cut twine to tie the tent and etc. Charlotte cut herself with the knife and went to cook food so left me, chloe and brenda. tsk. i think a few people from sc cut themself =/
Haha the field cooking was interesting. Put solid fuel tablet in the middle with bricks surrounding. Then used mess tins to cook our food. After taking food from the cans we still have to flatten them as trash management T.T Haha the food was okay la. but quite bland. =/ the rice! xD hahaha. it was like half cooked half not cooked. but since i was quite hungry i just took what i could (: oh yes. i was feeling pretty terrible since my voice was horrrrrrible. with my bad sorethroat.
So, Day 1 was pretty calm and okay but i guess this was what made people continue disliking obs. But. Night time was bad. i could sleep quite well with chloe's sleeping bag over the poncho even though i woke up 2 or 3 times. The 2nd time i woke up, i realised the drizzling woke me up. I went back to sleep and then woke up sometime later when charlotte chloe and brenda was awake cause some parts of the sleeping bag was starting to get wet with rain dripping thru. but it was only a few areas with small parts. Then the last time i woke up was when my area started to get superrr wet. T.T hais. Then we realised the water was leaking through the ground sheet too. Zz. Haha so then we all sat up and just tried to stay as dry as possible. i was getting fed up cause the rain was getting heavier, my hair was becoming wet and sticky and it didnt seem the rain would stop soon. However! haha Kiah suddenly appeared with the tarp and a few people under it. xDDD Saved by our hero! hahaha that night everyone started liking him. i was so so happy when he appeared x) it was horrible sitting in the tent =/
We took the sleeping bag and our stuff and then moved to MPH. since it was 5 am we didnt sleep anymore T.T so just did whatever we could, ate breakfast till the next morning. hahaha.
DAY 2Spent the whole of the morning packing for camp 1 i think. yea, and then we did journals etc. In the afternoon we played this raft escape game with Megallon. supposed to move everyone on a pile of planks and blocks. T.T Marco Polo couldnt move more than 2 blocks. sigh. so sad. i guess our method was wrong. Megallon managed to reach the green pole. :o haha we all took like 1 hr 30 mins. After this we took our bags and trekked to camp 1. Our bags were ssuuuuppperrrr huge. im sure it weighed about 10 kg. at least. 2 water bottles alr 4kg =/ It was our first trek and everyone wasn't used to the weight and all so we all looked like we were dying. pfft. haha we went through the jungle! The trip was 1km plus but we were all exhausted. My shoulders were hurting and i had to carry the tent bag. which i am sure weighs 5 kg T.T
We reached camp 1 and the place was muchmuchmuch more nicer la. We got a tour of that place. It contained REAL buildings. haha proper buildings and everything looked so new and nice. Camp 2 looked like. like. some ex army site while camp 1 looked like some resort can. haha no la not resort but it was all so nice with the new and many and big height element games and stuff. so nice. haha we pitched tent by the sea on some small area that is secluded abit outside camp 1.
if the timing was correct we would have been able to see the sunrise so nicely. aw. but too bad we woke too early.
After pitching we went to a 3 story rock wall to do rock climbing (x Hahaha they did this 'earn your own food thing'. Since we were going to eat food from the cook house that night, we had to earn it. something like, veg was $10, chicken $20, fish $30 etc. Each panel we climb, about 1m each, was $15. hur T.T but in our group many people managed to climb all the way to the top! woohoo. hahaha. i got stuck on 3rd last panel. rested there for awhile then used all the arm muscle i got to pull myself up and then i finally managed to touch that sacred blue stone! haha no la. its the top stone.
Went to wash up then got ready for dinner at dining hall. This time the dining hall looked like a proper canteen. we had rice, some bland cabbage, a chicken wing, a piece of fish cake and soup. plus cold drinks. diluted isotonic drinks T.T the food wasnt so nice. =/ even kiah doesnt like it too. oh halfway eating, kcp ppl came in and sat down at the table next to us. When we finished and they were taking food, there was some hoohaa going on =.= i was waiting for dunno who, when 2 guys started getting rough. =/ They were trying to hit each other for about half a minute when suddenly the rest of the guys from a table got up and started to pull them apart. aiyo. uncivilised? tsk. plus fight also dont look at where they fighting like they expect everyone to make way for 2 fighting guys. so drama can. they almost knocked into some sc girls somemore. hmph. anw there were 3 diff responses. 1) wa. so cool! shit i want to see 2) aiyo so babaric. 3)aiya they always like that one la.
haha. funnyy. anw i just thought i was watching some drama before me and my eyes were just growing bigger by the second
That night was worser. haha. this time sorta got used to it so went back to my usual sleeping. light sleeping. THUS. at night. i heard the stupid song from Johore. apparently its some disco. walao. i tell you can. everywhere we go on pulau ubin ALSO can hear. crazy man. the sea can pass sounds so far one ah. and the song was highly irritating la. woke me up like twice. then i decided to think of it as some background noise and managed to fall asleep.
DAY 3so, we were supposed to meet instructors at 6.30am with tents unpitched and everything but we were late and met at 7.30am. =/ but its really hard cause it was all in the dark. super dark. sort of. and the toilets were very very far of. AND we found out some stray dog ate some food from our trash bag used to carry our biscuits and bread for kayaking. T.T
yup, so this time we put our bagpacks into the boat, and then with our life jackets and water bottles we set off back for camp 2. this time it was MUCH more lighter and easier (: haha. reached there, and then got a briefing for sea ex and learnt how to kayak. oh yes. we had to learn to capsize and get back on the kayak. zz. i like rocking and falling off hahaha. buttt. the salt water was ddddisgusting!!! bleah. it was highly salty and some went up my nose la.
Anyway we kayaked about 4km. haha had breaks in the middle of the sea floating to eat rasins, muesli bars and make isotonic drinks hahaha. haha oh yes. cause at first i had much energy. so since i was sitting at the back of the tri-yak i was helping to steer but also brenda and chloe couldnt see me at the back if i kayak. anywayyy. when they were resting i helped to push them forward and stuff steer all that. and i could do i reaaaaally well since i had energy haha. but then after like 2km plus? i got tired. =( then chloe just ate finish her muesli bar so she suddenly go ther burst of energy T.T haha. okay. so she paddle paddle but when she looks back im like not paddling. chloeee! i never slack hor. hahahaa. i was tired so couldnt really steer properly. then chloe was halfway eating her bar while everyone was like rafting together in the triyak when we needed to carry on. so she'll stuff her bar into her mouth then kayak kayak then stop. then eateateat. then stuff it back and carry on ahhahaa. she ah. funny la. oh salt water keep spraying everywhere ): when i was dry you can see all the salt crystals all over my hair. along the way we passed johore and heard the disco noise. hahha so thus confirming the fact its from johore.
when we reached camp 3 it was about 3 plus and so super hot. walked in a quite long path/road full of rocks and stones . and the place where we pitched; it was just hugggggge and barren. like some desert. tsk. i think i got my darker tan from there. so we pitched as fast as we couldand again had to find rocks all over so that we could hold down the tent and stuff.
anw as soon as we managed to do everything, we went to bathe in the quarry! woohoo hahaha
our "big huge bathtub" according to kiah. haahah. so nice. it was like just one big circle of water surrounded by granite and trees. pretty sight (: so we just floated there in our life jackets and talked (x avanthi even sang some opera for us. haha oh yea something happened in the water.
Megallon was in front of us; and then they started screaming. i turned around to look and saw a moniter (lizard)'s head moving across the water hahahaha i started laughing. the head was as big as a fist. hahaha. so cute.
Finished washing up, we went back to change and stuff. haha a few of us just stood in one line and changed our shirts behind the tents. so scared someone suddenly come. the rest i decided to change inside the tent. aiyo. that place ah. to pee,
1)be in a group of at least 5 people. 2) 3 people hold up poncho. 3) 1 person hold up big torchlight above poncho. 4) person pee behind poncho 5) change site 6) restart cycle with another person.
ahahhaa, ok our toilet is cool! xD
By about 7 plus the sky was totally dark and i had to cook maggie mee in the dark =/ but someone held up a big torchlight. (= so it was okay. Had loads of left over food and our clothes were all stinking since we had to stuff wet clothes inside the bag. damn disgusting la. stinks all the way to Johore and back. haha. oh yes, that night, heard the freaaaaaaaaking disco AGAIN. sheesh. so SO SOOO loud. its like someone plays the radio out loud next to you. so irritating. stop for awhile then start again. so i woke up twice thanks to that.
[ okaayye. haha sorry seee. 3 days only. and my post is as long as my trek. haha no la. im just. drifting..off..to..sleeep..veryyy..soooooonnn. heh super tired. so i guess i will post the next 2 days next time yea.]
LOVEYOUALL!
valmok(:
marcopoloOBS08'<3
