the 'cruise', the sea, fishstars, and me.

just came back from this royal malaysian navy cruise trip and it sorta gave me new insights and exposure. let's talk about it.

Day 1 - 19th dec
woke up early, didnt have enough sleep cos i was preparing my head gear last night. Head to subang airport, met zen and szu, ali and the rest of the gang. Divided into buses(according to gender...=.=) Long and delayed trip, but we made it to the naval base at Lumut at about 6 something. Oh ya, before that - we were shocked to learn that most of the participants are schooling kids..and we're just about the only chinese there. not being racist or anything but we sorta expected more chinese people.

Ok so reached the base and took some time to actually enter the ship. We had 10-12 beds in a room, 4 bathrooms(or bath CUBICLES), no hot water, i had no blanket, and no place to charge my phone except at the canteen. Begin wondering what the heck am i doing here. We ate dinner, got divided into groups. Me, szu and her bro jing wen, and vino in STARFISH, zen, her sis, and ali in SEALION. Then we gathered as a group and.....talked. Group leaders: ibrahim and hilman. Members: me, szu, jing wen, vino, akmal, taufik, anas, zaki, kila the leng lui, rao, utilsvaran.

Went to sleep later. That's it for the day.

Day 2
Woke up 6.45am. First activity of the day was this Poncho-Poncho line dancing thing...lame but cute. seems it's played at NS camps. Forgot to mention earlier, we had to line up for the meals, kinda like serving food in a prison...lol. AND wash our own plates...grr. Thing is some dont wash their plates properly, and we gotta choose the clean ones every meal.

After breakfast was our 1st activity as a group: designing a flag and a warcry(translated as perang nangis by emir...not perang menang la szu!) It's some kinda cheer thing to boost spirits and stuff. We came up with this idea of joining our hands together, making a star...then drawing a fish in the star...voila! STARFISH! Tagline was "are you a star, or are you a fish?" Now thinking back, we totally separated STAR and FISH throughout the whole thing. Our warcry was like clapping hands, shouting booyakasha(credits to karthik for introducing the word...heh), shouting STAR, and then FISH(again, separated).

After that every group has to explain their flag and present their warcry. Szu explained our flag and at that point i was kinda observing her to some extent, seeing how she worked her way up to being spotted..gotta learn stuffs like that.

Then came lunch, then we were supposed to draw this murale...on a BIG cloth, in 3hours. Somehow, we got our ideas, started painting, and barely managed to finish it on time, although i wouldnt say it was totally completed as planned. Even without a highlighter, szumei managed to get some paint on my hand. great.

Futsal after that. Nothing much. I didnt play(for obvious reasons) and we lost in the 1st round. The place where they play was seriously HOT. It's like in a lower deck and the atmosphere is exactly like a factory..worst place in the ship. and they played futsal there...

At night was this drum circle performance by afiq and gang...not bad i'd say. It's like a group of people playing a certain drum beat using household items..pails, etc. Cool! Almost forgot, there was this Magic Stick thingy, where one representative from each group'll go out to say what was their most memorable event of the day. There's this guy, "Sassy the Don", who's really like stephen chow, chow sing chi! omygosh he's seriously funny, made everyone laugh, and his actions and the way he talks and moves, i was like telling everyone, "chow sing chi ahhhhhhh...."

That night went to charge my phone at the canteen at talked with ali a bit. He seems to not like the ship too...haha. smsed shanna, "hou cham ah...."

Day 3
Woke up early as usual, breakfast as usual. Uncle Adly brought us this exciting news that we're in Pangkor Island and we MIGHT get to go island hopping! But then he cancelled the plan cos we had workshops. sheesh.

Anyway, the workshops were GREAT. There were 8 workshops altogether, each group can only attend 4..grr. First workshop was none other than...drum circle! They couldnt have chosen a better place than at the back of the ship where we can see the ocean and stuff. And so afiq taught us how to play in a drum circle. He never really taught us about how to use the instruments, just how to follow the beat. I was playing this forgot-wat-name where you have to hit with ur hand. hit until hands pain...=.=. Taught us about 1st breaks, 2nd breaks, switching places, stuff like that. Just awesome. and we gotta present the drum circle that night itself!

After the short time with the drum circle workshop was this tiger conservation thing. Done by a group of great chicks, i'd say. I wouldnt say it was THAT boring, but compared to the other 3, this was the most boring one. Basically it's kinda like an english lesson, where they tell us stuffs about tigers, and how is it like to lose a small part of your body(by taping the thumb and index finger together). Nuff said.

Lunch after that, and workshop by Emir about voice projection and emotional persuasion. He can do all sorts of voices and voice projections, and tried to teach us how to be confident in speaking. He didnt cure my speaking problem though...heh. He can speak in all those accents, British, Australian, etc. The workshop was fun, laughed a lot, at the end of it he was like chatting with ibrahim about how they woke up late that morning...=.=

Last workshop was role-play by kak ernie. There're the NGO, kampung people, and developers debating on whether this 'kampung angin pelik' should be developed. I sorta have a vague memory on doing this before, but i totally forgot what it was like. So i thought the kampung people are the ones who fight against development, developers fight for, and the NGO is in the middle. I was part of the NGO and in the end we were supporting the developers...lol. The 'discussion' was interesting, and kinda heated up, in a fun way.

Oh ya, before that, during lunch time, we were suddenly told to perform a sketch at that night itself! So we discussed a bit during lunch, and practised after the workshops. The practise was a hell of a laughter outburst, especially with the way zaki was laughing..haha, seriously damn funny man! Our plan was to perform different versions of poncho-poncho - fast, slow, happy, sad, etc. The laughing was the best part and sudar got it on tape!

After that kila came and tell us we gotta do some sorta presentation from what we learned at emir's workshop, also on that night! So there's the drum circle, sketch, and presentation. walao eh. we discussed a while with emir and we thought of doing this 'selling high heels for men' persuasion, and i'd have to declare to everyone that i'm....not standing on the same level of height as a great number of men around the world.

So the night came, we were on rough seas, at a high speed, and then...seasickness. Some guy apparently vomited at the pathway heading to my room, and everyone who passes by starts scolding...haha. Vomit stains were also in the toilet, and there were people with sick faces lying on the sofas. I dunno why but guys seem to be more prone to seasickness...hmm. Performances time, and szumei was like no semangat because of seasickness. I think i was seasick too...dunno if it's because i was looking at all those pale faces. Apparently, some of our group members are down due to seasickness at that night. So we performed our drum circle, screwed up a little here and there..but it was ok i guess. Our sketch was delayed due to lack of members, not really good news cause we were ready to present. The presentation was also somehow cancelled, that means only one performance for the night. oh well. Oh ya, that night, we arrived at langkawi!

Conclusion: I was actually beginning to like the trip! The whole nilai gang was saying the same things too...cool!

Day 4...man this is getting LONG!
It was the long awaited pit-stop at langkawi island. We were supposed to wake up at 6am for breakfast....'supposed'. Turns out i woke up late, but the breakfast was even later. While waiting for breakfast, the nilai gang was enjoying the magnificent view from the ship, and taking pictures. Seriously, it was sunrise and it was BEAUTIFUL! will post pics later when i get them. Kinda looked like those landscapes you draw in paintings where there're a couple of green mountains, and the sun is rising in between, and you can see the reflection of the sun on the water. not to mention the early morning sea breeze. a glimpse of heaven.

So we took breakfast and headed to the ferry to langkawi. It was kinda cool since our ship was in the middle of the water and the ferry just came to the ship and took us to the port, like some kinda carrier. Waited in the ferry for a long time and it was freezing cold! Uncle fikri was like scolding us because we were late. I was like shivering and thinking "hey ur the one who served breakfast late....=.=". But then again, organisers have their pressures.

And so, we stepped our foot on solid ground, yay. On the way to the bus, we passed by all these shops, selling duty-free stuffs...cant wait to shop! Anyways we went to this national service camp and it has its own beach...cool. Gathered into our groups and performed our warcry...accidentally said FISHSTAR instead of STARFISH...oops! So we started beach games, first game was 'the longest line'..use whatever we have to make the longest line on the beach. Got wet and dirty already. Next game was this game where we have to roll a big die, even number means move forward that many steps, odd number move backwards. quite fun la. After that was this carry-water-from-sea-to-shore-with-a-bottle-with-holes kinda game. sien. starting to get sunburn. ouch! Then we had this water confidence thingy by uncle fikri where we have to go under water, open eyes, and come back up without rubbing the water of ur eyes. crap la! my eyes are so freaking pain and i cant see anything underwater anyway! had to do that like for so many times and i accidentally swallowed a big gulp of SALLLLTY seawater...eack!!!!

Then we were allowed to swim till it was lunch time. FINALLY. burger and jing wen was like teaching me how to float on my back...hey i think i did it! jing wen tried teaching me how to stay above water, didnt get the hang of it though. Tried climbing on top of burger and sommersalt(correct spelling?) into the water, but failed....miserably. Only managed to swim a while, and it was time to head back to shore. That was when uncle fikri declared the 'crisis'. They forgot to bring plates and cutleries. So what do we do with a crisis? We overcome it. went to pluck leaves to be plates...kinda fun hehe. Anyways, they bought paper plates after all, but we put the leaves on the plates for the fun of it. Food was great.

Then there was volleyball, our team won thanks to szumei's 'killer serves'...lol. I didnt get to play..scared if i volunteer myself, we'll lose miserably...hehe. After that, lepak a while, then off to.....

Shopping! we didnt even bathe...haha. went to this Billion supermarket and got our duty-free stuff. So we bought lotsa chocolates(well, compared to the girls, mine was cheap stuff), souvenirs, and...alcohol. Scared to buy too much alcohol though, scared kena tax, according to the uncles. Bought some kampai, burger bought 3 small bottles of vodka. sudar was like holding 2 big bottles of vodka but in the end settled with a smaller bottle...haha. Time was limited, and we rushed to buy stuffs. After that we headed back to the ferry, emir and ibrahim suffered injuries for god-knows-what reason.

So that night we finally did our performance, kinda screwed up the original plan i guess...but hey, it's a performance la. Then there was this looooong performance by the dolphin team...then zen's team did an acapella. I dunno exactly which night, but for a couple of nights they did show videos of the trip that was recorded so far, with music and all...and it somehow got me thinking bout the whole trip, and i felt more positive about this entire thing. Forgot which night again, but they were showing pictures of afiq, aji, and the girl i forgot her name on their sail on board the leeuwin sail ship. I seriously envy those guys for having that kinda experience, i just hope my chance will come one day.......one day. There's also this interesting fact that there's this big secret sentence written on one of the highest points on the ship, and you'd have to climb really hard to reach that point. I wanna see that sentence for myself!

That night we sorta chatted with 2 uncles. Uncle Shafri was this experienced scuba diver and i was interested in diving ever since i watched 'into the blue'...hehe. well, actually i was interested a long time ago. So i asked him, 'how expensive is scuba diving?' Then he said it's not that expensive. Then he talked stuffs about having his own boat, having all this high tech equipment, flying to maldives, flying here and there, having tea with divers from all around the world, and stuff. "not expensive"......right. The fact that he said the journey to maldives was 'only 3 hours', not 'only 2000bucks' or sumthin, has already proven money is not even a factor to count in for him...so much for scuba diving.

Day 5
been typing for about 2hours now...sleeepy. anyways, breakfast was unusually quiet that morning. Apparently, sleep is now more important than food. But the food was great, roti canai! burger and i ate 2 pieces....mmm.

Played some games, 1st one was the traditional build the highest but stable structure game, with balloons. Our groups structure went all the way to the ceiling and we taped the balloon to the ceiling...lol. Uncle asked us to take it off, but he didnt say we're not allowed to do that earlier....grr. Then was this game where we have to build words that related to the sea with a certain set of letters. We did quite well, but some of our words were considered not related...grr. Can u believe it, Sid(character from ice age) is related to the sea??! lol.

After the games we were practically free of activities. They had to spend the afternoon preparing for the last night, and we decided to perform a dance, representing nilai. So we went looking for emir for his laptop, looked for songs, hardest part was looking for a place to charge his laptop! damn the power supply. and so we kinda hurriedly choreographed and practised our dance.

At night was the last night on the ship. Everyone was wearing their environmental head gear and kain pelikat/sarong/batik/whatever. Then we watched the performances, chow sing chi performing! Our performance was totally screwed up, music didnt go as planned, and the steps went haywire. oh well. After the performance was a crazy moment of photo snapping. Everyone took so many photos. I took one with kila....=)

Last night right, so we didnt plan on sleeping much. Went to ali's room for party and drinking the stuff we bought at langkawi. No we're not heavy drinkers..i'm pretty sure no one actually got drunk, although burger's face was seriously RED. We drank low alcohol stuff, and also milo..and ate some peanuts...yea peanuts. So we just drank and chit chat and play bluff....mm hmm. Before i know it, i was sleeping like a pig.

Final Day - 24th dec
And so the last day arrived. woke up in ali's room and saw szu and zen..didnt know they went back to their room. Went back to my room to write this journal they gave to everyone. Then went to canteen and saw the gang writing their journals...haha. Write together. Managed to get some autographs. Funny, we never really talked to some of them before, but on that day we sorta like knew all of them and they knew all of us. hmm...maybe advantage of being girls. No not me, was talking bout szu and zen...=.=.

And so we packed and went into the bus and returned home. Said our last minute goodbyes and christmas wishes, then headed back home.

Later that night, went to puchong to meet hui yeng and woanting, but only a while. Then went to OUG with chiew wai and gang...BORING!

Overall
So we came to this ship with high expectations, got disappointed on the first day, and towards the end we realised it was worthwhile after all. Best moments: all the free time we spent on the back and front of the ship looking into the ocean, enjoying the strong winds, chatting with nilai people and uncles, laughing in burger's room about 'mayonnaise', playing cards and partying in ali's room, workshops, langkawi, mixing with participants, and realising the bad moments weren't so bad after all. Feel really motivated to be exposed to more of this kinda activites, so szu mei, book a place for me in raleigh's camp yea...=) Met a great bunch of people who are younger than me but have so many exciting experiences. Thoughts about doing crazy stuffs are coming back again...

Other stuffs that i learned: ali can actually hang out with us, chit chat, and share things. i seriously didnt expect him to get to mix around with us so openly, i mean he doesnt drink but he lets us drink in his room. luke is a very funny guy too. bryan's attitude is really like karthik. vodka burns ur throat! and lots more....

Post-RMN
so just 2 days after the trip, we kinda had a 'reunion' at mid valley. went there with szu, zen, jing wen, and zhen wei to watch eragon. would like to talk bout the movie, but...this post is just too freakin long already. met chow sing chi right before zen came, was quite surprised actually cause i didnt really talk to him on the ship. after the movie we met the whole gang and played bowling. somehow we talked to them as if we always hung out together on the ship..but then we actually barely knew each other towards the end of the trip. that's cool.

a little bout today...spent quite a lot on food, movie, bowling, and shopping. I ate like so FULL and i was 1kg lighter than this morning??!

k la...3hours typing this post..that's gotta be enough.

u've just finished listening to...
Sahul. Don.
FM.