farewells...

Was having a nice nap when shanna's call woke me up. Then suddenly many thoughts came to my mind. szu mei's leaving for aussie in less than 3 weeks...and i hate farewells. It's only like my 3rd semester here but there were so many goodbyes that i've said to all the great new friends.

The 1st semester alone i got to know ah gang and issac for just a couple of weeks. Short, but really fun. 2nd semester, well issac came back halfway and there was another mini-goodbye. And qiu yi changed to another college. Now, 3rd semester, szu mei's leaving..she was like one of the first few close friends i made here in nilai and thanks to her, i got to know many other great people.

Kelvin's gonna graduate soon, and shanna's gonna leave for UK soon also. Chris is also goin to australia. and who knows who else will be leaving college.

Gosh, farewells are tough.

"Every memory of looking out the back door
I have the photo album spread out on my bedroom floor
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye goodbye"

R.E.S.O.L.U.T.I.O.N.Zzzzz

bored. tired. just came back from Malaysian Open wohoo! it was great..Koo Kien Keat-Tan Boon Heong won doubles gold...and we took pictures with badminton stars..yay. Will post pictures later....if i remember.

resolutions!

1st on the list is...JAPAN. must go there for student exchange, 've been dreamin bout it for like few years. Priority number one.

2. gain weight? and it'd probably be easier to get shirts my size. and not look like a kid...and...be more fit?

3. more motivation. 've been lacking willpower in almost everything i do. gotta put more real effort into stuffs i do and keep the willpower going.

4. get more of life? experience as many new things as possible..things i never thought i could do or i would do. go to places i've never been before...stuff like that.

5. be cleaner. me dirty. gotta be a lot cleaner this year...wash clothes more often...clean room more often..bla bla.

6. get good grades. entering degree this year...gotta work harder if i still want that 1st class honours.

7. do more meaningful stuffs and stop wasting my time with...stuffs that waste my time..=.=

lazy to write...lol. that's all i can think of at the moment.

lalala.

horrible sleeps, zero cleanliness, getting wet, and 6 leech bites....

pretty much summarizes my 1st camping experience in a jungle. hey, it's also my 1st post of the year so...HAPPY NEW YEAR! long time din update...heh.

ok, so i joined this Raleigh International KL Intro Weekend 06 camp with shanna introduced by szumei(who DID NOT GO). They gave us more than camping life experience, they wanted us to actually feel what it's like to be on an expedition, which i think is slightly worse than the kinda camp life i had in mind. SLIGHTLY.

Day 1: 12 Jan
ponteng-ed class...hehe. wanted to get extra sleep in case i dont get enough in camp..which turned out to be ABSOLUTELY TRUE. in like 2.5 hours i filled the application form and packed my stuff. Then took 3.15 bus to ktm station, then lrt to bdr tun razak. We were 1 hour early..=.= So sat there and ate pisang goreng..julie was there too..my teammate-to-be. Then transport came and off to this Internation Youth Centre for registration and bla bla. Registered, played ice-breaking games, dinner, and a brief presentation on RIKL and its expeditions. Cool stuff, i wanna go diving at Costa Rica!.....if i get to fund raise like...20-30k? =.= Then we got divided into groups, 40 participants into 4 groups of 10 - Alpha(my group), Bravo(shanna's group), Charlie, and Delta. Group members: me, aby, k, chin gian, lau, liza, shawn(dunno spelling), ling, julie, yuan ying(dunno spelling). Coordinators: Adrian aka Louis Koo look-a-like, and Len Foong aka Szu-Mei feel-a-like. Played ice-breakers among our group and went off to KKB at dunno what time. They took all electronic equipments from us so no cameras, watches, and handphones. crap.

Reached there dunno what time, adrian told us on the last day that it was around 3am i guess. walao. it was pitch black, we had to carry the stuffs. Then they gave each group 2 pieces of this plastic cloth, those used to make cheap travelling bags i think. and we're supposed to construct our sleeping place with that and rafia strings. in 30minutes. wat the heck! So we did shorter cloth on the ground for 10people to sleep, longer cloth hanging on rafia string tied to trees, making an upside down V shaped roof on our sleeping area. All groups ended up with the same idea. I dunno nuts about camping so i just followed what they were doing. The sleeping area was hardly enough for 10, so 2 or 3 guys slept outside the 'tent', and i slept right at the side, the roof was like resting on my face, crap! and half my body was actually not on the cloth but on the jungle ground, but then again, im in a sleeping bag. First night sleep was HORRIBLE. so cramped up and since the roof was on my face, i was kinda hot and if i make any moves, the whole tent shakes. i had to move quite a lot to find a way to use my hand as a pillow without having cramps. so i managed to get some sleep, a very uncomfortable sleep.

Day 2: 13 Jan
woke up to morning call at god knows what time. from the colour of the sky it was most likely around 6.30am. And so we cooked breakfast, my first meal cooked camp-style in the jungle. looks like the cooking equipment i borrowed from uncle michael were typical camping cooking equipment, everyone was using mess tins and 'stove boxes' that looked all the same. the food was actually quite good, although maybe if we didnt cook it together and it wasnt in the jungle, the food'll probably suck. After that was the start of activities, we played 4 teamwork-based games and there was always some kinda discussion session at the end to see how well we worked as a team, how to get better, stuff like that. The last game got us wet as we had to build this 'raft' with huge tyres and PVC tubes and go into the lake.

After lunch was the highlight of the event - hiking! Had to wear my still-wet shoes and they said it was gonna be an 8-hour hike to and fro. Little did i know that that was totally and understatement. So we walked and walked through this jungle, similar to my previous experiences of jungle trekking many years back. Crossed rivers, walked through muds, etc. walk walk walk, then oops! wrong road...=.= and our nice coordinators just let us walked 1.5hours of the wrong track, but of course that was what they were supposed to do - let us walk our own path. so we patah balik and found the right road and walk walk walk again. Then the paths got narrower, and narrower, probably the width of one foot? tall grasses and plants were everywhere. most of the time i was like looking at the ground in front, but at times when i looked into the area, whoa it was amazing...really looks like the jungle in LOST. The plants were beautifully green cos they were wet..and there were certain parts where there were bamboos all around..cool!

Only later did i realise that the real challenge has yet to start. As we go on, we had to actually start climbing up. we were supposed to climb this bukit kutu or sumthin. and it started to rain. it was all slippery and muddy, and steep, and we had to hold on to tree roots and branches to pull ourselves. not to mention leech attacks. so we went up and up and we started to feel cold bcos of the rain. really COLD. shivering. but we went on until we realised we actually hiked for about 6hours. Then we saw shanna's group coming down the path. we discussed, and since there was like only 1hour of daylight left(according to our WISE coordinators...hehe) we decided to go back down. down down down, and we had to cross the river. That time it was already dark, and since it rained, the water level was way higher. Adrian kinda brought 2 of us to test the water level and it wasnt safe to cross. So we stayed there..checked for leeches, pour salts on them, get bitten by mosquitoes, bla bla. After some hours, all groups were there, all extremely hungry, cold, wet, and bitten by leeches and mosquitoes. shanna and i were like..."hou san fu ah....." After some hours, help finally came and we get to use ropes to cross the river. Man, the water was FREEZING! The moment my foot sank into the water my whole body was shivering like mad. So we crossed the river, walk walk walk, and another river is here to attack - DEEPER, AND STRONGER. This time they needed 2 ropes for extra safety, the water went up to the waist, the current was way stronger, and still FREEZING cold. so we passed that, and walk walk walk, back to the camp. Oh ya, KKB has the best view of night stars i've ever seen! i mean usually the places i go, i see like at most 20-30 stars...but there i see like a thousand stars! they were so freakin clear and like so close to us...it was beautiful. Then we reached camp, everyone was hungry but no one cooked...haha. I just changed, and slept. We were on our feet for like almost 12hours with wet shoes and sand and small rocks in our socks, but hey i'm proud of that...lol.

The sleep, again, was terrible. We left our mess tins on the sleeping area, and somehow the food spilled and there were ants all over, and we had to sleep with the smell of fish curry. Crap!

Final Day: Jan 14
So the final day came. I think they woke us up quite late this time cos the sky was already bright..probably around 8am. Ate breakfast, and played another 3 team games. The 2nd one was fun, we had to go through obstacles carrying a water container, and crawl through a pool of mud. Then it was packing time. Omygosh, all my stuffs were like...eeew! Socks were covered with mud and sand, shoes were wet, clothes were muddy and wet, i didnt bathe the day before, didnt brush my teeth, didnt wash my spoon and mess tin with food stains, and there were crickets and dirt in the plastic bag where i put my toothbrush, toothpaste, shower gel, etc. not to mention the shower gel leaked, and it was all soggy. picture that. bag pack was covered with sand, plastic bags were wet, everything sucked. couldnt care less, chucked everything in my bag, changed to dry clothes, say our goodbyes, and went back!

We reached the bdr tun razak lrt station at almost 5pm, didnt eat anything since breakfast and i was starving and craving for good food! So shanna and i took ktm to mid valley just to have a nice dinner...LOL. After a camp like that, i'd kill to eat good food. Ate at kim gary, kinda disappointed that i got full so fast...crap. Bought some stuff at carrefour and went back nilai.

Took a bathe, and here i am now blogging, with my dirty stuff still behind me in my room. Wonder if i'll clean those stuff up...hehe.

hmm...wrote quite a long post again, next time gotta try to keep things short.
oh well.

oh ya, conclusion, the trip was physically and mentally torturing at times, but now that it's all over, i'm proud of having experienced all those!