heyhey! I'm back from the most memorable trip that I've ever gone to-- Outward Bound Singapore. wao. It was totally amazing and I'll be missing it loads and loads
Day 1:
We arrived at Pulau Ubin by speed boat at around 9am. Looked around the place-- nothing fantastic. But at that time, I didn't realize that this was the place where I would go through hardships and laughter for 5 Days together with half of my class. Well, I was in the COUSTEAU watch. Yupp and our instructor was Belinda a.k.a ber-ber (argh. stole my nickname) Guess what? We all went MOBILE! whee! the exciting one.. Anyway, before getting started on anything that physical, we gave self-intro and after which went to practice our belaying skills. It was quite an eye-opener when I saw the large expanse of the school. Ber-ber then taught us how to pitch all our tents. It was super tiring k. I thought to myself "oh my goodness! It's only the first day and I'm already dying!" sighsigh. The tent pegs were killers, had to use bricks and blah to hammer it down x( After that, aiwen and i being store i/cs went to grab the pots and food for our very first outdoor cooking. wao. RICE. how in the world to cook tasty rice with no seasoning at all. Thanks to berber, she smuggled chicken stock and lotus roots to us for extra flavouring. my goodness, the food that she cooked for us was yummy yummy *rubs tummy* The other watches were like so jealous cos their instructors weren't even there to guide them in pitching/cooking. how lucky we were eh?
Day 2:
After waking up from a FREEZING night we had Physical Training where we played the colour game with berber. Ran around the school compound and down to the beach and jetty. The view was superb, the sun and all. wao. Then rockclimbing. Berber introduced us to the natural wall and the rock wall that we usually see. I climbed the natural wall cos I wanted to try out something new. That was a really tough wall, just narrow contours and grooves :( quite scary when nearing the top. sheesh. So I had to use my face, knees, hands and practically every part of my body to create friction to get up to the top. pheww. how draining it was. Thanks everyone for supporting me! Especially cassie (little girl) who was belaying me. hahaha! Luckily she didn't fly up when I slid. hahah!
Next, kayaking. Just what I was looking forward to. We grabbed our life vests and went out to the largest toilet bowl in the world-- THE SEA. Everyone was so excited, but first we had to do the OBS synchronize swimming where all of us got into a circle and bounced about in the sea. hahah! hilarious. so funny how everyone screamed when berber peed right in front of us. ewwwww. Because we had a odd number of people, I had to go single cos I kinda had "experience" kayaking before. yupp. How lonely.. sobsob. We did capsize drills. wahahaha! Recovering my kayak alone wasn't easy. so tiring. bleehhh. Thanks jasmine and xu ou for being my er.. rescuers. haha!!! Got back to shore on time before 4pm to avoid mud walking. That was something I sure didn't wanna do. Looking at other watchs' shoes. Goodness. They were G-R-O-S-S. heeeheee. Well, I had fiberglass bite (as I always do) itchy itchy scratchy scratchy. haiii.
Had maggi. we passsed berber's food check!! wahahah. after washing up and bathing, we went for night walk! berber brought us up to the higher ground where it was super dark and all, we were not allowed to turn on our torches so we just sat together to sing songs to comfort each other! Finally she emerged from the forest behind and told us all to form a line and to hold on to each other. We followed her deep into the forest where it was pitch dark, no communication between each other was allowed. When we finally stopped, berber suddenly pulled open a well-like thing which showed a dark tunnel inside. Poor carmen almost freaked out begging not to go down. "Go CARMEN!" one by one we climbed in. holding hands with each other. When I entered I realized that this tunnel was entirely black, we couldn't even see each other nor the walls of it. The objective was to crawl through this tunnel without letting go with each other. The tunnel was so small that we had to squat whilst moving along. Halfway through, victoria said that she was getting breathless. People started talking all at once and things started to get chaotic. A few wanted to carry on, others wanted to go back. We didn't know what to do until we heard berber's voice at the other end asking why we weren't up yet. phew. That changed everything "we're almost there!" we all started to move, moving really fast. yay! And we finally reached the end! well, we didn't realize that the two openings were only a few steps away? gah. Then berber told us about the next challenge, to go into the tunnel ourselves. Well, I wanted to just go for it cos there was nothing to afraid of. But i didn't expect myself to go first. Anyway, i just kept my mind off things and just went "LA LA LA" all the way. It wasn't so bad after all!
After coming out of the forest, we had a night circle (sharing our thoughts) and after that had a briefing on the expedition that we were going on the following day.
Land expedition first. Which meant trekking. sigh.
Day 3:
Some weird person started shouting for us to wake up at 4.15am. But what she didn't know was that her morning call was only for the Sea Expedition people and not us. pig. Anyway, cousteau started to pack for the trek. Amanda lim and I took the pots. clank clank. so noisy. haii. Couldn't even pick my bagpack up after packing was done. Jac and melody were our land navigators. Trekking with a uber heavy bag and under the scorching sun isn't a very good combination. So we lugged everything along......
walk walk walk. I was dying and having sun burns halfway through. sighsigh. After the first challenge I can clearly remember what Berber told us "Why do people climb mountains when they can get no trophy out of it? It's all about satisfaction and self achievement" It doesn't mean that if we don't get a prize at the end of challenge, we shouldn't put in our 101% into it.
Continued on to the highest peak in Pulau Ubin. We made a few wrong turns and well, we had to walk extra long. The highest peak overlooked a quarry. Totally spectacular view. I just stood there as I soaked in the warm sun and the spectacular view laid out in front of us. However, this feeling of "high-ness" went to a pit low when we were told that we had to continue trekking to our campsite which was so far away. I almost flipped. Never in my life have I felt so exhausted and helpless. My neck, shoulders and hips hurt really badly and I just felt like throwing my entire bagpack into the quarry. well. Carm and I took turns carrying the tent(stupid heavy thing) whilst walking along the road that never seemed to end. At one rest point, I was so tired that I lied on the floor and it took me so much energy just to get right up again :( Finally after walking for another hour or so, we reached our campsite. When all our bagpacks crashed to the floor, it was as though a huge burden was lifted off our shoulders. Then we heard, "girls... put on your life jackets and follow me" die. dead. what were we going to do now? QUARRY DIP! haha! Quite a good reward for walking 7km. goodness. We had to build a raft using 8poles and 4barrels afterward which should have been able to carry all of us including berber to the middle of the quarry and back again. The process was so torturous man.... tugging away at the ropes when we were all drained of our energy. sighhhh. However, after we saw our end product, we couldn't help but start laughing at it. Crooked and inbalanced, we put it into the quarry after passing the test of shaking and kicking from berber. hahahahah! and so we succeeded. :):) yayyie. haha.
Well, and so that was our bath. We all practically froze to death when we had briefing about the next day's sea expedition... When we finally got back to the campsite, we realized that we still needed to pitch our tents, change out and cook. argggh. THANKS to berber (again) she cooked for us maggi whilst we pitched our tents. Everyone's morale was really low at that time, with growling stomachs, aching feet and shivering bodies to attend to :( Poor selene, found the packet of milo and bun torn from it's plastic bag by a wild boar. That boar really has taste, it takes the buns and leaves the milo packets behind. PIG.
Anyway, after me and carm ate, I had to go for Sea Ex leaders meeting. There we talked about rest time and all for next day's ex. ohwells. Imagine 4 watches kayaking together... SO FUN! i'll be the starboard. Right-side. freako. that's near the rocks. :S
That night, I had to sleep between selene and cassie (suay. haha) cos my stupid tent collapsed at last minute. bah... So irritating. But i bet the both of them had great fun. haha! I kinda entertained them till late late into the night with my lame-ness and jokes. hahah! Poor selene had stomachache laughing. heehee.
Day4:
Woke up at 5am!!! We were late by 45mins! omg. Rushed rushed rushed. had to clear the campsite by 6am! diediedie. We were all like chiong-ing and all lah. So stressed out. Luckily for us, we got all our bagpacks, tents and jerry cans down at the beach by 6.30am or the speedboat would have been gone without us and we would have to kayak our stuff ourselves! ahhhhhh!
We all were so zai that all the 4 watches could bring down the kayaks by human chain at 7am! phew. At least now the waves were with us! :)) haha! Grabbed our lifejackets and got into the kayaks. Mine was CS04 Me having the single kayak could take the speedboat with berber and shrek jr. till it arrived. whee! hahaha. so amusing seeing them kayak. hhah! ladedums.
We kayaked for over 3hours before we had our lunch break. By then we were already halfway through. we were like super super fast lah! And then, all the fun started. I was the very first person to capsize. haha. Stupid sunblock had to float underneath my kayak. Clever me, wanting to get it, i reached below and TADA! i capsized. haha! Stooopid eleanor was laughing her head off lah! bah. And best still, she was my "rescuer" Don't know what kind she was lah. by the time my kayak was upright again, the interior was like a swimming pool lah. Filled with water gah which made it more unstable for me. hahah!
Then mandy got sick and i had to take over germz who was too tired paddling two people's weight. ok fine... germz wants me to add in the part where germz and I peed together. haha! We both decided that our bladders would burst if we didn't relieve ourselves so we conveniently jumped into the water (an excuse for exchanging kayaks. -sneaky-) I peed. Decided not to go near germz cos she would then feel the erhem "heat" hahaha! Heard that eco-friendly germz drank back some of her pee. WELL DONE. I'm like so proud of you?! XD Amanda took the single whilst germz paddled jas who was also seasick. poor peeps. At least that helped me to train my arm muscles. hahaha! The funny thing was that when mandy saw the jetty "OH MY GOD BERNICE! i see the jetty!!!" Then she started paddling like mad. I was like WHOA! that was a great change? haha!! Then after a while, she was tired out again. silly girl. hahha!
When we reached shore, we still had to wash and carry back our kayaks. bleah. Everyone was like saying "ber! you chao ta!" haha. I know I know.
Finally after putting everything back to its place, we formed a circle and did raffles cheers. Ally saboed me as always. So PSLs and Seet (the only prefect) lead the UNITE cheer. The one which is famous for mumbly lyrics. hahaah! After that, we had the JETTY JUMP!! The long awaited jetty jump. haha! 305ers all waited in the sea to swim back together. hahaha! so funfunfun. Germz and eleanor peed AGAIN. they are so gonna kill me if they see this. hahah! We bathed, and berber cooked a super super delicious meal for all of us. Pinapple rice with lots and lots of liao4! hahah. The other watches were like drooling over our food lah. So from the goodness of our hearts, we gave them a mess tin of rice. How nice right..... hahah!
Last night in OBS, sleeping in wet tents together. No talking at all, just deeeeep sleep. Everyone was just too shacked out to do anything at all. sighhh.
Day 5:
We are going back. STORE CHECK. what a terror. So many items missing from our store lah. So we had to go around grabbing what we could find. Tent pegs. ahhhhh. Wasted my eye power lah! Looking at the grass patch for the tiny things. haiiiiz.
We did our very first shopping in 5days. hahah! Went down to the OBS shop to get 3 shirts for yz, jim and me. Also got a collar pin. Spent $49 k.. not cheap. haaaii.
Then it was the last "speech" from berber at the MPH with everyone. We sang dedication with our instructors and of course. Not to forget... RAFFLES CHEERS! haha! 305 saboed me, again to lead in cheers. but now we had the prefects so there wasn't much use of PSLs. hahah! nvm. cheered and cheered with tears in our eyes.
Sang the Ain't Gonna Rain No More song to Berber one last time and each of us hugged her before we said our final goodbyes and left. I cried, just gonna admit it. I'll miss OBS, berber and all the experiences that I have gone through this amazing 5 days. I hate it when someone that we really like comes into our lives and leaves so abruptly. COUSTEAU we rock. We will definitely miss Berber. Her cooking and how down to earth she was.
This is an experience I never want to forget. Just wanna go back again and again. I learnt about how moral support was so important, i would have just rotted if no one was there to support me all the way. That I could actually overcome my fear of darkness (tunneling) Ohyes, cassie dear, I DON'T HAVE 5 wives k. hahaha. Don't know how jas and xuou came into the picture. hahaha! :):)
