the earth laughs in flowers

FINALLYYY

I am SOOOOO HAPPY to be back OK!

You know, the first thing i did when I stepped home was to CRY.

Literally.

These 5 days were torture! We didn't bath for two bloody days man. And everyday we had to pitch our tents at night and unpitch them in the morning.

We slept on the hard ground of the tent floor everyday. I'm so glad I remembered my sweater at the last minute... otherwise, I would die. I used it as a pillow and in the middle of the night as a blanket to cover my freezing feet (thus leaving me with no pillow).

On thursday, we kayaked around Pulau Ubin (I think it was over 15km. someone said it was 22) for five hours. AROUND the entire island. I was dying already at the bend. That part was the worst I tell you... "you name it, I've got it" (a famous quote from our famous instructor whom I shall proudly introduce later). The current was strongest against us there, and I had gastric pain, seasickness and my arm muscles were screaming in pain. The hard sun was beating down at us, and everyone of us wanted to break.

It was scary at that bend. The instructors were going, "KAYAK ON! THIS IS THE DANGEROUS AREA!" All of our arms were going to break off, and all we wanted to do was to rest and sleep, especially with the bobbing motion. The currents were so strong and they were driving us back every time we stopped, but none of us wanted to go on. Our navigator (poor emmalina) was seasick even. Everything was in chaos. And finally, so finally, we spotted the red roof of the ever-so-nice camp two. I cried there because I was so happy.

I don't know lah, cos these five days, I kept feeling like crying. I'm not normally so... emotional, but obs really made me feel all this.

You know, the five days really progressed in increasing order of worstness. I thought day one was bad enough, where we kept walking around camp 2 for the keys of the stall and all, and where we had to sleep in a tent on the ground without anything, but I didn't know that the worst was yet to be.

The second day was worst than the first! We learnt kayaking, and Nandini was my partner. For some irritating reason, she kept going, "Zhi Xin! You have to put in some effort! I can't paddle on myself!" even though I was paddling so hard my arms hurt like hell. Our kayak kept going round and round in circles, and we kept going near the danger areas, namely, the rocks and the jetty. Everyone was so far ahead of us, and Steven (our really famous instructor) was kayaking and telling us what to do.

Luckily we changed partners when we reached the rest. Joy was so much better with me! Or perhaps I was just better at the front position. The kayak was going so well man! (we rawk, joy!)
Our wet attire was so gross, I don't want to talk about it. And to think we had to wear our swimsuits back on thursday.

Camp one was soooo nice. FOOD IN A COOKHOUSE! You have no idea how much you appreciate that after having biscuits and bread for lunches and cooking rice in a pot plastered with toothpaste with a fire you lit up yourself on the ground for dinners. The rice was damn damn delicious. I was salivating into the plate already. Especially with the hot soup and the veggies and the chicken!

And just as I thought day two was the worst to be, day three came.

Day three, we took our dunno-how-many-kg backpacks (about 10 to 20kg I estimate) consisting of all the mess tins and pots and tents etc and trekked 3 to 4 km into a dirty beach area.

That beach area was so totally disgusting, being infested with sand-flies, mosquitoes and god knows what else, and also with wet grainy sand and bushes. We had no toilets, and I had to pee in the bushes! And we hadn't bathed for two days! My hair felt like sticky hay.

But we could see Johor across!

Day four. The kayaking. At first Si Yi and I were like paddling so nicely and fast! And I was even going, "Actually, kayaking's not that bad!" to Siyi. Then the bend came, the strong currents came, and our aches came.

I was so tired I was ready to drop there and die. I wanted to stop and rest (and maybe sleep, seeing that it was hot, and the kayak was bobbing up and down). Everyone wanted to pee, and we all pee-ed in the sea, which isn't all that pleasant, but it was better than the bushes.

The later part was better as the currents were with us and helping us, making the job so much easier. We finished the entire thing in five hours, which is luckier than the other batch, who finished in 9 and a half.

Like WHAT THE HELL?! I thought ours was bad enough. Theirs sound so much worse. Poor things; they were going against the current throughout. Just as they rounded the bend to go to the opposite direction, the tide changed and went against them again. Sandy got really sunburnt.

The best thing out of this is
1) my really nice tan! (yes, I think tans are SEXY! HAHAHAHA)
2) the fabulous cool bath afterwards (I'm sure I never appreciated baths so much before)
3) basically, just coming back to camp 2, and knowing that going back home was so much nearer.

Day four's sleep was the best. The funny thing is, everyone overslept. (: When Daveen woke up and told me that it was 7, I was thinking, "Seven... chez. No one awake lah." Then my brain went snap, and then I remembered that everyone agreed to wake at 6.30. We decided to go out to check if everyone had abandoned us or something and somehow forgotten to wake us up, but it turned out that everyone had overslept. (:

Our really famous instructor
Uncle STEVIE! HAHAHA! He got whacked in the head so many times by us! Occupational hazard lah, I tell you. He said he never got whacked before with all his other watches! HAHAA!

He refused to tell us his age, and said he would tell us on the last day.

On the last day, when we found out he was 23...
Lei Can: What?!? Cannot be so young lah! IMPOSSIBLE!
Lena: I thought you were OVER 30!

HEE! Who ask him lah, so secretive for what!

I tell you, he has the, hmm, air/build of an acsi guy. He does! Maybe he doesn't come from acsi (we don't know, he refused to say), but he does. Even Lee Qi could sense it, so I'm not wrong! HAHA.

When he was putting off telling us his age...
Lei can (cos we were filling those kind of surveys which ask you to evaluate everything including our instructor): You better tell us ah! Otherwise I circle all "one" (strongly disagree) and get you sacked!
Steven: Oi! Don't like that lah! My rice bowl leh! Later at night I cannot sleep!

Memorable stuff that happened
1) Abseiling. Going down the hill in a L shape was cool!
2) Kayaking! Though it was horrible, unreasonable and downright tiring, it was still memorable, and it brought me a nice tan! HEH.
3) Dead fishes. SI YI's a dead fish! (si3 yu2) She was hilarious! Scandalous, tsk tsk! She dropped her underwear on the wet ground of the toilet and was looking for it, and when she found it, she swung it around her finger hollaring, "I FOUND IT!"
4) Our group! We are the "ancient song" group; we sing westlife! And we got addicted to shape of my heart by backstreet boys.... kept repeating it. And Husayna was like, "STOP SINGING! OTHERWISE I SING THE WORM SONG!"

I kept thinking of home, and everytime I thought of it my eyes felt moist. Sigh.

Overall, these five days were entirely horrible, but when you look back and think about it, it was rather fun actually. (: SOME parts only. I will NOT go back again if I had the chance, unlike some crazy people.

Honestly, I still don't know why we had to pay the 300 bucks we spent on this stupid obs trip.

Still, aside from that and a lot of lost stuff (I lost an entire bag of clothes okay. I sincerely hope it's in class), and also the horrible stuff we did, it was, ahem, tolerable.

BUT IT FEELS DAMN GOOD TO BE BACK.

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far and wee

you and i together mysteriously and always floating
Friday, January 20 10:27 PM