Leadership Training Camp 2013 DAY 2

This was my most favourite day!~ enjoy :P
---------------------------------

7am
The air was cold, but I like it. Everyone in the girls dorm started to wake up and went to the toilet. Of course, me and wen xiu went to the toilet together and brush our teeths there. We didn't want to change in the toilet as it was disgusting. So... we changed in the girls dorms. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE 3: CHANGING IN AN OPEN HALL HAHHAHAHA. We're all girls, come on. I changed into T-Shirt and shorts because that day, for Group 1 to 6, are water activities.

7.30 am
Me and my friends rushed down to the field for our morning exercise. The ashes from the campfire were still there. Everyone's faces were sleepy and half dead. I found my dear group and lined up in a single file. An old guy, one of the facilitators, guided us. We did some simple exercise, the normal stretching exercises. After that, we were split into 2 big groups. Each group had to form 1 inner circle and 1 outer circle. They were a few teachers doing it with us. We had to talk to the person opposite us from the inner circle. I was at the outer circle.

8.30am
Breakfast
FINALLY! We were all hungry and bored of the exercise. Most of us don't like the old facilitator. Our breakfast was fried rice/meehoon with crackers. I can't say it was really nice nor it was bad. After we ate, me and wen xiu went back to our dorm to get ready for our first Activity: White Water Rafting. (Y) this was the only activity I was excited about before camp. And little did I know, it was our first Activity!

9.30am
Group 1 to 6 gathered outside the first aid open hall or which I called it... the girls dorm. One of the facilitators briefed us on what will happen and what if this happens.

The boat has 3 sections. Front, middle, back. There were two platforms to divide the sections. So ended up with spaces in each section. I thought we were suppose to sit in those section and paddle but NO... we had to sit on the side... it's hard to explain I'll show you the picture.

Each boat has 6 people and 1 guide. We get to choose our own teammates :3 I went with Yiting, Shim, Milton, Darryl and Chin Yu. We know each other but we're not close *exception Yiting and Shim (mah awesome friends)* Our group was just right because we had big and sma size :3

10am (approximately)
Our guide was Adik. All the guides spoke English which was convenient. We had to carry our rafting boat to the river. Behind us were the teachers : Tr May Peng, Tr Melinda, Tr Andy,  Tr Zax and Tr Angie. How cute! All the teachers in one boat! :3

They were a few codes to remember, when the guide says it we have to do what he says:
Paddle forward
Padde backward
Boom boom: When we were approaching a big rapid, we have to sit at the space below us
On the line: we have to return to our
Positions
Hold the rope: When we were approaching a rapid we have to hold the rope beside us which was attached to the boat.
High five: everyone lifts their paddle up on the air and hit the water.

10.30am
Action time! :D
We had a fun time carrying our boat to the river(situated outside the resort) because Tr Zax was making fun. We settled our boat on the river and everyone got in. I was personally scared but really excited. We can never let go of the T-grip (paddle). We did a warm up rapid, a small one. Milton fell out of our boat, everyone panicked. Then one of the guide threw him a rope and he grabbed on to it. Phew. Shim then was really scared.

3 sat on the left side of the boat, 3 sat on the right side. The guide was at the back.
Left: Darryl. Milton. Yiting
Right: Chin Yu. Shim. Me

The river was 2 km long, 15 rapids in total. At the... 4th rapid. It was the biggest rapid, it was a drop, I must say. When we dropped, the whole boat was flooded with water, we almost sank. There was another rapid, double-decker, it was 1 drop after another. It was really fun!!

There was one rapid, Milton and Darryl went to the right side (our side) and the boat almost capsized. But they went back to their original position.

11.30 (approximately)
Rest stop
There was this big rest stop. Where the was no rapid. Every boat had to capsize. Our guide asked Yiting, Milton and Darryl to move to our side on his signal. When they moved, the guide moved too and used the rope to capsize the boat.

I never experience this before so it was new to me. I was really scared, what if I couldn't get up. What if I was stuck. When the boat capsized, Water went into my nose, someone was on top of me. My hand still held on to the paddle. It was hard to swim to shore with my left hand occupied and the current.

We then rest and played water and swam around. Teacher Zax and Teacher Andy climbed up a tree and jumped down from the tree. A lot of us followed them and climbed the tree. There were a few who did a backflip. Teacher May Peng climbed up too. I didn't want to because I was tired and just want to relax. But me and Yiting cheered them on.

11.45...?
We then continued our journey. The rapids weren't that huge anymore so our expectations went low. Because we were the 4th group to go, the teachers boat was infront of us. At one of the rapids, they were so proud and confident, they waved to our boat and be like, bye!!! But who knows, they were stuck at the rocks. They had to bounce to be free. Then our boat went, it was our turn to say bye.

My left hand was painful because I was holding the T-grip too tightly.

12.30pm....?
We saw the boats infront of us stopped and they got off. Uh-oh. My worst moment. The rafting came to an end D: I was so disappointed and was begging for more. It was so fun! >< even Shim, the one who was scared, demanded for more! We climbed up a small slope and saw the truck waiting for us! :D

The truck ride was really fun, we had to stand at the back of the truck. I and a few friends were standing by the side. There were tree branches and leaves coming right at us and we had to duck. We joked that when we said boom boom, means duck because branches were coming. I got tree-slapped a few times. But it was so fun :D

1pm
We were the first group who arrived back at camp. The other 2 groups were not back yet. We returned our equipments and wash our boot because it was an ocean in my boot. XD me and Yiting washed our hair because the helmet was smelly XD we were already wet so why not?

I went back to the dorm and got my towel and decided to head to the canteen. Teacher May Peng was relaxing on the hammock near our dorm. She called for me and we chatted about camp ^^

2pm
The other 2 groups were back. 1 of the groups look exhausted and was sweating A LOT. Apparently, they got lost in the jungle. I shivered. We had our lunch in our wet outfit. Our next activity was WATERFALL ABSEILING, we're getting wet again so why bother to change?

4pm
Truck again it is!
We rode the truck again. Group 1 to 6. We laughed the whole way long. But I was really scared eventhough I abseiled before.

We reached the Waterfall in 10 minutes time. The guide gave us a brief demonstration. The Waterfall was 10m high. Well it wasn't THAT high. Group 1 were the first to go. Well, luck. My group was the last to go. :/ so we watched every single one of them to abseil down.
There were 3 stages to choose from: easy, medium, hard.
Easy was just beside the waterfall
Medium was in the middle of the waterfall
Hard was to the left of the waterfall Where the current was the strongest.

Adrian was the first who went down, hr went too fast and slip a few times. But he was fast. Wen xiu and I sat with the other groups at the bottom of the waterfall (not directly)

As time pass I was very cold because of the mist and the water so I went further down where Ashley and Dylan were.

5pm
It was going at a slow pace. Group 2 just went as they were limited amount of harnesses. I was really cold and was shivering, Ashley made it worst by splashing water at me. We had to wait for a long time. Lionel, who was group 1, haven't abseil down yet. Yune-wen was laughing about it and yelled hoping Lionel would hear it.

6pm
Almost there...
Group 4 was doing it. It was going at a really slow pace. I was about to become ice. Group 5 went and the teachers said that the other groups were bored and hungry so group 1 to 5 went back. WOW hahhaha. Which was good actually. Only a few of group 5 were still there.

6.30pm
Gearing up and action
Teacher May peng helped me to gear up. Wenxiu, Celene were already up there. I had to climbed to reach. It was a short and easy climb. To my surprise, ChinYu and his friends (group 5) were still up there. They said they wanted to go last. Teacher Zax and Teacher Andy were up there too. They already abseiled but they chose to help us up there :3

I wanted the easy one (but I regretted not doing the medium one ><) I made a deal with Jordan, he and I were to abseiled down together, he did the medium and I did easy. It was scary and my hands hurt A LOT.

Jordan was ahead of me but I passed him half way because my hands were really hurting. You need a lot of physical strength for this one. Right hand to hold your weight, left to lower yourself. Legs were not a problem. And you have to trust the harness and lean back.

I didn't bother to look at the camera man who was by the waterfall. And i was really fast because my hands were hurting. I slipped twice:

The first time I slipped I landed on the platform. Lucky me.

Second time. I slipped and i couldn't get up. I swung to the left but eventually I got back up and abseiled down. I reached the bottom before Jordan and realized my legs were shaking. The water current was stronger than before because it was already late. Teacher Zax said good job and I thanked him. I removed my helmet and harness and hung them up by the rope. 

Wenxiu, Shen yin and Hui en were already down,pouring the water out from their shoes. We then watched Teacher May Peng, Teacher Angie and Teacher Melinda abseiled down. 

7pm

Truck ride again!

It was dark on the way back. It was just 10+ of us. Joseph and I always wanted to be in the front of the truck. When the truck arrived, both of us shouted : Dibs in the front! And we ran to the truck and often argued who said it first. But both of us ended up in the front. 

Teacher Zax, Joseph, Adam and Wengkin were in the front. We used the truck ride as a temple run reference : night edition. I asked: where's the power up? And they laughed. Teacher Zax said: it's ok guys. I use cheat. XD it was really fun! 

8pm

We had dinner and I had to get ready for the next Activity. JUNGLE NIGHT WALK. It was from group 1 to 9. Kheng Yue and Fifi were going on the next day. Lucky... I was really tired. 

9pm

Jungle Night Walk

We had to walk in a single-file. There were a few rules to obey. 

1. We had to remember who was infront and behind of us.

2. Do not call each others name.

3. Do not scream.

4. Do not shine the torchlight everywhere. 

5. We must pass messages to the person behind or infront of us.

The jungle night walk was normal to me.  It was cooling and dark. And it doesn't seem like 2 hours. We were supposed to cross a river but the river was blocked by bamboos (yes!) So we went back to camp. I was really tired at the end of the day. Wenxiu and I went to bathe together and slept at 1am. Again

It was fun day. Rafting was awesome and I knew day 3 is a very tiring day.

Leadership Training Camp 2013 DAY 1

Sorry peeps. I was busy lately. :/ anyways. I will be updating during this 2 week holidays so be sure to keep up! ;)
---------------------------------

On the 25th of May, my school, PTS organized a leadership training camp for form 4 students. My lovely parents allowed me to go ^^. It was a 5 day 4 nights camp in Gopeng, Perak. There were different activities everyday. White Water Rafting, Summit Climb, Waterdall Abseiling and much more!

25th May
9 am
I was in the bus with all my group 5, 7,8. I was in Group 6 along with Wenxiu, Celene, Joseph, Adam, Jordan, Bugh, Hui en, Shenyin and Milton. I must say we get along pretty well. There were 18 groups in total. Each group had 10 team members. Our teacher in charge was Tr Andy.

I sat with Ashley (group 5) in the bus. It was a 3 hour trip to My Gopeng Resort.

12pm
The bus couldn't go in to the resort area so we had to take a truck. We had to stand behind the truck with our bags :D it was really fun! PERSONAL EXPERIENCE 1: GOING ON A TRUCK RIDE. Because we were lifted from the ground the trees and branches got to slap us. XD so we had to duck.

We arrived at My Gopeng Resort. We had to pass our phones or valuables to the teachers to be stored in the safe room. Since then my parents can't reach me and I cant reach them because of the poor reception. The guide there: Mr Lim and Mr Kok How. main guides briefed us and welcomed us. We had lunch at the Bamboo cafe located in the resort.

1pm (approximately)
The teachers then assigned us to where are we going to put a night, either dorms or tents. I was assigned to live in tents with 20+ girls including my classmates.

3.30 pm
Team building activity
Each group had 2 to 3 hours to come up with their on tribal dance, statue, symbol with a stone, costumes and war cry. Adam, our general group leader assigned us to who is doing what (actually I assigned them hehe) wen xiu and Celene were doing dance. I, hui en, shenyin, bugh were working on our statue. Milton and Joseph were working on the symbol. We left aside the costume. It was a tough job getting the statue done. Our dance and war cry were simple and weird. :/

6 pm
War cry
We had to present our war cry to the teachers and the camera-men need to film it. :S it was kinda embarrassing really :/ after that we get to bath under the icy cold water. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE 2 : BATHING WITH MY 3 OTHER FRIENDS. We had to make it quick because it was going to rain. Sadly, it did. We had to run in the rain to go to the canteen. Our bags were in the canteen, the teachers moved it from the tents because it was raining. We can't sleep in tents because they were wet so we had to sleep in the first-aid open hall.

7pm
The girls and I took sleeping bags and settle down at the hall. The sleeping bags were new, the floor was dusty but by day 2. The facilitators put a sort-of plastic sheet on the floor. And they layed down all of our sleeping bags nicely. (How sweet!) We then had our dinner, it was simple and nice.

9pm
Campfire/dance
Everyone gathered at the huge field and there was a bunch of wood stacked up. We were looking forward to the campfire but my hopes dropped when they said we had to present our tribal dance. Great. :D our tribal dance was more or a story and we had to sacrifice Tr Andy. It was the boys's idea. All of the performances were really funny and crazy. There was this form 5 team, they took all sorts of different songs and changed the lyrics : I want nobody nobody but William (a strict yet cn be fun teacher) I knew you were sexy when you walk in (points at teacher William) that was really funny XD

11.30pm
After the last performance, we all demanded for the fire. One of the facilitators brough a fire torch and lit the fire. Everyone cheered. It was really beautiful. The glowing ashes were flying out from the fire into the air like fireflies. It was really nice.

12pm
Sharing session
Group 5 & 6 had to share out our own opinions and what we thought about Day 1. The usuals: make new friends, can't wait for the next day, had a lot of fun. Everyone was really tired including me. Duh! 

1am
Zzzzzz
All the girls had to sleep at 1am everyday. We were all tired. But sadly for me, because of the floor, I couldn't sleep. :/. My bones were on the floor and it made me really uncomfortable. I tossed and turned and finally slept but was awaken and k couldn't go back to sleep. I'd only slept for 4 hours. But I know, I was going to enjoy this camp :)

Shanghai - Day 2 Xitang Ancient Water Town

The itinearary on the 2nd day of our trip was the Ancient Water Town near Shanghai.

In the morning, we took subway to HongQiao railway station. In the station, after we bought the ticket, we had our breakfast thinking that we had ample time. BUT we underestimate the distance for us to walk to the boarding gate, the station is HUGE! By the time we rushed to the gate, it was closed. We had to change the time to the next train by paying extra $$ and waited for 1 hour....urgh!

The driver who sneaked us in.



Bullet train.

Anyway, we reached Jiashan in 1/2 hour time by high speed train. We were being offered by some transport providers when we walked out of the station. Then we found ourselves in a very old and small van after some bargains. Mum told the driver to drop us at the side entrance so that we could avoid the 100rmb entrance fees (she found that out from someone's blog). The driver told her that all the side entrances are now closed. He then drove us to one of the side entrance to show us. Okay, fine, we saw that it was infact closed. He stopped the van, turned his head to us and said that by paying him half the price, he could bring us in or he would drive us to the main entrance where we had to pay the full price. Pa agreed. He drove us around and stopped somewhere. He told us to follow him quickly and quietly. We walked behind him into a very narrow alley and into a shop and then we were there, inside the ancient town. Wao...what an exciting experience!

We found ourselves in some kind of movie set. Real ancient and original !! The dark buildings, the narrow sunken walkway, the canal, the boat......everything is so old. Well, it's almost a thousand years old.

No, this is not movie set. This is REAL!  The platform along the river are paved with ancient stone slab. The wood is all black in color. Even the roof is black and some are already slanting. The surface of the wood pillars are so smooth. The weather was cold and it made the atmosphere seem serene.

We enjoyed our lunch on the second floor of  a tiny shop by the river very much.   

Hearty meal!

 After lunch, we continued to stroll around the place.

Amidst the promenade!

Tourist boats.

Mission Impossible 3 was filmed here!

When it started to drizzle, we walked out of the town and hailed a taxi to the railway station. When we were back to Shanghai, we went to Nanjing shopping road.

Pizza Hut in Nanjing Road, Shanghai.

 

Our dinner, Chinese McDonald!

Nanjing Road is a typical shopping area. The road is full of huge shopping malls. We had dinner at the McDonald. On the way back to our hotel, we had super at a small eatery. Mum liked the vege noodles very much. 

 

 

 

 

Shanghai (day 1)

YEOH~ ~ ~, finally I get myself to blog about our yearly family trip 2012, 3 months late.

AA flew direct to Hangzhou and not Shanghai when we booked the ticket. So we landed in Hangzhou international airport on 29 Oct 2012. After immigration checkpoint, we took a bus to the train station. From there, we bought tickets for Bullet train to Shanghai.



View from the train. Nice looking houses.

That was our very first bullet train experience. It brought us to Shanghai in 45mins time, average speed of 300km/hr. We couldn't actually feel the speed. From Shanghai Hongqiao train station, we took the subway to downtown Shanghai. The Manhattan Jinling hotel is just across the street. Finally, at about 4pm, we were able to put our luggage down and rest for a while.

My first impression of Shanghai was a super big train station (there are 4 railway stations and 2 international airports!!), super busy subway station (there are 7 lines all together!) and a lot of grand looking buildings! Phew....talk about cosmopolitan city!

Not to waste any more precious time (time is extremely precious when we were on holidays!), we walked to Yu Garden. Yes, we walked. And that's the reason why my mum chose this hotel, doesn't she smart?!

Glamorous Yu Garden!

 Only a short distance, we were in Yu Garden in no time. It was only...like.. 5.30pm, and it was already dark. It was not even winter yet! Anyway, Yu Garden is beautiful at night! The Chinese buildings are all lighted up and they glowed! Needless to mention, we were busying posing for cameras!  We then had our dinner at one of the eatery. Had famous Shanghai dumpling and Xiao Long Pau. Errr...taste soso only!

 When we had enough of the place, we walked further down to the Shanghai Bund!! Wow...it was really glamorous! Across the river, colourful buildings have their reflections on the Huangpu river making the surface of the water so attractive. There, the Oriental Pearl Tower stood proudly among the commercial buldings! There were a couple of tourist boats and they too were nicely lighted.   

The magnificent Oriantal Pearl Tower (in globe shape).

  On the other hand, historical buildings (in early 1900s, they were the banks, trading houses, clubs etc) are all illuminated in Golden Yellow on this side of the river. The luxury Peace Hotel is also here. The stretch of the road here looked majestic!

Majestic old buildings along the Bund!

The night scene of the bund is really nice! Unfortunately, a short while after we arrived, it started to drizzle. The temperature dropped and it was COLDDD....Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun here. Mama tried very hard to capture the view with mini tripod. When all of us were starring at the camera on tripod, people were looking at us. Some walked by carrying the umbrella with their heads turned to look at us. I then imitated their action and their look and everyone ended up laughing like crazy people!!  

When the drizzling got heavy, we had no choice but to walk back to our hotel.

Our first day in Shanghai, not bad at all.




 

Chinese New Year 2013

CNY nails!

Year of SNAKE, water snake. *dramatic organ* haha. Hey guys, sorry for the late thingy, Chinese New Year was here, the year of the snake *dramatic organ* er.... right.... My family and I went back to Enggor, Kuala Kangsar, Perak, my father's hometown. It's a small kampung, but I like it. That's where we celebrate our CNY every year.

We left home at 5.00 IN THE MORNING -.- and it was so long, so heavy, so freaking annoying..... the jam. *dramatic organ* yeah.... we reached Ipoh at about 9 in the morning? 4 hours... it normally take us less than 2 hours to reach there, because of the STUPID JAM. ugh no hatred, no hatred. We checked in to our hotel, Ipoh Boutique Hotel, it's a really nice and cozy hotel, it may be small, but it's new, clean.

5.30am North South Highway just before Sungai Buloh.

We drove to K.Kangsar after our second breakfast of Wantan Mee which was terrible and we had to pay doubled the normal price. (Earlier we had McDonalds in the car when we started our journey. ) It was a 1 hour drive, no big deal.

Taiping temple.

When we arrived at my grandfather's house, we helped around with the worship of our ancestors in the house. After lunch at home, as usual we proceeded to the Temple in Taiping where my grandma rest :3 I never get to see her, she was long gone before I was born.  My dad said that her cooking was awesome, it's a pity that i will not have the chance to taste them. After simple worshipping, Pa drove to Taiping old pasar for some snacks which was not very nice. Then he drove to Taiping lake for me to take a look. Wow...it's beautiful!

Picturesque Taiping Lake.

We were then back to Enggor. And I played... with my iPad...for a while. Before the preparation of the reunion dinner started, my dad took me on a motorcycle ride. I have never been on a motorcycle ride before.. except that one time.  Pa told me that I was on a motorcycle ride when I was ....6, and I got really scared. This time I was a little scared, but I enjoyed the wind blowing at my face. Pa rode the motorcycle to the Victoria bridge just behind my grandfather's house. The bridge was a railway bridge and it lays across the Perak River. My dad said that it was built back in the WWII but it's not in used anymore. It is long and on one side of the bridge, there is a path built for motorcycles for the villages from the village across the river. I managed to step and stand in the middle of the track. It was scary because there were gaps between the sleepers on the tracks and when I looked down I could see the river. My dad took a few pics. We went back after we walked to and fro on the bridge.


A view with Perak river on the bridge. 

Almighty Victoria bridge!!

 The relatives decided to have the reunion dinner at home after 2 consecutive years of bad experience in the restaurants. So we were back to homecook style this year, well, potluck!  Pa cooked butter prawns and fried meehoon/rice. The rest of dishes were from the uncles and aunties. After the dinner, we played with the firecrackers grandpa bought while the men drank liqour and ate dried meat and the women chit chat. At about 11pm, we called it a night and went back to the hotel.



Fire works grandpa bought.

The feast!

The next day we had dimsum for breakfast in Ipoh. Then backed to grandpa's house. Grand auntie came with her family. We exchanged news and some catching ups. After lunch, we went for visiting to cousin's house and had our dinner at granduncle's house. At granduncle's house again Pa took me on a motorcycle ride and we also witnessed some lion dance performance.

 The following day, there were cousins came visiting and again "huha-ings" and hellos and finally goodbyes! After that we were backed to KL. Though it was short, I enjoyed a break away from school and away from all the usual stuff...... till next year!!