Malaysia Montage Post! :D

Hello Kiddies! This is the long awaited post about MM where the author decided to sit down and have a huge long post waiting to be typed onto the computer after procastinating severely. So, you shall be eternally grateful to him! Erm, right?

Day 1

We had to report to school by 7am that day, and we went to the S Raja Block foyer to assemble. There, we received many well-wishes especially from the seniors and decided to sit down in our groups. Before long, we found our buddies and boarded the buses. Sayonara, RI! AND GOOD RIDDANCE.

Funny thing was, even though I was the photographer for the event, I found myself being the Environmentalist for this part and thus picking up the rubbish C1 left behind =.=. I got credited for it though! -smiles a typical teacher's pet's smile-

And thus begin the long, treacherous journey of few hundred km over to Malaysia.

After stopping @ numerous stops on the way, we finally made it to the Sungei Menyala Forest Reserve where we walked for about 40 minutes where we reached this clearing. We then attended this performance by the locals, and a briefing about the reforestation project. the performance by the locals were pretty interesting, and we even had a chance to use the blowpipes. Of course, we were the food for the mosquitoes there as well.

Let's hope none of them carry dengue or malaria.

After walking back all the way, we finally boarded the bus and headed off to Tiara Beach Resort. Finally!

After eating dinner, we had this briefing by a FRIM official where he explained to us how conservation was important and the flora and fauna. Before I bore you all to death, he did it in a comical way where he acted as orang utans, made examples of trees using people's hairs and sabo-ed people with weird hairstyles.

Hooray for innocent photographers :D

Quote of the Day:"Don't inhale the dart!"-instructor talking to some RI people playing with the blowdart.

Day 2

Woke up bright and early for PT. Brought down my camera for some shots. Which, in turn saved me from PT as I was walking around while the sec 2 cohort were doing PT. Thus, while they were running around, we were walking around and taking pictures of them leisurely. heehee.

As we were batch 2, we went to the Lighthouse track and the Kampong Pelegong homestay.

The lighthouse track was absolute MURDER. I think i sweat like 1 litre over there while vaulting over rocks, trekking past beaches, screaming our heads out through knee-thigh height grass for fear of creepy crawlies and centipedes and swatting away blood-thirsty mosquitoes.

What was more, there were some parts of the slope that was so steep and unbalanced that we had to use ropes to balance ourselves. At one point, I almost fell off if not for me catching the rope and hanging on. Scary stuff, I tell you.

The most demoralizing part of this was like after 30 minutes of tracking, the guide said, "Only half-way more to go! 6 KM MORE!"

We almost killed him.

And there was one point where the guided purposely wanted us to cross this huge tree trunk that had fallen by going over it. Although there was a perfectly safe detour under it, he wanted us to "build our teamwork" or whatever. When he screamed at us about lack of responsibility (as someone lost sth) I really felt like throwing this rock at him. We spent about an hour getting up.

However, making it to the top was really a uplifiting thing for all of us. The lighthouse was pretty and tall. And, another cool thing was that the waters below had several small whirlpools. Pretty! We then built this nice flag and sang our batch song. haha quite diao.

We then walked down for about 200 metres, and saw this path turning right. Then, memory got me as I remembered that we turned left while on the main "road" to turn into the track. The paths were the same. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

For those that don't comprehend, we could've saved our effort if we had tracked up all the way instead of detouring and going left to the track in our bid to reach the lighthouse.

WHAT THE HELL.

After serving lunch at the hotel, we went to the Kampong Keleggong. There, we walked for about 20 minutes (again!) to the homestay. There, we played some kampong games and ate sugar cane! Eating Sugar cane was very interesting, as we had to bite off the bark before chomping on the nice inner flesh. However, I grew pissed with mine and through it away. Go back to Nature!

Too bad a senior pushed me away before I had the chance to buy an ice-cream :(

We also had this WATER FIGHT WITH THE TEACHERS. WAHAHA. Our war cry, believe it or not, was the Canadian Pizza Delivery Number. 6-2-3-5-3-5-3-5, PIZZA DELIVERY! ATTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK.

Note to self: Teachers show no mercy. I didn't have the heart to throw my water bomb at Ms grace, but that didn't stop her from throwing hers at me =.=

Oh well, great fun and laughter.

Next was this car competition, where this toycar was attached to a balloon and needle and the car had to burst the other car's balloon with its needle. Mr Eric Koh was the PRO at this game. Using a neat combo of reversals, fake baits and attacks, he managed to fend off 2 at once. However, he got ganged 3 v 1 and burst. :( Well, no surprise, he has a Subaru WRX!

After that, we went to some houses to visit the people over there. As Mr Joseph Chong was a Malay Chinese, we was able to converse fluently. The house we visisted consisted of an old couple taking care of a small boy who was KAWAII-DAS. Big big eyes and innocent look = CUTE baby. Dam cute i tell you.

Mush's marriage (ALLITERATION!) was next. As he got sabo-ed by his group members, he had to undergo this wedding ceromony with this local women. We also had this cultural show by the locals over there. Thus, he was all dressed up and I thought he looked rather dignified. The malay girls were dancing while the boys were playing the instruments skilfully. All in all, it was pretty interesting.

We then walked back in semi-pitch darkness. There was this scary part in which banana trees started popping out of nowwhere and we had to walk past this cemetery on both sides. everyone was shouting "COMPACT COMPACT!".

Hey! It's scary okay?!

Quote of the Day:"We must do things as a cohort!"-kenneth, talking about PT to the sec 2 cohort. HAHA.

Day 3

Morning PT again. This time, I slacked abit more since I had already taken some photos on Day 2. Hee.

We went to the FRIM (Forest Reforestation Institute of Malaysia) today. It was basically like the lighthouse track, except that there was this canopy walk (UBERCOOL) and shorter. And also, the presence of...

LEECHES. These idiotic guys cling onto your shoes and sink those razor sharp teeth into your vulnerable skin and start feeding on your precious blood. It starts increasing in size (talk about cholestrol) and guzzles down until it is ripe and full and drops off.

EWW.

Sorry, I just have this unnatural fear of Leeches ever since I watched this documentary about blood-sucking organisms, including Vampire Bats.

Ask Daniel. I was asking people frantically about whether certain insect repellants repelled leeches but they only said that it irritated leeches to the point that it will drop off if it is clinging on but it doesnt repel. AAAAAAH. i was seriously paranoid.

As I like to say, prevention is better than cure.

I was spraying insect repellant onto my legs every 10 steps i took and with the muddy and damp paths (more leeches) i basically ran past them and spammed my insect repellant. I reckon i used about 1/2 of it.

Some crazy people saw that they got bitten, and just let the leech bite them instead of using insect repellant. Crazy sacrifice victims!

Good thing was that I didn't get any bites. Hooray!

After ensuring that the leeches didn't find a home in my pants or in my clothes or my body, we boarded the bus to go to Kuala Lumpur. On the way, we stopped by the Batu Caves which is the home to most Islam (or was it Muslim?) prayers as they believe the god rests in the cave or sth. Anyway, we had to walk a friggin 276 steep steps to get up there.

Still, the bat droppings and the ambience was pretty fascinating.

Off to KL Communications Tower for High Tea Next!
As we were attending this "private function", we were allowed to go to the 4th deck of the tower - The MegaView Deck. so-so, but I missed this pretty rainbow =/

CHOCOLATE HOUSE WAS NEXT IN LINE.
O man, I bought about 80 RM worth of chocolate here. Sorry, sweet tooth. Too bad I have a small sore throat. oh well, they're STILL ALL MINE. MUAHAHA.

Chinatown street night market was up next. (i use next alot, sorry) I bought this Quicksilver shirt for 20RM after 2 bargains and reduced about 15-20 RM. Think I could've gotten abit lower though.

Steamboat dinner to complete the day, and a long, long bus ride back. zzz.

Quote of the Day: -Refer to the post before the last post- the one that Mush said to Benn.

Day 4

After departing from the hotel, we came to Putrajaya, the administrative capital of Malaysia. It was quite interesting to look at especially at the architecture. Best of all, a shop sold ice cream for 1 RM only!

Lunch @ CyberJaya was murder. Super long queues extending about 50 metres plus by our cohort due to lack of food supplies =.= Ate one of the last and was super hungry but little food was given. T_T

Nice Satays though. And Mr Joseph Chong gave me one extra too! woot.

From then on, it was another perilious, treacherous trip back to Singapore, with Stephen begging me for my phone and us watching Mr Bones, a comedy movie.

--

AND THUS ENDS THE BANE OF MM. it was pretty fun on the whole, though. Could've done much better without the leeches. Eww.

Quote of the Day:"Banana! You want?!"-Pok

Something's about to break
should've started running
a long, long time ago,
Maybe this gift is a curse for me-

When you said I didn't understand;
You know how much pain and hurt I felt?