Dear jie, imy.
I'm finally back from OBS! I survived! Oh boy was it tiring! But I'm just so happy to be back in the forever-wonderful SINGAPORE! <3
Last monday we set off from school thinking, "OBS is going to be so much fun!" Little did we realise that it was going to be tougher than we had ever imagined it to be. Being someone who trains 3 times a week (or used to), I didn't think it would be too bad. As we left Punggol to board the ferry, I gave ms kek one last goodbye wave, hoping I won't miss her to much (HAHA). The boat ride was smooth and as I sat there, I started thinking about the people and stuff I would miss so much. But anyways, I just told myself it was going to be just 5 days and then I'll be on my way back! awesome! :D ... okay fine, that didn't actually work, HAHA. Upon reaching the campsite, we had a mass briefing. Lunch was khong guan peanut butter biscuits and digestives. not exactly what I expected. Later on we were brought to our dorm where our store was. Inside the store we had things like our tents, mess tins, pots, harnesses, lifejackets, backpacks etc. We then headed down to the medical clinic area and practised belaying. Belaying was quite fun, we only needed to climb up and down, that's all. After that we were brought to our camping site somewhere near the beach in the forest and were taught how to pitch our tents. Pitching tents is fun, I love pitching tents ^^ We cooked rice for dinner and had some can food to go along with it. Our rice turned out.. well.. crispy. I guess we didn't put enough water! So I just had crispy rice with can peanuts (: After washing up, we trooped back to our tents in pitch darkness and got ready to go to bed. That night, I only slept for about 2 hours or so cause there was so much noise from the waves behind us, the constant chirping of the crickets, and the occasional flashes from torchlights.
The second day started with me getting up at 5am to wake everyone up since no one else wanted to be the alarm clock. We unpitched our tents in pitch darkness and went up to the dorm to clean up. Our day started off with Height elements. oh my goodness that was absolutely the worst activity on earth! There were two kinds of height elements to choose from, you either climb a rope ladder and then climb up horizontal logs which are quite a distance apart, or you do something like rock climbing, except that it's logs and all over the place. My group had no choice but to do the rope ladder one. Boy was that difficult! I was never good at logs I tell you! Even at sparkc last time, we had to walk across a log in mid air, and I took forever to finish that since I did a crabwalk instead of walking straight! -.- HAIZ. super sianz. So anyways, of course I didn't accomplish the task and felt like a complete idiot hanging there in pain for so long -.- Syed kept telling me to "go up!" or "stand up first then you can come down" or "go one level higher lah", and I was like.... AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! >:I blehs. anyways, thank God I got that over and done with. Now I know I'm a little afraid of heights D: oh wells. After that we ate lunch (khong guan peanut butter biscuits and digestives again) and then we did some activities followed by an introduction to kayaking! We were taught how to do the capsize drill and how to turn your kayak back up again with the help of another kayak. That was quite fun! :D hehehe. I love water activities (: Dinner was Myojo maggi mee chicken abalone flavour. We put in too much seasoning so I guess you can tell what it tasted like. And that was all I ate for that night. Camp 1A, comprising of 4 different groups, was briefed on the sea expedition the next day and sea ex leaders were elected. The job of the sea ex leaders was to navigate and help to keep the pack in formation during the expedition the next day. So there were 8 of us, 2 from each group. Angelina and Ariel were the navigators, Stacey and her partner were at the Starboard, Sayam and I were at the port, and Vi Chien and Felicia were the sweepers. So we stayed back to plan the route and briefing we were to give the next day. That night the whole camp1A pitched at the same location so morning call would be easier for me, HAHA.
On wednesday morning I woke up at 4am and went round with some of the other sea ex leaders to wake the rest up. It was going to be a long day ahead and we were to assemble early. Briefing was done and our backpacks along with our jerri cans were loaded up onto the instructors' boats. Kayaks were brought to the shore and final instructions were given. We set off that morning, knowing in our hearts that we had a common goal, and that was to reach our destination in the shortest time possible. Nobody was to give up, everybody knew they had a part to play and that teamwork and determination was key to our success. Round the island of Pulau Ubin we went, constantly fighting against the current and bending our heads low away from the scorching sun. My dear sayam kept looking at the map, so I had to keep paddling and paddling to no end. Half way though the journey we had some cases of seasickness, so sayam switched places with eunice who was seasick. As I paddled, eunice sat in front of me, occasionally attempting to throw up, but her attempts were futile. I paddled with all my strength, not wanting to lag behind as I knew I still had a job to do, that was to be on the port side of the formation, keeping everyone else within the diamond. I was so super duper tired and I just wanted to take a break, but that would mean I would float backwards with the current while everyone else strained on ahead. No, I couldnt stop, I had to go on no matter what. My hands were burning from the sun shining up ahead. I had forgotten to put on sunblock. Now I didnt have any hands to put on that sunblock I needed. Oh wells, sun burn only mah, can survive wan lah. All I wanted was to get to our destination, nothing else really mattered. The last few metres were the worst of all. I had absolutely zero energy left and I just couldnt go on anymore, but my heart told me to push on.. I was so close to the finishing line I couldnt just give up like that. I was planning to just dump myself on the shore when I got there, but then we had to immediately help move the kayaks, ergh, torture I tell you. I was dead by the end of that (okay, not literally lah). The place was infested with mosquitoes and different kinds of insects. It was disgusting, but what could we say? This was mother nature after all. So we pitched our tents and cooked our dinner (which was myojo maggi mee again, except prawn flavour this time.. somehow it was served with sand as it's garnishing... how appetising). We didnt get to shower that night and just had to rely on wet wipes to make ourselves feel a little bit less salt-water-ish. It was pathetic. I slept at around 11pm and woke up at 12am, unable to fall asleep. The tent was so hot and the air was so dense. I decided to step out of the tent into the cool (but mosquito infested) air and sat with the people on patrol for about an hour. After that I got so annoyed with the mozzies I just went back to my tent to stone till the time was right to get up. Toileting there was disgusting too. We had to do our toileting in the bushes with what looi called "grass poking here poking there", super funny. When everyone was up and the kayakers set off, we had to go round picking up wet wipes people had thrown into the bushes. Apparently they thought they could hide their rubbish in the bushes, unfortunately, no. HAHA. I found out that my hands were as red as ang pows and they were swollen. Sigh, the effects of sun exposure. tsks. We set off with our extremely extremely extremely back-breaking backpacks. Idk why they made us trek towards the direction opposite from our campsite, but rerouting was a totally killer. We had to go towards the east side from our campsite and then come back to our campsite, followed by going towards the west towards the base camp. It was so confusing and we even went the wrong way at one point and had to reroute. Trekking through the forest was like trekking in Mac Ritchie, except this forest had a lot more fannoying mosquitoes. We ended up and OBS Camp2 and realised we had gone the wrong way. So the only way to get back on track was to climb this really long and steep staircase which led to the opening of the forest. I counted 101 stairs, but that was probably inaccurate anyway. After almost a day of trekking, we finally arrived at our base camp exhausted and relieved. We never felt so happy throughout the camp. Much to our disappointment, our camping site was high up in the foresty hills where mosquitoes bred everywhere and sandflies were not an exception. It was so horrible and mosquito-ish. ugh. But anyways, we had our celebration dinner with andrea as our master chef, whipping up a meal of fried rice and can food. That night I slept relatively well.
The next day we woke up at 5am, rushing to unpitch our tents, clean up, clear the store and eat our breakfast all in 2 hours time. We did a bit of reflections with the instructors and had one final activity. We had to jump off from a platform and try to hit a bell, followed by falling into a mat which was held up by your teammates. The gist of that activity was that, if you were committed and focused on the task set before you, you would do your ultimate best to complete the task, no matter how difficult or impossible it seemed. After that activity we headed back to the store to pack the equipment. We had to clean the soot off the pots and mess tins, clean the ground sheets, brush the tents, etc. My hands absolutely died with the burn becoming worse everytime I scraped it against something. By the time we finished, my hands had gone rather numb lawl. So painful sia. Though it was painful, I didn't really care, cause IT WAS THE LAST DAY! and I WAS GOING HOME! never felt so incredibly happy in my life! OBS has taught me to cherish what I have back here in mainland Singapore. All of us were homesick and longing dearly to go home. However, when I was walking down the jetty with my backpack ready to board the boat, I realised that I was going to miss OBS and how it had changed me. I was going to miss the instructors and the times we had together, be in happy or sad.
Saw ms kek at the headquarters at punggol ready to welcome us. Was delighted to see her again, hahas, missed her so much. People immediately started buying their soft drinks from the vending machine, unable to wait any longer. Poor jean bean had a fever and was so sick, hope she's alright now!
Anyways, I miss OBS. The lessons learnt, we'll never forget. The friendships made, will remain forever. I'll always remember my experience in Ubin OBS and the friendly instructors I met there. I'm going to miss Marie.
To marie: marie! keep up the good job! jia yous kayes! we'll miss you!
If you havent been to OBS, you'd better get going! cause what you get there is a once in a lifetime experience which you'll never regret!
OBS sabah looms ahead... how am I going to survive it? I don't know. It's going to be 12 days this time, more than twice the duration of this camp. I hope I survive, if not... ugh, don't wanna think about that yet luh.
okay, BYE! <3
Inverse idk-what-it's-called (a.k.a Height Element)
OBS Singapore Campsite 1
.jpg)
SUISEN rawks! :D
Inverse idk-what-it's-called (a.k.a Height Element)
OBS Singapore Campsite 1
Pot over my head?
Day 4: Getting ready for trekking.jpg)
