The 5 Day 4 Night OBS Camp(last 3 days)
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
On 23rd May 2007:
I woke up in a cold n wet morning today, and I didn’t really noe the reason for the droplets of water on our tents every morning until I realised today tt it’s most probably the morning dew, as the forest tt we’ll camping at is rather damp. After un-pitching our wet n rather dirty tents, we did PT in camp 2, which was rather fun n hilarious cos not onli was the PT grp size much smaller( only gt Nehru n Elizabeth), the PT instructor is the fun Iskanda! N the games tt he instructed us to play during the PT were really fun, like for instance the ‘sumo wrestling’ game, ‘karate’ game n much more! Dis is definitely 1 of the BEST PT tt I’ve had in OBS!!
After breakfast, we started playing a game called “hu’s the murderer?”. we were all given a card which has the victim tt u’re supposed to “kill”, the place u’re supposed to “murder” tt person n the weapon tt u nid to use. The game was suppose to last throughout the whole day.
we had our high elements activities rite aft tt. The first stop was the belay station. Even though it’s not really tt high, it was fun as I get to try out all 4 roles of a belay team: the climber, the climber assistant etc. however, the best part of the high elements was the Double Dangling Duo(DDD in short), in which u n ur partner were supposed to climb up to the top of the logs tt are suspended in mid air. It was challenging as the distance betw the logs are quite far apart, n my whole body when stretched onli barely touched the log above another log. Luckily, eng kiet managed to push me up to the next log every time, n I managed to complete it(phew).
The highlight for this however, would be tt when jovina n shermaine were climbing. After both had completed climbing up to the top log, jovina climber assistant tool ann refused to let her down. If she wanna come down, she must shout out “I love ben sia!” loud n clear 1st . And she did shout it!
Another interesting part was tt I gt “killed” there by saffir b4 I even climbed(argh!), n coincidently the place tt I was supposed to kill the person was the DDD! with my card, saffir managed to do a triple “kill”.
After tt, after lunch, we had our hiking back to camp 1, carrying bags tt r so heavy tt they muz have weighed tons. It was hot n uncomfortable on the way, but halfway thru the hiking we stopped n played “ubin rescue”, in which u muz carry a stretcher with an injured “person”(actually it’s juz bottles of our water” across a set of obstacles without having a grp member or the stretcher touching the ground. My team managed to win the game despite many setbacks( yay!!). And after tt we had more hiking until we reached camp 1(finally back to civilization!I tot initially tt we had to take days to reach camp 1). Soon after, we started preparing for our YJC cheer.
At nite, we had our last outdoor dinner. We also had our tents pitched near the sea for the 1st time. However, there’s no breeze blowing into my tent despite placing the entrance near the sea =( .
On 24th May 2007:
We played new games dis morning for the PT, egs are “caterpillar” n “evolution”. After tt, we had the “YJC Cheerleading Competition”, in which each buddy watches( Nehru n Elizabeth for my case) were to come out and present a cheer tt could be used as a YJC cheer. Even tho my watch didn’t get into the top 3 positions, I was glad tt my buddy watch n my watch made the effort to come out with a cheer less than 1 day.(P.S Barker n its partner watch were the champions of this competition)
Rite aft tt we had the YJC Challenge. The objective of the game was to raise enuf money thru completing the stations in order to build 3 rafts n 2 catapults. It was fun! My watch did quite a lot of stations for it, such as the skipping rope game, the floating ball game etc. But sadly I onli participated in a few of these games, cos halfway I was told to go help build the rafts >< . Anyway aft tt we had the self-made rafts setting off ceremony(not really a ceremony), marked by the blasting off of the 2 catapults(wonder y they wanna have catapults in the 1st place, cos it didn‘t seem useful…) . I was certainly glad to be on the raft, cos it’s so fun! Even tho the raft tt I was on was already half-sinking by the time it was midway in the sea, it still manages to float. However, on its way back to shore, it suddenly sinks even more! Wat’s worse was tt the guy at the top-left of the raft sinks into the sea! Luckily he held on to the still-floating raft! During the last nite tt I had at OBS, I decided to stay awake throughout the nite with sum of my classmates. Even tho I didn’t managed to “thorn” throughout the whole nite( cos shi wei wanted the rest of us to go slp 1st at ard 2am), it was an eye-opening experience for me cos I learnt juz how many times u can get bitten by mosquitoes in the forest at nite without mosquito net! I was bitten countless times as I played “ true or dare” with the rest outside the tents( P.S the game tt we played didn’t have the “dare” component). As expected, I kenna “truth” many times but wat’s the highlight was tt I learnt the secrets of many of my classmates, thus allowing me to understand them more. On 25th May 2007( the last day of OBS):
It was a day filled with mixed emotions, a day in which I do not know whether to rejoice or sadden with the knowledge that it was the day that I complete my OBS course, the day which I will bid goodbyes with Pulau Ubin and my watch instructor Iskanda, and the day which I would return to my beloved home.
After the last briefing that I had at the MPH, the whole batch of YJ
Cians played the puzzles game. It was the last game tt we’d played in the OBS course.
Tears and agony fell upon sum when we took the ferry from pulau ubin’s jetty and go back home. Interestingly, just b4 the ferry went off, I managed to caught sight of a twister juz beside an island close to pulau ubin(we were damn curious at the same time when I shot it using my juz returned hp, n I tink it’s a rather unique way for me to remember my OBS course.).
1:27 am
The 5 Day 4 Nite OBS Camp (1st 2 days)
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Yo one and all! This is my 2nd entry on this long-ago-created blog! (P.S the 1st few entries will be DAMN long, cos I’ll be writing about my past 5 days experience) This entry is about the 5 day 4 nite OBS camp( the 1st 2 days of the camp) :
On 21st May 2007:
Today is my 1st day at the OBS camp! When I first entered it, I didn’t even noe tt the obs camp is at pulau ubin. From Punggol we took a short but slightly uncomfortable boat ride to pulau ubin. Upon reaching there, we’ll assigned to our individual watches in the camp, and I was sad to noe tt our class, despite having 16 pple going for the camp( it was juz enuf for a watch), we were spilt into 2 watches!! argh!! But luckily my watch Nehru has more 113 members than tt of elizabeth, which was our class 2nd half. N luckily we 113 has the highest number of pple in Nehru, with 10 out of 16 of the members from 113! Heng sia !wat’s even more heng is tt Elizabeth was actually our buddy grp! so I still get to c my classmates after all!
After the rather long briefing at the MPH,our watch played the ice-breaker games , such as the ‘line’ game and the ‘hula hoop’ games. These were guided by the always fun, encouraging n hilarious instructor iskanda. Even though some were abit boring, the games indeed bonded our group together, and I get to noe pple like shijie, joyce, wei qing and eng kiet who were from other classes. Besides, thru these games, I get to noe my classmate Saffir’s favourite word tt he’ll say everytime to express his emotion: Chingay! (wonder wat tt means><).Also, I get to noe tt I’m one of the youngest in my class, with birthday falling on 20th oct L . After tt we had lunch( the lunch was rather bland and little imho, but it was nice compared to the previous ncc camps tt I had)
After tt we went to our bunks(I was glad when I realized tt it was the closest bunk to the Canteen and MPH) and unpack some of our stuffs. Then we had to take out the camp equipments from the bunk storeroom and start packing our trekking(or hiking, whateva it’s called) stuffs for the hike 2moro(P.S I nvr c such big trekking bags in my life man! it’s seriously big n spacious compared to mine). The main highlight of the day however, was tt of kayaking. It was damn fun sia!! Not only were we taught how to kayak properly, we were also taught how to capsize( P.S I was the only one to lose grip of my oars when my kayak was made to capsize!lol) however, we had to sacrifice 1 of our shoes n make into a ‘wet shoe’ for our sea expedition ltr on.
When the basics were taught, we started to row from camp 1 to camp 2(which was rather ulu imo). Even though the distance didn’t look long, we took close to 1 hour juz to reach there! Camp 2’s beach was veri sandy, in fact the moment I stepped in my shoes was filled with sand, veri uncomfortable sia! The highlight there was wat the iskanda called the ’jetty jump’. the planks sticking out of the jetty in both camp 1 n 2 are actually built for tt purpose!
Initially I tot tt we won’t be able to jump it, cos for my grp alone 2 pple, shalini and fung mei, were reluctant to jump.n we’ll practicing the 'one for all,all for one' policy. But luckily iskanda suggested letting those hu wanna jump to jump 1st , den let those hu dun wanna jump to decide ltr aft the rest jumped to whether wanna jump anot. But imo shalini and fung mei weren’t to blame for the initial delay for the 'jetty jump’, cos fung mei was really scared of heights while shalini was sick at the time(in fact ltr on she had to go home at nite due to her fever tt gt worse during the camp, cos she had juz recovered from the fever a few days ago prior to the camp)
Back to the point, back at the jetty, I was rather scared initially to jump, even tho I could c the thrill of those pple hu jumped first,cos of the height of the plank from the sea. But when it was my turn to jump I juz hack care everything n jumped. The feeling was so shiok sia!! The very frightened feeling tt I get when I was mid-air was quickly replaced by the the refreshing feeling when I hitted the water. Even tho the salty feeling of the water in my nose was rather uncomfortable, the wet yet warm feeling sure was shuang! In fact I jetty jumped 2 times, with the 2nd time swimming back to the shore from the jetty with the rest hu jumped! What an experience!
After tt we had to paddle all the way back to camp 1. WTH! But it was rather interesting, cos we get to splash water at one another on the way back! Ltr on we had sum teambuilding games b4 heading for dinner(I 4got the name of those games liao ><). And the feeling of wearing the “wet shoes” after the canoeing was rather uncomfortable sia! But the depressing thing was Shalini had to depart for us back to her home 2moro due to her worsening fever during the 1st day of the obs camp. Sad to c her leave sia! :(
At nite, we had to pitch our tents 1st b4 moving it to the campsite. It was rather difficult to set the tents up at 1st , but with iskanda’s guidance it became easy to set up it. The interesting part, however, is tt we discovered halfway tt out of the 5 tents given, only 4 can be used, cos we onli have 4 groundsheets to place under the tents. This was a shock for me, cos originally with 5 tents we 16 ppl can be distributed better, with 5 guys(yea there’s onli 5 guys out of the 16 pple in Nehru, surprising rite?) sharing 2 tents n 11 gals sharing the remaining 3 tents. now with 4 tents, 5 big n tall guyz(ok I admit im not really tt big or tall ><) will have to share 1 tent. WTH!
When it was time to slp, I found tt it was rather ‘spacious’ for the 5 of us guys in the tent, with us having to squeeze like sardines in a can. There was virtually no space for us to stretch our hands or legs properly, and in fact our legs were protruding out of the tents! rofl !N it was damn hot and stuffy in the tent! In fact I sleep with sweat on my forehead(think so). ZzZ..so tired after the whole day of activity..
On 22nd May 2007:
I woke up this morning feeling damn cold, which was a sharp contrast to previous hot and stuffy nite in the tents. I had my 1st PT at OBS camp(some of exercises were quite innovative n interesting, but it was tiring to do them so early in the morning). After tt I had my 1st breakfast in OBS camp 2day(still rather bland n little). For some unknown reason, a few of my classmates were rather shocked when they discovered tt I had a huge appetite. Maybe it’s coz they rarely had the chance to c me eating in action in school :) . after tt we played a ‘log game’(as usual, I 4got the details of the game ><)
The main highlight for 2day was the row-boating tt we did in the afternoon. The row-boat itself was veri big as it nid a truck to pull it to the beach, and can sit up to 8 pple, and we had 4 boats in total(for both Elizabeth n Nehru members). I n five others(namely Rachel, debra, wei qing, eng kiet and jovina) were the rowers, while one was the navigator(fung mei). I was lucky as my boat only has 7 pple(less pple means less power needed for us rowers to row the boat). Out in the sea, I realized tt it’s tough to properly row a boat, as it’s hard to coordinate the rowing together, and tt the current is rather strong. Wat’s worse was tt only half of the rowers were guys. But luckily the gals on the boat were pretty strong n we were able to synchronize the rowing of the boat rather well. However, the most difficult part was to keep a square or kite shape between the 4 boats, as not only must my boat being the leading boat in the team must row n stop continually to wait for others, but also must keep a distance between the other boats so as to avoid collisions. Dis time we had to paddle a far longer distance than my kayaking on the 1st day(almost twice as far in fact). On the way to our waypoint I’ve realized 2 things: tt the speed of a row-boat is not determined by the strength of its boat rowers; rather it depends on the coordination of the boat rowers, tt track pants & long-sleeved shirts are essential for the whole journey (if not get rdy to be sunburned), and tt most boat navigators are poor boat rowers![ jk =) ]
Anyway, throughout the whole journey our rowboat was the fastest; puma’s boat have ‘turbo’ engine(which was us the rowers) on it tt makes it so fast!! (P.S. puma is the nickname for our boat navigator fung mei, cos she’s crazy about puma brand stuffs). And the whole journey from camp 1 to waypoint den from waypoint back to camp 2 was damn long, cos it took more than 3 hours for us to complete the journey, and throughout it my oar hitted Rachael’s and Jovina’s countless times! Wat’s more the members of my boat were swapped wif tt of the 4th boat 5-6 times, so tt logically would go faster(cos our boat’s the fastest, remember?), as their boat was seriously lagging behind. But den we realised tt it’s cos of the rather weak team coordination tt their boat lags behind. But the whole journey was very exciting n interesting, cos during the rowing we get to c the various types of sea rubbish (not veri nice to c actually), we also get to c the various types of sea creatures! For instance I saw 1 normal-sized and 1 gigantic purple jellyfishes along the way, n jovina actually managed to catch a glimpse of a stingray!
Upon reaching camp 2 at nite at around 7pm, we had our 1st outdoor cooking and outdoor dinner at obs. It was really an eye-opener for me, as I realised how fun outdoor cooking can be! And tt fung mei was a rather good noodle cook, cos she help us cook all the noodles! After tt, we were bought to the campsite to pitch our tents, and I realised juz how ulu camp 2 is compared to camp 1, with very little male toilets! But den I was rather relieved when I was told tt the 5th groundsheet was found. This means tt there’ll be 1 more tent available for us, meaning tt we the 5 guys get to sleep in 2 tents instead of 1!yay :)! Now we can sleep wif our hand n legs widespread in the tents liao, but it’s still very hot and stuffy inside :(
On 21st May 2007:
Today is my 1st day at the OBS camp! When I first entered it, I didn’t even noe tt the obs camp is at pulau ubin. From Punggol we took a short but slightly uncomfortable boat ride to pulau ubin. Upon reaching there, we’ll assigned to our individual watches in the camp, and I was sad to noe tt our class, despite having 16 pple going for the camp( it was juz enuf for a watch), we were spilt into 2 watches!! argh!! But luckily my watch Nehru has more 113 members than tt of elizabeth, which was our class 2nd half. N luckily we 113 has the highest number of pple in Nehru, with 10 out of 16 of the members from 113! Heng sia !wat’s even more heng is tt Elizabeth was actually our buddy grp! so I still get to c my classmates after all!
After the rather long briefing at the MPH,our watch played the ice-breaker games , such as the ‘line’ game and the ‘hula hoop’ games. These were guided by the always fun, encouraging n hilarious instructor iskanda. Even though some were abit boring, the games indeed bonded our group together, and I get to noe pple like shijie, joyce, wei qing and eng kiet who were from other classes. Besides, thru these games, I get to noe my classmate Saffir’s favourite word tt he’ll say everytime to express his emotion: Chingay! (wonder wat tt means><).Also, I get to noe tt I’m one of the youngest in my class, with birthday falling on 20th oct L . After tt we had lunch( the lunch was rather bland and little imho, but it was nice compared to the previous ncc camps tt I had)
After tt we went to our bunks(I was glad when I realized tt it was the closest bunk to the Canteen and MPH) and unpack some of our stuffs. Then we had to take out the camp equipments from the bunk storeroom and start packing our trekking(or hiking, whateva it’s called) stuffs for the hike 2moro(P.S I nvr c such big trekking bags in my life man! it’s seriously big n spacious compared to mine). The main highlight of the day however, was tt of kayaking. It was damn fun sia!! Not only were we taught how to kayak properly, we were also taught how to capsize( P.S I was the only one to lose grip of my oars when my kayak was made to capsize!lol) however, we had to sacrifice 1 of our shoes n make into a ‘wet shoe’ for our sea expedition ltr on.
When the basics were taught, we started to row from camp 1 to camp 2(which was rather ulu imo). Even though the distance didn’t look long, we took close to 1 hour juz to reach there! Camp 2’s beach was veri sandy, in fact the moment I stepped in my shoes was filled with sand, veri uncomfortable sia! The highlight there was wat the iskanda called the ’jetty jump’. the planks sticking out of the jetty in both camp 1 n 2 are actually built for tt purpose!
Initially I tot tt we won’t be able to jump it, cos for my grp alone 2 pple, shalini and fung mei, were reluctant to jump.n we’ll practicing the 'one for all,all for one' policy. But luckily iskanda suggested letting those hu wanna jump to jump 1st , den let those hu dun wanna jump to decide ltr aft the rest jumped to whether wanna jump anot. But imo shalini and fung mei weren’t to blame for the initial delay for the 'jetty jump’, cos fung mei was really scared of heights while shalini was sick at the time(in fact ltr on she had to go home at nite due to her fever tt gt worse during the camp, cos she had juz recovered from the fever a few days ago prior to the camp)
Back to the point, back at the jetty, I was rather scared initially to jump, even tho I could c the thrill of those pple hu jumped first,cos of the height of the plank from the sea. But when it was my turn to jump I juz hack care everything n jumped. The feeling was so shiok sia!! The very frightened feeling tt I get when I was mid-air was quickly replaced by the the refreshing feeling when I hitted the water. Even tho the salty feeling of the water in my nose was rather uncomfortable, the wet yet warm feeling sure was shuang! In fact I jetty jumped 2 times, with the 2nd time swimming back to the shore from the jetty with the rest hu jumped! What an experience!
After tt we had to paddle all the way back to camp 1. WTH! But it was rather interesting, cos we get to splash water at one another on the way back! Ltr on we had sum teambuilding games b4 heading for dinner(I 4got the name of those games liao ><). And the feeling of wearing the “wet shoes” after the canoeing was rather uncomfortable sia! But the depressing thing was Shalini had to depart for us back to her home 2moro due to her worsening fever during the 1st day of the obs camp. Sad to c her leave sia! :(
At nite, we had to pitch our tents 1st b4 moving it to the campsite. It was rather difficult to set the tents up at 1st , but with iskanda’s guidance it became easy to set up it. The interesting part, however, is tt we discovered halfway tt out of the 5 tents given, only 4 can be used, cos we onli have 4 groundsheets to place under the tents. This was a shock for me, cos originally with 5 tents we 16 ppl can be distributed better, with 5 guys(yea there’s onli 5 guys out of the 16 pple in Nehru, surprising rite?) sharing 2 tents n 11 gals sharing the remaining 3 tents. now with 4 tents, 5 big n tall guyz(ok I admit im not really tt big or tall ><) will have to share 1 tent. WTH!
When it was time to slp, I found tt it was rather ‘spacious’ for the 5 of us guys in the tent, with us having to squeeze like sardines in a can. There was virtually no space for us to stretch our hands or legs properly, and in fact our legs were protruding out of the tents! rofl !N it was damn hot and stuffy in the tent! In fact I sleep with sweat on my forehead(think so). ZzZ..so tired after the whole day of activity..
On 22nd May 2007:
I woke up this morning feeling damn cold, which was a sharp contrast to previous hot and stuffy nite in the tents. I had my 1st PT at OBS camp(some of exercises were quite innovative n interesting, but it was tiring to do them so early in the morning). After tt I had my 1st breakfast in OBS camp 2day(still rather bland n little). For some unknown reason, a few of my classmates were rather shocked when they discovered tt I had a huge appetite. Maybe it’s coz they rarely had the chance to c me eating in action in school :) . after tt we played a ‘log game’(as usual, I 4got the details of the game ><)
The main highlight for 2day was the row-boating tt we did in the afternoon. The row-boat itself was veri big as it nid a truck to pull it to the beach, and can sit up to 8 pple, and we had 4 boats in total(for both Elizabeth n Nehru members). I n five others(namely Rachel, debra, wei qing, eng kiet and jovina) were the rowers, while one was the navigator(fung mei). I was lucky as my boat only has 7 pple(less pple means less power needed for us rowers to row the boat). Out in the sea, I realized tt it’s tough to properly row a boat, as it’s hard to coordinate the rowing together, and tt the current is rather strong. Wat’s worse was tt only half of the rowers were guys. But luckily the gals on the boat were pretty strong n we were able to synchronize the rowing of the boat rather well. However, the most difficult part was to keep a square or kite shape between the 4 boats, as not only must my boat being the leading boat in the team must row n stop continually to wait for others, but also must keep a distance between the other boats so as to avoid collisions. Dis time we had to paddle a far longer distance than my kayaking on the 1st day(almost twice as far in fact). On the way to our waypoint I’ve realized 2 things: tt the speed of a row-boat is not determined by the strength of its boat rowers; rather it depends on the coordination of the boat rowers, tt track pants & long-sleeved shirts are essential for the whole journey (if not get rdy to be sunburned), and tt most boat navigators are poor boat rowers![ jk =) ]
Anyway, throughout the whole journey our rowboat was the fastest; puma’s boat have ‘turbo’ engine(which was us the rowers) on it tt makes it so fast!! (P.S. puma is the nickname for our boat navigator fung mei, cos she’s crazy about puma brand stuffs). And the whole journey from camp 1 to waypoint den from waypoint back to camp 2 was damn long, cos it took more than 3 hours for us to complete the journey, and throughout it my oar hitted Rachael’s and Jovina’s countless times! Wat’s more the members of my boat were swapped wif tt of the 4th boat 5-6 times, so tt logically would go faster(cos our boat’s the fastest, remember?), as their boat was seriously lagging behind. But den we realised tt it’s cos of the rather weak team coordination tt their boat lags behind. But the whole journey was very exciting n interesting, cos during the rowing we get to c the various types of sea rubbish (not veri nice to c actually), we also get to c the various types of sea creatures! For instance I saw 1 normal-sized and 1 gigantic purple jellyfishes along the way, n jovina actually managed to catch a glimpse of a stingray!
Upon reaching camp 2 at nite at around 7pm, we had our 1st outdoor cooking and outdoor dinner at obs. It was really an eye-opener for me, as I realised how fun outdoor cooking can be! And tt fung mei was a rather good noodle cook, cos she help us cook all the noodles! After tt, we were bought to the campsite to pitch our tents, and I realised juz how ulu camp 2 is compared to camp 1, with very little male toilets! But den I was rather relieved when I was told tt the 5th groundsheet was found. This means tt there’ll be 1 more tent available for us, meaning tt we the 5 guys get to sleep in 2 tents instead of 1!yay :)! Now we can sleep wif our hand n legs widespread in the tents liao, but it’s still very hot and stuffy inside :(
9:11 pm