Paka River Camp, definitely a place to remember (:

As some of you know, I've left home for a leadership camp on 31st May and came back on the 4th of June. I went for the 5days 4nights camp mainly because I LOVE camps, and it's my LAST year to go for this. I really enjoy outdoor activities and stuff, but sometimes I just don't have the chance to go. So yeah. The first day of camp's on Tuesday, and I've already started packing on Fri night. Took some time to buy camp stuff on Sat and continued packing. Last min things like toothpaste and stuff are packed on Mon night. hehe. Anyways, back to the camp camp.

We departed school at 7.20am, I slept at 3am+ the previous night and woke ard 5am+. Phew. I wonder why I have that "wake 2 hours earlier" habit.

Back to the camp, the whole bus ride was like.. crazy few hours long! About.. 7hours long. So, with THAT much time, we all decided to play 'Wolf'! and also some other random quiz games and pictureka. Half way through the bus ride, we stopped for some snacks [I ate a fried chicken] since lunch would only be when we reach the place - which meant around 4pm. S: "I wonder why they still consider it LUNCH, it might as well be called Dinnahhh." We left again for camp and when we reached, we were told to 'make' our own beds.. like.. literally make make our own beds O: [Guys pitched their tents while girls build beds in long houses] We were given bamboo sticks some plastic looking potato sacks, a hammock thing and ropes. Those rough tough brown ropes. First, we got to pull out 2 long wooden stand for our beds [a few people shares one] and put 2 of our bamboo sticks vertically on the stand, then we got to tie it with the ropes using square knots. One thing we must really make sure of is the the sticks are not too close or too far, too far = your potato sacks [the thing you're suppose to sleep on] aren't able to fit, too near = your potato sacks would be looking like a bowl and it wouldn't be comfy. So yeah, the sacks are pushed to the middle to measure before tying the sticks. After that, the hammock is tied on the same way the sticks were. Everything has to be VERY VERY TIGHT. Like seriously tight TIGHT. It it is able to move a lot, you might get squashed in the middle of the night not knowing anything. haha! We were chased to finish up the bed so we could go for our "lunch/dinnahhh?" We met our trainer first [Marcius] then had fried bee hoon, and did some kayak introduction which includes learning the names of parts of the kayak and paddles. Just in case you don't know what a kayak is, 

 We did "Dry & Wet Run",which teaches us to use the paddle, we practiced it on land before actually going in the water.While doing the dry run, the trainer came to check how everyone did to make sure we ALL know how to paddle. When he checked mine and said that I paddled correctly, G Shen turns back and say "Eh, now I feel like partner-ing you again." In my mind I was like... "wasehhhhh... zz.." then I just replied "BLEHHH. Don't want you d.".

 Anyways, I think it was a good choice to have Hanson as my partner anyways (: He's a super super patient guy :D We all went for the Twilight Paddle, which is kayaking in the dark watching fireflies and it was super beautiful! <3 The fireflies were pretty near and super pretty! Although my kayaking skills were quite koyakted, which affects our coordination and moving our kayak, Hanson never got mad or scolded me or anything. Haha! Thank God for awesome patient partners! We were pretty messy the going down stream, but got better at coordination when we were heading back [Kiwi - another trainer(also Marcius' dad), taught us a better way to kayak]. Oh oh! While kayaking, someone got their PFDs [personal flotation device] stuck to a fishing hook. And another kayak got too close to the sides which had thorns around. Poor them. Anyways, after kayaking, we gathered together to talk about the difficulties we had and what we should avoid in the next kayaking journey. Then, we all had some reflection about the day, which basically includes talking about how we felt, setting objectives, what we want to achieve and if we learnt anything from the day and so on. When we finished reflection, we decided on a time to wake and off we went to have our bath and sleep. The form4s were already there and getting ready to sleep. My hammock bed's in between Joey's and Jenni's. Teacher Melinda came up to make sure everyone heads to bed then, but Jenni's bed wasn't really tied up properly, it was a bit loose. So Jenni and I retied it together with the help of our torches. haha! Once it was done, we all went to bed like the rest. End of Day 1. *tested our self-made hammock bed!* Pretty cool, I've got to admit :D I liked it and am missing it right now (: 

Day 3! The rafting race.

We woke pretty early and got ready by 6.30 if I remembered correctly. Usually, I wake up crazy excited and ready, but this time, I woke up feeling like hugging my bed and not letting go. I woke, check time, slept, woke, check time, slept, and woke again. haha! Thank God Form4s were there to make noise [natural alarm] so I didn't oversleep. I woke the rest of them after sitting on the hammock bed for a while. We all got ready really quickly, and because we didn't have that much time, I actually pretty much did this ..

except that I threw everything on my bed, so it was piled up like some mountain of plastic bags [most of my stuff including clothes were packed into diff packs of plastic bags; clothes separated into sets] and random stuff. We didn't bath in the morning, and went to meet everyone for breakfast right away. Had a fast meal and quickly gathered the ropes and stuff for building the raft. Building the raft took a REALLY long time. At first, we decided we will finish at about 11am+, but we only finished about.. 3pm/4pm? Phew.. big difference huh? *One thing I forgot to tell you is that we ALWAYS set a time to finish a task. For getting ready, for reaching a destination or for washing up and stuff. Everything* It wasn't easy you know, we had to keep the sticks on the barrels without moving it else everything would be wrong or tied loosely. If it's loose, we had to tie it all over again. We had to tie everything EXTRA tight so the raft wouldn't fall apart when we use it. All 17 of us got to travel 10km with that. We built 2 rafts in total, I was mostly the one who held the raft in place while others tie while building the first raft, but then when we started building the 2nd raft, I did the tying. I'm quite happy that I could tie the knots pretty tight. Proud proud :P haha! Anyways, while doing so, Jacelyn came by to help me hold the sticks in place. Then she asked me :"Could you teach me how to tie? I want to help." WOW. In my heart I was thinking, that's a VERY good character in her (: She really wants to learn and help the team out. I mean, some people [not pointing fingers] would just decide to wait for people to ask them to do something, or would tell others that they don't know how to do and maybe they could do something simpler or so when asked, but NO, no one asked or pushed Jacelyn to help, and she just WANTED to help (: Proud of her. Really. She did a great job fixing up the raft and kept asking me if she did right. Later on, the first raft was 100% done! And we all went to test it out. 80% pass and 20% fail, so we improved it a lil and got 100% pass! :D hehe. Jacelyn and I continued on the 2nd raft while the rest helped get the 1st raft out from the water and helped carry stuff and so on. We had lunch after and went back to fixing up raft 2. Once both rafts were done, we were split into 2 teams [raft 1 and raft 2], wore our PFDs and launched our raft! (: It was a race! A really really close race. I was in raft 1 which was named FireFast. [If im not wrong, raft 2 was called BB Raft?] We were given paddles, ores and kampung ores. The kampung ores were SUPER heavy. The heaviest one we received was 20kg! Crazy right? All of them had different weight. At first, FireFast was way ahead, then later on, BB Raft got in front, and we were WAYYYYYY behind. Like.. super far behind. haha! So Marcius kayaked by and help us a little bit, but we still didn't catch up. In a while, we noticed BB Raft stopped paddling and rest since we were wayyyy behind and I bet they're crazy tired. We started paddling in coordination using the "Hey Banja" song. Each time we say the word 'Hey', is when we dip our paddles in the water. We dumped our heavy kampung ores and decide to take turns paddling with the lighter ores. It went pretty well cause the coordination is there and the raft moved faster. While rafting, we came across some obstacles like the fishing ropes and so on, because we were travelling in the middle where the ropes are lower and didn't have time to turn to the right where the ropes are higher, we got to carry the ropes and pass it backwards. hahah! It was pretty fun actually. hehe. Anyways, let's cut this rafting journey short. We all took turns and sometimes when we got to rest, we lie down on the raft singing songs. haha! Leow and I did some changed in the billy banja song and kept laughing. At first we sang the ori version, then we did one where we can't sing the word "Billy" so it went "Hey Banja, ____ Banja. Hey Banja, ____ Banja.." hahah! Then we did without Banja, with only B when B's the fist letter, without Bs, without 'Hey', and tons of others. It was super funny. The idea came from the children church song "With Christ In The Vessel" haha!! Sometimes teens enjoy kids stuff too :P hahahhaha! Oh! And Zian Wei lost his specs when he tried flicking water out of his hair. Whoopsies. Sadly the water was all brownish and we can't see ANYTHING. Anyways, BB raft reached the place first but we were all happy cause everyone did their very best and we had fun although it was tiring. We went to have a look at the new campsite and woahh.. was the stars B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L! I'm pretty sure I looked something like this...

but when I realize some people were looking at me like I'm a weirdo, I went like that

hehehehe. Kidding lerh! My reaction wasn't THAT big. But the stars were seriously extremely beautiful! They deserve stares like those above. Oh, and btw, I saw the Big Dipper, the Cross and Orion - The constellations. I don't really know a lot of other constellations so I didn't continue finding things I didn't know. haha! Anyways, the toilet for this campsite was..... mmm.. uh huh.. that is our toilet? It's just an area covered by a piece of cloth.. with.. a hole on the ground. Pheeee-yewwww, was it stinky ! It was so dark, you need a torch to find the hole too.. ewwww. We went looking for our tents after, G Shen [since he had sprained leg and set the motor boat to the campsite instead of being stuck with us on the raft] help us set up our tents! (: awwhh. How sweet. haha! Some of the Form4s took our tent but we got it back after. Then Marcius gave us some good news! We were suppose to turn our awesome rafts back into bamboo sticks, barrels and ropes after reaching here, but because our raft was SOOOOO good [they said it's the BEST raft compared to previous years] Kai - one of the trainers said they wanna keep it! They brought a lorry and the guys came by to help load it on the lorry. Surprisingly, NONE of the barrels fell off from the bamboo sticks. It was THAT good! We even got it to stand upright without anything falling out of place! Even the trainers were super impressed. They've seen people making rafts and so on for sooo many years, but they were still impressed! Imagine that! *proud proud of the team* haha! We had our dinner after, but because we were slightly late, there weren't enough for everyone, so we got very little to eat. And the trainers actually decided not to eat, just for us. Awwhhhhh <3 Sweet. But as Sirius Scholar students, we make sure EVERYONE is taken care of! haha. We found out they didn't want to eat when Teacher William was talking to them. Teacher William said :"Would you believe that if I asked everyone here to stop eating until you guys eat, they'd stop?", we overheard and shouted :"Yeah! We would!" then we continued with "EAT SOME FOOD! EAT SOME FOOD! EAT SOME FOOD!". Then the trainers were all like.. smiling but still not eating. And we keep saying so till they promised they would. After awhile we started shouting that they have to get some food on the plate before we start eating again! And so they did. I don't know how much, but yeah. Later on, we were told that because there weren't enough tents, the Form5s got to give the Form4s our tents and take the bus back to the previous campsite with Teacher MJ, Teacher Yvonne and Marcius. ): Most of us fell asleep in the bus. It was already around 1am. The girls get to sleep with the teachers in the Chalet while the guys get a chance to sleep in the long house. Marcius got some of the people to cook fried rice for us since we didn't get to eat much. All the girls went to sleep except Leow and I, who brought the unfinished rice to the guys. We found the guys all sound asleep exp for Leslei, and Marcius. [I think there's one more guy but I can't remember who. Whoops. Sry]. Anyways, we talked a little bit here and there before we went back to bed. It was pretty fun (: Oh, and Leslei saw a shooting star! ): Unfair! I wanted to see one since Day 2 when I knew they have them there but didn't get to. Leow and Evon saw it in Day 1! Awhhh. Oh well, it's end of Day 3!

Day 4, the hiking madness.

We woke up this time without the natural alarm cause the natural alarms were all happily camping at Air Hitam [I think that's the name of the 2nd capsite]. haha! We got ready, met with everyone, had lunch and added salt to our drinking water. They say it'd help by preventing cramps later on. And it did I guess, cause I didn't get any cramps during camp. Anyways, we reached there with all our giant bags packed in the bus cause we would be traveling to a resort at night. We did some warm ups then applied sunblock and mossy repellent. G Shen didn't hike with us, he had to stay there around the stalls and playground and stuff cause he sprained his leg. Poor him ): We all had this buddy system thing and once again my buddy was Hanson. Haha! (: Marcius and Kiwi got all of us a little snack before we started hiking - keropok lekor and pisang goreng. It started out pretty good, and we passed a bridge and some 2 way roads and stuff. haha. Then the roads dissapeared and it was all roots, mud, dirt and logs. Some of the logs grew horizontally, some of the fell horizontally and stuff so we got to go under or over them. Haha! Sometimes when we went over, we got to hug it then turn our weight to the other side. Funny. We crossed a river as well, the current was really strong, so we were encouraged to cross on all fours. haha! It was pretty slippery, and since the current was so strong, it was like pushing us to the side. Good thing I used to act like a dog when I was younger :P This was a super easy task for me. HAhahah!!! Who knew acting like a dog would come in handy, it also helped when I had to balance on some stuff cause I used to walk on all fours on the exercise ball without falling off. haha! Pretty fun times, but embarrassing if I were to practice it now. Other than the river, there were some pretty steep slopes and slippery paths, so we all got to be really really careful. We all continued on and on till we finally reached the waterfall [we had some short stops at checkpoints for Paka Breathing Exercises as well as to drink water]. From one of the checkpoints to the other, trainer Marcius asked if we could reach before 35mins, we say "OK! WE CAN!" and went all the way, and guess what? We reached in 32mins!!!! :D Right then, while we were all shouting "Wooohoooo!!!" and stuff, Kiwi told us that averagely, people would use about 40mins to get from that checkpoint to this checkpoint!

So we were like...

Nahhh! Just kidding ... we were like :P

Hahahhahah!!! The feeling was awesome! Everyone was so energetic to continue right away! (: Anyways, back to the waterfall. We reached and we were told to have our lunch there [which we packed up], and our bottles refilled with waterfall water. It's clean though. No worries.. though, some of us had our legs in the water and we spotted some fishes swimming around. o__o  Oh well, I don't care (: haha. We were told that we can either choose to climb down to take pictures or swim. Either one cause we didn't have much time.. it was around 3pm+/4pm+ then. I chose to swim! Cause as I said above, I love swimming! :D hehe. Leow was already swimming in the water and then I decided to join the fun! I dipped my legs in the water and realize it's really cold, but still continued. When I dipped my whole body in the water,

FREEEEZINGGG COLLDDDDDD!!! And then I went into this position..

Brrrrrr... but I wanted to get my body used to the water, so I stood up a lil, let the water reach my waist only and make sure I get a little used to it first before dipping my whole self in it again. I started shivering right away. After a while, I was a bit better, so I decided to swim towards the waterfall waterfall [the part where the water flows down from a higher area and hit the rocks/water below]. Halfway through, it was TOOOO cold and I couldn't stand it so I quickly turned around and swam back. Phewww.. I couldn't stand in the middle part, it's too deep, but luckily I was able to stand on the rocks beside, though getting the grip wasn't as easy neither, cause the rocks are all super slippery. I stayed there for a while and continued hugging myself while shivering. Hahahah!! A few others came in the water too, one of them was Leslei. Haha! He was standing on the rocks beside me and started shivering too!! HAhaha!! Both of our mouth made chattering sounds. Crazy cold! *Before anyone started swimming, the trainers actually warned us that if we saw anyone turning BLUE, quickly ask them to come out. That was how cold it could be. Scary eh?* I kept praying in my mind that I'd get used to it and stuff, then walk on the rocks by the side till I got as near as I could to the waterfall waterfall, then I swam across. Haha! Leow and Edison was already sitting there being massaged by the waterfall. Then I joined in, then Leslei, and a few others. Haha! We all slide down the rocks one by one. When I slide down, I kinda floated back up, it was pretty funny. hahha! Like being craddled. Then the rest slide down with no problems at all too. Till it's Min Hong's turn. Haha!! He slide down and went "Ow Ow Ow!!" and ended with "Ey! Stupid rocks!" A few of us nearby kept laughing. Haha! Funny, and he was still smiling then!

Anyways, we took a few pic in the water then got up and get ready to leave after cleaning up. We climbed up, down and everywhere got well, thought we got lost O: kinda. Cause the river was different. Then we turn around and go back to where we came from, then Kiwi from the back say it's the right way, so we turned again and continued again. Haha! Funny. We kept hiking along that path up and down for a bit.. plus that road was pretty narrow and one part of it was steep. haha. Oh well, we went across the river again and continued hiking, passed a 2nd river and continued again. Half way through, we found out that Marcius would be leaving already after we reach the resort, so I suggested to the rest that we should sing a song for him :D No one bothered much at first, but they listened after. Then I randomly thought of a children church song which kinda suits, just got to change to lyrics a tinsy bit. haha! Then they agreed that we should use the song (: Then we added "Hey Billy Banja" but instead of billy banja, we changed it to 'trainer Marcius' and stuff. haha! Then the last part was "I've had the time of my life ~ and I never felt this way before. I swear it is true, and I owe it all to you ~" (: We spread the word and stuff then continued on when we can. Blablabla [lazy to get into details] When we all got nearer to the end of the hike, we all hiked down saying "For G Shen! For G Shen!" haha! and when we reached, we found out he took those hours observing ants, butterflies and stuff like that. He came up with a theory where ants are gay, they touch each other whenever they pass by. I mean.. they MUST touch each other whenever they pass by. Other than that, he also made a small bow and arrow from toothpicks and a rubber band to hunt butterflies, but he failed hunting em down.. luckily. phew. The rest of us quickly took our stuff from the bus and went to have a quick rinse and changed, then we head off for dinner. The Form4s and Form5s met there again. Joey and I decided to walk to a shop nearby to get something for Marcius cause he'll be leaving that night. We didn't want to get something edible cause it'll be gone right away, so we got him a very kiddy toy truck and bought liquid paper to write something on. haha! We did the writing and stuff while waiting for dinner to be served, luckily he sat the other side. After dinner, we left to the resort. When he walked off down the streets, we all followed him behind [we were paired up again, for some actions in the song] and started singing. He was soooo touched, but he didn't cry and said it was hard cause he didn't cry for 9 years already. We kept singing and stuff, had group hugs and all.. then Joey and I gave him his lil gift and explained why it's a lil toy truck. We said that when a person needs to go to another destination, it would take a long time to walk, but with the truck, they reach faster.. He is like our truck that helps guide us and achieve what we want faster. (: Then we had no choice but to return to our resorts. All the girls were sobbing. When everything was alright already, Evon and Leow went out to have fun with some Form4 guys by the pool side, Jacelyn, Beatrice, Joey and I stayed in the resort having some girl talk and monopoly deal-ing. haha! We slept only at about 3am+. I was the first to be zombified. haha! Couldn't stand it. Well, that's all for Day4. Kinda messy cause I talked rubbish. Whoops. Sorry bout that.

Oh.. and I forgot to say, there was one part where Beatrice somersaulted down the steep path or something, luckily Leslei saw and shouted then Marcius turned to catch her. Phew. She gained 2 blisters after but it still strong and continued hking down. End of Day 4.

Day 5! Turtles or beach?

We all woke and packed our stuff and head to the pool where we lined up in classes and waited for the bus. Then we had some spot check cause someone's ipod went missing, along with RM100. Phew. Anyways, gonna cut the story short. I don't think they found who took or whatsoever, so yeah. At that time, we found a letter in Leow's backpack [ she lost her bag the night before and couldn't find it ], it was from Marcius. He drew a pink fluffy unicorn and wrote ":To his 17 pink fluffy unicorns" heh. We decided to read it out loud in the bus. Anyways, a few form4s joined us in our bus since there's space. Then Leslei and G took turnes reading the letter. Once again the tears flow from our eyes [the girls]. Some of us cried like this..

The whole trip with the form5s, teachers and him was super memorable. Awwhh. The letter was 2 pages long. And in that letter, were two black outlined box containing nothing. But when you have a closer look, you could see 2 tear stains, one in each box. According to the letter he wrote, those were his tears that fell when he start writing the letter. He has not cried for 9years already and we actually made him cry this time. When we finish, Hunn Foong took the letter home to scan and send us soft copies. And the original letter will have a spot somewhere in the school after being laminated. (: We all plan to gather all form5s once again and have another trip at Paka River Camp end of this year with trainer Marcius again!

*now to the un-emotional stuff*

We were suppose to visit a turtle sanctuary, but found out it was closed for agong's birthday. So we stopped by Cherating beach instead. We had lunch there and then walked around on the sand and sink our feet into the sea water. The form5s then decided to enter the water and played a bit. Till suddenly, teacher Melinda came and scolded us saying "Who says you can play with the water?! Go change NOW!" Phew, was she scaryyyy. She never said no playing in water, but oh well.. we all went off to have a really really really quick change. Then ran back to the bus and get ready for the long trip home. A while later we stopped by a place selling lemang and stuff, then we bought 2 containers of rendang as well to eat with the lemang. I wanted to buy back for my family.. so yeah. But because the trip was sooo long, the lamang and rendang got a lil spoilt ): RM15 flew away and I wasn't happy. I didn't even get to try. Readlly wanted to. Oh well.. when I reached home, I checked my mail a bit and was pretty much dead already. So yeah. Cut quite a bit for day 5 and simply talked rubbish a bit for day4 ya. hahaha. Oh well. Lazy blog d.. will end here.. TADAAAA.

I'm... DONE!!!!!! :D

Alright. Enough laughing. SLEEP.