Row, row, row your boat

journey: Singapore-Melbourne-Bendigo-Echuca-Port Echuca-Bendigo-Horsham-Arapiles-Horsham-Grampians-Bendigo-Melbourne-Singapore

Day 2

"In the depths of winter, I finally learnt that within me there lay an invincible summer."

Albert Camus

Woke at 6(i think). Getting adapted to the cold really quickly(or so i tot). Daringly walked out of my tent in just shorts and a shirt. Was the only person to do that, other than our aussie guides =) My cold resistance rocks man.




Anw, i forgot to mention that a few other aus ppl had came to join us on our paddling down Murray(pronounced Ma-Ree) river, while peter didn't come along. He had papers to mark, being head of the school. The people who joined us were Rob and Leia. So we had breakfast, bread with spread, and then got ready for paddling.





We're using one sided paddles, unlike the 2-sided ones we use for kayaking. and the canoes are also open -top ones, as u can see, unlike the close-top kayaks as well. It's 2 ppl to one canoe, so Meiting asked to pair up with me. We were taught a few basic skills for paddling(cuz it's slightly different frm kayaking), as well as how not to capsize if we hit smthing side-on, and took sometime getting used to the fact that the front person cannot steer much. The front person is just mindless horsepower and the back person(which was me) has to steer.



The scenery was so beautiful in the morning, with the clear blue sky cloudless and the trees standing tall by the riverbank. Looked just like one of those pictures u see in the calendar. lol. So after that we got back to dry land.And were then asked to go for a swim, to prepare for capsize drill. Rob said that if were alrdy wet, we'd be less likely to not want to capsize. lol. And damn it man, the water was totally freezing lah. Like ice water like that. I stepped in, shivered, and turned numb almost immediately. Drifted out witht the current, then swam back to shore. After that, watched the other grp humji frm the freezing water haha. They went in only a bit. Went to do capsize drill after that. Which was damn fei. Me and Meiting chose qte a bad place to capsize in, like some dirty place with weeds floating on them. And the moment i went into the water, all my body functions disappeared lah. like i just totally froze and forgot how to swim for a split moment. That was how cold the water was. Anyway, we then went back to shore and loaded our bags on. Cuz we were doing journey type canoeing, meaning we dun hav a base camp and we just keep moving down the river and kep finding new places to camp till we reach our destination. cool man. so if we capsize, our stuff will gg. haha.




Yup, that's my paddling partner Meiting. She's like the only girl i can find who's shorter than yt. haha. And so we started paddling down the Murray river, starting frm 1820km from adelaide, the place where yt went. lol. Brendan and the aussie ppl are damn pro and natural man. They just paddled down the river, looked out for and took any suitable place to stop and then they'll use it. They hav no fixed place in mind so it made our journey very flexible. pro man. unlike those kind of paid guided tours where they hav specific destinations.




Paddling down the river with trees on both sides was nice, damn nice. really beautiful. and u get to see a lot of birds overhead or water hens swimming in the water. and there're a lot of fallen trees by the sides of the rivers and they're dangerous cuz they can capsize u if u hit them. We made a random stop for lunch, and then paddled again till we stopped for dinner.

The first photo on top is our stop for lunch, and the second, our campsite for dinner. Nothing eventful, cept i learned how to do the j-stroke! It's a stroke where you can do one man paddling on just one side of the canoe and the boat wun turn , instead of going in circles. yay. and learned a bit of gossip abt meiting when our teachers, Ms Pang and Ms Lim paddled over. haha. They're the ones in the background of the photo of me and meiting. Anw, we went for a walk after dinner, when it was alrdy dark. Attempted to spot animals, witht the aid of Brendan's red light, which is less harmful to the animals' eyes compared to the white light we use. Found nothing though, so we went back to the campsite. And went to sleep. haha.

Who will speak for planet earth?

Day 1

"By three methods we may learn: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest."

Confucius

and odac chose the bitterest method, by embarking on a 12-13 day journey to victoria, australia to learn more about nature. And i must say, it has been fruitful and fabulous. absolutely great.

The title of our expedition is the title of this post. yup, it's printed on our expedition shirt too! haha

Yup, and that's the back of our shirt. Anyway, having delayed blogging bout my exped for like a month, i finally started! whee!

so yeah, on the 17th of nov, odac met up at the airport at 12, really early considering the flight is at like 3.30. And a lot of ppl were at the airport sending ppl off, cuz there were 3 trips going off around that time. One to cambodia(dunno who went), one to laos(jameson and the canoeists) and one to australia. spent an hour slacking arnd, then checked in at 1. got my flight seat, which was 25G, then went to check wif the rest of the guys for their seat numbers.

"What's ur seat number?"
"44B, wats urs?"
"25G, qte far frm u."
"25? are u sure?"
"yah" (shows him my boarding pass)
"qte funny leh, all the guys hav 40 plus numbers one. aiya nvm lah, u'll enjoy ur flight."(gives me a screwed up smile)
"huh? y? i'm like sitting like so far frm everyone."
"no, not frm everyone."
"huh? then?"
"the girls are sitting at 20 plus."

What the hell. ended up wif like 7 girls arnd me. apparently they put same surnames ppl together, and there are 4 'ng's in my grp. gina ng, kelly ng, ng xinying, ng yong sheng. And apparently, i'm the only guy. diao. so i ended up among all the girls. the other 4 girls, i dunno how they ended up arnd there as well. go ask emirates.

And emirates has damn nice food onboard lah. as in the main dish. their salad sucks like siao, but their main dish damn good lah. had some prawn thingy. which was nice, and then had some beef sandwich, which was hard but tasty. and for those who are fantasizing abt my plane journey, let me tell u that it's damn boring without any boys to talk to k.


So landed at melbourne airport at arnd 2 am. met up wif the latrobe university ppl, brendan munge and peter martins(above, with our teacher in the middle, brendan on the left and peter on the right). loaded our backpacks into a trailer, then set off for the university in bendigo, victoria. the roads were totally quiet with no vehicles. made a pit stop at arnd 3.05 am, for an airsick friend, Thomas. He had been vomitting since the plane trip till now.that was when i realised that their night is really really cold, and their night sky is really really shen. the faint stars of constellations all cld be seen lah. damn zai. but cldn't look too long, cuz it was damn cold, so ran back onto the bus and slept. Arrived at the ironbark center in latrobe uni at arnd 4.25 am. settled down, put our stuff into our rms, then slept at arnd 5 am.

Woke up at 9am. but i had hardly slept, cuz i cldn't slp cuz it was so cold! so we went off shopping to stock up supplies at a nearby supermarket called iga(independant grocers of australia). Had lunch at macs, which was slightly different from singapore. Then we returned back to the ironbark center(named that cuz of the trees arnd it, ironbark trees).

Yep, the pic on top shows the ironbark center, the pic to the top right is some signboard, and the pic here is wat we did as we prepared to set off.

yup, after we came back to the ironbark center, we loaded the canoes onto another trailer, as seen on the right. Then we headed off for Echuca.

Took a long time to reach Echuca , of which by that time, it was alrdy dark. On the way, we passed the Victoria border into New South Wales, and passed by Maoma, where i saw a horse carriage. lol dunno wat a horse carriage is still doing there in such a modern day society. Stopped at Echuca town for a toilet break, and had a bit of fun at the playground there. At that was when i realised that Australia has damn a lot of flies. Just sitting on the grass there attracted like 2-3 flies coming to buzz arnd me lah. Everyone cldn't stand the flies and went back on the bus.

Arrived at Echuca, Murray River, near night time. but in australia, the sun sets damn late. so we still caught the last bit of the sunset! yup the pic on the left. We set up the tents and unloaded the canoes quickly. Was going to get water with one of the australian guides when we discovered a really rare sight. A baby Tawny Frogmouth owl was sitting on the floor beside a tree. That species of owl is very rare to see. It's a type of owl that feeds on insects. Being a baby, it must have tried to fly, but unfortunately fell down the tree to where it was. Cute, u can actually go up to it and touch it. Wanted to find its nest and put it back, but cldn't find the nest.

yup the pic of the owl is on the right. Anw, went off for dinner after that. Had pasta with tomato puree and other stuff. The dinner was ok. I tot it was great until i saw what we cooked for the other days. haha. Went to sleep after that, arnd mayb 11 or smthing? It was getting cold again.

Christmas Party!

heys 6N pple, since ms tan's house isnt available for the initially arranged xmas party, i've booked e bbq pit at my condo on the 28th dec from 4.30 - 10pm. So this is the plan. We'll meet at toa payoh mrt at 5pm next thu, and i'll bring ya'll over to my place. Please note the following extremely important points.

1. We are going to play this secret santa game. Each of u MUST bring a unisex present around $5 in value, all wrapped up. I'll collect all of them and randomly assign numbers to them. At night after the dinner, each of u will get to draw lots and u'll get the present with that number. DO NOT FORGET TO BRING YOUR GIFT. If not, i wont let u come to my house mwahahaha.

2. If any of u would like to bring along side gifts/xmas cards for your gd frens / buddies / more-than-friends / "qing ai de"s, feel free to do so.

3. Those of u who want to play in the pool, bring along your swimming things.

4. Those of u who want to play badminton, bring along your rackets and shuttlecocks. I wont be providing any.

5. Those of u who want to play any other games, bring along e respective eq. Frisbee soccer anything. *hopes the guard wun shout at us for playing in e garden* heheh.

6. This is going to be a potluck dinner, so ALL of u must bring along a food item. Do not bring snacks! Bring food. Something that can be put on a DINNER table. U can offer to bring drinks or ice or disposable crockery/eating utensils, just make sure u inform me what u're gonna bring by next tues latest. oh and it should preferably be halal ok.

7. Have a merry merry christmas! And i hope u will all enjoy yourselves at this party. All of u please try to make it ok (: it would be nice to spend christmas together as a class, and make merry and have fun on this last gathering of the year. See ya on thu!

Changi photos!

Trish gen and yiting!

what's this? smuggling money out of changi airport? orh hor.. ys and gerard caught red handed!


NO la.. obviously.. its Monopoly! indeed.. gerard owns them all!


k just testing out the screen resolution..

Well.. er. just wanted to post some of the phots that i have.. haha. Finally been able to log in to the new blogger thingy... after much fustration hahaha.. Thanks to ys and co. for keeping the blog alive! wohoo. cos i can't log in to blogger cos of the new blogger thingy. actually i'm just lazy.. hahaha. oh wells. busy too lol.. must catch up soon!

Anyway, hohoho! MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! look forward to seeing you all again at gerard's house! >.<

Saga of the 6Nations Excerpt

The source of the continuous tapping became clear as he rounded the bend. Making his way slowly along the path, with a lantern in one hand, and a cane in the other, was a blind, old man.
"Old man, why do you carry a light if you are blind?" the young man asked curiously. The old man held the lantern higher, making as if to peer into it.
"Really? Is the lantern really lighted?" the old man asked irritably.
"Quite sure," the young man replied.
"Damn, I told him to get me a lantern, and he has to go and light the lantern for me as well," the old man muttered under his breath.
"So why the lantern?"
"Young man," the old man tried, and stopped. "Young man," he began again.
"Yes?"
"Stop interrrupting and listen to me!" the old man snapped. "Now tell me, is it the Mid-Autumn Festival now?"
"No," was the reply. Another muttered "damn" was heard.
"Now you see," the old man lectured sternly, "if it's not the mid-autumn festival, then why else is a blind old man like me carrying a lit lantern? The answer is so obvious, and you young people should start thinking for yourselves. I'm certainly not going to spoonfeed you."
"Um...the lit lantern is symbolic, to show people that even though you are visually disabled, yet you see clearly where others cannot, and thus use the lantern to guide others on the path towards enlightenment?" the young man tried.
"Nonsense!" the old man snapped angrily. "Young man, have you ever heard of basic road safety? Since I cannot watch where I'm going, at night, it's necessary for people to watch where they go so that they do not collide into me. All these airy-fairy explanations about symbols, I wonder what the next generation of seers is coming to..."
"Sir? It's daytime now."
"Oh." This time the old man didn't bother cursing under his breath. He raised his head, then went completely still, staring straight into the young man's eyes with his twin milky orbs. "...for the light of the Sun, the Holy Lightbulb-in-the-sky*, is but fleeting and transient, and the time will come when the Lightbulb will be engulfed by the darkness of the Evil Overlord, and darkness will befall the lands of the 6Nations for all eternity," the old man intoned ominously. He blinked, shook his head, and declared triumphantly, “so I must be prepared for all contingencies."
Upon hearing his words, the young man fell to his knees, and prostrated before the blind man in wonder.
"Forgive my insolence, Great Seer. I have heard of you before, but failed to recognise your exalted person."

*The people of the 6Nations believed that their world was created in a laboratory, with a Great Lightbulb serving as their Sun and sacred Source of Life. Refer to the Holy Book of Creation for more details.

I need comments.

blogger beta

Quote -
Team blogs move when the blog’s original creator moves to the new Blogger. When that happens, team blog members will also have to move to the new Blogger in order to post.
- endquote

hey guys, i just realised that when out of my foolish curiousity to see the new blogger beta interface, i switched over to the new blogger, that means that this blog comes along with me. haha sorry for the trouble. but now if u guys want to post here, i think u need a google account, which is same as your gmail account, and sign in at https://www2.blogger.com/login.g yupyups.

edit: realised that there's more trouble for ya'll. u actually need to sign via your old blogger account, then go to the dashboard, and request to switch over to the new blogger. then after a while u'll get an email saying u can sign in with ur google acc now. haha oops paiseh

Meteor Shower II

Yup, I believe the meteor shower was damn cool, even though I didn't really measure the exact temperature. A very memorable experience. Everyone was very excited at the start, and since the meteors appear for no more than about 2s, it can get frustrating at the start when people see the meteors and you're looking in the wrong direction lol. Its especially wonderful when you see the meteors streak across the sky one after the other, which is quite rare. the most number of consecutive ones was four, I think.

Like Yong Sheng said, it was quite funny when we were trying to trick "someone" (*ahem*) that a flying plane was a meteor, and pointing in that particular direction, when suddenly a meteor really streaked past the sky lol. I wonder what pilots can see from their side...

Another funny part was when some J3s from Astro came, and they were teasing Krithin (an Indian), then Yong Sheng said (or smthng along that line), "Hey don't be racist lah...Krithin, where're you?". Considering that it was very dark, it was quite funny.

Tried to sleep, but it wasn't really comfortable, and early morning, it got really cold. I left at about 7am, after seeing a sort of sunrise by the beach. All in all, a very memorable experience, what with priestess of the moon spamming starfall all night. I recommend the carrot cake at Changi Village. buy one plate get one free. $4 each, I think.

meteor shower

yes we witnessed a meteor shower! we meaning me and sc. cool right? anyway, we met at changi at abt 7.30pm on thursday 14th dec. the meteor shower was projected to be at it's peak arnd that day, with an estimated 100 showers per minute. so yeah.

and the watch was absolutely fabulous. if not for the large number of storm clouds that night, it wld hav been better. the night was qte clear, and u cld see many stars. nvr tot that u cld see so many in singapore. and we saw many meteors! many burned really really bright as they entered the earth's atmosphere. some so close and bright that u cld see their distinct burning tail. cool man. saw a hell lot that night. then after a while, due to the clarity of the stars and the presense of binocs which wei lin, our astro chair, kope from the rj astro store, we started to talk abt the stars. of which wei lin said she cld see the constellation cancer. so i asked her to pass me the binocs and asked where the approx. position is. She said that it was near the constellation canis minor. so i identified canis minor's alpha star( the brightest star in a constellation basically for those who dun hav much astro knowledge) procyon and started to search for cancer through the binocs. omg man, how lucky can i get that a comet streaked across my binocs. that comet wld hav been unseen by the naked eye. wooh! so i saw one which no one else saw. yay. another interesting one was when me and sc were trying to trick someone that we saw a comet by pointing at a plane taking off. only to realise that a comet streaked past the sky next to the plane at that moment. lol

anw, arnd 12 or 1 , the clouds slowly drifted and covered the sky. so we took a break and went to do other stuff. which was fun. we sang songs, and danced! we sang "liu xing yu"(meteor shower, how befitting haha), did befrienders dance, and then learned next yr's orientation dance! wah the songs for next yr's dance qte cool leh. they hav tokyo drift lah. wooh then i went to slp. and woke at arnd 4 plus. the rest after that is boring alrdy. nothing much to say. left changi terminal at 7, b4 the odacians who r arriving there at 10 to recce ubin for next yr's j1 camp. haha so the skills i/c ponned the recce. lol i told them i was too tired(which i was, i wasn't lying k). anw, we hav another recce this coming wed, which is longer and i wun pon. yay.

k that's all!

Happy Birthday Gen!

ok i was supposed to release this on the 14th when gen comes back, but i can't hold my excitement anymore. so yeah. sometime ago, during mid autumn festival, i complained that i cldn't get a special screenshot out on time. so this time, i made sure i completed it early, but the bad part is that it's hard to hold back the excitement. so yeah here they are. Happy Bday Gen!

My very first attempt. Sucks i know. wanted to put happy bday gen, but wards are hard to place. really. i tot it wld be easy so i used orcs. cannot man. had to use the blademaster to repeatedly destroy wards placed incorrectly. and stasis traps last only for a short period of time!so yeah, the sentry wards and stasis traps are supposed to read gen, though it may be hard to tell.

erm kept the 'gen' word there, but tried to add an exclamation mark. using my shaman and witch doctors. qte lousy though, can't really tell.

Anyway, the above 2 screenshots using orcs were not that gd, so i tried using another race! i mentioned my intentions in my previous post. and it was damn successful. damn proud of them now. whee. Presenting... the night elves.

Happy Bday. Can see right? sui man. damn nice. i'm damn happy now.

Lack of space, lack of wisps le. anyway, this screenshot reads "HAPPY BDAY GEN". kinda squeezy, cuz out of space le. and i also dun hav anymore wisps le. i create wisps until out of gold and max population liao. my 100 food all wisps and the 2 heroes only. nothing left. lol. just see the wisps count at the bottom left of the page. lol

Anyway, yay! Happy Birthday Gen! hope u had fun overseas!

woot

yay today was a somewhat gd day. ok i admit that i wasted half of it away(the morning). but if half the day was wasted, it only means half of it wasn't!so yeah, i managed to sort out the aus souvenirs(finally), washed my hse toilet(the showerroom), and finally finally managed to get 3 measly photos frm my fren. 3. it may be damn little, may be damn shit, but they're still THE FIRST PHOTOS I GOT FROM THE AUSSIE TRIP! wooh shld get a lot more soon when he passes me his dvd, but as of now, i hav to content wif this 3 which i asked him to send via msn first. anyway, here they are.

Wooh this pic was taken at the foot of Mt. Arapiles, the mountain which we rock-climbed on. The name for this wall is the organ pipes. The natural rock kinda looks daunting, isn't it? possible to climb though haha.

This is a grp photo of my grp. taken at "The Balconies" at the grampians-gariwerd national park in victoria. While our handsome and pretty faces may be too attractive, what i'd like to point out is that if u can avoid the attraction, the scenery behind is fantastic as well.

Taken at Melbourne airport just before we came back. If u r wondering what the 3 is for, it's cuz we're grp 3. the person in the middle wif the weird smile is our teacher, Mr Leong. He was trying to look weird.He did not bad a job, didn't he? haha

And erm shit, yt who went aus later than me has alrdy blogged bout her trip on ulu le. oops. anyway just to comment on some points mentioned by yt.

"observed that adelaide is quite a peaceful town, filled with lowrise buildings and the sky is clear blue with not a single cloud."

In Australia, buildings are all lowrise, cuz they dun hav a lack of land space unlike sg. The sky looks damn nice, clear blue without a single cloud becuz they're having a drought now.

"oh yes i forgot to mention the time difference between SG and Adelaide.. it's 2 and a half hours. Adelaide ahead." "we had to wake up at 5am, which is 2.30am in Singapore."

erm the time diff between sg and bendigo(where i went to) is 3 hrs. Bendigo ahead. so we slept at 9pm(sg time) and woke at 3 am(sg time) almost every day. beat that haha.

speaking of overseas trips, i cldn't go fetch rard back today =( my parents dun allow and want me to stay home and wash the hse. which i promptly did(i mentioned above). now i can only hope that they let me go see gen back at the airport. lol

anyway, that's all. for now, will blog abt my trip soon(hopefully), after i get photos frm my frens. grr damn hard to chase for photos lah. haha

woo

Oh no

erm yah, like the title suggests, oh no. From the previous 4 tasks i mentioned i need to do, i've done only the first, that is, get my hp repaired. I havn't started on gen's letter at all, gotten any photos(wah lao the odacians damn slow), done anything to the souvenirs, let alone start blogging abt my aussie trip. I havn't done any revision, hw, or anything of the sort. All i've done so far is waste my time away. I feel pissed with myself now.

But then again, i always feel pissed with myself, i'm such unorganised procrastinator. but everytime i try to change, i'll be back to myself say a week later? this is damn screwy. oh well, at least i managed to get a special screenshot done, even though its quality sucks compared to what i wanted originally. dunno whether i shld retry using another method. aiya see how.

crap, it's 10 dec alrdy. yt's back, rard coming back in 2 days, gen in 4. in 3 weeks' time, sch will start again. Will i still then, mayb on the 31st of dec, be typing such a post being pissed with myself? I hope not. I hope that by the end of the hols i wld hav gotten something meaningful done. And that i'll be proud of myself that this hol has not been like the others, wasted away.

I hope.

An empty heart

Somewhere in me i just kinda feel empty, like something's missing. I miss australia, the times odac 22( we are odac batch 22), my group especially, has spent together, as well as the australian ppl. Rob, Brendon, Peter, i miss u guys really badly. I miss the feel of nature, the soft touch of the grass brushing against my legs, the rough feel of the rocks which has aided me up to its top, the cold feel of the water which warned me against capsizing into it. And above all, i miss the beautiful scenery. Sights which beats any guided tour Chan brothers or whoever can give u. Because no such guided tour will ever bring u paddling down the Murray river, climb up natural rock like Mt. Arapiles, and reach the top of moutain ranges in the Grampians national park. The scenery in those places are impressive, able to beat those photos u see in the calendar, probably able to beat what rard has witnessed in his many years of travel. It is precisely this reason that i applaud and thank the aussies and our odac teachers for bringing us on such a wonderful trip.

As much as i would like to thank the aussies, i would hav to first thank the people who made the class chalet such a success and so enjoyable. so yeah, here they are

Gen and Ms Tan, for even organising the chalet in the first place
Hanchen, for being such a great chef and preparing first night's dinner
Liu Peng, for kindly bringing his laptop and allowing others to play with it
Chin Ee and Jasper, for letting us dump stuff at their houses, and also for bringing ppl to the chalet
The people who cooked all the meals, as well as helped hanchen out wif the first dinner, for not letting us go hungry
The people who brought games down, be it board games or Jasper's xbox, for letting us have fun
Ms Tan, Mr Lai, and Mr Raufie, for turning up for the chalet and giving us valuable advice
And last but not least,
Everyone who turned up! so that the chalet was such a success!

So yeah. wooh i can warp space time so now my post is b4 pin's one! haha. kinda waiting for photos now so i can carry on wif blogging bout my aus trip.