What a wonderful trip! Lotsa laughter, and a trip (to me at least) of new dimensions. Exploring a new part of the world, it's always an interesting thing.
Started off on Saturday morning at 7.30am from Kranji MRT and met the Rovers comm people for the trip to Larkin via SBS 170. There was a major jam at the Causeway early in the morning, but luckily we managed to reach Larkin in time to catch the transit bus to Kota Tinggi, which would bring us closer to Lumbong, via taxi.
Along the way, it was laughter all the way, and I was pretty excited for the trip too. In fact, it would be my first "official" trekking trip! The entire journey was rather long, but the laughter and talk kept us all awake. Moreover, it was a good time to interact with the rest of the 26th comm nominees and have some fun prior to the trek.
Once at the start of Lumbong, which was the plantation, Shuang Hui and I were the first pair to "lead" the rest of the team in, with Hui Qin helping us. To me, it was unfamiliar as I've NEVER been there before, yet there was a sense of deja vu. It was weird, but still, it was good to hit the waters, as it signalled the real START of the trek.
Once we hit the first waterfall, I was really awed by the wonderful sight. And it was great playing by the waterfall, definitely :P So far, so good. And the 2nd part of the trek was handed to another pair, till the next waterfall, and so on until we reached the campsite.
In all, we passed by 3 waterfalls as well as 1 "valley". It is called the "valley" as the depth of water rises till one's waist level! This was the reason why we were told to pack our stuff in ziplock bags and ensure they are waterproofed. It was quite okay, though throughout the trek, the rocks were slippery and it required some time to plan the move and ensure that one does not slip at those smoothened rocks.
Once at the campsite at around 5.30pm, the setting up of the tents and cooking area was quickly done up, with water collected from the nearby water source and the desert and 100 Plus cooled using the river water. Once all the food required for the mass dinner was gathered, it was time to start cooking, with lots of flies buzzing around as company.
It was a wonder why the flies would suddenly descend on our bags and tin cans even though we were not digging a urinal/toilet and there were no obvious signs of human waste anywhere.
Anyway, the flies could not prevent us from enjoying our food! Food was great and it was long hearty meal over mess tins worth of noodles, pineapple rice with curry, rosti (yea! Peiyu's famous for it!), chowder (with a lil' noodles 'cos I did a stupid thing of spilling the noodles from a mess tin atop the bunsen burner and thus hitting some of the water on Candice -_-")
And there was even desert and jelly! Pineapple slices in jelly! woohoo! Talk about an all-rounded meal!
Scandal brewing throughout the course of the meal, and that made the entire dinner/supper interesting. Food for thought too.
Moreover, the moon was high up in the sky, bright and round as day! It was simply wonderful! I lurve the moon! (I need the pics!!!)
Nite, was cool, comfortable. Sleeping in a sleeping bag under the starry sky with a large round moon was perfect. Absolutely at ease with nature.
So much so that my laughing partner, Candice, was jio-ed into watching the moon and stars with me haha!
Apart from us, Kheng Hui and Pei Yu also slept under the stars, enjoying the coolness of nature. Soon, the sky became cloudy, so the stars "disappeared", yet the moon was shining ever brightly. Talking under the open sky, with the candles flickering...
And I was awakened many times, being a light sleeper I normally am. The rest of them sleeping outside seemed to be shivering, and my head was throbbing in pain due to the hard waterbottle. (Note: To bring smaller waterbottle/travel pillow next time round!)
The morning was a difficult time to rouse the camp from their sleep. Despite the usage of an alarm clock, many remained in their deep slumber, but I managed to be awake by then and look around at a brighter area. Tried to get some nap-time, but decided to just have a look around.
Soon, all started to get up and the campsite became more alive. Buzzing with activity was an understatement, because of the flies hovering about us and our morning breakfast, which included pancakes, omelette and Milo (Lumbong Dinosaur!)
After packing up and breaking camp, it was time to work our way down Lumbong, by going down the way we came up by. Although the route is the same, the method of tackling the way down seemed different.
Personally, I find going upwards easier than coming downhill. It just gets easier to go up, up and away!
We managed to be early at the waiting area for the taxis which we came in by, and we were made to wait due to the late arrival of 2 taxis. Alas, one of the taxis was not under the "leader" of the group of taxis, and therefore it was a "free" ride. In any case, the question of whether to pay in full before all the cabs arrived popped up.
Washed up at the Mall in Kota Tinggi, and had a hearty meal of Marrybrown's 2pc chicken meal at the Mall, with waffles too! In any case, food was cheap, and u just gotta lurve the food there!
Had Dunkin' Donughts for quenching the sweet tooth of mine on arrival at Larkin, and we were soon on our way back South the Singapore, albeit stuck in the traffic jam for about 25 mins. Reached Singapore at around 7pm, and home at around 8.30pm. Not bad, indeed.
All in all, sinful trip....ate too much! *lol* Tired, aching body, just gotta tend to the cuts...
Lumbongism:
Lighter = booom booom (must speak with bb tone) (Shiyao 2005©)
Q: It's so slippery, how to conquer LUMBONG!??!?! A: Stick a lot of spiders then can be like Spiderman lar! (Kian Ann 2005©)
Dried prawns are happy hebe, hea hea hea...
Current Mood: 
Full
One-Liner of the Day: Q-Ni shi na yi guo de ren? A-Wo Shi Lian Guo Ren!
Yesterday afternoon I had Maths Lecture, an hour of boring lecture in the cold comforts of LT7A, since it had been raining the whole day already.
Was about 10 mins late for the lecture, which seemed to start promptly on the hour. So how would I be on top in future once the tutorials kick in? For one, I'll need to fly from my Business Tutorial Rooms over to Engine, hopefully using the short-cuts on foot.
After that, I headed over to the Comcentre to print my upcoming lecture notes, and not all were printed! Argh. There were some problems with the spooling of the printing and therefore I was delayed a bit. Moreover, the internal shuttle service seemed to be bursting at its capacity, with buses full of students travelling from one side of the campus to the other. In the end, I had to wait for my shuttle service longer than usual.
Was a little late for the Rovers briefing for the trip over the weekend to Lumbong. I'm damn excited over the trip! For one, it'll be my first trip and outing with Rovers, and for another, it would be my first trek/hike! That's pretty cool in any case, since I was looking forward to such trips and destinations on my decision to join Rovers.
Following that, we split the cooking and tentage stores, and headed to Clementi for dinner as well as buying of the food to be brought up. Woah, did we pack enough to last for 4 days! I hope everyone's appetite is good up there though.
And, I rushed home, put down my stuff and changed to get ready for the Sports Club Bash, named S.P.A.S.H. Nice bash organised by the Sports Club at Gotham Penthouse (took some time for me to figure out how to get there), albeit with many of the people already knowing each other at the bash, it would seem quite certain that they are 'closer' to one another.
Still, some of our OG is there enjoying the music and looking at the pageant contest, which I was late for. Alas, I managed to capture only the ending part, and missed the first 2 sections (bikini and Q&A).
After that, it was party time for all, and the music was great. Alex certainly did a good job in getting this place, with the type of music I'm familiar to.
After that, headed down with Seah, Sheena and Winson to Clementi's Fong Seng (yea, the one outside NUS) for supper, as Seah was driving. He sent his friend home first, as the dude was drunk and seemed to be on the verge of puking. Fell asleep once in the car, so it was a good sign that he would not puke in the car.
Luckily, Seah was kind enough to fetch me home, so thanks a lot dude! And happy birthday! :)
Today, a longer day awaits...Phy Lecture @ 12, to get the Sports Ball tickets at 3, pack my Lumbong stuff as well as Junhong's birthday...time to rest.
Current Mood: 
Sleepy
Current Music: Top 40 Hits
Woohoo! Seems like CORS is sailing smoothly, so I guess someone gave up his BMW for a new server? Haha...The following picture definitely made my day:
And, I got my first choice tutorials in Financial Accounting and Marketing! B12 and C14 respectively! Woohoo! Many friends in the same classes, which means, life would not be dull ;)
Went for a run today, since lessons start in the afternoon. It would be like that, till our dear CTW lecture stops (and no more 8am lecture! Haha!) and the 10am tutorial on Thurs kicks in. Ah well, all is good, just that my fitness seemed to drop already. Sigh.
Currently contemplating the 21km. Would I be able to train up in time? Considering the step difference between 10km and 21km, and I havent been running regularly enough (as compared to then in hols). Would have to make a decision soon, 'cos Lumbong beckons this weekend...
Current Mood:
Thirsty
Oh yea, the brain child of NUS, the centre of how students get their courses (otherwise known as modules in uni-language-speak) and timings from.
And this blardy system which is central to everything, is unable to handle the sudden influx of students logging in early in the morning (at 9am, which is not REALLY early) to make their ballots.
The server simply went kaput on the dot of 9am, with all the requests bouncing in.
And this carried on for the rest of the day, with people logging in from various parts of the campus and from home.
To the user, it is simply an oversight of the server administrators to ensure that the server is able to cope with the influx of user-side requests. More could be done to ensure that the server would not be bogged down during such a time where time is precious and students have to ballot for the tutorials which they really want.
With NUS being seen as a world-class institute such a failure is indeed interesting. In fact, walk around school today and the common topic amongst students would be regarding the CORS system. Students are interested in pursuing their studies, not to be held back by some defect caused on the side of the school's administration, else they would not pay the exhobirant school fees for a university degree.
A university degree is a total package for the student, acadmically and administrative-wise. What students would expect of a world-class university is one which will think ahead and have the basic foresight to anticipate problems, and thus tweak or even change the system to ensure the 'doomsday scenario' would not occur.
Yet, it seems that NUS has not done much in upgrading the CORS system, which has been in use for the past 2 years at least. Moreover, signs had shown that the CORS system is unable to take the full brunt of students logging in at peak hours to bid or ballot for their important modules. This was shown a week ago, when Week 1 started, and Round 2A of Module Bidding occurred. An extension period was activated as the server became laggy and could not process the huge influx of information by the numerous computers accessing its servers. This shows that the servers might have a problem coping, and it is a temporary relief that during Round 2A, not all students would need to bid, as many would only require to bid for their core modules in Round 1.
Thus far, a petition is going on here to speak out against the CORS system, which I feel, should be improved and tweaked, lest such an event happens again.
I hope such an incident does not happen again. Seriously speaking, it's a total WASTE OF TIME.
I hereby decree it as:
Central
Orgasmic
Really waste time
System
Current Mood:
GrumpyCurrent Music: Elva - Ai Qing Tong Guan Mi Yu
First post from the sleek, white iBook which I just got today! Super upgraded due to Apple's recent version of this popular 12.1" iBook. And man...am I never done with fiddling with the controls and settings...
Time to transfer my pics and songs over...haha
Current Music: T.M.Revolution - Vestige
Had an enjoyable time with Joyce, Xiang Yu, Jiaming and Yi Si at the Sheares Bridge looking at the awesome fireworks held in conjunction with the NDP celebratory period.
And boy, was it wonderful.
A small gripe was that I was not sure of where the fireworks would come from, since the previous time I was with the Fuego dudes for the Monday midnight fireworks celebration from afar over at Esplanade. And we were badly positioned this time also.
Nevertheless, the higher-levelled fireworks was wonderful!
I think I had set something incorrectly on my camera, and many pictures came out blurred. So in the end, the number of good pictures was far and few between.
Current Mood: 
Happy
Man, I've gotta agree with this statement. It's so true, and it just strikes a chord in me when Candice said that to me...For those who know what I'm referring to, keep it mum okay?
Well, maybe it's more of fate, and if it does come, it'll happen...So should I set about seeking my fate? Or should I let fate seek me?
Greener pastures DO lie beyond...
Current Mood:
ConfusedCurrent Music: Liang Jing Ru - Zhui Xiang Huan You De Shi Jie
Finally...and running for MC, or attempting to do so. It was a tough decision, but I wanted to learn new things, and I felt that joining the MC would allow me to have the space and time to learn new things, get to do things which I might have thought impossible.
Went with Yi Si to the talk, and saw familiar faces in the form of Farah, Vijay, Tianqi and Tedmond.
Met up with Candice too, who was Tianqi's and Eup's friend! She was running for president, and I was a bit surprised at the turn of events. A total of 16 (or more?) nominees were up for 15 places.
And the post I'm gunning for, I'm facing tough opposition.
Hope all goes well...
Current Mood: 
Achy
Currently doing printing of notes. How come life has degraded till such level, where one goes from place to place, taking out printed notes from home (or ComCentre or photocopying machines) and sit in the lecture to rot...
Life requires more meaning. At least I knew I needed more.
Looking for CCAs to join, whilst juggling my busy schedule in a tough course, Chemical Engineering. A dreaded word by many, yet its graduates are well-respected by all other faculties and companies outside.
Nonetheless, it seems that between JC and Varsity level, the gulf of difference is certainly great.
Not that one cannot cope, it's how one attempts to deal with it and arrest the problem at hand.
Had a brief swim in SRC today, it's a great time at the pool, despite having only like 30 mins in the pool. Nonetheless, the feeling was indeed shiok.
Enough of the griping...time to print more notes...
Current Mood: 
Printing Notes...a boring job
Current Music: Sammi Cheng - Ru Guo Wo Shi Ni