Diving!

Finally...after 2 years of diving hiatus, I'm diving again! My last dive was with Seaborne, learning diving over off Pulau Dayang and Aur. This time round, I've decided to join up with Simply Scuba (which is teaming up with Rovers for all the dive trips) for the advance diving course which I've been thinking of (for a LONG LONG time!)

So when the offer of a diving trip came along and it almost did not fit my schedule, I asked Guanyu whether he is interested in taking up the advanced course, and I've a dive buddy!

I was supposed to go along with some more of the 27th who are going for their basic open water course (Nicholas, Weihuang, Xiuling, Zhihui) but they had to pull out last minute, so I had no choice but to go along for the trip without them. But I was surprised to meet up with Tianyuan and Ang (Huiqin's bro) on the trip! They were also there with Huiqin for their advance dive course! I can't just use the word 'fun' to describe the dive trip! The 爱心 pratas, the crazy & silly games (毛毛 & Who,What,Huh?), the gay-loving dive instructors, the onboard pole-dancing entertainment, the enjoyable NUS people, the photo-whoring sessions, the deep blue sea, the turtles and sharks, and loads more! It's simply too much to describe. Guess I can truly say that it was really memorable. I love diving!

Imagine everyone in the middle of the ocean, swimming around and looking at the corals and the fishes, and suddenly, a familiar ting-a-ling-a-ling sound was head. Reacting to the the sound, we all rush to the source of it, and end up cluster-f***ing whilst hovering in that little area, trying to peer over each others' shoulders (and BCD and tanks) to get a look at what's the commotion about.

Or, imagine the familiar sign of a shark being posed by the lead diver (our instructors). With the sound of the ting-a-ling-a-ling, we all switch to top gear and zoom off to chase the shark down. Alas, the shark swam quickly away, probably afraid of us going for it's precious fin. It's like switching on the NOX of the car and zooming on the highway with it.

P.O.W.s in Malaysia?


Photo-whoring starts now...


Touch down @ Tioman!
Left to Right: (Top) Tianyuan, Yi-Shyan, Ignatius, Guanyu, Ang, Huiqin
(Bottom) LJ, Huimin, Evelyn, Me


Low-tide on arrival at Genting Village


The lizard is scurrying around to dig for food?


Guys at their best


Loads of these at the bridge! You know you've squashed them when u hear a 'squish' sound.


Ahem...English wrong here..


The 爱心 prata bomb!


The making of the banana prata


A great meal after a great dive makes one happy!


The cat which simply could not resist snuggling beside me


We R Diving People!


Peaks of Tioman - Gunung Kajang


Ign, Me, Jon


Divers also become Ultraman...


Perched atop the boat are diving people ready to dive!


Batu Malang


Leisure divers taking a dip


The group of fun-loving divers!


Cats eat lizards?


Tioman Diving May 2007!


The master and the student


Photo whoring on the boat ride back

Of all pictures I like to take, I love to take pictures of sunrise and sunsets the most. Why? Because they give added colour, vibrance and life to the area in which the golden light bathes the environment around it. And that, in essence, it nice. Such a wonderful feeling...


Lovely sunset!



Once we reached NUS, some of us (LJ, Huimin, Evelyn, John, Jon, Huiqin, Ang, Yi-Shyan and I) trooped down to Botak Jones in Clementi for dinner! The lamb there was simply sumptuous!

I simply love diving. Whee! I wanna go other places...Redang? Manado? Anyway...Datuk tomorrow! Really down into the sea, up a mountain...Packing my stuff, whilst trying to load up the pictures. Might end up posting the rest another day...

Note: Saved as draft and posting the original post.

Current Mood: Tired

Ophir...cleared!

NOTE: I couldn't access this page for so many days 'cos of a stupid Singnet redirection problem. Luckily, I managed to search some help forums and got around this seething problem. MIO sucks. Singnet...it's worse.

Anyway, back from Ophir! This is my 4th time up the mountain, and almost nothing has changed, except that this time around I experienced less water (compared to December!) and the weather was super kind to us (we reached the bottom of Ophir and were about to board the taxis, and it rained!). So all in all it was a wonderful trip!

A trip with good weather, coupled with a group of noisy and jolly participants sure make the entire trip more relaxing and fun. We met in the morning at Kranji station, and I was kinda shocked by the numerous lights around the MRT station - there were actually SHOPS there! No more just a old-looking This Fashion outlet. There were bakeries and even a Jollibean outlet there! And the white-lights are certainly blinding, especially early in the morning!

After meeting the group of participants (all were on time!), we headed off for Larkin Terminal with our bags on our backs, and soon we were on the road towards Ophir! For us (Hwi Bee, Weihuang, Xiuling and me), we were there there for the 2nd time together ever since the previous (failed) Ophir Trip, in which there was torrential rains and it flooded the tents throughout the night. (And not to forget I kenna a leech when I was asleep, and it died subsequently after I squashed it haha) The weather seemed perfect, and most of us just dozed off to sleep, with little noise in the first half of the bus journey.

After the bus made a stop over at Muar for some diesel, all of us seemed to wake up, and there was more noise now...which meant that the fun was just starting! Soon, we reached Tangkak, and we unloaded our bags into an area bathed in sunlight. Hot...indeed. Just the weather I'd remembered a year ago.

View of Ophir from Tangkak Terminal

After having our lunch at the nearby stalls, and taking a taxi ride down to the base of Ophir, we were ready to start the trek! And from here on...I think you can retrieve the previous post here, while I just upload pics. Enjoy! :)



Us at the base!


Kenneth, Yongkai, Mingjuan, Jingwen


Xiuling, Me, Hwibee, Weihuang


Liyang, Lee Koon, Tan Ching


Sandy bathing in the sunlight


River crossing!


Hwibee's bag...is gone... :P


Terrence, Liyang, Hongquan


Too many people behind me. haha.

There was no one else at the campsite for the first night, so we had the whole place to ourselves! So a group of merry people sat down, pitched their tents, washed up and got down to the main item for the night - EATING!

The girls went for their bath first, and the guys decided that the best course of action would be for us to stay back, relax and wait for their return, and at the same time play a game (or 2) of 'Minimizer', since they would take their time (haha!).


Our pot of porridge (I didn't like porridge on treks...but the sweet potatoes sure helped!)


Busy eating!


Cooking...


Porrdige and vege...so 清淡！


Chef Hwibee


Chef Jingwen's pot


Still busy eating with 2 chefs at the helm


Eggs added to the mix with veges!


Fried fish...oooh...


龙眼沙爹

Day 2 was rather interesting...the climb to the summit! The KFC, the caves, the roped ascent, and the 'snakes and ladders' climb! It's damn interesting!


2nd Day...en route up summit!


Ophir Tarzan!


Snakes 'n' Ladders?


Clambering through the rocks


Almost to the top! (CW from left: Liyang, Hongquan, Zhaobao, Tan Ching)


The beautiful sky...


Participants!


All of us together!


R O V E R S


The downward abseil


Operation Fix Sandy-als

As you can see above, we've undertaken a very major operation up at Ophir. Yes...we operated on Sandy's sandals (it rhymes!) which had basically opened up, the rear support was fully damaged and gave way, and we had nothing but tape etc to keep them in position. What a sight. Jingsong can consider being a roaming cobbler in the future. Haha!


A giant millipede (be scared...)


I noticed this on the way up...a chameleon?


And of course, how can there not be pictures of some of the wildlife in Ophir? Above are 2 interesting ones which I took...enjoy!

The 2nd night was quite good, but there was another group there which took our cooking spot the night before. So we had to settle for second best spot...While the comm and JS' group were cooking pasta and other food, Terence's group was settling for cup noodles outfield! Gosh...long time no see cup noodles, and I had to see them out at Ophir. What a sight! Each of them having 2 cups of noodles for themselves...

And there was the desert for the night...Green Bean Soup by Xiuling! It was great! But there were too little people EATING the green bean and too many DRINKING the soup itself...how can you have nice soup without the ingredients? Gosh. So in the end 3 chemical engineers 'ta' the entire bowl of green beans - Weihuang, Yongkai, Me.

And the night was spent around a small fire, with candles and lamps added to the mix. The lamps were super hot, as illustrated by insects which landed on it and cooked instantly. O.O For that, I will not go into details of what happened next. Haha. Too gruesome for an online blog :P

The next day, the weather was pretty cloudy, and it seemed like rain was imminent. Our trek down was uneventful, and we reached the bottom safely and on time (luckily). It only rained AFTER we called the cabs and were about to leave! How shiok is that?


The view of Ophir on the way home...nice clouds!

At Larkin, most of us decided to go to Taman Sri Tebrau for dinner, and my cab (including Jingsong, Jingwen, Mingjuan) got lost in the whole area...and we finally found the place after a long time...usually when I said to the cab driver he'll understand where's Taman Sentosa (大马花园), but I guess next time I should just stick to Taman Sri Tebrau liao.

We were late, but the food arrived just in time! And soon we gorged ourselves silly on the food, and didn't have space for the king of fruits - durians! Guess that would've to wait till a later date. Tsk.

1 trip down, 4 more to go!

Current Mood: Tired

Current Music: Su Da Lu - Xiao Qing Ge